This is my weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)
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▰ Like many contemporary synthesizer musicians, Takeyuki Hakozaki has welcomed the old-school Nagra reel-to-reel player-recorder into his toolkit, hence the sense of buckling to the audio in this billowing ambient recording.
▰ “Lightway” is a soaring demo recording posted by Lubbock, Texas-based composer Jennifer Jolley. Mallets and woodwinds summon arpeggio birds and droning clouds.
▰ Last night on the walk back from the ocean, as clouds that later revealed themselves to be providing cover for heat lightning slowly gathered, I listened to “Into,” the slow, 20-minute track by Dzöon. Twice. Be prepared to hit pause early on to confirm that cottony under-drone is, indeed, part of the track and not some hum from elsewhere. Then listen as the piece ever so patiently reveals itself, one carefully placed sonic element at a time.
▰ And if you missed out on the thunderstorm, the musician r beny recorded it for you. He writes, “The thunder was so loud and so close, it shook my windows and clipped the audio recorder.”