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  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • List of compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • List of albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
    • Complete list of ratings
  • Mixtapes, etc.
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form
5:4
Category:

CD/Digital releases

  • CD/Digital releases

    Swagger, languor and a force field: the soundtracks of Maniac, Only God Forgives and Upstream Color

    by 5:4 October 20, 2013 • 14:56
    October 20, 2013 • 14:56

    It’s some time since i’ve explored movie soundtracks on 5:4, but there have been three this year that have stood out from the crowd, all very far indeed from the conventions of cinematic swooshery. That in itself isn’t terribly surprising, as their respective films are, to differing degrees, at some…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Sonic ceremonial & blasted bedrock: Paul Jebanasam – Rites; The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation – Roadburn

    by 5:4 October 19, 2013 • 18:29
    October 19, 2013 • 18:29

    My favourite album of 2012, Kreng’s epic Works for Abattoir Fermé 2007–2011, dove into the deepest depths of doom-laden, gothic, dark ambient. It’s not going to find an equal any time soon, but there have been two albums this year that have come particularly close. The first is by Paul…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Formalised and spontaneous: Liza Lim – Tongue of the Invisible

    by 5:4 October 15, 2013 • 14:56
    October 15, 2013 • 14:56

    New and not-so-new CD and digital releases have had pretty short shrift on 5:4 this year, which might suggest not much has been making an impression. Not only is that wrong, it’s almost ludicrously so in the case of the most recent CD in Wergo’s ongoing ‘edition musikFabrik’ series. i’ve…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Mixed but strong & accessible: Joseph Phibbs – The Canticle of the Rose

    by 5:4 July 9, 2013 • 18:13
    July 9, 2013 • 18:13

    A few weeks back, NMC Recordings brought out the latest in their ongoing ‘Debut Discs’ series, this time devoted to the music of Joseph Phibbs. It’s an ambitious album, presenting two lengthy song cycles alongside a cluster of additional songs and a pair of instrumental works, focusing on soloists Helen-Jane…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Fearless forays into choral hinterlands: Exaudi – Exposure

    by 5:4 May 10, 2013 • 17:22
    May 10, 2013 • 17:22

    Newly available this week from the thoroughly ambitious Huddersfield Contemporary Records is Exposure, a collection of choral works performed by contemporary music’s most adventurous cluster of vocalists, Exaudi Vocal Ensemble, directed by James Weeks. As with all of HCR’s releases (the rest of which are well worth exploring – details…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Minimal and dangerously liminal: Jakob Ullmann – fremde zeit addendum 4

    by 5:4 May 6, 2013 • 19:03
    May 6, 2013 • 19:03

    Despite the fact that writing about amazing music is such an unalloyed pleasure, there are times—many more times than i would care to admit—when the music skitters away, becoming elusive when confronted by one’s attempts to speak of it. Perhaps there’s no dishonour in being confounded by glory, but the…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Evocative bewilderments of utterance: Kenneth Hesketh – Wunderkammer(konzert)

    by 5:4 April 25, 2013 • 21:06
    April 25, 2013 • 21:06

    Among the recent releases from the NMC Recordings stable i was pleased to see one devoted to the music of Kenneth Hesketh. Ken’s music has intrigued me for some years, and i’ve had the good fortune to conduct one of his works (Fra Duri Scogli) back in 2010. The new…

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  • Best of the YearCD/Digital releases

    Best Albums of 2012 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 December 31, 2012 • 00:11
    December 31, 2012 • 00:11

    * Please note this list has how been superseded by the one on the Best Albums of the Years page * The lists reduce the vastness into controllable sizes, into the size of things that can fit into our mind, where they can expand again to the size of everything.…

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  • Best of the YearCD/Digital releases

    Best Albums of 2012 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 December 30, 2012 • 00:21
    December 30, 2012 • 00:21

    * Please note this list has how been superseded by the one on the Best Albums of the Years page * This is a list surrounded by other lists leading to other lists, lists … that explain everything by being gateways into worlds of sound, feeling and information… …the love…

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  • Best of the YearCD/Digital releases

    Best EPs of 2012

    by 5:4 December 29, 2012 • 00:49
    December 29, 2012 • 00:49

    The list is what brings a world of chaos into some kind of pattern. The list fixes a broken world floating out into the outer world of emptiness. The list links us to ourselves, places us together, puts us in order. The list soothes us in the way it organises…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Magical, jewel-like: Monty Adkins – Four Shibusa

    by 5:4 December 15, 2012 • 00:40
    December 15, 2012 • 00:40

    In my 2011 Best Albums of the Year list, in third place was an album that remains one of the best examples of ambient music i’ve had the pleasure to hear: Monty Adkins‘ Fragile.Flicker.Fragment. Describing it as ‘ambient’ is, in some ways, to do it a disservice, as—unlike most deliberately…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    A spine-tingling fusion: Alone Architect

    by 5:4 November 8, 2012 • 20:00
    November 8, 2012 • 20:00

    A release i’ve been anticipating for a while came out recently: the self-titled debut EP from Alone Architect. Much of the best electronica-fuelled songwriting in recent times has emanated from Canada, and Alone Architect is no exception, being the project of Montreal musician Jeff Feldman. Feldman posted a couple of…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    The concerto reinvented: Jakob Kullberg – Momentum: Nordic Cello Concertos

    by 5:4 October 19, 2012 • 23:15
    October 19, 2012 • 23:15

    i’ve commented in the past about the number of contemporary composers drawn to writing violin concertos—they’ve been a regular fixture among the works premièred at the Proms in the last few years—but personally, i’ve always been more drawn to the cello concerto. Composers exploring this medium seem, almost unavoidably, to…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Music of a dark and difficult pathology: Tansy Davies – Spine

    by 5:4 October 5, 2012 • 20:54
    October 5, 2012 • 20:54

    Anyone with even a mild interest in contemporary music can’t have failed to encounter the music of Tansy Davies. She’s clearly going through something of a vogue at the moment, the high-profile commissions (including the Proms and King’s College, Cambridge) and performances being complemented more recently by CD releases of…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Attraction & resistance: NMC Debut Discs – music by Huw Watkins, Dai Fujikura and Sam Hayden

    by 5:4 July 9, 2012 • 14:21
    July 9, 2012 • 14:21

    i don’t think it’s hyperbole to describe NMC Recordings as one of the bastions of contemporary music in the UK. For as long as i’ve been listening to new music (more than two decades now), NMC’s output has been a dependable point of continuity, and many of their releases have…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    No small triumph: Carla Rees & Scott Miller – Devices and Desires

    by 5:4 June 29, 2012 • 14:51
    June 29, 2012 • 14:51

    Many’s the time in the last few years when, both in the concert hall and at home, i’ve found myself listening to yet more music for random-acoustic-instrument plus electronics—and been absolutely bored off my face. The quest for novelty seems to have ruled the electroacoustic roost for years and years,…

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  • CD/Digital releasesRetrospectives

    20 years on: The Orb – Blue Room

    by 5:4 June 8, 2012 • 06:26
    June 8, 2012 • 06:26

    Twenty years ago today, The Orb released one of their finest and most legendary creations, the single Blue Room. It became famous immediately due to its length; at 39’58”, it was tantalisingly close to the durational limit set by Gallup, who ran the UK charts, which classified anything of 40…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFeatured Artists

    Giving voice to the indescribable: Aaron Cassidy – The Crutch of Memory

    by 5:4 May 28, 2012 • 12:53
    May 28, 2012 • 12:53

    There are times when a composer wins you over instantly, the cogency of their arguments captured in a transparent marriage of sound and idea that’s instantly familiar and welcoming. This has emphatically not been my experience with the music of Aaron Cassidy. Over the last few years, i’ve oscillated around Cassidy’s music…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Emancipated beats: voidesque – as if it never existed

    by 5:4 April 25, 2012 • 20:52
    April 25, 2012 • 20:52

    Despite my fondness for more avant-garde beat-oriented music, for a long time it’s been disappointing to see the current state of such idioms overshadowed by its champions. The likes of Aphex Twin, Autechre and Aaron Funk have, on the one hand, deeply moved and inspired composers and musicians to seek…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Joyous and infectiously playful: Lindstrøm – Six Cups of Rebel

    by 5:4 April 17, 2012 • 12:10
    April 17, 2012 • 12:10

    Having spent several weeks focusing on music of an introspective and ascetic nature, it’s time to let off some steam, and to that end let me flag up the latest release from Lindstrøm, titled Six Cups of Rebel. In nearly 10 years of music-making, this is only Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s third…

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Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

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