Updates!

The blog hasn't been particularly active these last couple of months, as I've been busy. So I thought I'd make a post updating on some new projects I have been setting up.

Firstly, not a particularly new project - I've recently revived the Tessellate Recordings label which I considered folding last year after redundancy. Last month, we released a massive 2 hour compilation which was curated as an attempt to raise money to 'save' the label. Well we have reached the target and now have the funds required to press forward with a series of limited edition CDs! Work has already started on the first of these and we've also spruced up the web-page too to prepare for it. You can check out Tessellate Recordings by clicking the following link: www.tessellate-recordings.com

Secondly, I have set up a new digital label called Warehouse Decay Recordings, which I am curating alongside Pleq. It is a big tangent from my usual involvement with the Ambient music scene, as the label will be dedicated to various forms of Deep House and Techno. However, several of the releases will be by artists you'd normally associate with ambient music, operating in a different mode. We began releasing at the beginning of April and already have a busy schedule going forward.
Check it out here: http://warehousedecay.com/

With all of these projects, I have made the obvious decision of steadying the release rate at the Audio Gourmet netlabel. I am still passionate about making free EP releases and the label is very much alive, but releases will be much less frequent than in previous years. We've got some real quality lined up for release this year so stay tuned! Most recently, we released the superb 'Cadder Falls' by Caught In The Wake Forever. Take a look at Audio Gourmet here: www.audiogourmet.co.uk

I have been working on a new project called Grounding Sounds for the last year and I've finally decided to buy a proper domain name and make a go of it, after strong initial interested. The series sees artists, musicians and labels presenting a 1 or 2 part mix of their all-time favourite music across all genres. It is aimed primarily as a bit of fun - something different and interesting to listen to as you surf the web. It is hoped that it will point people in the direction of obscure music they might not have heard before.
You can get stuck into the shows here: http://groundingsounds.com/

Finally, with all of these new projects, you might be wondering what is happening with my solo work as Spheruleus? Well I have been working on some exciting material for the future but in the meantime, I decided to revisit some odds and ends on my hard-drive to see whether I could put some of it together as an album. I wasn't sure any of it would fit, but somehow, I managed to edit/sequence them to be pretty coherent as a collection. I recently set up a Spheruleus Bandcamp account so that I could host my full discography in one place, so I wanted to make something exclusive for it. You can check out 'Clearings' by clicking play below:

Bruno Fleutelot - Ozo Viv [Eglantine Records]

We see reissues occur regularly in all styles of music and often, already widely known records are re-packaged, re-branded and re-contextualised to drive further sales.
However, the limited nature of low-run CD and vinyl pressings coming out of small labels means that very few people on this planet will be likely to hear the recordings. Sometimes, old releases can drop off the radar as labels close down or move forward and there can be little trace of them ever having existed.
Fortunately in the case of Bruno Fleutelot's 'Ozo Viv' originally released on Im Lauf Der Zeit in 2005, Eglantine Records have decided to re-issue the album - giving it another chance to have its say, with a new audience.
Fleutelot's discography spans back to 1998 with 'Private' and his work as a musician even longer. Bruno is a man of multiple projects whether it be flying solo or as part of duos and bands. For the last ten years, he has plied his trade in producing soundtracks for short films and documentaries as several live performances.

The atmospherics in Ozo Viv's opening track Mare Moscoviense would imply a heavy listen lies ahead. Do not be fooled from this first glimpse! What lies ahead is a magnificent set of recordings that come highly recommended. There is a wealth of texture and differing moods that will retain your interest if you allow yourself to listen in full. Such is the diversity of the palette, several other artists come to mind as I listen
After a briefly pensive moment that opens the record -littered with guitar effects - scrapes, screeches and sustained electric guitar texture, a clearer guitar sound is welcome in Mare Fecunditatis. The press releases cites Labradford as an reference and I certainly felt this here, and in other areas of the record. Palus Nebularum is no exception from this, returning with more of the atmospheric guitar effects, this time given warmth by deeper drones underpinned with a paralysing sense of melancholy. Once the subtle haunting female vocal comes in, I was reminded of Svarte Greiner's fabulous Knive album and from here, Ozo Viv truly has its grip on my ears.
Mare Marginis allows the guitar to return to focus - with Bruno's playing feeling a little sinister, especially with the electric guitar feedback creeping in and out. Onto track five and the monolithic Mare Smythii carefully adds a brooding presence to Ozo Viv. It is hard to believe it is just three minutes long - perhaps attributed to the slow guitar playing and the sheer level of attention to detail. Sinus Roris adds a darker tone to the album and here I was reminded a little of Johann Johannsson's Miners Hymns - with the feel of the distorted feedback and static.
The noise and power is turned down to allow some silence to creep in at times in Mare Humorum; a respite that does not detract to the prevailing effect of the record. In the second half of the track, a drum and louder guitar sound kick in suddenly, adding a well-timed, well-executed twist to breathe life back into the steadily decaying ship that we had been sailing. It doesn't last long and the closing moments end quietly to carefully introduce the beauty of Oceanus Procellarum, the album's shortest piece.
Enter Mare Australe, a piece which opens out with flickering vintage ambient synths before taking you on a  journey mapping the sounds of a decaying piano. Here, Sylvain Chauveau came to mind for a moment before I stopped trying to compare this fabulous record to that of others. The power and effect of this album strikes me hard here - it is made all the more powerful by listening to the full spectrum of sounds preceding and it feels like an epiphany. Mare Tranquillitatis opens with sounds of crashing waves and the lightest moments of guitar on the album. This is very well placed indeed following the heights of the previous track. French spoken whispers pan in either ear as it lushly plays through. In Marc (Pt 1, 2 & 3), this record must end. This piece is included as a bonus track not on the original record and since listening to Ozo Viv for the first time is in this configuration, it does not feel like a bookend at all. I remember Aidan Baker's For The Sea And Shore as I listen to these closing moments and glance back at the titles of the tracks that make up Ozo Viv.
I notice a prevailing link to the ocean, assuming my dormant mind informs me correctly that 'Mare' is sea in Latin. There is no reference to a theme or concept in the press release and I am too lazy to take a crash course in Latin for me to work out the track titles. Here lies a true sign of a powerful, well produced album - it has an ability to translate the artist's ideas and concepts through the compositions. Without the faintest knowledge of what Ozo Viv is about, I am able to understand fully and connect with it.

Bruno Fleutelot's Ozo Viv comes with my highest recommendation. There is so much to it, that I could write for hours about it. Already, I feel I have missed some key points - not least the stunning artwork and packaging that Eglantine have put together in collaboration with Aurélie Brouet.
As I touch upon the physical aspects of the record for a moment, I return to where I began this review...it is available in another limited run of just 300 copies! {BUY / LISTEN}

Darwin Raymond - Somewhere The Sun Shines Brightly [Analogpath]

http://analogpath.com/main/somewhere-the-sun-shines-brightly/

Analogpath have developed a knack of consistency in their approach to releasing high quality ambient and experimental music. Not only is their standard hand-stamped recycled packaging and artwork printed to traditional Japanese rice paper a tried and tested format, the music contained within each disc is always of high quality. The label has not been active for long but already they've managed to deliver us excellent albums by the likes of Pillowdiver, Celer and Stray Ghost to name but a few.

The latest album out on this fabulous imprint is by Darwin Raymond, entitled 'Somewhere The Sun Shines Brightly'. Having spoken to Darwin when he assembled a fifteen minute EP for Audio Gourmet, I had an inkling that once Tetsuo had signed him up to Analogpath, his work was likely to be good. Not least because  I associate quality with both, having worked with them.
I was lucky enough to get hold of a reviewer's copy and I have to say whilst I enjoyed the sample on the label's website, I was bowled over by the sheer excellence contained within the eight tracks that make up Somewhere The Sun Shines Brightly on first listen.
For some reason, I had expected the murkier, dark drones that Darwin had concocted for his EP on Audio Gourmet so when I first played the CD, I was struck by the great beams of light that emanate from the music.

Somewhere The Sun Shines Brightly implies a longing for the sun, for warmth and better days. It hints that the conditions in which it was recorded were not so bright. However, this record is so full of warmth and radiant brightness that it is difficult to imagine that it might have been created under a dark cloud, during dull weather or at the depths of despair.
The guitar is nearly always a warm instrument, and this becomes the focal point for this album. Darwin's playing here is used in several different approaches - for warm droning texture, as discernible passages of melody and as bent or slide notes. These give a great diversity to the album, to set it apart from others who have attempted similar themes. The tinge of melancholy throughout keeps it from being saccharine. The all-round execution is so good, that it's difficult not to draw comparison to one of the all-time great ambient albums 'I Could Not Love You More'. Of course, it is different in many ways and has its own voice but I felt reminded of it at several points during the album.

In summary, this is an album that will fill the room with its light, with or without the sun. I have a feeling I will be listening to this all summer long and likely returning to it some more once winter returns.
 {LISTEN / BUY}

Ben Fleury-Steiner - Clearings [Rural Colours]

'Clearings' is the latest release on the Rural Colours label and their first outing of 2013. A glance at the three pieces in the tracklist and you'd be forgiven for assuming that this one is another of the label's excellent 3" CDr releases. On closer inspection of the track lengths, you'll notice that it is in fact an album released on CD, in a limited run of just 150 copies.

Like most of the highly collectible Rural Colours releases, this will not hang around for long - especially given the quality of the work. Ben Fleury-Steiner is an artist that I've kept an eye on for years, with his 'As A Means Through Which I Can Speak' album being a fond favourite in my collection. He has also released an album on Low Point called 'The Places That Find You' in 2011. Now for Rural Colours, he returns with a set of three tracks in which he strives to let go of what he calls his 'anal retentiveness' in the studio. One can assume that he was trying to overcome the urge to use his tried and tested production methods in favour of creating something with new techniques. A first listen through and there is still the evident hallmark of power in the bass frequencies, which I associated in previous Fleury-Steiner records. This makes his work ideal for play on good quality sound systems, turned up loud so that the full benefit can be heard.
I tend to listen to music with headphones, a listening setting in which you can uncover the other key trait to Ben's work - his meticulous attention to detail. Despite any difference in approach and tone through the three tracks, there are carefully woven layers of detail in each.



The album's opening track is the imaginatively titled 'Wind Up Bird's Lament', in which you can make out traces of acoustic instrument sources flowing on a bed of droning mulch. This piece reminded me a little of the work of Christopher McFall or Philip Sulidae in the way that it was quite sinister with an underlying element of power to it, without ever boiling over.

Second track 'Parallax' explores what you might call purer drone territory, although again, the great attention to detail and texture help it stretch beyond that. Like the term or not, I think this is evidence as to why some 'ambient' music is often called sound design, as opposed to drone - with the dense layers of detail setting it apart from being a mere chord drenched in delay. The beauty in Parallax is how it twists and turns in many directions; never staying static; holding your interest. At one point, it builds to reflect the breathlessness you might feel when confronted with a dramatic landscape and then a few moments later, this transforms effortlessly into feelings of doom and horror.

Closing piece 'Glade' initially feels like a second movement to Parallax, deploying a similar technique - which after being so immersed in the previous track is no bad thing. If you listen carefully however, Glade is a more linear piece, with the drone sounding suspended - looping and twisting only slightly but just enough to appear different. It hangs in the balance for a few minutes, with Fleury-Steiner dropping detail in and out to accent it.  The piece is highly meditative and of epic beauty. Towards the final third however, Glade adopts a new tone for just a moment only to sweep delicately back to the original, to reassert itself. It is surprising just how refreshing it feels when it returns, as if the main drone to Glade had become a part of you somehow.

All in all, this is solid work from Ben Fleury-Steiner and highly recommended. The packaging features art direction from Ian Hazeldine and stunning photography from the talented Jürgen Heckel. {LISTEN / BUY}

Stafrænn Hákon - Prammi [Sound In Silence]

The first label to approach this year since my intentions of increasing the posts on Audio Gourmet for 2013 is Sound In Silence. They kindly send over their two latest releases for review, by Stafrænn Hákon and J.R Alexander.

So first up, I present my thoughts about the latest Stafrænn Hákon album 'Prammi', which has already been reissued due to popular demand. Stafrænn Hákon is the pseudonym for Icelandic artist Olafur Josephsson, the work of whom I have been following for a few years now. For those new to his sound, you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd fall into a similar category as the likes of Olafur Arnalds and Johann Johannsson, since Iceland is renowned for producing quality modern classical music. However, Josephsson is perhaps most known for his post-rock sound, active since the late nineties.

Before I began to listen, I took a glance at the tracklist and noticed something familiar - the inclusion of a piece named 'Hvarf 12' and having listened, it seems to be a 2012 adaptation of a track included on Stafrænn Hákon's 'Í Ástandi Rjúpunnar' album.
Josephsson's more recent material has been increasingly veering to a purer rock sound, with the additions of upbeat drums and guitar patterns and vocals. Whereas his earlier works were perhaps more subdued instrumental post-rock. Where 'Prammi' is particularly effective is that it draws on this artist's years of experience and through all of the different sounds in his albums. It is evenly spaced using the careful placing of these different styles through each track.


Prammi opens out with what you might describe as the classic Stafrænn Hákon sound before moving towards his more recent work in the second track 'Klump', which hints at the work of Boduf Songs, which is never a bad thing! On from this, we here the re-interpretation of Hvarf which then moves onto something new to broaden the album's palette...a piece of pure droning texture.
Whilst 'A Personal Voyage To Meat Planet' is oddly titled, it does offer respite from the pleasant, largely upbeat post-rock sound that preceded. Not only this, its minimalism offers a pause in which anticipation for the rest of the album heightens. I gather that fans of pop and rock genres would skip the drone pieces but in doing this, we rid the album of its most effective part.
When I used to DJ, I would often play a couple of tracks that were largely percussion, stripped back and minimal. I would then follow this with something melodic and with a lot of atmosphere, with the impact heightened by the few minutes of minimalism that went before it.

Sure enough, the melodic post-rock returns and with impact. This is then followed by another short interlude of textured ambience aptly titled 'Passage'. I can't help thinking here, that perhaps it would be more effective to swap this with the following track 'Hoff', which would space the tracks and their differing sounds apart a little. That said, this point is of such little bearing on the overall effect of Prammi and who am I to question Josephsson's ideas. Prammi continues along with the effective formula of post-rock, both instrumental and vocal interspersed with short drones to great effect.
By the time we hit tenth track 'Lusher', a more laid-back and vibe sets in, followed by the fractured music box tones of 'Before'. For me, the album is at its most beautiful in its final quarter which is rounded off with 'Wait', the album's darkest piece. Again, its placing is apt - it makes sense to include this as the last track; a final reflective moment as this remarkable album draws to a close.

Physical copies are still available at the time of writing, hand-made and hand-numbered by this excellent emerging label. Their current roster of artists is more than enough to make their Bandcamp page a regular haunt amongst fans of quality experimental music.
I've been a long-term fan so I feel qualified to issue this bold statement: Stafrænn Hákon's 'Prammi' is perhaps his most accomplished body of work to date and rewards a listener that gives it the time to play out in full. The way that Olafur Josephsson positions the tracks whether upbeat, laid-back, instrumental, vocal or glacial is what sets everything off here. He has shown great restrain in creating this album, which will shine whatever the weather. Highly recommended {LISTEN / BUY}

Revised ambitions for 2013!!

Barely two weeks into my ridiculously ambitious idea of posting about an album every day in 2013 had failed, after I'd had a few ales the night before and no sleep. The reality had kicked in that this was going to be more an occasional thing than regular, since I just have too many commitments to sustain it.

This is not to say that I don't see posting on the Audio Gourmet blog as important, however. My intentions were at least good - helping direct people to experimental music that they might not have heard before, helping artists and labels gain new fans - even if it's only just a couple!
So, I will continue to post about albums old and new whenever I get the chance, albeit in a more irregular pattern...

Since this year I find myself rather skint and unable to plump for the preferred vinyl or lavishly packaged CDs, I am currently relying on the following to build my record collection:
(1). Buying mp3s instead
(2). Friends sending me their records
(3). Buying odd tracks on iTunes/Boomkat - selecting only my absolute favourites from an album
(4). Immediately re-investing any slither of royalties from my own albums
(5). Listening to my existing record collection
(6). Streaming albums on Bandcamp - longing for the day when I can afford to download it for my iPod!

This may sound like a bit of a public plea for promos, press advance records etc...well, maybe it is, a little! But I promise, providing I enjoy the record, I will put something back and write a few words about it - sharing the links to the release page here on the Audio Gourmet blog. My write-ups or reviews won't be as eloquently written as the likes of Fluid Radio or A Closer Listen but like them, my passion for good music will shine through and hopefully introduce people to it new things.

I was very pleased to hear personally from a few people that had bought albums featured in my end of year show last year. I said before I made the show - it might take up a great deal of my time in putting it together but if it gets just one person to check an artist out and buy their record, then it has been every bit worth the effort on my part.

Day #0008: Richard Skelton - Landings [Sustain-Release/Type]

RICHARD SKELTON - LANDINGS

[Sustain-Release/Type] 2009

I've made no secret of my fondness for Richard Skelton's work and I dare say that most readers of this post will already be very familiar with his excellent music. For you people, give your eyes a rest and dig out your copy of Marking Time, Verse Of Birds or Landings - sit back and enjoy the show.

For those unfamiliar to the work of Richard Skelton, I will attempt to write a few words but really, just hit play below and you'll quickly arrive at your own decision.



Despite having been a long standing fan of his work, I often find it quite difficult to describe it. I have even got the accompanying book to Landings and have read it many times whilst listening and without just copying the book, it is difficult to try and write a quick snapshot of it. Landings is an album and subject of depth, whilst being simple at the same time.

Richard Skelton produces raw, rustic and emotional music, usually inspired by the landscape around him. When he produced 'Landings', he was living near to Anglezarke in the Lancashire moors, UK. The album is a result of four years spent recording during which, Richard immersed himself in the area. He and his music almost became one with the landscape and the more you listen, you will too. This may sound a little corny but genuinely, if you listen to Landings, it is literally tied to the landscape from which it was inspired.

There are a few versions out there - with a little digging around, you should be able to get the edition on Type, in either vinyl or CD. The vinyl is absolutely wonderful, somehow adding yet more depth to this body of work. If you can get hold of a copy, it will be well worth what ever you pay.
Then of course, there is Richard's Sustain-Release platform, in which he makes special limited runs of his work, with a personal touch.
I have run a quick check and he has some copies of Landings available: {BUY}

Finally, you'll definitely be able to buy the album in mp3 format. You can go for the Type release on the likes of Boomkat and iTunes, I'm sure but the best experience would be direct from Richard Skelton's Bandcamp page. In this special edition entitled 'The Complete Landings', he includes a wealth of bonus material:
{LISTEN / BUY}