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CD/Digital releases

  • CD/Digital releases

    Berglind María Tómasdóttir – The Lokkur Project

    by 5:4 February 7, 2022 • 17:04
    February 7, 2022 • 17:04 3 minutes read

    Among the plethora of releases i’ve received in recent times there’s been a number of especially noteworthy items, either in the form of sizeable box sets or otherwise ‘unusual’ editions, so throughout the course of this month, alongside other things, i’ll be exploring some of them. Surely the strangest (and, …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Joanne Pollock – Optimist

    by 5:4 January 28, 2022 • 12:01
    January 28, 2022 • 12:01 1 minutes read

    It was in 2014 that i first discovered Canadian musician Joanne Pollock, thanks to her superb collaboration with Aaron Funk (Venetian Snares), Poemss. It’s an album i still return to regularly, due to its unique blend of disarmingly naturalistic vocals and sleek but distinctly bedroom pop-type electronica. It’s not a …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Christopher McFall – A Starved-Strafe Lancing Machine; Siren

    by 5:4 January 25, 2022 • 16:38
    January 25, 2022 • 16:38 1 minutes read

    US sound artist Christopher McFall first started putting out work in 2005, on a variety of netlabels, and his output since then has consisted of a pretty equal split between CD releases and a generous quantity of free music. However, the last decade has seen McFall’s output reduce considerably: just …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Man:Sha – Kakugo / 覚悟; Moon Eater / 鮮綠色龍

    by 5:4 January 21, 2022 • 15:10
    January 21, 2022 • 15:10 1 minutes read

    The next freely-available music i want to explore in this series is by Man:Sha, an artist whose work suggests them to be Japanese, and based in France. i’ve not been able to find out any meaningful additional information about them, and only discovered their work in the first place due …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Kenneth Kirschner – July 17, 2006; September 10, 2006

    by 5:4 January 17, 2022 • 12:27
    January 17, 2022 • 12:27 1 minutes read

    Despite the fact that, a few years ago, i wrote a 10,000-word monograph about the music of Kenneth Kirschner, supplemented by a 5,000-word conversation with the composer, both of which should indicate in-depth knowledge and understanding of my subject, i’m always aware of the degree to which Kirschner’s work continues …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Wolftöne – All That Falls

    by 5:4 January 12, 2022 • 11:12
    January 12, 2022 • 11:12 1 minutes read

    As usual, i’m going to start the new year, in deference to the festive season’s financial repercussions, by exploring a few interesting releases that are available free online. Wolftöne is the nom de guerre for Australian musician Keith W. Clancy, whose output to date is limited but, at its best, …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Aleksandra Gryka – Interialcell

    by 5:4 November 16, 2021 • 15:26
    November 16, 2021 • 15:26 1 minutes read

    How have i never heard the music of Aleksandra Gryka before? That’s the question i’ve kept wondering while exploring Interialcell, a new CD featuring five works of hers performed by Klangforum Wien. It’s left me disappointed at making what is, for me, such a very late discovery (her worklist goes …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Marcin Stańczyk – Mosaïque

    by 5:4 November 8, 2021 • 15:43
    November 8, 2021 • 15:43 2 minutes read

    Some composers you encounter all the time; others not so much. i’ve only come into contact with Marcin Stańczyk‘s music on one occasion: back in 2017, at the UK première of some drops… for double-bell trumpet and ensemble. Until, that is, just recently, when i began immersing myself in a …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Wolfgang Mitterer – Temp Tracks

    by 5:4 November 2, 2021 • 10:36
    November 2, 2021 • 10:36 2 minutes read

    i’ve written previously about my love of large-scale compositions, so it’s been fascinating to spend time with Temp Tracks, the latest album by Austrian composer Wolfgang Mitterer, which explores music at the opposite end of the continuum. Taking its title from the film scoring practice of using extant music as …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Rohan Drape & Anthony Pateras – The traces of a mistake, the most simple one possible the reactions of even younger children

    by 5:4 October 27, 2021 • 15:26
    October 27, 2021 • 15:26 2 minutes read

    Let’s get static – or, at least, steady static. The latest collaborative work from Rohan Drape & Anthony Pateras, The traces of a mistake, the most simple one possible the reactions of even younger children, could be regarded as a development of the processes explored on their outstanding 2018 album …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Berglind María Tómasdóttir – Ethereality

    by 5:4 October 12, 2021 • 10:58
    October 12, 2021 • 10:58 1 minutes read

    The other recent release of Icelandic music that i’ve been spending time with lately is Ethereality, by flautist Berglind María Tómasdóttir (whose Icelandic Flute Music album i explored at the start of the year). When writing about Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Enigma i commented on the way the distinction between the different …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Anna Thorvaldsdottir – Enigma

    by 5:4 October 11, 2021 • 14:23
    October 11, 2021 • 14:23 1 minutes read

    i’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately with two interesting recent releases of Icelandic music. The first is a short album (an EP really) featuring a string quartet by Anna Thorvaldsdottir titled Enigma. The first thing that struck me, long before actually listening to the music, is that it’s …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Xiaogang Ye – Mount E’mei; Winter; The Song of the Earth

    by 5:4 August 20, 2021 • 00:00
    August 20, 2021 • 00:00 2 minutes read

    Five years ago i was getting excited by an album of orchestral music by a Chinese composer previously unknown to me, Xiaogang Ye. That excitement has been rekindled recently by the coincidentally-timed release of three new albums of Ye’s music in the last few weeks, which together provide an excellent …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    J. Peter Schwalm & Markus Reuter – Aufbruch

    by 5:4 July 23, 2021 • 17:01
    July 23, 2021 • 17:01 1 minutes read

    A few years ago, in a book about ambient music that i co-edited with Monty Adkins, i wrote a chapter where i proposed the possibility of ‘meta-ambient’, the idea that a great deal of music not necessarily immediately heard as being related or even connected to ambient – as it …

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  • 20th CenturyCD/Digital releases

    Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir – music by Schnittke and Pärt; Latvian Radio Choir – Ramon Humet: Light

    by 5:4 July 21, 2021 • 17:43
    July 21, 2021 • 17:43 1 minutes read

    This week i’ve been spending time with a couple of new albums that could each be described as being “devotional”. By that i don’t simply mean ‘religious’, although both of them are fundamentally informed by that attitude, one explicitly, the other implicitly. Listening to them has been a thought-provoking experience, …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Clara Iannotta – MOULT

    by 5:4 July 8, 2021 • 16:46
    July 8, 2021 • 16:46 1 minutes read

    What’s the difference between consistency and tautology? It’s a question i’ve returned to repeatedly over the last few years primarily in relation to the music of both Rebecca Saunders and Autechre, and it seems to be pertinent to Clara Iannotta as well. Last year, when exploring the previous album of …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    LUX:NM – Dark Lux

    by 5:4 July 6, 2021 • 14:31
    July 6, 2021 • 14:31 1 minutes read

    Not so long ago i revisited an old favourite of mine, William Walton’s Façade, a work that takes sublimity and absurdity and wonderfully manages to make them gel – or, at least, engage in a weirdly (un)comfortable coexistence. Both the character and the attitude of Façade have been brought instantly …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Enno Poppe – Filz

    by 5:4 June 29, 2021 • 15:53
    June 29, 2021 • 15:53 1 minutes read

    In my last article i explored a CD featuring an overview of the string music of Penderecki, and it’s been interesting to reflect further on aspects of that in relation to Filz, a new album devoted to German composer Enno Poppe – featuring Ensemble Resonanz, and conducted by Poppe – which …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Access to Arasaka update

    by 5:4 June 22, 2021 • 16:17
    June 22, 2021 • 16:17 1 minutes read

    A couple of years ago, in my annual ‘Free music’ series i explored the work of US electronica artist Rob Lioy, better known as Access to Arasaka. At the time, one of the drawbacks to accessing his work was that it was mostly only available in low resolution lossy files …

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  • 20th CenturyCD/Digital releases

    Krzysztof Penderecki – Complete Music for String Quartet & String Trio

    by 5:4 June 16, 2021 • 14:34
    June 16, 2021 • 14:34 3 minutes read

    It must have been a strange experience for anyone smitten by the music of Krzysztof Penderecki during the 1960s and early 1970s, falling in love with the bold, abrasive, raw abstract shapes and sound forms unleashed in works such as Emanations (1959), Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), St …

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    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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