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London based record label Erased Tapes Records is the home of some great neo-classical artists like Nils Frahm, Ben Lukas Boysen or A Winged Vicotry for the Sullen. So, there is no wonder that the re-formed iconic orcestra group Penguin Cafe joins the label. In the past the originally Penguin Cafe orchestra lead by Simon Jeffes was active from 1972 until 1997. In 2009 his son Arthur Jeffes continue the band.

Currently the band consists by a ten-person line-up on stage. This year the band celebrates thier debut “The Imperfect Sea” on Erased Tapes Records. A comment by Arthur Jeffes: “For this album I wanted to effect a departure from where we’d been up to now. The idea was to create a musical world that would feel familiar to an audience more used to dance records but stay true to our own values. So we replaced electronic layers with real instruments: pads with real string sections, synths with heavily-effected pianos, and atmospheric analogue drones with real feedback loops ringing through a stone and a piano soundboard.” Indeed “The Imperfect Sea” is a modern record with classical elements. The instruments harmonize in a perfect way. Each track has his own personality and in it’s entirely “The Imperfect Sea” sounds timeless. But this wasn’t my inital feeling on this. At first I believe this isn’t very exciting. “The Imperfect Sea” combines neo-classical elements with jazz and ambient. Tracks like “Cantorum”, “Control 1 (Interlude)” and “Rescue” shines bright. This year looks also good for neo-classical records if we look back at the beginning of 2017 highly recommended records by Max Richter and Bing & Ruth released!

After her first EP “Vertical” back in late 2014, Berlin based italian artist Caterina Barbieri released her first full length record “Patterns of Consciousness”. It’s a drone record full of buchla synthesizer patterns. I swiched my attention to this record after I have read an review from it.

I’m a big fan by italian artist Alessandro Cortini, so it’s no wonder that he highly recommends “Patterns of Consciousness” by Caterina Barbieri. Cortini has written the following lines for “Patterns of Consciousness”: “Patterns Of Consciousness finds Caterina Barbieri at her best, elegantly moving between melodically pleasant yet twisted sequences and comforting, reassuring sonic spaces. Every piece, while given a singular identity, is part of the bigger picture: a work of art that will push you, pull you, and then eventually leave you with your back against the wall once you get to the last track.” I’m fully agree with this description! There are less artists outside that can play the buchla synthesizer in this way. Two years ago I visited a live performance at Berlin Atonal by Alessandro Cortini and it blows me away. Cortini plays one of his greatest releases “Sonno” in it’s entirely. This year Caterina Barbieri will also play at Berlin Atonal, so it could be also an outstanding live show. “Patterns of Consciousness” is not a short one by a play time over an hour, but it’s so diversified in it’s entirely that you never lose the focus. If I have to choose only two highlights from it, I will pick the slowley “INCAEB” and the long epic closer “Gravity That Binds”. It’s a beast of a track with an incredible climax at the end!

After two excellent records in 2016 for Posh Isolation, Mats Erlandsson returns with a collaboration album on Miasmah. Last year we were thrilled by the awesome drone / electronic / experimental outputs “Valentina Tereshkova” and “Selective Miracles”. This new collaboration sounds not different in every way but you will recognize the fine details.

It sounds like a combination between folk and drone elements. The basic mood on “Negative Chambers” is gloomy and oppressive. It starts with the slowly guitar based “Cornelian Cities”, that fades into an alarming background noise in the end. Follow on track “Orchid Sedation” starts in a similar way but it takes his time. It is such a beautiful melody that will not again leave your mind! This basic mood is like a red line on “Negative Chambers”. The album uses a massive range of instruments including steel-guitar, zither, harmonium, gimbri, transistor radio and Tibetan singing bowls to conjure a sound that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. There is some incredibly detailed and wide sound design encompassing the pieces, from the pictural stillness of Orchid Sedation to the unnerving mass of dissonant strings on Ceramic Relic. Glotman & Erlandsson are masters in creating a sound filled with solitude, anxiety and intrigue. Recorded both independently and in very close correspondence between Stockholm and Berlin, Negative Chambers is a dialog between the two composers and manages to be both a meditative reflection on the past while also presenting a surreal and detailed piece of contemporary music. Maybe “Negative Chambers” do not fit in the modern world, but anyhow it feels like a modern tone experience from start to finish. If you are interested in dark ambient music you should not miss this record!

After two great predecessor records from 2010 and 2013, Liverpool producer Matthew Barnes returns with a new one and his label debut on Ninja Tune. His critically acclaimed last effort “Engravings” released on London based electronic label Triangle Records. It is also the home of artists like Haxan Cloak, Holy Other and Balam Acab.

The incluences of Matthew Barns alias Forest Swords are complex. Some elements comes from dubstep and others could be fragments of world music. Back in 2010 american online magizine Pitchfork Media compares Barns alongside to artists like James Blake, Mount Kimbie, Burial or Four Tet. “Comapssion” represents the next step of evolution in his discography. It starts with the intese opener track “War It” and his distorted atmosphere until the drums kicks in to force the rhythm. The follow on track “The Highest Flood” takes away the pressure and plays with voice samples. This track could be a great sample for a typically Forest Swords track. “Panic” shines with his fantastic horn and triangle intro. It sounds beautiful and frightening at the same time and the voice samples provides the rest. But Barns is a master of samples distortion. “Exalter” is one of the best examples. This track is catchy and unsteady at the same time. All in one you can hear in almost every track a mystical touch. Also on “Compassion’s” first sinlge track “Arms Out”. It’s the only track on the record with truly voice acting. At the end “Raw Language” rises the tempo and rhythm again until “Knife Edge” fades out in beautifully piano driven outro. There is no doubt that “Compassion” is his most completed work until now.

My initial thought for Loke Rahbek’s “City Of Woman” was the following: It marks a big homage to Tim Hecker’s masterpiece “Virgins” from 2013. This reference is by the way the highest praise for a drone / ambient record. While Hecker explore’s with his last effort “Love Streams” new ways in matters of synths and echos, Rahbek create’s a pure drone record.

The opener from “City Of Women” reveals already the Posh Isolation background from Rahbek. Last years “Valentina Tereshkova” by Mats Erlandson sounds familiar in some cases. “Fermented”, the second track on it embrace the piano elements from Hecker’s “Virgins” in a beautiful way. These parallels also appears on the title track “City Of Woman”, an 6 minute long synthie drone beast. After that, the atmosphere started to switch to a more darker place. “A Mess Of Love” and “Palm” could be also appears on Raime’s 2014 successor “Quarter Turns Over A Living Line” from 2012. It is astonishing how variant this record is! “In Piles Of Magazine” set the volume bar to the maximum until the strain falls down with the piano snippet “A Word A Day”. There is no doubt this is one of the highlight moments on “City Of Women”! The last two tracks “Swimwear” and “Take Pleasure in Habits” completes this record in the best way it could. As a drone record Loke Rahbek succeeded to manage the balancing between complexity and catchiness. Until now 2017 is full of great releases and “City Of Women” is no exception. Mindblowing!

Sometimes history repeats. As parisan electronic artist Paul Régimbeau alias Mondkopf starts with the recording of his new album “They Fall but You Don’t”, Paris was attacked by terrorism. It was the night of the attacks at Paris based club Bataclan during a concert.

If you look back in history of influential drone records you will find William Basinski’s “The Disintigration Loops” with a similar origin. Basinski completed his record exactly at the day of the attacks at the World Trade Center on nine eleven. Both records combines there intense and oppressive atmosphere. “They Fall but You Don’t” starts with an spoken intro by an italian child until the Buchla styled drone sounds predominance the setting. “Vivere, Parte I” markes a brilliant start into the record. The follow on track takes it time at the beginning and increases his volume until the peak. Paul Régimbeau gambles on his new album with these up’s and down’s in a nearly perfect way. It sounds very familiar to artists like Alessandro Cortini. Like Cortini, Régimbeau builds intense drone segments with a steady gain. If you listen to Cortini’s last masterpiece EP track “Est” you can find these similarities. After 40 minutes the record closes with “Vivere, Finale” in a more optimistic style. The sound of the used synthies feels warmer then before and the pressure drops at the end. “They Fall but You Don’t” is an unexpected perfect drone record and another great piece of music in 2017. Worth to listen and highly recommended!

Back in March, Manchester based music distribution Boomkat highly recommendend an electronic underground release by Kailin. There isn’t much information about him on his facebook account and if you looking further on the Bandcamp site from Mistry you can’t get more.

“Fracture” marks his first full-length release after a bunch of EPs with some of his label mates Batu, Laksa, Chevel and Webstarr. It is not easy to describe “Fracture” but for me it reminds me sometimes at the first efforts of Nosaj Thing and Arca. It is electronic music with ambient elements, sometimes dark and sometimes it sounds like a sci-fi soundtrack for the new Blade Runner movie. This combination isn’t totally surprised if you look at the roots of the record label Mistry. It is a club oriented record label. But “Fracture” isn’t a tipically club record. With it’s ambient elements “Fracture” disintegrating classical dancefloor structures and builds his own dark sci-fi world. Sure, Boomkat has a little bit overpraised “Fracture”, but in it’s entirely perspective it is definitely a great record and worth to listen. Label owner Beneath describes it perfectly as “uplifting whilst also being dread filled…”

Neo-Classical veteran Max Richter releases with “Music From Woolf Works” already his ninth record, but these releases do not include all of his score works. His discography is very impressive. Classic music wasn’t very popular in the past, but nowadays there are some great neo classical artists like Nils Frahm, A Winged Vicory for the Sullen or Bing & Ruth. All of them combines typically classical elements and put them in a new structure.

One of the key instuments is unequivocal the piano. So there is no wonder that UK neo-classic label Erased Tapes organize an extra day for that unique instrument – The “Piano Day”. And this year the London based label also celebrates his 10th birthday. The piano is also very prominent on “Music From Woolf Works”, that based on the novels of Virginia Wolf. Richter creates an impressive score with story cut-outs from Mrs. Dalloway / Orlando. His biggest success on “Music From Woolf Works” is the gambling of dramatic variations in almost every track. The scores opened by Virginia Wolf’s herself. She reads a portion of a essay: “Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations”. One of the best tracks marks “War Anthem”. It sounds impressive from start to end. Tracks like “Modular Astronomy” and “The Explorers” comes to life with Richter’s arrangements of electronical elements. “Music from the Woolf Works” closes by the extended 21 minutes momentum “Waves – Tuesday”. At the beginning the background noises was dominated by ocean field recordings and the Gillian Anderson’s voice until the melody fades slowly in and the strings comes more to the foreground. At the end you can hear the howl orchestra! It marks an beautiful end of an fantastic record! It will be a shame if he can’t play at Elbphilharmonie in the next couple of months.

After the new Emptyset in January on Thrill Jockey, Bristol based experimental/drone label Subtext releases another surprisingly good drone record. In the footprint of Tim Hecker, Roly Porter or Paul Jebanasam newcomer Sabin creates his own sharp drone/noise world.

Just a few seconds in, you might believe your headphone is damaged, but I can calm you, it’s not. Like similar other great drone records, “Terminus Drift” do not delivers simple stuff. The Scottish producer creates compley industrial structurs through a digital spectrum. He combines atmospheric textures, field recordings and a wall of growling distortion. These field recordings were captured in transit through Kyto, Tokyo and Berlin. “Terminus Drift” is an absract soundtrack in almost every moment. But it sounds never the same. Every track stands alone. One of the best attributes on “Terminus Drift” is the fact that you can fade out almost your whole envirement. The feeling about time disappears. It delivers the beauty of dark, clattering noise. If you like drone and noise music and names like Tim Hecker or Roly Porter aren’t totally unknown, this one is a highly recommondation!