Olafur Arnalds – Brotsjor
Arvo Part – Fratres for Vi (Beats Antiqua remix)
L’Oniraunote – Scaphandre
High Tone – 7th Assault
Altan Urag – Ijii Mongol
Muslimgauze – Izlamiq Groupe
Nomadiqa – Birds of Babylon
Olafur Arnalds – 3326
Sleeps in Oyster – My heart, a hive for bees
Shiyugosha – Lune Rouge
Maria Tanase & Venetian Snares – Curse
Maria Tanase – Cantec de leagan (Lullaby)

On 15th of august, an explosion took place in the maternity ward of a Romanian hospital. 5 newborns were killed by a 200 degrees fire and 6 were badly injured. No one was guarding them. No one helped them for 12 minutes. No one got blamed. No one talks about the fire 3 weeks later.

Beauty. Chaos. Rage. War. Despair. Resignation. An infinite sadness

Airships

Four harts

Metal Berry

Snakes & Tea

Nighttime and morning with Anthony Hagerty

Desert Cathedral

Pale Dog

Disparu

Myspace

Pitchfork review for the Desert Doughnuts album

According to boomkat.com:

“Gabriel Prokofiev, grandson of the great composer Sergei Prokofiev and member of indie disco-ites Spektrum (no, seriously) returns for a second collaboration with the Elysium Quartet, which once again finds the composer setting about merging classical disciplines with contemporary production techniques. This time around Prokofiev has recruited the likes of Vex’d, Hot Chip, Starkey, Conboy and Earlyman to set about remixing the original quartet composition, but kicking off the disc we’re treated to the four movements of the piece itself. The first two of these in particular are characterised by a brusque staccato, jagged and lurching in all quarters. During the opening movement, the viola is played with such severity you’d swear someone had swapped the performer’s bow for a hacksaw. Meanwhile, while just as choppy, the second movement begins to open up towards the end, transforming into the kind of rhythmic piece that actually might lend itself rather well to reworkings from the aforementioned lineup of beat manglers. The Conboy track brings a mild percussive element to the table, preserving much of the original detail, while Vex’d is predictably less reverent, slamming down some padded bass sounds and vicious weeps. Next, Marcus Lancaster eschews using outright beats right until the final thirty seconds or so, instead choosing to contort the string sounds into a right old mess. Prokofiev’s own remix is one of the best, filled with diced-up granular edits and house-styled percussiion, and Hot Chip go even further down this route to produce some very disciplined string quartet disco, as only they could. A very weird album by any measure, but against all odds it works tremendously well. Highly Recommended.”

Links: Nonclassical, Boomkat, Vex’d MySpace, Vex’d LastFM, The Elysian Quartet,  The Elysian Quartet MySpace, The Elysian Quartet LastFM, Gabriel Prokofiev MySpace, Gabriel Prokofiev Last FM.

Vid vorum smá

Himininn er ad hrynja, en störnurnar fara pér vel

More after the jump…

Haust

FOK

This is not his, but it sounds like a heavy, cold, mind blowing winter on your soul

Erla’s Waltz

Some heavy classical music

In April 2009, Iceland’s neo-classical export Ólafur Arnalds created the 7-song series ‘Found Songs’ –
recording a song a day for 7 days and instantly making each track available via Twitter. With artwork contributions
from fans via Flickr, this modern release awakens memories of a tradition that seemed lost in the digital age we live in.

You can listen to these tracks and also download for free here

Myspace

Twitter

Website

Wireless Fantasy (1960)

Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911-1990) who emigrated to the USA from Russia in 1930 (born in Manchuria), was one of the pioneers of “tape music”, created the first electronic music in 1951 with his teacher Otto Luening. In october 1952, a live concert of electronic music by Luening and Ussachevsky at New York’s Museum Of Modern Art was broadcasted live, and caused a sensation. It included Ussachevsky’s Sonic Contours (1952), which electronically modifies the sound of a piano.

Ussachevsky was one of the most significant pioneers in the compositon of electronic music, and one of its most potent forces. He produced the first works of “tape music,” a uniquely American synthesis of the French musique-concrète and the German pure electronic schools. He co-founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1959 and directed its course for the next twenty years as the leading electronic music studio in the United States. This release couples two of his most powerful and innovative scores: Suite from No Exit (1962), from the film of Sartre’s play No Exit directed by Orson Welles, and the soundtrack for the avant-garde film, Line of Apogee (1967).

Other legendary works that Ussachevsky composed in this period were A Poem In Cycles And Bells (1954) for tape and orchestra (one of the earliest electro-acoustic pieces), which was based on Otto Luening’s Fantasy In Space (1952) and his own A Poem In Cycles And Bells, and Piece for Tape Recorder (1956) for tape. In 1959, Luening and Ussachevsky founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (CPEMC), the first studio for electronic music in the USA, which featured the synthesizer “Mark II”. Creation Prologue (1961), Conflict (1971) and Creation Epilogue (1971), three parts of the multi-movement large-scale Creation, were scored for choirs and electronics, but his choral music was rather inferior. On the other hand, Conflict was his main composition of the 1970s.

Two Images for a Computer Piece with an Interlude (1969)

Links: Official page, LastFM, Wikipedia.

Born on May 23 1939, Michel Colombier began his formal musical education at the age of six. His father taught him piano, harmony, counterpoint and conducting. By eleven he started to improvise and at fourteen he discovered jazz and performed with small combos and big bands for which he wrote daring jazz arrangements. In the meantime, his father continued his education by adding the study of church organ and Gregorian chant. During his stint in the French Army he continued composing, arranging and playing the widest range of music from chamber orchestra to jazz band.

At the age of 22, he spent one year with French avant-garde composer Michel Magne and was hired as Musical Director of ‘Barclay Records.’ His first assignment was to arrange Charles Aznavour’s first album in English, produced by Quincy Jones, for release in the United States.

A few years later, he revolutionized the advertising world, introducing sounds and concepts never used before. Some of his jingles are still played today.

He entered the world of dance (in collaboration with Pierre Henry) for Maurice Béjart’s, “Messe pour le temps present.” This work was recently remixed under the title “Metamorphose” by the “Who’s Who” of DJ’s headed by William Orbit, Coldcut, Funki Porcini and Fat Boy Slim.

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Prologue/ Psyché Rock

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Jéricho Jerk

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Psyché Rock (Fatboy Slim Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Prologue (Chris The French Kiss Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Psyché Rock (William Orbit Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Jericho Jerk (St. Germain Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Teen Tonic (Dimitri From Paris Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Too Fortiche (Tek 9 Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Psyché Rock (Choped Up Coldcut Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Too Fortiche (The Mighty Bop Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Jericho Jerk (Funki Porcini Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Too Fortiche (Chateau Flight Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Psyché Rock (Psyched Out Coldcut Remix)

Pierre Henry &  Michel Colombier -- Psyché Rock (Ken Abyss Remix)

Colombier went on to co-write for many years with the legendary Serge Gainsbourg. He collaborated with some of the most prestigious artists in his native France including Charles Aznavour, Brigitte Fontaine, Jean-Luc Ponty, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, and Stephane Grappelli.

Links:  Official page, MySpace, LastFm, Wikipedia.

Benn Lee Jordan have many pseudonyms. Since 1999 his most widely distributed and eclectic music has been released under the name of The Flashbulb. Other names Benn operates under are Acidwolf, CHR15TPUNCH3R, DJ ASCII, Dr. Lefty, Dysrhythmia, Flexe, Human Action Network, Lucid32, rnd16, Sixty Six Ex, and Q-Bit.

As The Flashbulb, Jordan typically releases drill ‘n’ bass or breakcore styled music.

His style differs strongly between albums, but they all have a cohesive bond tied around fast drum programming, acid-influenced melodies, and a wide array of live instrumentation from various instruments Jordan has acquired. He also often records his melodies through MIDI-synced guitars. His guitar style and skill has gained attention because he typically plays it strung backwards, and makes heavy use of fast sweeping and tapping. The last two Flashbulb albums have featured violinist Greg Hirte, who is featured heavily on The Flashbulb’s most recent album, Soundtrack to a Vacant Life, as well. Soundtrack to a Vacant Life is, as Jordan stated in a recent interview, a step away from the breakcore genre. He also said that this step is likely to be a permanent trend in the direction of his music. Under other aliases, Benn Jordan’s work varies quite a bit.

His Acidwolf and Human Action Network aliases feature retro acid music that uses old drum machines such as the TR-808 and relies heavily on the melodies of the TB-303. Tracks made under the FlexE alias tend to be laid-back and classic acid. According to him, he showcases his more fundamental, classical, and personal pieces under his own name, Benn Jordan.

Eyes Of June

Kirlian Shores

Sensual Data

Do Not Sex To This

Planet Th

Cherokee Script

Autumn Insomnia Session

Stinger

Warm hands in cold fog

Links: Official Page, LastFM, MySpace, Wikipedia.

I heard some Shirley Bassey songs and I said to myself…I would like to say these words to somebody at my wedding…Welsh singer with totally unhappy relationships became famous when she was only 19 years old…her ‘little voice’ made her win lots of prises and to be in the tops…dimonds seem to be forever, just like her voice and her lyrics…live shows were full of her personal touch and deep emotions were transmitted to the public…modest but still always glamourous, she had the air of belonging to a magical world…

In 2001 a remix album with Shirley Bassey´s songs made her enter the electronic life. Great artists remixed her songs like Propellerheads, Nightmares On Wax, Groove Armada and more…

Yes yes yes!!! My friends didn’t t post it yet!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely proud and honoured to present you one of our icons that make us smile when we hear it…not so many people know why…but for us this song is special…

Gloomy Sunday (from Hungarian Szomorú vasárnap) was written by a Hungarian composer Rezső Seress in 1933, it soon created a myth that everybody who listen to it is tented to commit suicide. As the urban legend has it, people who were lost and had love problems were listening to the song and then commited mass suicide by throwing themselves in the swallowing waters of the Danube.

Rezső Seress has an interesting biography himself. He learned to play the piano all by himself, he was a surviver of the Holocaust (unlike his mother) and he eventually died by comiting suicide, jumping out of a window.

Gloomy Sunday can be found in thowsands of versions, but my favorite is the one performed by Billie Holiday…i urge my friends to complete this post with thir favorite versions of the song.

White Space was created as a variation on the theme of Creation. The work uses the Creation story of Adam as a guide (“formed man from the dust of the ground”). A human head appears as animated ‘dust’ as it emerges from and descends into a chalky white pool. While the non-narrative short film can viewed as the original “man” being created by God, there are also references to science-fiction and the head takes on a ghostly ethereal quality…like an alien being from another planet. Influences of David Lynch as well as the repetitious music of minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich can also be seen. In addition to directing the video, Jym Davis also appears in the work.

As i already described Philip Glass in the previous post, he is a four-time Academy Award-nominated American classical music composer. He is considered one of the most influential composers of the late-20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public. Glass’s music is frequently described as minimalist, though he has distanced himself from that description, calling himself a composer of “music with repetitive structures”.

Links: Philip Glass page, Steve Reich page, Jim Davis page, Philip Glass on MySpace, Steve Reich on MySpace, Jim Davis on MySpace, Philip Glass on LastFM, Steve Reich on LastFM, Philip Glass on Wikipedia, Steve Reich on Wikipedia.