CD/Digital releases

Who’s up for some January stasis? German composer Robert Henke‘s 10-minute piece Oomoo is a beautiful demonstration of ambient stillness. It dates from late 2007, and is, according to Henke, based on “a single recording of a longer pad-sound of a Yamaha SY77 synthesizer” which “has been sampled, transposed, filtered …

i’ve been revisiting the music of Switzerland-based sound artist D’Incise (aka Laurent Peter) lately, and one work in particular i’ve found myself coming back to again and again and again. For many of his releases, Peter gives succinct information elaborating their inspiration and / or production, but for his 2012 …

i’m not going to pretend i can really hear the lyrics. But then, that’s not what drew me to Australian band Re:Enactment in the first place. They’re one of a sizeable number of a projects i discovered following first contact with Ektoise, whose assorted members have been active under a …

Happy New Year everyone! In usual 5:4 fashion, i want to start the new year, in the wake of the festive season’s (over-)indulgences, with an exploration of some great music that you can obtain completely free, gratis and for nothing. Though it should be stressed, if you want to, you …

Two primary sensibilities characterise this remarkable album featuring six pieces by Patricia Alessandrini & Marco Fusi. The first is intimacy, conveyed in the close, careful, sympathetic way Alessandrini and Fusi approach and interact with one another’s sounds. The other is tactility, a pronounced sense of not merely touch but an …

There’s having your expectations met, there’s having them exceeded … and there’s this. When i first got to know Aya’s music, in 2021 with her debut album im hole (one of my best albums of that year), i was deeply impressed by the way her voice operated as something avant-vocal. …

There’s a deep, tragic irony in the title of Breton musician Emilie Quinquis’ latest album. Eor means ‘anchor’, suggesting not just water and depths, but security and immovability. Yet its eight tracks are a dark sequence continually articulating wistfulness, uncertainty and loss. Its initial sounds, in opening track ‘Inkanuko’ (desire) …

Körper; body – it’s kind of surprising that it took German composer Enno Poppe until 2021 to give that title to one of his compositions. In the course of his career, Poppe has established himself as the ensemble composer par excellence; a composer for whom the ensemble, the group, the …

i didn’t realise how much i’d missed listening to Chiyoko Szlavnics‘ music until i pressed play on Memory Spaces, the latest album of her music. It’s been far too long, and while my interest in music exploring alternative tunings has waned considerably as it’s become slowly and stupidly reconfigured into …

It was a little over two years ago that i was introduced to the orchestral triptych Core – Turn – Boost by Swiss composer Dieter Ammann, on an album of live recordings by the Basel Sinfonietta conducted by Baldur Brönnimann. Recorded in May 2023 to celebrate the composer’s 60th birthday, …

As an epilogue to my excursions in Estonia during the summer and autumn, i want to highlight two albums that are tangentially related to the events i attended. During the Tormis 95 extravaganza in August, i mentioned Olev Muska, an Australian-Estonian composer who among other things was presenting his new …

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To view this content, you must be a member of Simon’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon’s Patreon at £5 or more