microphones in the trees: September 2015

Friday, September 25, 2015

ignatz


"What makes this tape different from all other Ignatz tapes? Not much really. The hermitic constancy of Ignatz’s songs is part of his greatness. This is Belgium’s finest guitar loner doing what he always does~sending chills down spines by way of the minor pentatonic.


There is, however, something distinctly “at ease” about these recordings. They are longer and dreamier than previous ones. Ignatz’s voice is softer and rounder. What once were funeral songs now sound hymnal; some almost have an Americana pietism. Perhaps the move from Brussels to the small town of Landen gave license to Ignatz’s solitary tendencies. I’m inclined to believe in the album title’s joyousness (the last one was called “I Hate this City”). I guess this is Ignatz when things are going pretty well." goaty tapes

Thursday, September 24, 2015

hybrid palms


~ created during a journey to Puerto Rico ~ hybrid palms

 "melancholy minimalist tropical new age resplendence. palms were already my favourite tree ~ more so now." metaphysical digital

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

sunmoonstar / maia ibar / sapropelic pycnic


"Twins Springs Tapes is proud to offer this, the debut album from Sunmoonstar (Natasha Home, Sydney, Australia). Panoramic frequencies and percussive surfaces weave satiny landscapes. Pastel planes reflect soft complexities of clouds." 



"Maia Ibar of Dual-Split is experimenting with restorative sound voyages. She is interested in assisting you, her, him, them, to come into natural states of balance and harmonies through tones, frequencies and sound. Mysterious but familiar senses of timelessness, traveling through space, or back in the womb... Seeing "when you close your eyes," and "I see." We can always see, we are awake, we are awake."

synths, bells, chimes, drums, tibetan bowls, vocals: Maia Ibar 
guitar, bass: Baptiste Ibar 
vocals: Jean-Pierre Ibar 

listen ~ buy

sapropelic pycnic ~ see sun think shadow (perfect wave, 2015)

"Sapropelic Pycnic is the solo project of Kathleen Baird of long running avant psych project Spires That In The Sunset Rise. On her debut release as Sapropelic Pycnic, Baird releases a stunning 8 track record of piano improvisations performed on a Steinway Grand in December of 2011 in a church in her hometown of Decatur, Illinois recorded just days before her father’s passing on December 30, 2011. These improvisations have a raw focus that premiere Baird’s piano training as well as very own style of punctuation, spacing and repetition. Her approach brings to mind the playful, spacious qualities of Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou, the unrestraint of Cecil Taylor, the rolling arpeggiations of Alice Coltrane, and the ghostliness of Arvo Part." 

buy vinyl ~ listen / buy

Thursday, September 17, 2015

kyle landstra – unshared properties



Quadruple-cassette, limited to 50 copies, will be released on September 25, 2015

When your perception is affected on many levels starting from basic emotion and achieving pure transcendent states of deep meditation experiences – it is a certain sign of good ambient music. What started as an experimentation with lo-fi drone patterns, blossoms now as a gorgeous crystal-clear universe of wide spectrum sounds. Through last few years Kyle's music saw an exponential grow and what we have now presented by always inspiring Sacred Phrases label as a four(!) tape documentation of extensive exploration of variety of synths & effects. Creating different worlds, Kyle Landstra takes us to a journey where astronomical-scaled objects are decorated with exquisite microscopic details and we are constantly moving between them, touching surfaces full of light inside them, feeling warmth of hidden energies and smelling an odours never experienced before. Powerful, but still minimalist sequencing meets here multi-layerness of drones and early-morning pureness of reverberation. Minds are open, all energies interconnected – it's easy to feel the links between Universe and yourself, to travel that way. Ever-unfolding fractal of manifestations that we usually call life. 

In terms of listening, "unshared properties" serves as a powerful tool for consciousness expansion. Usually equal to psychedelic experience it is yet not the same thing. This music isn't hazy or confusing, it has no intention to overwhelm the listener. Instead of that, Kyle creates a state of total awareness, when you can feel everything perfectly clear, when all impressions are perceived simultaneously, but you can easily focus on any selected and move forward watching it evolve without losing attention to any other detail. It's a certain sign of masterpiece and I hope that time will prove this. Meanwhile, we are here and now – probably watching the dawn of a new era in electronic ambient music, and Kyle Landstra works at the forefront of it. 

Thursday, September 03, 2015

blue communion: isam



existen pocos músicos tan apasionantes como Sam Jones, el hombre que graba como Bill Doob aka Virtually Underwater aka... o igual es cosa mía, pero decidme si hay alguien, con permiso de Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, que transmita una aura de espiritualidad y misterio tan grande. estoy muy emocionada con esta cinta. tres años después de algo tan delicioso como 'celestrial stairway' seguía esperando alguna señal. primero fue su cinta en mmm sound, y de repente inaugura su página de bandcamp con tres cintas nuevas (dos las tengo en mis manos, 'cloud forest' y 'mirror/time' son reales aunque no lo parezcan, por cortesía del propio Sam Jones. gracias gracias gracias). y 'aqua abduct' (¡aqua abduct!) del 2010. estoy literalmente desbordada, quería hablar de todas, pero hay algo diferente en 'dream time in totem land' (un proyecto que al parecer seguirá creciendo) con respecto a las demás y a Inspired School of Astral Music en particular. Bill Doob da rienda suelta a su vertiente más tribal y alcanza la hipnosis total al más puro estilo Tuluum Shimmering. inevitable pensar también en Clime y sus civilizaciones antiguas. percusiones totémicas, tribus amazónicas extraterrestres, vibraciones, frecuencias, resonancias y ese órgano lisérgico-celestial inconfundible que me desarma. en 'totem 3', lo más bonito del mundo, las notas flotan más ligeras y atemporales que nunca. pienso en Hariprasad Chaurasia sentado junto a Mammane Sani et Son Orgue, tal vez por el organillo de aroma ligeramente hindú que parece una flauta... el cielo. Sam Jones es, junto a Günter Schlienz, Jake Webster y Josh Burke mi debilidad más debilidad. ancestral, lunar, hipnótico, adictivo. no me importaría volver a escuchar dream time ahora ni dentro de un rato ni dentro de un par de horas ni mañana ni pasado ni al otro...


listen ~ buy

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

morning jewel / josh burke / stella haze



ojalá algún día midnight star media y gift tapes renacieran de sus cenizas. Morning Jewel es Josh Burke (Sky Limousine, Ocean Diamond, Silk Fountain, Futuresport) y no hay día que no me pregunte qué fue de él. mil cintas bajo mil nombres distintos, todas mágicas, todas irrealmente hermosas.

listen ~ download

josh burke ~ imagination part I, II & III (midnight star media/housecraft, 2009)

"warm synths drift beneath tape hiss, gliding along under the weight of sometimes as little as one tone in a manner not unlike the ultra spacious new age excursions of Dolphins into the Future. similar recording approach too it sounds, opting for the kind of "pretty as recorded cruddy" sound that Skaters love. alot of this stuff sounds like it's actually quite light and fluffy stuff, but it also sounds like all of that fluff is being played about three floors below you, so all you get is the skeleton of the sounds..." the ear-conditioned nightmare

download part I ~ part II & part III

 stella haze ~ thaw (gift tapes, 2009) 

"the transition of cold, cracked earth to a soil fit for promoting life energy, Stella Haze traverses seasons and dimensions. eeaving thick fields of synthesizer, Wurlitzer, and voice, the formation of a weightless aura that sifts through the air molecules like an eel through dark waters. this is Cristin Miller’s first as Stella Haze, a digression from her former work with avant folk-rock duo Emma Zunz. Thaw is a magical minimalist affair that leads it’s followers into eternal light, like the spirits of newly formed clouds awaiting their entrance into the evening skies." gift tapes

sold out ~ download