MORIMOTO NAOKI — INSIDE IX - CONNECTION

Stillness pervades 'Inside IX - Connection' by Japanese ambient musician morimoto naoki — the kind of stillness that could, on some days, invite a certain melancholy into the air. Instead morimoto's delicate soundscape, intended for listening within four walls (and ideally with a view), captures introspection that is calm over fragile, peaceful rather than close to collapse.

That said, the sounds that skip and chitter throughout this piece of music feel as though they could fit in the palm of your hand. We find toy-like scrapings and found-sound aesthetic, varying layers of background fuzz that shear through the dust of everyday silence like an old electric fan; high-pitched artificial beeps and electronic twangs add to the sense of miniaturised aesthetic.

Aside from casting a scale model spell on one's domestic surroundings, morimoto's guitar graces 'Inside IX - Connection' with half-tunes, melodies that never start, anti-refrains that in their simultaneous quietude and strong non-statement noodling elevate procrastination to a thing of beauty. We drift into his audio daydream, refreshed and ready for our own.

✧

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• 🔔 'Inside IX - Connection' is taken from morimoto naoki album Still Inside, released by Lontano Series (a division of Sardinian indepedent label ROHS!). You can purchase the album digitally and as a compact disc over on Bandcamp, should you so wish.

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📠
☟ morimoto naoki Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ instagram ⚘ discogs

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KUMI TAKAHARA — TIDE

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⌾ LISTEN TO TIDE BY KUMI TAKAHARA ⌾

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In ‘Tide’ Tokyo violinist and composer Kumi Takahara creates a thick soundtrack to a marine sunset. Violins glisten in playful counterpoint, piling in layers that crescendo in a tumult of colour, orchestral and expansive: clouds sprayed across the sky in kinetic whisps, tinted by evening light.

Columns of sound rumble below, a sombre and subterranean like something unthought of weighing on your mind; on the surface, one violin soars into the air, and later another. And as well as the strings, Takahara's voice lilts throughout adding yet more humanity to a piece of music already powerfully human.

Featuring production from aus. (Yasuhiko Fukuzono, founder of flau records), ‘Tide’ is held in place and time with the sound of waves, natural bookends, starting tranquil and ending in a shiver of dusk and leftover emotions — shreds of gleaming unknown sound, the afterglow of the giddy fugue that shines brilliantly at the centre of this composite epic of a song.

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• 🔔 'Tide' is taken from Kumi Takahara's debut album See-Through, recorded between 2016 and 2020 in the bathroom of Takahara's Tokyo apartment. released 24th February on Tokyo-based label flau records. It's available in CD format and/or digitally via Bandcamp.

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☟ Kumi Takahara Internet Presence ☟
⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘

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STH — FINISH CROSSING

⌾ LISTEN TO STH, FINISH CROSSING ⌾

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It's on a backdrop of skittering Geiger ambience, the fuzz and dust of the years made sound and launched burrowing into the air, swarms of Big Bang television static, that Russian producer sth (short for "synthetic sequencing") overlays an otherwise calm, relaxing atmosphere.

There is a panicked feel in 'Finish Crossing' — noticeable in the bio-mechanical micropercussion shredding the air like paper rain, and the gurgling güiro-esque calling out like unknown nocturnal insects, the arrhythmic deep bass thuds — but there is laid-back lounge cool that exists here, too.

Electric piano chords spread muted gleaming softness into the proceedings, with later melodies inching in from far-off corners, and the clonk and woozy resonance of a vibraphone providing horizontal jazz. sth summons wordless vocals from the noise, adds a few drops of elastic synth and punches in dynamic punctuation (an abrupt one second of quiet at 3:16) to complete this comprehensive study in atmospheric sample-made music.

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• 🔔 'Finish Crossing' is one of the tracks taken from sth's album 35mm, the musicmaker's latest release for Russian label Radiant Sound. Recorded between 2018 and 2020, it's dedicated to analogue people living in the digital world. You can download it or stream 35mm on the label's Bandcamp if you like.

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📠
☟ sth Internet Presence ☟
⚘ soundcloud ⚘

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MADANII & LLUCID — DANDELION

⌾ LISTEN TO MADANII & LUCID, DANDELION ⌾

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It's not only the combination of lush textures and minimalism that makes 'Dandelion' so captivating. The beat is a collage of snares, metallic percussion and whispering cymbals, crisp handclaps — I mean, you could even count the found sound natural noises of outdoors, birdsong, footsteps on gravel, among the songs percussive elements. This by itself affords MADANII & LLUCID's track a certain flow, each click, tick, slap and crash the like a stream dancing between its rocky banks.

There's the delicious syncopated clonk of the marimba (or whatever it may be), lending a fresh flavour, a cucumber and soda water fizz, to proceedings. All that's left is the foundation, the smooth synth of the bass, rounded and acrobatic enough without being too busy or overpowering. LLUCID's production is cooling, allowing the warmth of singer MADANII to radiate outwards.

Her vocal lilts with a touch of onstage crooning, but stays within such a digestible range that makes it feel conversational, close-at-hand, as the lyrics to 'Dandelion' spill diary-like into the stream. While the song begins with the mention of "a little town, not far out" — the sparkle of storytelling firmly set — the chorus whirling listeners into a satisfying cycle of relatable feelings:

"Leave it all behind out of sight / Following the sun / On my homesick run..."

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• 🔔 You can listen to and/or download 'Dandelion' via MADANII & LLUCID's Bandcamp. You'll also find the full lyrics there too, which are pretty cool to read.

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📠
☟ MADANII Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ youtube ⚘ spotify

☟ LLUCID Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ instagram

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🐣 OLIVIA BELLI — IN THESE SILENCES YOU SEE

The piano comes alive in Italian pianist and composer Olivia Belli’s shuffling ambient piece, ‘In These Silences You See’. The pace and pattern of this music is meandering, organic and evershifting, with harmonious tracts like wide peaceful stretches of river juxtaposed with atonal divergences, rivulets that jar jaggedly in the soft vessel of this track. Belli charts this course to summon an atmosphere of blankness, of window-watching, the glacial pace of grey skies, ending with an expression of clarity, as if a decision has been reached after mindful musing that swirled almost drone-like between steadiness and spontaneity, the coda steadfast and melancholy: but legible.

All along it is not just what Olivia Belli is playing in this slice of contemporary classical, but the tone of it, the recording, the fragments of ambience that fuzz and resonate together in organic overdrive, the sounds of the physical body of the piano itself, the dust and wooden flavours imbued in this track, even the gentle wheezing percussion of the hammer striking the strings themselves, sometimes a chime, but mostly a dull clatter, as if a droplet of rain were falling with each key pressed; even down to the creak of the pedals, ‘In These Silences You See’ is more than its musicality—it is wholly the bristlingly detailed environment in which it exists, and to which it contributes.

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• 🔔 This lovely thoughtful piece of piano music is taken from Olivia Belli’s Other Lines EP, a collection of four piano pieces from the composer. You can listen to and purchase it on Bandcamp if you like.

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📠
☟ Olivia Belli Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ itunes ⚘ spotify

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💿 ANTONIO MENDEZ — HIGHLAND DRIVE

The legacy of Lindsay Lowend's Wind Fish EP continues on almost five years after it first appeared: Maxo's bootleg of 'GT40' for a 2017 Christmas treat, for instance, shows that it's still lodged in the psyche of online music. But something had happened between then and now. Comments were disabled on LL's SoundCloud, the plays-like-repost numbers invisible, his Twitter account disappeared. The type of music moved well away from the VGM-juke of his famous Zelda-inspired EP, and onto a snappy sorta house music focused on texture, as in 2016 track 'Downtown Mannequin'. Lindsay Lowend appeared to us again Spring 2017 with a remix of 'Paused Parade' by Young Summer.

It was around this time that we learned Lindsay Lowend was pursuing endeavours in the realm of sound design under the name Tony Mendez; we'd discovered his Vimeo channel, and in particular an impressive video in which he redubbed music and sound effects from a Breath of the Wild trailer. In the description he commented:

Practicing foley. Explored all over my neighborhood and some woods nearby to get a lot of these sounds. Super fun.

The precisionist thinking required in first of all finding and documenting various sounds is itself vast, but to then chop these up into the best parts and set them to images is a process that must tune an ear to the finest details or, more likely, reflects a fastidious mind. This itself is evidenced in (now known as) Antonio Mendez's surprise new self-released album called Highland Drive, part collection of experiments with textures both recorded IRL and synthesised, part seasonal journey of music in which winter is illustrated in its superficial coldness and the feeling it evokes.

Synths, often soft (reminiscent of snow as much as wrapping up warm), describe this frosty temperature for much of the album with long stretches of lonely reverb, signalling with the expansive feeling both a more rural setting than urban and with its thin, almost harsh nature, the cold itself: being able to see your breath on a chilly day. Opening track 'Too Cold For Slugs' introduces this atmosphere, and the album's second 'Cordell' develops it with a thirty second section that evokes the bittersweet feeling of a winter sunset, whilst later the title track begins with wintry chords.

But final track 'Shovelling Snow' both in its title and sound best sums up the feel of the season. First heard in 'Cordell', that winter sunset-feeling snippet comes back as a motif and refrains for the whole track, soaked in dazzling icy reverb like a snow flurry. There's a sense of contentment tinged with melancholy, an emotive happysadness that evokes not only the title – the purposeful yet pointless act of shovelling snow – but also and more generally winter: its stark beauty, the freshness of the cold, how glorious it can be on a blue sky day, but how freezing it can be, how isolating. Stretches of decayed trance sound siphon an uneasiness, a yearning, into the seeming normality of the melody, creating this dual feeling.

This uneasiness also appears in other tracks that feature a more experimental, sometimes decayed synth sound, like the scratchy and clattering synth leads in 'Cordell'. 'Junkyard Drama' shows off an ultra-distorted intro before modulated acidic synths twang elastic atop sheafing white noise chords; zesty electronics shaded with bitcrush ping throughout 'Too Cold For Slugs', whilst rapid-fire staccato bloops ping-pong in the speedy 'Ghost Notes'. Conversely the album also harbours warmth in its some of its sounds too: the feeling of a comforting hot meal or a well insulated coat; thick chords bubble at the start of 'A Perfectly Common Accident', foam and charge ear-massaging throughout 'Highland Drive', fuzz along in 'Cordell'.

They have this moderate temperature in Earthbound-flavoured 'City Place', first evidence of glitch sensibilities on Highland Drive, sounding with its oddly warped chords and glomping subtle bubbles of bass like a homage to the SNES classic, the decay of it all like the internal workings of a computer. Similar computerisation exists in the fizzing crackling circuitry sounds at the beginning of the title track, the beat here possibly the most substantial on the album, following a robust breakbeat pattern with this beautifully phantomatic tract of uzi hi-hats midway. Beats play a large part: they're experimented with throughout the album, from the garage-flavours of the delicate percussion in 'Cordell' and pseudo-garage beat pattern of 'City Place', to the breezy house beats that bookend the album in its closer and opener.

But it's in 'Ghost Notes' that we see Antonio Mendez erupt into an exposition of breakcore, a real world sound on loop below the glitched-out twizzling and speeding up of snares in an Amen-style drum break; there's a vocal sample taken from a video by infamous drummer Bernard Purdie teaching people about advanced drumming techniques, fitting for a song with such dopamine-firing beatwork. 'A Perfectly Common Accident' is similarly breakcore in style, the bpm increasing even further around 1:40 for breakneck velocity, bitcrushed cymbal and tight snare joining a panning blanket of found sound around its midpoint, ending on a delicious fade-out of soft-fuzzy wah-wah chords.

The speed of those two makes the album's general focus on the minutiae of sound most impressive; to be so precise with the amount of percussive sounds going on very quickly is no mean feat. However since both tracks are essentially high-speed experiments, they don't overshadow the rest of the Highland Drive, nor do they seem out of place as the precedent for attention-to-detail in texture, quality, variety was set in the very first track. Antonio Mendez's efforts in sound engineering gleam brilliantly not just in the nuanced percussion and beats – each bristling percussive hit and insectoid rasp different from standard beatsets and most definitely toyed-with – but also in how the synths sound, from wobbly and elastic to twanging metallic, trance-like to thickly gurgling. It's another release from the brain that gave us Wind Fish, but this time the roots are in reality and not variations on a theme; it feels mature, subtle, an evolution in sound through the demonstrable progress in a skillset.

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• 🔔 You can download Antonio Mendez's wonderful Highland Drive in its entirety for $5US from his Bandcamp. You can also stream it variously via your favourite service by clicking on this hyperlink.

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📠
☟ Antonio Mendez Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ vimeo ⚘ bandcamp

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🐣 CYANURA — SPLASH

There is a wholesome realness in this track that makes it difficult to not bring your other senses along for the ride: skin tingles and warms, mouth and tongue seems to anticipate flavours and textures of tasty food, visions of a natural world elsewhere swirl like mists into your mind. Combining the sounds of outside, the sounds of nature with its luscious crunches and the inviting glory of water sloshing and soothing, combining these with the sounds of indoors, the ultimate indside sounds in the form of synths that bleep simple and videogame-esque or resonate rounded and glassy with artificial digital perfection, Vancouver musicmaker cyanura transports us to wherever we most associate these sounds, a lake shore, the ocean, a boat, a riverside, a tropical island—where there's water, there 'splash' is.

With a big emphasis on foley – that is, creating sound effects or in this case instruments by effectively sampling real life sounds – cyanura serves up a bustling collage of percussion that gives this song its rich textural dimensions, that all-senses effect where the clean clicks and clops tapping and popping in the track feel like different hard sweets: it is quite literally delicious. We have the crunch of footsteps, the dry shuffle of sheafing through pages of a book, reverbing finger clicks, distant hi-hats, tiny rolling snares—a percussive playground. It almost overshadows the beautiful plaintive melodies of the track, a modern day pastoral, the childlike nature of it summoning a deep sense of fun and nostalgia associated with fun and the places where it can be had. Idyllic is the word.

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• 🔔 This beautiful track is cyanura's first to be uploaded so keep an eye on their SoundCloud.

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☟ cyanura Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ twitter

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🐣 DTTØ — REEF BREAKS

First and foremost what I have to say or at least what I had to say was that the chords in this song reminded me of the same soft wobbly wibbly muted chords in some battle music from Earthbound. It turns out that actually the feel of the music is very different, but the spacey texture of the chords is overall the same, and that is attractive for me. I have Glasgow producer Rory Green to thank for that I suppose, who is the real name behind DTTØ and this track 'Reef Breaks', a study in sampling and broken beat style sonic craftsmanship, a collection of sounds like an exhibit of trinkets, treasure trove for your ears.

So aside from those chords which persist warmly through the song there is a wealth of rich sounds floating through and falling down into the cradle between 0:00 and 3:02, this authentic homely scientific white noise crackle, these flashes of percussion insectoid and bristling with the whole bustling rest of found sounds – the fragments of conversation and other vocal samples – bing-bing-bing somewhere along, scratching raspy snare-clap on robust body of sub, all of it combining in a fizz that whilst busy-busy is floating over you breezy casual, collage of chill and intrigue like half-drawn geometric patterns in pastel with striking blobs of oilpaints dashed on. Violin sampled refraining and amateur touches the heart, helps it to feel even more like cosy orange light in a small comfy friendly friend's house.

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• 'Reef Breaks' is from the album Botanics which came out at the end of November and there's a lot more of the broken beat-feeling rhythms and found sounds and cut-up samples and wavysmooth synths, particularly liked this track obviously and the opening track 'Azure' and 'Push Me'. You can download it for freeeee here.

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☟ DTTØSocial Media Presence ☟
• SoundCloud •

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🐣 HARRIS COLE – PAUSE/CHAPSITKC

This feels like it arrived just in time. Laying back in the swirl of synth, in the thick speckled plasma noise of it all, smooth and electric caramel, deeply uttering chillment, silvery chimes and golden fragments of piano like glints of light, muted natural ambient sound trickling in the background, it's easy to slip into the thought that right now is exactly the right time to hear this. This is the the eponymous opener of Harris Cole's debut LP pause and it is wonderful.

And then arrives second track, 'chapsitkc'—a different atmosphere, thinner and hallucinogenic, a mist of phasing waves, whooshing and alien. A gradual slow hail of percussive booms tumble down, sub carving a stoppy groove with an occasional stutter of bass boops, broken beats in an astounding laze of lethargy, pounding absent-purposefully on the present moment and creating its own compartment. But the aching way in which Harris Cole brings in the nocturnal slosh of beach breaking waves, a sample of the real world: reality merges then washes over the once transdimensional sound gallery and shifts your attention to a different moment till it fades away.

Lying beyond this awaits the rest of the album. The sequential nature of these first two morsels makes us feel like we're in for a jolly journey with pause, which also judging from the soundular shapes of 'pause' and 'chapsitkc' will be one that is spacey and reality-blurring, thereby also blurring the perceived distance between recording actual sound and the artificial process of actually manipulating sound.

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• These two morsels act, of course, as the appetiser for Harris Cole's album, pause, which will be released in Fall/Autumn this year. We will maybe have to wait for a month or something like that who knows.
• The artwork by George Wylesol captures the atmosphere of these two tracks – presumably the LP too – with its own depiction of an otherworldly experience in a worldly setting, bold yet muted, colours that feel somehow off, employing levitation in a setting of magical realism that feels arcane, in spirit and style similar to the Rider-Waite Tarot deck.

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☟ Harris ColeInternet Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Twitter • Spotify

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FÁBIO CARAMURU – CIGARRA

The releases of Tokyo-based flau records span the distance from Japanese music like the constructivist electronica of CRYSTAL and the constant dreamworlds of cuushe, to the music of artists from all over the world, like Taiwanese cello-guitar-violin ensemble Cicada, with many genres represented in between—and never do they disappoint. It's ever the same with a beautiful new piece called 'Cigarra'.

A mix of natural found-sounds and fluid waxing-and-waning piano-playing, 'Cigarra' is the work of Brazilian pianist and composer Fábio Caramuru. Taken from an upcoming collection of pieces in which Caramuru "speaks" to the fauna of his home country, this particular track is a conversation with the ostensibly whining and screeching of cigarra – meaning cicada in Portuguese. Its violent buzzing, though, feels like a lament here, the piano reflecting brightly and empathising with grave and tumbling tones the constant call of this long-living insect.

Like the the cicada, the piano too seems to be calling out, mimicking its song with a rapid refrain, soaring into flighty introspection at times, and falling to its refrain again by the coda, repeating endlessly with a certain sadness alongside the cicada, into the air, where the music goes to whose ears that will hear it.

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• That collection of pieces is an album called EcoMúsica - conversas de um piano com a fauna brasileira - ("conversations between a piano and the fauna of Brazil") and it will be out on flau on 7th September 2016. Alongside the album opener 'Cigarra', other tracks/animals included are 'Uirapuru' (musician wren), 'Anu-branco' (guira cuckoo), and 'Tuim' (a type of forpus parrot). And you may pre-order it from flau here if you like the sound of that.

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☟ Fábio Caramuru's Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • official site • Wikipedia

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WRYCROFT – WHERE I AM

Here is a really nice example of concrete music or musique concrete if you prefer it en français. It arrives to our ears from a Surrey, UK / Rome, Italy-based musicmaker called Max Bonar-Law, under the moniker Wrycroft.

If you don't know, because you don't have to know (it is not a sin), concrete music is the art of creating music wholly out of sound samples. Kind of like concrete poetry but a lot closer to found poetry, in which words are "found" in their natural environments and isolated into a poem form. If you google it, like I did, you'll see that it was first developed in 1948 by French composer Pierre Schaeffer.

Wrycroft's offering is called 'Where I Am' and described by its maker on SoundCloud thusly: "i made this piece out of audio samples i mainly collected with my phone. no effects were used in the making of this piece." On Bandcamp it is described similarly: "a piece i made out of recordings i collected over the years. no effects/vsts/plug-ins/bla bla/silly stuffs were used to make this."

Alternating between samples on the high and low register for a percussive, beat-like effect, the track judders onwards through chiptune-sounding fuzzy bleeps and stuttering slices of guitar chords, punctuated with a string of pulsing kicks and the slow tick of a hi-hat-sort-of-sound. The found sound/concrete music aesthetic is topped off with lo-fi samples of somebody speaking and, from what I can hear, the sound of a road or a train station with distant vehicles rattling on a backdrop of static, grey noise.

I don't know how much work it takes to go through these various samples and figure out not only what parts to use, but where to put them and how to progress the song – it feels like Wrycroft went through a pretty long process to get to this finished result. But fun, too – fun to create a musical collage.

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If you'd like to support this producer, please head on over to Bandcamp and download 'Where I Am' on a name-your-price basis. It is also a free download.

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☟ Wrycroft Social Media Presence ☟
SoundCloud • Bandcamp • Twitter

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PSAPP WHAT MAKES US GLOW LP

Earlier this week I posted a little interview I did with the two people who make up London two-piece Psapp, namely Galia Durant and Carim Clasmann. It was kind of in conjunction with the release of their latest album, What Makes Us Glow. In some ways, it was quite beneficial to get the insight of the duo on how they make their music, what they're interested in; I find myself, right now, listening to the album thinking about the things they said about not basing songs on chords, making use of found sound via objects that on an everyday level are not deemed to be musical, finding accidental notes in certain things - "a hoover, a creaky door, a swing, a washing machine, a distant argument" - and creating melodies from them.

The album begins as it ends, with field recording of rain dripping somewhere (or maybe something being fried), making it a cyclical experience, connecting the string of musical sounds, songs, with a snippet of everyday noises that show how the creative process is not an endless composition but a series of bright sparks in the mundanity of life. The first song I encountered from this album was the 'Everything Belongs To The Sun' - its strong emphasis on beats and chanting vocals, each with a tribal lilt, gives it an exotic appeal, painted by all the uncountable and sometimes unknowable amount of percussion infused into the song. Percussion - intricate, makeshift, homemade - plays a large part. Much less tribal but just as interesting are the scurrying noises of 'That's The Spirit' - alongside twisted, breathy organ sounds, the scuttling clips of percussion help provide a "noir" atmosphere, a sense of black comedy.

That same spirit is found in 'The Cruel And The Bad', a kind of a hot & sweaty burlesque number with a macabre brass section and a galaxy of pinging noises mixed with claps and shakers in 3/4 time. 'Seven' plays out in a similar vein, whisking you away to some exotic, fantasy bar where candles strewn with melted wax light cabaret acts; it has a fresh atmosphere with a dark jazzy twist - sultry crooning, double bass, clean guitar chords in a funky progression, and there's even a background sample of someone shouting. The bossa nova rhythm and woody percussion of 'In The Black' takes you to another tropical location. Plucked strings and a old guitar providing a lovely pizzicato melody, ending in a frenzy of Middle-Eastern-sounding melodies crossing each other. This one teeters over the friendly precipice of pop.

And it's in the fuzzy arms of pop that we find single 'Wet Salt'. Luscious sweeps of percussion punctuate the song's catchy organ-type chords and melodies, as well as the richly layered vocals. A half-lament-half-celebration of the respective dirt and magic of city life, specifically in London, it dreams as much as it stays rooted to the ground. But it's here that we first see the power of Psapp to create ear-friendly tunes. Likewise, 'Your Hot Knife' is a head-bopping toytronic pop number. It's evident in its core of low electric piano chords, the vocal patterns and the way they flow in delicate harmonies. It's one of the most upbeat songs on the album and is certainly easy-on-the-ears. Some great found sounds too: for instance, a bell from a bicycle. The organ solo towards the end is a lovely subtle touch.

In a similar pop vein, the title track 'What Makes Us Glow' is really lovely. A warm and calming track soaked in comforting and playful melodies, familiar vocals float in rich harmonies especially in its chorus refrain of "We choose what makes us glow". It's a sitting-by-the-fire kind of song. Those playful melodies are a real strongpoint of the duo, strong in most songs but in particular in 'The Well And The Wall'. The way the strings are here at the start give it a baroque feel. Or even before that. It's like lute music. A medieval feel, the vocals plaintive. It gradually falls into a mind-bending subversive version of some kind of courtly dance, with lightly crashing cymbals and glitching bleeps.

But it's not all about being busy and bustling. Psapp do minimalism, too. Each sound in 'Bone Marrow' is allowed to breathe in uncrowded space. Cutesy bells and woodblocks add percussive flair whilst the different vocal tracks in the chorus are layered with a simplistic intricacy. I found 'In And Out' to be a similar experience; starting with sound of someone breathing in and out, or maybe someone pumping bellows or something, it's another homely number that sleeps with dreamy chiming xylophones, bristling with pinpoint percussion, violins enriching with their organic woodiness. These sounds remind me of the music from Zelda: The Wind Waker; woody, organic noises that rattle in a light fantasy world of trees and magic.

And it's on that note that the true nature of Psapp's What Makes Us Glow becomes apparent. It's not a clashing but a melding of worlds: the bustling cosmopolis on one side and the essence of natural folk on the other; electronic noises and pioneering experimentalism, yet a delicate organic touch with pre-electricity conjurings and orchestrations. And with the duo saying in the interview that they want to carry on being more experimental, with increased found sounds and field recordings, as well as writing scores for more traditional instruments, it seems that this twoness of Psapp is going to go through intensive development. And there's nothing better for music, or even the universal creative process, than directive forward-thinking that is not forced, but freeform and fuelled by passionate curiosity.

Stream What Makes Us Glow on Hype Machine and/or buy it on iTunes.

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Like Psapp on Facebook
Listen to Psapp on Soundcloud
Visit Psapp's official site
Follow Psapp on Twitter
Watch Psapp on YouTube
Learn about Psapp on Wikipedia

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LAZY INTERVIEW #18: PSAPP

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← #17: BOTANY #19: BRETON →

Since I first heard of these guys a couple of months ago (courtesy of their song 'Everything Belongs To The Sun'), I was interested in finding out more about them. An opportunity to find out more presented itself and here I am. It's an interview with London duo Psapp, they've been active for about 11 years, released 5 albums (one of which was a Japan exclusive, and one of which I'll be writing about at the end of this week), and are credited with creating the genre "toytronica" - it sounds legitimate, doesn't it? I'll go with that. In fact, Indonesian duo Bottlesmoker are pretty toytronic as well. What is toytronica? It's electronica with the additional introduction of toy instruments (children's keyboards, play-a-long guitars, GameBoys, etc) as well as homemade stuff, maybe including circuit-bending as well.

Anyway, that's enough of that. And if you don't know anything about them at all, you should have a listen to their latest single 'Wet Salt' or have a search through their extensive back catalogue. As for now, let's have a look-see at what makes them tick, eh?

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
Carim: I am Mr Psapp, aka Carim Clasmann, born in Cologne, Germany and most things I do revolve around composing, producing, mixing and mastering music. Apart from making music with Mrs Psapp I work as a sound engineer, music producer and mastering engineer.

Galia: I am Mrs Psapp AKA Galia Durant. We are mongrels from lots of places, but mainly London and Cologne. We make songs out of objects that sound good. I do a lot of drawing too.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
Carim: I think my most transformational moment was when a friend of mine lent me his Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. I was only 14 years old and all I ever wanted to do then was write and record music. It was like opening a magic box and suddenly understanding that music can be pieced together of whatever layers you want to add.

Galia: I’ve been making music since I was a teeny tiny tiddler so it was less of a conscious decision - it was inevitable.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
Galia: We use a lot of objects we find and homemade instruments in our music. We combine this with vocals, violins, toys, guitars and anything within our grasp.

Carim: Our songs are mostly not based on chords but on melodies and counterpoints, very much like classical compositions. So as all the melodies intertwine they create passing chords and harmonics. The same applies to our rhythms which are layers of individual percussion rather than a drum kit. But we are not strict about this because that would be an unnecessary limitation. As far as sound is concerned any sound emitting object is a potential instrument may it be a field recording, a log of wood or a piano. We very much enjoy experimenting and creating our own instruments as even a tiny alteration in texture can create a unique atmosphere.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
Carim: On the sofa in the library because that’s where my nice stereo is set up.

Galia: For me it’s on headphones - there is so much intricate detail in our music … and lots of different ways of listening to it.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
Carim: For me it's the atmosphere in the studio and the total cut off from the world outside. Sometimes the bubble bursts by just a small distraction.

Galia: Everything. It’s hard to filter it sometimes. We tend to be inspired by each other, other people, the weather, joy, drudgery and the magic of being in the studio.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
Carim: I don't have a very good memory. Galia and I playing the keyboard, layered with a whole new set of freshly recorded sounds, together is definitely one of my favourite things in the world.

Galia: There are so many moments. One that comes to mind is a particularly prolific period when I was staying on my own in Carim’s place with no heating in midwinter, homeless and jobless with only my keyboards, cigarettes, sausages and some thick socks to comfort me. I just wrote and wrote.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
Carim:
Moondog - "Bird's Lament"
Can - "She Brings The Rain"
Talk Talk - “Ascension Day"

Galia:
Aksak Maboul - "A Modern Lesson"
Talk Talk - "I Believe In You"
Susan Cadogan - "Hurt So Good"

Who do you most admire in the music world?
Carim: Anyone who stays true to himself. I wouldn’t know where to start singling out individual musicians.

Galia: Yep. Definitely. But as for singling out a lone person - well this is like choosing your favourite album ever - it’s just impossible! Different music for different moments, and different people for different flavours of admiration. In your opinion, what is the future of music?
Carim: I don't think many people will want to explore what is between the twelve semitones of an octave but there is definitely a lot of scope for different rhythms and sounds to spill over from what is now deemed experimental into more commercial music. Personally I am always very happy about tracks not being in 4/4.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
Carim: We want to get back into the studio soon any try out some of the ideas spooking through our heads. Usually whatever I put in comes out quite differently once Galia gets involved and vice versa. I want to try writing some songs with found sounds being more at the forefront, picking out their natural notes and adding instruments to fit them rather than starting on a guitar. Maybe also something very quiet, whispery, hardly audible vocals, leaving large spaces. I also imagine building a giant musicbox with a large rotating drum that spins and hit various objects in its path. But for Psapp we just need to sit down together and then all plans we made on our own become pointless and we’ll do what feels right at the time anyway.

Galia: Everything Carim says sounds bloody excellent… and I really want to try scoring some classical instruments. We have done this a bit in the past but I think it would be a real thrill to try out more instruments. Also we should definitely build more instruments….. put all of Carim’s DIY and soldering equipment to good use. I like accidental notes in sounds which then turn into a melody of their own - a hoover, a creaky door, a swing, a washing machine, a distant argument.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
Carim: My lady, my cat Marbles, eating too much cake, a hot summer that lasts for 6 months, keeping my brain busy and feeding it with fresh new ideas.

Galia: My boy, my babies and my brain being full and in danger of bursting.

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Don't they sound just lovely? Experimentation in music is what keeps it alive, for sure, otherwise we'd be in a perpetual loop of people doing pretty much the same old thing. What's clear is that Psapp, as a pair, are not only passionate about music but also about the very sounds that make up music itself. Taking objects that don't have musical connotations whatsoever and forcing them into a musical dimension, not even basing songs on chords or progressions but rather on the paths that each sound can take within a melody - both of these show a clear desire to cultivate sounds, hear singular sounds, showcasing their individual tones and textures rather than that of collective, pop-driven chords.

Some of their music has been used in TV programmes, and it's no surprise: Psapp's music bursts with an original freshness, with collections of melodies and multi-faceted percussion that conjure emotions, atmospheres, or which perfectly illustrate certain scenes of life. And it's all thanks to the outside-the-box yet technical thinking in Psapp's positive and experimental approach to making music; it certainly bodes well for the future of music, when experimentation is so much more widespread and widely accepted, with Psapp echoing the undertones of this change in the music world's dynamic well before the popular outlets began to recognise the fact.

Please stick around for what the words I will write about their latest album, What Makes Us Glow.

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← #17: BOTANY #19: BRETON →

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UIO LOI PYOBACHI

FIRST OF ALL: Apologies. I'm sorry to everyone who's emailed me with music so far. A lot of it I just haven't got round to listening to yet. But I know what it's like to sit and wait for replies to emails you've nicely sent out so over the course of the next few days I will be having an Email Marathon. Anyway, this artist, the USA-based Zoom Lens associate Uio Loi (pronounced "oo-ee-oh loy" - real name Kyle Yerhot or K. Yerhot; I prefer the latter) has recently created and released a collection of songs, an album basically I dunno why I referred to it as that, called Pyobachi. It arrives care of brand-spaking-new art collective MI AJIRA and it's a really nice listen.

What is it? Essentially it's a collation of short songs linked in their similar aesthetic. Mr Yerhot himself says that it "focuses on using general MIDI sound samples mixed with modern electronic music & field recordings to create a juxtaposition of old & new." He also describes it as "Beautiful & ugly," and whilst it could seem an unflattering sub-text to bestow on his own creation, it's more of a romantic feeling than anything else. I mean Romantic. Not romantic. I believe, in this respect, the song titles help as a guide. These are vignettes, short poems of sound that conjure images and feelings related to loose subject matter falling under the titles. Which can indeed be wide and encompassing umbrellas of reference.

For instance, you have an actual recording of what sounds like a group of students making their exodus at the end of a lecture in 'Lecture', coupled with soft synth chords and industrious marimba that provides a breezy atmosphere of light learning. Next song, 'Reminisce' provides a portal to the past in the form of ascending wormhole bleeps and mystical pan-pipe melodies, ending when the goal of reminiscing is reached: warm, homely synths that glow with nostalgia. Broken robot sounds grace the glitch of does-not-compute feelings in 'Goodbye Never Ever Ever' and 'Flight' captures a bustling airport with foreign languages spoken against excitable toytronic sounds.

Opener 'Apartment' has this intro that would fit perfectly as a soundtrack to arriving home after a night out; all the lights are off, there's this unnerving almost ghostly feeling in the air. But as your own living person inhabits the space - turning lights on, switching on the TV, maybe cooking chips (fries whatever) in the oven - your own emotions fill the space: here it's a comforting sound, waves of synth driven forward by kicks and MIDI pan pipes for a playful decoration, yet all of it still with that same unnerving sound, a solitary undertone.

Likewise, there's that illustration of space in 'Living Room'. Recordings of something shuffling around in the background underpin a cold wash of ambient synths against rapid-fire arpeggios of synth boops; someone's playing piano at the end. Is that shuffling or sniffling? Could be sniffling cause it carries on over into next song 'Weep', featuring glistening silver sounds that perfectly partner with the delicate connotations of the word "weep" (as opposed to "sob" or "cry"). It summons a used-to, ingrained sadness, more of a celebration of cathartic release than wallowing in negativity. Closer 'Once More', with its thin yet head-nodding beat and mechanical glitch sounds, give a sense of continuance, how a night will end in the inevitability of tomorrow or how a morning will end in the day's definitive fading.

I could've done this with every song but then I'd be ruining your own chance to think about what you see or feel when you hear these short clippings of emotion and memory. Download Pyobachi for whatever price you like over at MI AJIRA's Bandcamp and enjoy the musical poetry. Also the album art was by Uio Loi himself.

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EONE AIRPORT LOUNGE

Here's a guy who I haven't heard very much from at all until his record label sent me an email detailing the release of his new EP. This is Eone, the Brighton (UK) producer whom I first knew as "Evil1" when I wrote about his mean-yet-ambient track 'Monochromatic World' at the end of last year - it's actually one that features on his new EP, Dispersion, released at the end of September on Brighton label Numerology Records. On the whole, it's a dark journey characterised by experimental ambience and techno sensibilities - with soft synths, he mixes brutal kicks and brooding bass that rumbles your bones.

I've today decided to write about my favourite track from the EP, 'Airport Lounge'. It is simply bustling with sounds, from intergalactic fizzing ticks and dripping taps, to whirring hard-drives and masses of background noise - papers being shuffled, a murmur of voices, the general white noise of the air. In fact, it sounds as if he quite possibly did sample an actual airport lounge to capture those ambient sounds. Have a listen to this wonderful melting pot.

Alongside those flitting noises, soft stellar synths sweep across the board with a cold and glossy sense of futurism. A muffled kick pattern comes in alongside the urgent timekeeping fizz of half-open hi-hats; this gives the song an understated rhythm without exploding into a full-blown beat that would perhaps take away its actual feeling of an airport lounge - the lassitude of waiting endlessly without consequence. Unintelligble altered vocal samples wind their way through the song, both high-register and low-register, forgetting the original vocal sound, giving it a decidedly urban feel, something hard-edged and bristling, almost like the not-so-lighthearted jargon of airport and airline staff, it rushing into your ears without it making much sense.

It's a song that seems to be over almost instantly, but at the same time it's one that climbs into your mind and stays there for a while. Those futuristic sounds seem to melt into your consciousness, creating and evoking the feeling of cold detachment in our modern world. If you liked this, you can find more intense variations on this vibe on the Dispersion EP - please direct yourself to listen to most of it on Numerology Records SoundCloud.

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LAZY INTERVIEW #11: YOSI HORIKAWA

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← #10: STARLIT EVERGLADES #12: CORY JREAMZ →

Hello. Here is another Q&A from my Lazy Interview series. It's called "Lazy" because it's the same questions every time. Yep. It's true. But it's kinda a non-issue because all the answers I've received so far have been nice and insightful. I never promised to be Frost (rest in peace). Anyway, you can read all of those past interviews if you want.

This time around, Japanese producer and sound designer Yosi Horikawa was kind enough to get back to me with some answers. He makes music that is infused with found sound, that is, recordings of noises that occur in all walks of everyday and not-so-everyday life - recordings that he has made himself. He's rather dedicated to the cause; he has melted microphones trying to record the sound of fire, and had close-shaves with bears whilst recording the background noises of forests in Japan.

I was first captivated by his sounds thanks to his album Vapor, released earlier this summer - in particular, the magical song 'Wandering' really caught my attention. It is a lush soundscape of forest ambience mixed with intense tribal drums and atmospheric synths - very tasty. Naturally, I wanted to find out a little bit more on how this guy ticked and this is what you can find out below.

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
　This is Yosi Horikawa.
　I'm from Chiba, Japan.
　I'm a sound creator, sound designer.
　Making music with found sounds, sometimes I do sound design as well.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
　Ever since I can remember, I've been making something - in other words, I've been a DIY guy.
　I made everything I wanted, like toys, paintings, photography, welding machine...
　So it was so natural that I started creating music, because I've always been crazy about music.
　But I didn't have any musical instruments when I started, so at first, I started to find a tool to make a music.
　Then, I found a sleeve of KRS-ONE's "Return Of The Boom Bop".
　[On the sleeve] He is shouting into a pair of headphones, and I heard the lo-fi voice on the album, then I noticed that the headphone might work instead of the microphone, so I tried the same thing.
　Finally it worked.
　That's my beginning of music creation.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
　I use found sounds on my music.
　Using many sounds which I recorded in my daily life, in nature, everywhere.

　Now, we can find tools to make music so easily.
　Actually so many people are making music.
　I think it's a great thing that we can find a way to do what we want to do.
　But actually it's so difficult to be original.
　There are so many digital sounds we can get so easily.

　As I said, I'm creating with what I've recorded,
　I know it's not a innovative way of making music, but real sounds have a possibility to be unique.
　There are so many sounds we've never heard on this planet.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
　I think the listener should decide the perfect moment to listen.
　In a sense, in front of my monitor speaker is the perfect place to listen though.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
　Reminiscence and Association.
　Most of the time, I decide a concept for the track.
　But when I start making it, the real sounds remind me of a memory.
　I follow the memory, then another memory is associated.
　So my music is an aggregate of my memories and imaginations.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
　It's a moment I found the headphone can work instead of the microphone.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
　I can't decide.

Who do you most admire in the music world?
　I can't decide.

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
　In our history, we've repeated the same things.
　So, although the technology may be evolved, I think the essence doesn't get changed so much.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
　I just want to keep making.
　I will have many experiences in my life, then my music will be changed little by little.
　I'm thinking, now, I will investigate the texture of sound.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
　I love most of the arts.
　For me, creativity is most important.
　And I can't live without beer.

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I'm looking forward to what Yosi might do next. If he will be exploring sound texture, as opposed to the sounds themselves, then we can expect some interesting noises to make their respective ways onto his future repertoire of songs. It seems as though he's always searching for something new, exploring the world in terms of the sounds that can be found upon or even within it. In that sense, despite his modest dismissal of his field recording stuff as "not an innovative way of making music", he is an innovator; an explorer, at the very least.

To look at the world of music, or - for Yosi's way of thinking - sound itself, with genuine curiosity and pioneering spirit, especially to such an extent that one's most memorable musical memory is finding out that you can use headphones as a microphone, is a good way to look at things. It's not just going through the motions; it's delving deep past music theory and chord progressions and all that blah right to the most basic, natural, and memory-invoking noises that the world has to offer. It's no wonder that his music seems to take you away somewhere else, and will most likely continue to do so.

Shoutout to Yosi Horikawa for making nice music and being a nice guy - thank you very much!

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← #10: STARLIT EVERGLADES #12: CORY JREAMZ → - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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