Vines • The World at Large • 2023

In 2022, Wieland began covering popular indie songs using her vocoder as a side project, unearthing the emotions lying inside of these tracks. “The World at Large” is just one example of her contemplative reimaginings. Throughout her cover of Modest Mouse’s 2004 hit, Wieland softens each beat, slowing down each peppy “ah” into a pensive hum. The song takes on themes of drifting and running away, and in Wieland’s gossamer threads, heart-wrenching simplicity amplifies its melancholy to unveil the existentialism that colors the music.

Philip Selway • Strange Dance • 2023

Philip Selway releases his much-anticipated new album, Strange Dance, on February 24 via Bella Union. Having previously shared videos for the singles “Check For Signs Of Life” and “Picking Up Pieces”, Selway today shares the atmospheric title track from the album. Commenting on the track Selway says: “Strange Dance had a very long gestation as a song. In its original form, it was the first piece from the album to be written, over 20 years ago. It was also the last song to be completed on the album, with the lyric taking shape in the final recording session. The strange dance I write about refers to the contortions we all perform as we try to balance seemingly irreconcilable elements of our lives, and the relationships that help us navigate this uncertainty.”

Tino • For the Stratus Family Video • 2022

http://soundaslanguage.limitedrun.com/

Santino Gonzales, who records music under his nickname “Tino,” is an artist from Los Lunas, New Mexico. Moved by the landscape of his childhood, Tino uses ufology, adobe, & radio to investigate cultural attitudes around the fear of alienation & the desire for connection. Lately, Tino has been exploring how these interests relate to ideas about home.

Sonically, Tino uses improvisation and looping to create soundscapes inspired by times past. Fractured melodies weave in and out of one another, punctuated by radio static and home recordings. This sound collage, with instruments both old and new, situates Tino among contemporary sound artists and ambient musicians.

While inspiration comes from many places, Gonzales’ music could join a mixtape with the likes of Grouper, The Caretaker, Windy & Carl, or videogame soundtracks like Kentucky Route Zero.

sunn O))) • Metta, Benevolence BBC 6Music • 2019

Artwork by Samantha Keely Smith https://samanthakeelysmith.com

In late October 2019, following a successful UK tour ending in a sold-out concert at the mythical Roundhouse in London, SUNN O))) entered studio 4 of the BBC Maida Vale. On invitation to record a live session for Mary Anne Hobbs to be broadcast on Samhain via her excellent radio show on BBC6. To enter the legendary John Peel studios was to enter a temple of music and experimentation, liberty in ideas and sound. The band was nearing the end of a long touring year around the Life Metal and Pyroclast albums. SUNN O))) had developed the compositions extensively, embracing the formative concepts of the Life Metal album conceptually and emotionally, but actualised and evolved into vast, open and bright hypersaturated arrangements. Particularly the pieces the band chose to perform on this recording: Troubled Air and Pyroclasts. The former enriched into a total aspect of the band's ethos and form in many ways, and Pyroclasts had evolved to become all-inclusive radiation of O))). The radiation embraces collaboration and freedom of interpretation by each player, within a structural format of the massive monuments of sound and distortion which define SUNN O))). Anna Von Hausswolf and her band had accompanied SUNN O))) on the UK leg, and Anna joined SUNN O))) in the studio on synths and with her tremendous voice on the Pyroclasts pieces.

The Furniture • Strom • 2021

Website

"'Strom' incorporates amorphous drones throughout, sprinkled with analogue synths to emulate a composition of spontaneity and surprise." - Wonderland. "While the pair point to 1970’s German experimental music such as Cluster, and the pioneering minimalist composer Moondog as touchstones; fans of Brian Eno’s most ambient works will find The Furniture’s musical offerings cinematically enthralling." - Glide "A meditative 5-minute piece that straddles the line between ambient and post-rock" - Backseat Mafia "Dark, moody instrumental works, heavy on cinematic atmosphere" - Brooklyn Vegan "It’s music borne of a hard won, deeply felt understanding of each other. It’s together that their sound becomes something truly special, after all, with Matthew Pierce’s synth-work and textures – which would likely venture into pure ambient on their own – perfectly complemented by Matthew Kuhl’s assured, propulsive drumming. It’s the perfect combination." - Beats Per Minute

Tristan Welch • Temporary Preservation • 2021

RIYL: Noveller, Tim Hecker, Rhys Chatham, Planning For Burial, Jesu 

"there’s also something in his music that goes beyond representation into the ineffably sublime..."  ~ Marc Masters, Bandcamp Daily

"This Washington DC-based ambient guitar wizard successfully blends power ambient sonic backbone with ethereally stunning celestial textures to a triumphant effect, creating a thing of uplifting, subversive beauty, the core of his artistic credo." ~  A Closer Listen

Gregg Kowalsky • Sunstruck in the Shadows • 2020

Kowalsky began composing and performing electro-acoustic music using cassette tape loops, sine oscillators.His work explores multi channel, site-specific performances with a focus on psychoacoustic phenomena. 

greggkowalsky.net