modern classical
Track/Video: Composer of definitive ambient music Adam Wiltzie previews solo album with the spectral beauty of ‘Tissue Of Lies’.
It’s staggering that in around thirty years as a key contributor to the development of ambient and modern classical music, Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie has released very few ‘solo’ albums. Firstly there was 2015’s ‘Travels In Constants Volume 24’, then a couple of soundtrack compositions for ‘Solero’ in 2016 and ‘American Woman’ three years later. Still, …
Album Review : John Garner – ‘Movie Night’ : Re-imagining the soundtrack through an improviser’s lens.
That most singular of labels, Lewes based Difficult Art And Music consistently end the year with a flourish. They capped 2022 with their three volume cassette release ‘Bivouac Of the Avant Garde’, a fulsome resume of the experimental, leftfield scene from those on the inside. Now to round off 2023, the final release from the …
Album Review : Anenon – Moons Melt Milk Light : taking its own path to absorbing places.
Electro-acoustic musician Brian Allen Simon (aka Anenon) is an artist who has always absorbed place and context, destinations that have shifted with each release. ‘Petrol’ from 2016 bustled and boomed with the kinetic energies of his home-town LA while two years later he took residence in the serene Tuscan hills to produce ‘Tongue’, an album …
Track/video : James Heather re-imagines his poignant track ‘Hidden Angel’ to uncover new dimensions.
This is in many ways a brave record. Neo-classical composer and pianist James Heather has just released the a new version of his track ‘Hidden Angel’ via Coldcut’s label Ahead of our Time and as you would expect from the boundary pushing explorer of ‘pulse’ music, it’s a piece with resounding emotional depth. A re-interpretation …
Album Review: Berlin Strings – On a dark night (Edition DUR 12)
Edwards Berlin Strings is a classically trained chamber ensemble specializing in collaborations with pop and indie musicians, as well as cinematic compositions. The quartet consists of Lisa Marie Vogel (violin), Johanna Wundling (violin), Tabea Haarmann-Thiemann (viola) and Luisa Babarro Fernández (cello); the inspiraton is to make classical music more tangible for the modern listener. With dissonances …
Album Review: Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully – I Hope They Let Us Hunt Like Men In The Next Life: Thrilling experimentalism/challenging sounds from the DAMM founder.
Difficult music, what does that mean? Is it something at the opposite end of the spectrum to easy listening? Or is it all relative to the individual? I mean there are some people (and this may be a confession) who find any Abba song excruciatingly difficult to get through. Or maybe difficulty simply means that …
Album Review: Difficult Art And Music – bivouac of the avant-garde: an engrossing record of today’s experimental and electronic scene.
In advance of another year of boundary pushing projects, specialist label Difficult Art And Music (DAMM) have just released ‘bivouac of the avant-garde’, their expansive survey of the contemporary experimental fringe. Previously available in digital instalments, the entire collection has now been assembled in a quintessential triple cassette box-set and, as usual with DAMM, the …
Track/Video: Heinali previews the emotive title track from incoming album ‘Kyiv Eternal’, an electronic overture to his resilient home city.
Music can help make meaning of seismic events and when they co-exist the impact is profound. Kyiv-based composer and electronic musician Oleh Shpudeiko aka Heinali has lived within the Russian invasion of his country since the war began, documenting in soundscapes the devastation and hope, despair and elation of the everyday experience. From May to …
Track/Video: Surveying at the edges – DAAM presents ‘bivouac of the avant garde vol 2’.
Lewes/Brighton based experimental music label Difficult Art And Music (DAAM amongst friends) are certainly setting the pace with their alternative countdown to the festive season. In October, as part of their expansive rummage through the contemporary fringe music scene, they revealed the first instalment of this vital review ‘bivouac of the avant garde vol 1’ …
Track/Video: DAAM announce ‘bivouac of the avant-garde’, a stunning three part excursion through experimental soundscapes.
What makes for the best small labels? A clear identity, enthusiastic curation, independence and endurance are good for starters. Well Difficult Art And Music (DAAM) gives you all of these plus heaps of creative ambition. Focusing steadfastly on the experimental and specialising as they say in ‘short-run, research-orientated, art-objects’ DAAM releases come as music tapes, …