The "classical" music you buy from Boomkat (2010): a thread to discuss Sylvain Chauveau, Johann Johannsson, Peter Broderick, Olafur Arnalds and others

The new Winged Victory for the Sullen record, 'Atomos', is very, very beautiful. On my first listen but it's very pastoral and sounds like a soundtrack to a non-existent film. At times it's very reminiscent of Johannssons Virtulegu Forsetar, strings wise.

Getting a big Michael Nyman/Piano vibe - albeit not as full and dramatic - from it too.

I've been listening to it nonstop for the last couple of days. I think it's a big improvement on their debut (which, mind you, is also good). It passes through more movements, there's more variety and changing of pace - more push and pull between the different instruments.

Streaming here:

http://thequietus.com/articles/16418-a-winged-victory-for-the-sullen-atomos-album-stream

Yeah, love Atomos. Also enjoying the Kiasmos album -- it's Ólafur Arnalds and some other guy

Atomos is getting better with every listen.

Trying to find the appropriate forum to discuss my Erased Tapesophobia. Not a dislike of the music they put out, I have it on in the home a great deal. But listening to Atomos these arguments come up again, the same frustration I had with heyday GYBE or Rachels'. The "soundtrack to Myst" quality of it. It's new-age-with-classical-instruments but gets discussed as new-classical. It's so completely easy on the ears that it challenges my laissez-faire attitude towards consonance. That it could actually be improvised by anybody in a few minutes. Between Max Richter being New Music Composer #1, Tim Hecker being Noise Musician #1, I can't tell if I want to embrace The New Consonance or fart on it.

Of course everything I'm saying is not a potshot but a salute

I think I mostly think of it as new age or ambient. I really like it. But some new classical classical is kinda New Consonance as well. Those long serene Morton Feldman pieces. Arvo Pärt. Gavin Bryars (whose most famous album was released by Eno). Gorecki's third. And the new pulitzer-prize winning Become Ocean by John Luther Adams, that I mentioned on the rolling classical thread, and which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite albums of this year, and which you really should all check out!

all the people I know who've studied composition hate max richter

Yeah Frederick I don't fuck with any of those composers you mentioned, except Feldman and a very rare Pärt. Younger I would've argued against them, now I'm just happy there are composers putting asses in seats. More just like I come home and my bf has got Lukas Foss on the turntable and I'm like "yesssssssss" but ultimately he wants Atomos and not Mica Levi. I'm trying to place consonance in a global, current context, trying to figure out what it means and why people respond to nicey-nice sounds so much more in film score, concert music, noise, ambient, drone etc. than they do in any other genres, where it'll make your track sound sickly

What do you mean by "classical" and "new age", fgti? (That's a non-snarky question, by the way).

And why do those who've studied composition hate Richter, ogmor?

Yeah it sounds as if I'm pissing on new-age I guess but I'm not. Just that the language is so safe and sound. It's nice when things are a little challenging, you know? Or maybe not?

Maybe not. There have definitely been points in my life where consonance has been outside my comfort zone/more challenging than dissonance.

fgti's remarks have lead me to self-asses my opinion on this a bit. Because I definitely get that the music seems 'safe and sound'. But in the end, I think that is where the quality lies. Safe and sound is not a disqualification per se, and this ties in with what djh says about consonance.

I don't see Winged Victory as 'new age' myself; I find it a broody, emotional moving piece of work albeit in a very subtle, subdued way. Perhaps it's also because I've been a long time SotL fan and for some reason have grown to respect Adam Wiltzie but also Dustin O'Halloran for their compositional qualities to not take it for generic new-age music (as my personal definition of 'new-age' tends to be: generic soothing music, which I quite frankly can't stand).

But it's a very fine, personal line.

Yeah. I can't really describe why Vanessa Carlton is bad and Tori Amos is good or Clint Mansell's soundtrack to "Requiem for a Dream" is bad but Michael Nyman's for "Prospero" is good without getting exceedingly nebbish about things

And I'm typing this as an enormous fan of Atomos VII-- haven't heard the new album proper-- but also as somebody who found the s/t kind of disappointing bc it lacked the extreme long-form nature of the best of SotL and instead had prettystrings

Yeah. I agree about the Winged Victory s/t, I didn't take to that and while listening to it more and more thought of it as a 'lazy' affair (despite hating myself for thinking of that term while listening, as it can't have been lazy, made with the best intentions too, but prettystrings seemed intentional). I do think the new one is quite different though. Well thought out and despite its subdued nature has a lot going on. It is ephemeral, whimsical at times, but it does really carry me away and take me on a journey. If you took to Atomos VII I'd be very interested to hear what you think of the whole record, I think it deserves an honest chance before you lump it together with erasedtapes prettystrings :)

Not lumping anything in :) just always hoping to implement some aesthetic corrections in my listening

In the case of AWVFTS in particular - I definitely think of what they're doing as an evolution from ambient music, not a lazy take on classical.

For me, Stars of the Lid really opened my ears with Tired Sounds and Refinement of the Decline--when they shifted from making drone from guitars into making something more beautiful and more powerful with a small string section. Everything they've done since then--Brian McBride's solo albums and A Winged Victory--feels like steps from that point. For A Winged Victory it's less about "ambient" because of Dustin O'Halloran's piano, but to me it still feels related.

As for the rest of the Erased Tapes catalog (Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnaulds, etc), I don't really know where those guys are coming from musically to say it's "safe" or some kind of indie/poser-classical. I only know that I found my way to Erased Tapes via A Winged Victory for the Sullen so in my own mind I'm approaching it all from that perspective. That is absolutely subjective, though.

In any case I really hesitate to call it New Age, a term which has a pejorative whiff to it. I also bristle at "safe" as a descriptor of this music. I guess I don't really understand what I'm supposed to contrast that against. What would make Atomos dangerous? And would that necessarily make it better?

And as far as Atomos vs their debut - the new one is definitely superior. In the context of SotL I kinda get how you could perceive the debut as somewhat rote and less inspired. But I think on Atomos they more clearly show that they are trying to do something different. It's not just SotL with piano. (And for that matter I also like it more than a lot of the other Erased Tapes material I've heard.)

Yes yes I am not sure I love ATOMOS but it is amazingly well written and executed, holy cow. I've listened to it ten times now and it's still surprising me with how well paced it is, subtle expansions from track to track, really impressed.

Has there been anything good recently?

djh did you see the Textura EOY list posted int he Year-End Polls thread? Lots of great stuff on that list. Currently transfixed by Ian William Craig's Turn of Breath. Also digging Marvin Ayres's Ultradian Rhythms and Vicky Chow's Tristan Perich: Surface Image, among others.

And don't walk past Kyle Bobby Dunn's 'And The Infinite Sadness'.

Been fascinated lately by Aaron Martin's Comet's Coma and Elisa Luu's Enchanting Gaze.

Thanks all.

Ian William Craig's Either Or is nice; quite reminds of Rice Boy Sleep. "A Turn of Breath" seems to be sold out.

Yeah, Ian William Craig's Turn of Breath is really good - it was the most recent Guardian 100 weirdest (but great) albums on Spotify entry

http://tape-dust.tumblr.com/casolli

a winged victory for the sullen, anyone?

i enjoyed the prom. first i'd heard of them was last week's latitude coverage on Late Junction and this week they're on tv playing the Royal Albert Hall...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0640mhj (28 days left)

(some chat here: The "classical" music you buy from Boomkat (2010): a thread to discuss Sylvain Chauveau, Johann Johannsson, Peter Broderick, Olafur Arnalds and others )

Enjoying the new Hauschka EP A NDO C Y very much.

It cheers me up when this thread is revived.

Doing my very best. One interesting addition regarding relatively straightforward (though a bit unpolished) solo piano might be Martin Kohlstedt.
Dude was playing live way more experimental processing his tunes, but somehow his albums connect with me really well in their own subdued way. Moreso, a supercharming individual.

Wrote up two albums by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir for Burning Ambulance today.

I'm really enjoying Olli Aarni's Puu Tuulessa (which was ridiculously limited on Cotton Goods).

http://olliaarni.bandcamp.com/album/puu-tuulessa

http://inverted-audio.com/feature/130701-pioneers-of-post-classical/

this new Lubomyr Melnyk album is beautiful

a friend of mine just hipped me to Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon, 'Studies I - XVII for Samplers & Percussion' and it is rad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo8b_yEil-M

^ been enjoying Yair Elazar Glotman's Études recently, guy's got a good sound

it's not pretty music btw, it's more like a bear growling in your ear

cool record

Spotify has discovered Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch for me. From the safer, AWftS, piano-era Eluvium end of the spectrum.

this thread put me on Turn of Breath and for that I am forever in its debt, I keep finding new ways to enjoy this record

Boomkat sale is on. Lots of Type Records.

http://www.factmag.com/2015/12/07/fact-mix-527-johann-johannsson/

http://www.sonicpieces.com/pattern002.html

Liking this a lot.

JOHANN JOHANNSSON WITH HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR & ROBERT AIKI AUBREY LOWE - END OF SUMMER

PATTERN 002 CD/DVD "lasercut cardboard packaging with full colored innersleeve"
PATTERN 002 LP "lasercut cardboard packaging with full colored innersleeve"

End of Summer captures Johann Johannsson's journey to the Antarctic Peninsula to discover the calm scenery of a landscape changing seasons, barely influenced or even noticed by humanity. The super 8 film is a comforting study of a peaceful setting in one of the most crucial and endangered areas of our planet.

Accompanied by rich and detailed field recordings of the surrounding this footage makes a perfect foundation for Johann's musical compositions, performed together with fellow musicians and friends Hildur Gudnadottir and Robert A. A. Lowe. The varying use of cello, voice, synthesizer and electronics creates a listening experience that reflects both the vast beauty of the quiet scenery and the necessary cautiousness of its inhabitants. As if gliding through the steep ice, its rough edges and the harmonious water movements, organic arrangements are patiently devolving into voice and electronic based ambience that adds warmth to the icy, artefact laden environment.

The soundtrack to End of Summer is an emotional, enduring listen and a compelling experience. Forming a soundscape as broad as the view it was inspired by yet equally heartwarming, devotion to the music will slow down time and provide a moment of harmony within times of change.

LP edition features the soundtrack as well as the film's sound design on the B-Side, exclusively on vinyl;
DVD + CD package features the film and accompanying soundtrack.

Glad to know about this, it's great. Put me on a Hildur Gudnottir kick all day today.

Might be of interest:

https://www.fat-cat.co.uk/release/like-water-through-the-sand

(Revived 130701 imprint).