David Sylvian has been working out on these minimalist reaches of the sound universe since his ‘blemish’ album. This set of variations brings a fractured coherence to the experiment which generates a whole new experience. This is not a remix album – typically they are derivative of the original. Instead, using the original source material a completely new mood piece is created. Impressive.

I’ve been listening to Sylvian’s music since the mid-70s when I first heard ‘Quiet Life’ by Japan. What an immense journey to reach the point of this album. And it’s a journey I have thoroughly enjoyed following with him.

It is fantastic to hear a musician who continues to explore and push out the boundaries.

“And the radio falls silent
But for short bursts of static
And she sleeps in a house
That once too had a name”

Well, if you want to reconnect with your imagination you could try listening to Jóhann Jóhannsson’s album “And in the endless pause there came the sound of bees”. In the very first track where there is the sound of seagulls arising out of the orchestral strings, the imagination can’t help but build pictures out of the music.

It is deeply emotional music, which will lift and drop your spirits as you listen. And just when you think you are listening to traditional string-based soundtrack music, things veer off into ambient distortions that drop your head underwater in a dramatic way.

The whole thing is just under 37 minutes long (that’s what vinyl used to be on average), and leaves you feeling both soothed and disturbed. It’s a beautiful achievement and a landscape of your own mind which I recommend you spend some time building. Enjoy.

Well, I ran out of capacity on the 40GB machine some time ago, and hunted for a replacement. After a long time hesitating, I decided to jump in the Apple pool and an iPod Classic 160GB came my way for Christmas.

Am I enjoying it? Yes, I am. I still don’t have all of my CD collection on there yet – but it’s doing all the things I wanted.  A relatively new feature, Genius playlists, is particularly brilliant for mixing a playlist based on the track currently playing. It also has Genius Mixes which puts together streams of tracks based on a particular theme – which is determined by the content of the player.

I was a reluctant user of iTunes, but it works well even if it is a bit slow (probably because my laptop is ancient!) It handles podcasts beautifully. And the iPod’s handling of video is fantastic.

I was also really pleased to see that I can also record on the iPod. I bought a little plug in microphone on Amazon for just £4 and it opens up software which is already on the machine. I can record memos on the go and then listen to them back. I’ve also used this feature to record ambient sounds when out walking.

As I write this I am listening to a Podcast from WFMU called Downtown Soulville (obscure soul 45s). All in all I am impressed.

ECM is unusual in the world of record labels because it has such a strongly defined aesthetic. The label produces an incredibly diverse range of artists, but there is always that ECM sound which is difficult to define, but very easy to identify.

So, after so much music, I am writing about ECM again now because they have just produced two wonderful albums:

• Jan Garbarek Group -Dresden
• Keith Jarrett – Testament: Paris / London

Both are live albums. I was surprised to realise that this is the first live album for Garbarek. It’s a double album, and captures the excitement of seeing him live. The group has gone through some changes over recent years, partly because of bass player Eberhard Weber’s stroke. He is replaced by Yuri Daniel. This is a tough place to fill – Weber’s playing is so distinctive. Daniel’s playing is beautiful, lyrical and underscores Garbarek’s saxophone perfectly. The other change is Manu Katche on drums – he has worked with Garbarek a lot recently. He replaces Marilyn Mazur. She was always more of a percussionist than a straightforward drummer. Katche brings more of a rock drummer feeling to the music. Between them, Katche and Daniel make for a very different rhythm section which brings some different interpretations of some of the older material. Rainer Bruninghaus remains as the keyboard player, his playing ranging from the frenetic to the achingly lyrical.

The Keith Jarrett album is a triple album covering two live concerts from last year. I’m always amazed by Jarrett’s live work. The idea that he appears on stage to improvise new compositions then and there is remarkable. He says that he always begins with an empty mind – no preconceived ideas. Then, through a series of pieces (short for Jarrett)  he builds a collection of 20 remarkable performances. They are incredibly diverse. The two concerts are very different. As ever, Jarrett is at his best when he searches out a rhythmic melody and then works it to a beautiful conclusion. This is an extremely emotionally laden collection – his best work for years.

So, from two artists who I first heard nearly 35 years ago, come two beautiful albums. A real treat.

If you like the work of Garbarek, and would like to read a book about his music, I think the best book available is probably Michael Tucker’s “Jan Garbarek: Deep Song” – the book focuses on the music of Garbarek but it is also a marvellous exposition of the broader work of ECM.

His latest album was talked about on internet based mailing lists for the few weeks before release, and there were clips on his website to listen to. It was clearly not going to be an easy listen. Alongside Christian Fennesz who worked with Sylvian on his last solo album (the stunning track “Fire in the Forest” from ‘Blemish’) are a wide range of avant garde musicians including Evan Parker and John Tilbury.

It has taken me a couple of weeks to get to listen to this album properly. It is not the sort of album to put on in the background. Over the last few days I have listened to it on headphones. Sylvian’s voice is placed way up in the mix and the other instruments create a subtle soundtrack in the background. Most of this is missed unless you use headphones. It is a difficult listen, but one that is rewarded massively. The sounds are so stripped down that it takes a while to figure out what is going on. But there is structure here, and the lyrics and voice of Sylvian hold the whole thing together. Many critics, including Ian Penman writing in the latest issue of The Wire, say that they have lost it with Sylvian. They think that he has pushed his music into a cul-de-sac. I don’t agree. I think this album is a staggering achievement. To take the fractured, fragmented and skeletal sounds of the two groups which he worked with on this album and craft the resulting work, is remarkable.  I feel like I have really only scraped the surface of the nuances in this music. It is a work that truly repays the effort put in.

1. Porcupine Tree – The Incident

Already reviewed this. It’s their best album to date. The range of music and variety from intense to melodic.

2. David Sylvian – Manafon

Review coming – music that requires effort to listen to. Worth it for the pay-back.

3. Jonsi & Alex- Riceboy Sleeps

Best ambient album I have heard in a while.

4. The Duckworth Lewis Method – The Duckworth Lewis Method

An album about cricket from two Irishmen! Neil Hannon from Divine Comedy shows what a great lyricist he is. It’s ELO meets 10CC.

5. Madness – The Liberty of Norton Folgate

A concept album from Madness – whatever next. Great tunes and a massive track to finish the album.

6. Bach – Mass in B Minor

Listening to this is like a marvellous antidote to modern living.

7. Porcupine Tree – Stupid Dream

An older album by the band – not as good as the new one, but great tunes and it really rocks.

8. A-ha – Foot of the mountain

I’ve always loved the music of A-ha. This new album by them is a return to form (a cliche I know, but it is!)

9. Jan Garbarek Group -Dresden

If you search for Garbarek in this blog you’ll find earlier reviews including a live concert I saw. This new double live album is wonderful. Eberhard Weber is still not around, due to having had a stroke, but this new line-up produce great music.

10. Keith Jarrett – Testament: Paris / London

ECM go from strength to strength. This is a live triple CD of two concerts. Spontaneous composition / improvisation. Beautiful melodies plucked out of the air by Jarrett.

It’s a two disc collection – the first disc comprising an extended piece of 55 minutes. In the form of a suite of 14 songs, the music and lyrics are the reflections of Steven Wilson arising from an accident he observed whilst waiting in a traffic jam. The title comes from the road sign “Police – Incident” which he thought was a really cold way to describe what was happening.

This disc does bring us to the realisation that prog rock is well and truly back. The idea in the 70s that punk swept away prog excesses with the return of the 2 minute hit (‘New Rose’ by The Damned had a cover of ‘Help’ by The Beatles that went so fast it was under 2 minutes!) – was never very convincing when you look at the speed with which bands like Public Image were experimenting with form and length.

Porcupine Tree have always pulled themselves in two directions probably led by the fact that Steven Wilson seems to like melody and noise in equal parts. At its most pop, this album is beautiful – at its noisiest it does something wonderful too.

The second disc is a short EP-length work of 4 tracks. The whole thing needn’t have been spread over two discs but I think it works better that way. I’ve listened half a dozen times so far, and am getting hooked into this album…

A couple of weeks ago I bought this album, just as it came out. I have been a big fan of Sigur Ros since I first came across their music a few years ago in Wire magazine. I love Wire magazine – every issue introduces you to heaps of bands and musicians you will never have heard of. They push the musical boundaries (sometimes too far, but that is the point!) Anyway, after hearing a track by the band on a compilation CD given away with the magazine I set off to explore their music. This was around the time of their untitled album known as () which I bought and thought was the most original music I had heard in years. So why am I telling you all this? Well, having continued to follow their music and their ascent to wider fame I was very interested when this new album came out. Jonsi is the lead singer in Sigur Ros and Alex is his partner. It’s a deeply ambient album. On first listen I was struck by the subtlety of the music – there’s immense depth but it is masked within a deeper wash. There are tracks that are very reminiscent of the work of Brian Eno – but, whereas Eno uses repetition and mechanistic approaches, this music has a deeper layer of emotion.

 After many listens now, I sat down last night to listen to the album again – but this time through headphones. It was a revelation. There is so much going on in each track which is simply lost to the room when listening with speakers. It opens up a whole different perspective to the music. Each track creates a stunning soundscape which depicts a combination of melody (just, as far as is possible in the domain of ambient), rhythm and a backdrop of found sounds which prompt visual imagery in the listener. The use of children’s choir on a couple of the tracks is breath-taking.

I know it is tempting to stop liking a band when they become so popular that they can be heard behind countless trailers on the BBC, but I am still in love with the music of Sigur Ros, and this album shows that the band members are still pushing the boundaries and prepared to explore new challenges.

ambientblog

Follow the link above to find a blog which belongs to Peter van Cooten. From the website, the following:

“Starting in 2000, I have created quite a few ambient mixes that were presented on dutch radio. The earlier ones were created for uninterrupted four hour broadcasts (!!!). More mixes were to follow, but the radio shows that hosted them gradually became shorter and shorter. Four, Three, Two and finally One hour per show. Still a good length for an ambient mix, by the way. But is proved to be a sign: in october 2009, the radio show I was co-compiling was finally terminated.

That was the moment to find another platform to present this beautiful music. Not only for the older mixes (that will obviously prove to be worth listening to still), but also to create new ones and share them with ambient music lovers worldwide.

Locally, interest in drone/ambient may be sparse, it’s considered a ‘niche market’ that most record stores don’t even bother to stock. But on the internet this musical subculture is very much alive. So a weblog linked to a podcast presenting the mixes is the most obvious choice.

Starting in june, 2009, I will publish all previous mixes on this weblog/podcast. I will publish them in chronological order, starting from 2001, until now. And of course this will be the place to publish new mixes too!

What all of these mixes have in common, is that they are not restricted exclusively to the music defined as ‘ambient‘ or ‘electronic‘. Mixing this music with other music from different genres often enhances the ‘cinematographic feel’. Some of them may prove to be accessible (meaning ‘listenable’) even to people that are new to the ‘ambient’ genre. For those that consider themselves experienced listeners the combination of fragments may sound quite different than the separate parts in itself. To me, every mix seems to tell a story.”

It’s a fantastic resource. Go on, download a podcast or two, darken the lights and sit back. Each one lasts an hour or so and drifts through so many of my favourite artists. If you like what you hear, listen to the rest. What a treat!

1. Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

I have their first two albums – I love the way their music is developing. The psychedelia of this one particularly attracts me. The track ‘Fire’ brought the crowd to their feet at Glastonbury.

2. Eels – Meet the Eels: Volume 1

I loved ‘Novocaine for the Soul’ when it came out. This is a retrospective which shows just how talented Mark Oliver Everett (E) is! A great songwriter.

3. No-Man – Schoolyard Ghosts

I’ve been following this band for a while – this recent album is stunning. Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) makes great music and Tim Bowness sings in a beautifully fragile voice with great lyrics.

4 . Jon Hassell – Last Night the Moon Came Dropping its Clothes in the Street

The unique path that is Jon Hassell continues to become more mesmeric and spell-binding! The use of the studio as an instrument is becoming more astounding in his work.

5. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

It’s like Neil Young starting again – with a broken heart and an acoustic guitar.

6. Steven Wilson – Insurgentes

Wilson’s solo album has fantastic big tracks with great guitar work and frequent collapses into brain-shattering noise. He really understands how to shift from beauty to chaos.

7. Tom Waits – Small Change

Early album – I’m gradually buying up the back-catalogue whilst waiting for the new one!

8. Doves – Kingdom of Rust

Fourth album shows how tight their music is – a three piece with soul and prog all mixed up.

9. Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires

Reminds me of A Certain Ratio meets Jamiroquai (the good bits of each!) I love the innocent energy and infectious dance-ability of this album.

10. Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light

OK, everyone says about the voice, but what about the stunning album cover, the arrangements and the range of this album. In a world carved out for itself.