soundscapes

Experimental soundscape / electronic netlabel Frozen Elephant has their 13th release out, this time by Stretchandrelax a project of Elise Ladoué and Félicia Atkinson. Not unlike AGF’s experiments with vocal and soundscapes, Stretchandrelax explores micro spaces via “field recordings, beats, spoken words and instrumentation”.

Ghost Box is one of the most cherished labels here at undomondo thanks to their nostalgic soundscapes and the hauntology inspired conceptualism. Their new release by Belbury Poly is out and we’ve been listening to it since a few days.

The first piece is by Brethren of the Free Spirit duo consisting of 12 string acoustic guitar virtuoso James Blackshaw and lutenist Jozef van Wissem.

Now that the winter seems to retreat and a faux air of spring has already arrived in Istanbul, it’s becoming hard to play anything other than spring music in the radioshows. I’m pretty sure though, the weather’s still messed up all around the world, so there’s a whole bunch of you who’ll love this odd mix of short soundclips and textures & nervous electronic pieces.

Ardent debut from Minnesota experimenters To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie created quite a hype after its release on Kranky late 2007. “The Patron” is sinister yet unlike a lot of noisy artists not completely devoid of any musicality in the common sense (is it watered down noise or noisy electropop you decide).

Hello all, I’m back in Istanbul, gonna finish the best of list tomorrow and storm into some great new stuff I’ve been amassing since a few weeks. For today, here’s a mix by our friend Cenk Akyol which accompanied me well in a gloomy London morning.

One of the maturest albums of this year is by Death Ambient, I’ve checked this album a few times but couldn’t delve into it for some reason. A week or so ago I gave it another spin using headphones and I was freaking enchanted by it. Death Ambient is the laptop jazz supergroup composed of notorious experimenters Fred Frith, Ikue Mori.

Fellow Turkish guitarist and composer Erdem Helvacioglu has released a full length on the prestigious contemporary music label New Albion. His 2003 release “A Walk through the Bazaar” on Locust Music was part of the Met Life Series which focuses on field recordings & soundscapes.