Author Archives: mikewaite22

New Tendencies finds inspiration in isolation during a ‘Missed Month’

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Have you ever wished you could take a month off from life and dive headfirst into your creative pursuits?  You probably have, and while it’s an impossible luxury for most, it’s one that, on paper at least, should produce great results.  But Toronto’s Matt Nish-Lapidus, a.k.a. New Tendencies, will tell you that it’s a situation with it’s own set of challenges and frustrations, describing his month in early 2017 spent with a new, self-made modular synth as:

“…a time of amazing flexibility, freedom, and exploration, as well as anxiety and uncertainty. During that time I poured myself into the modular synth I had been building for a while, and played with different processes for sound design and composition.”

The result is Missed Month, a five-track release that’s equal parts scientific experiment and artistic statement.  The tracks lurch and whirr like newborn Frankenstein contraptions trying to come to terms with themselves.  It’s the sound of man and machine meeting each other halfway; an ominous, altogether enjoyable listen.

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Arms & Sleepers teams with Sun Glitters for “You May Visit the Cosmos” video

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Arms and Sleepers have shared a new video for “You May Visit the Cosmos,” from last year’s Life is Everywhere album.  It’s been a while since that album’s release at this point, but the video does come at a calculated time. Its director, Victor Ferreira of Sun Glitters, is a close friend to AAS, and just released his own new album, It Will Be Forever. Not satisfied to leave it as only a piece of music, Ferreira expanded his album into a movie, filtering found footage through a geometric, animated lens.  Ferreira applies the same visual style for “You May Visit the Cosmos,” but where his movie was bright and colorful, his video for Arms and Sleepers juxtaposes scenes of space flight and gritty urban life, in somber black and white.

Arms and Sleepers and Sun Glitters will play a handful of shows together in Europe next month, check the dates here.

Francis Harris launches Kingdoms imprint with a new album from Aris Kindt

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Since its creation in 2011, Scissor & Thread has been Francis Harris’s outlet for releases under his own name, his side projects like Frank & Tony, as well as other artists like Bob Moses and Black Light Smoke.  In 2015 the label released Floods, the debut album by Aris Kindt, comprised of Harris (pictured above) and guitarist Gabe Hedrick.  Now the duo returns on October 20 with Swan & Odette, and the album marks the dawn of Harris’s new label, Kingdoms.  According to Harris, the label will explore everything from “club-inflected jazz, contemporary composition, ambient, and electronic music, to reissues of little-known obscurities from across the musical spectrum.”

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Aris Kindt’s music lies somewhere between drone and dub techno, with sparse beats that never go beyond a resting pulse.  Swan & Odette‘s first single, “Several Wolves,” is simultaneously sleek and gloomy, soothing and suspenseful; check it out below, along with a recent podcast from Harris.

 

Slow Breathing Circuit mix 005: Kodomo

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Kodomo is the Japanese word for child, and therefore an all-too-perfect moniker for Chris Child, who spent his youth in Tokyo.  Having given us three LPs so far under the Kodomo name, Child’s latest, Divider, is only an EP, but it marks a new chapter for his sonic palette.  Relying less on samples than ever before, and employing a sweeping, cinematic mood throughout, Divider is Child’s most emotionally resonant release yet, no doubt inspired by the recent birth of his son.

To celebrate the EP’s upcoming release on August 18, Kodomo has given Slow Breathing Circuit an exclusive hour-long mix, featuring two new tracks off Divider, two Kodomo remixes, as well as tracks by Lusine, Moderat, LFO, and more.

1 Empire Systems – Rafael Anton Irisarri
2 Last Time (Jon Hopkins Remix) – Moderat
3 Son – Kodomo
4 The Level – Lusine
5 Moistly – LFO
6 HEL – Kodomo
7 Casyam – Gold Panda
8 Airbreaker – Goth Trad
9 Swisher – Blondes
10 LFO – LFO
11 Disappearing Light (Shigeto Remix) – Kodomo
12 Orange Ocean (Loscil Remix) – Kodomo
 Kodomo Q&A:

Name: Christopher Warren Child

Hometown: Tokyo, Japan

Current city of residence: Brooklyn, NY

Home away from home: Portland, Maine

Favorite city to perform in and why: Kyoto, Japan —I’d like to say it’s because of the beauty, charm, and culture, but honestly it’s because the food is so damn good!!  (The rest is pretty awesome too.)

Favorite record shop and a memorable or recent purchase there: Manhattan’s Academy Records – Max Richter – Sleep Remixes

Your go-to instrument(s) and/or hardware: Upright Piano, Thumb Piano, MFB Tanzbar, Roland TR-808, Strymon Big Sky, Roland SH-101, Moog Voyager XL, My Modular.

A consistent source of inspiration: Johann Sebastian Bach.

 

Dream collaboration: J.S. Bach…ok….currently it would be Max Richter.

Plans for touring behind the EP, and other goals for the year: A show is being planned at Wesleyan University in October.  A few new music projects are in the works — one piano-focused and the other more techno-driven.

Pre-Order Divider

Violet Sands’ “Start Low, Get High” is a lively ode to urban living

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Brooklyn’s Violet Sands is a new project from composer Derek Muro, Deidre Muro and David Perlick-Molinari.  Marrying catchy, soulful vocals, agile production, and interjections of woodwinds and piano, the trio’s latest single, “Start Low, Get High” is a lively ode to life in the Big Apple.

As Derek puts it:  “‘Start Low, Get High’ was an experiment in combining the palette of vintage minimalism and ‘Downtown New York’ classical music (Glass/Reich/Nancarrow), with more of the vernacular sounds and production treatment we’ve been inspired by recently.”  You can stream the track below; Violet Sands’ eclectic debut album, Hotel, is out now.

Iglooghost shares insane new track, “Bug Thief”

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Irish production wiz Iglooghost is prepping his debut album for Brainfeeder, Neō Wax Bloom.  Already a producer with a reputation for colorful, exciting tracks, his latest one is almost like listening to two interweaving EDM ragers at the same time; the sheer level of energy on “Bug Thief” is astounding, and the variety of sounds employed is endlessly entertaining, equal parts gorgeous and intense.  Listen below, the album’s out September 29th.

Ancient Ocean makes ambient music fit for an alien world

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Kentucky native J.R. Bohannon is now based in New York City, crafting gorgeous ambient music as Ancient Ocean that blurs the line between natural and synthetic. While the southern twang of “Titan’s Island,” his latest album’s title track, might falsely suggest a return to rural roots, it’s outer space that Bohannon’s truly thinking of here; Saturn’s largest moon, to be exact.  Turns out, pedal steel guitar sounds even better when it’s millions of miles outside Earth’s orbit.  Stream “Titan’s Island” below and grab the album September 22 through Beyond Beyond is Beyond.

 

 

Titan’s Island tracklist & Ancient Ocean tour dates:
Titan’s Island
Cassini-Huygens
Rift Valleys
Life at the Surface

9/21 – Glasgow, UK – Nice N Sleazys +
9/22 + 23 – Liverpool, UK – Liverpool Psych Fest
9/24 – London, UK – Shacklewell Arms +
9/25 – Brighton, UK – TBD +
9/27 – Rotterdam, NL – Worm +
9/28 – Amsterdam, NL – De Ruimte +
9/29 – Liege, BE – La Zone +
10/1 – Cologne, DE – Broken Sound +
10/5 – Nice, FR – Concert Chez Moi+
10/6 – Nantes, FR – Le Lieu Unique +
+ w/ Mark Mcguire

Stream two new ambient tracks from Benoit Pioulard’s latest album, ‘Lignin Poise’

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Seattle, Washington’s Thomas Meluch switches between blurry, pastoral folk and instrumental drone under the name Benoit Pioulard, and his latest album, Lignin Poise, appears to be heavy on the latter.  The full LP will be out September 8 through Beacon Sound, but you can stream the first two tracks below via Pioulard’s Bandcamp.  “Same Time Next Year” and “Rook” are both pretty damn dreamy, check them out below, and pre-order the vinyl here.

 

Watch the video for Balmorhea’s “Sky Could Undress” off new album for Western Vinyl

For over ten years, Rob Lowe and Michael Muller of Austin instrumental act Balmorhea have crafted a gorgeous marriage of post-rock and cinematic romanticism, a meandering stream of string instruments that seems to take you back in time.  Now the band has a new album, Clear Language, out September 22 on Austin label Western Vinyl.

Having already shared the album’s title track, this week Balmorhea gives us their first new video, part one of a trilogy by director Claire Cottrell.  Soundtracked by the song “Sky Could Undress,” Cottrell’s shots capture idyllic beauty from the city and countryside.  Both the song and video are noteworthy for their simplicity, a reminder that art is found in everyday minutia and ephemeral moments.

 

An Ant and An Atom confronts the void on new ‘Exterior’ EP

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Lethbridge, Alberta’s Sean Warkentine creates moody dronescapes as An Ant and an Atom, a fitting moniker for an artist whose music makes one feel a bit small and insignificant.  While his most recent release, the Exterior EP, evokes the cold, looming menace of deep space, the track titles hint at a different perspective, depicting Earth as claustrophobic and space as boundless and free (e.g. “The Crush of Gravity,” or “I Dreamt of Reaching Space, but Couldn’t Calculate the Escape Velocity for Reality.”)  Exterior is a mostly suspenseful journey, turning hopeful briefly before ending with the massive “Heat Up Another Planet, Burn Out Another Sun.”

 

Watch the video for “My Craft Broke at Launch” below, and grab the EP in digital or cassette form here.  For those in Alberta, An Ant and an Atom will perform at Edmonton Noisefest on August 26.