dream journal institute

the dream journal institute ~ label introduction

synchronicities are signs that you're following the right path in your life. whenever they happen for real, something fruitful is going to come out of this. something inspiring. it was late at night when i finished listening to some of dr. Jeffrey Thompson's music and caught myself thinking that it's such a nice aesthetic ~ to release trippy electronic dream music as an output of some scientific establishment, an academic weight added to a type of music which is basically 70 and 80's electronic underground. term "new age" was a marketing label disavowed by many but before that it was basically a new type of science ~ spiritual  knowledge applied through harmonics and resonance, aimed to heal and inspire. with that in mind, i was thinking how cool would it be to have a new age label with all those tapes like Sounds of the Dawn blog uploads but presented as an academic institution. some hour of two of aimless late night web surfing has suddenly brought me to theastralrealms.bandcamp.com and at first i couldn't believe the "coincidence". did my thought just... actually materialised? is it a simulation which generates content in accordance with my wishes? whatever happened but it was exactly what i just imagined. but with a little twist. i couldn't recognise a single artist name on that page. but already started listening. ~ piedpaper

so, here's a little overview of my favourites from DJI, but feel free to explore on your own, as there are also hidden albums, extra riddles and some other easter eggs.  

evelyn greene ~ sensory meditations for forest bathing (2025)

i think i played this album for a couple of hundreds times. on repeat. it's just too comforting. it's that case when you can't even pinpoint what exactly captures your ear, what makes it so charming, it's basically just some minimal synth lines drawn on top of the forest hums... yet, it works like a spell. we live at the bottom of a huge ocean of air, and it's full of really beautiful vibrations which we call sounds. hums, murmurs, rustling, raindrops, bird calls... comforting aural chaos which is embedded in our DNA. and if there's anything like a purpose of humanity, it should be bringing electronic music into this equation. 

voyages ~ music for relaxation (2025) 

one of the first releases of Dream Journal Institute made by Klaus Wolfe - Director for the Musical Library  and J.A.Carson - Adjunct professor and CFO for Dream Journal LLC ~ an encyclopaedic example of valley-of-the-sun type of new age which is paradoxically is very grounding and actually relaxing (for a supposed space travel). already reissued by Fantasy Audio Magazine on cassette to an instant sold out, this album probably encapsulates the whole idea of how new age music can be utilitarian and self-sufficient at the same time. i'm pretty sure that if it didn't had the (obligatory for the aesthetics) "music for relaxation" stub, you would still relax to it quite effectively. just like the evelyn greene's album, it simply works. and i start to believe that it's due to some higher astral science behind it. 

mondholz ~ atlantean echoes (2025)

one more release which already has a physical reissue (tapes are still available as i write this) and which is baked with such a thorough backstory that it felt as watching a captivating documentary. the album leans more towards 90s sound with an obvious homage to "three Es of new age" (Enigma, Era, Enya) but still manages to keep its own direction. probably the most standing out work in DJI catalog so far, it's a good example of how that type of music can be simultaneously modern and "retro", without falling into fan service territories. probably still too weird for the mass audience and too cheesy for serious diggers. absolutely in the right spot to be something taken out of oblivion and dusted off for fringe appreciators like myself. 

• • •

long-time followers of this blog should remember Jurgen Muller and similar exercises in role-playing the unsung visionaries with bulky synths in their living rooms... but Dream Journal Institute never claims that their releases are old. the dates are all modern. but the music is not. it could be made today but still not really here. not in this world of accelerating AI post-capitalism, drone wars and extreme politics ~ call me a lunatic but i choose to believe that this institute is an actual place in a slightly alternative reality. which is just one of many. and music is what connects them. because it's an universal language. 

qoa ~ sauco

qoa ~ sauco (leaving records, 2024)

SAUCO is a fertile and bracing voyage into the Argentinian wilderness, a journey both mournful and healing—an effort to trace what has been lost, what remains, and what might return. Each of SAUCO’s nine tracks draws its name and inspiration from a lifeform (be it plant, animal, lichen, insect) native to QOA’s homeland. These songs are carefully crafted offerings to their namesakes: attempts to study, honor, and convey the essence of the thing. ~ leaving

~~~

Qoa is an example of how "neo new age" music differs from "classic" new age music in my understanding ~ when old new age looked for reuniting humans with nature, it was usually made through making inviting music to play along the sounds of nature and they could definitely go well together but were usually each a thing of its own. while neo new age tends to make music sound like nature itself, not imitating it, but revealing its truest form ~ free flowing, iridescent, unchained from the straight squared utilitarian forms which it usually has taken throughout the 20th century. not that it was never done in other types of music, but modern new age ~ well, actually Qoa here, on this record ~ seems to be closest to what can be called "ecological" music because instead of teaching a lesson about responsibilities, it makes the sound to express Nature with its very form and movement. instead of learning about some important facts, you're invited to feel it. to experience the world through how lichens do it. or trees, or a flower, or a bee ~ of course, imagined through a human abilities, yet, in case of Qoa, feeling quite authentic because her approach has something animalistic, shamanic, something which is hard to capture through any rational analysis. you simply feel it or not. but if you know at least a few words from a language which nature speaks, you will recognise the taste. you may experienced it on a hike on a starry night, on some open-air festival or maybe in your back yard while tripping on mushrooms and actually, truthfully touching grass for the first time in your adult life... or maybe you was born with this feeling and these organic languages of moving along with the sunlight, rooting towards the underground water streams and seeding, sprouting, pollinating... all are familiar to you. but even in this case you may find yourself in the midst of concrete walls, not seeing the horizon for days and wondering about some funny imaginary numbers through a little screen on your palm. and only because Nature speaks some weird, silicon languages as well. but they shouldn't be louder than others, than of those who inhabited this lovely plane(t) long before we started changing it. maybe music like this is our last chance to finally learn these languages because this music is a ultimate translator.

listen ~ support ~ cs rip

ozone

 

ozone ~ skyryks (golden ratio frequencies, 2022)

 "throughout skyryks, dark comes to light and the harmony of the cosmos reflects itself in an infinite recursion to find a mirror of your mind in the forms and sounds of music. So lay back, close your eyes, and feel your body dissipate and merge as one with the Ozone." ~ golden ratio frequencies

warped around all of the observable dimensions and inevitably going beyond them with buoyant acceleration, this sonic propulsion of an album gently takes your astral body by the scruff of the neck and throws it into an infinite ocean of melted bliss. carefully crafted with lo-fi samplers and tape-saturated synths, this album creates a world somewhere in the middle between Leaving Records' new-aged electronics and Not Not Fun's rituals from the fourth (or maybe even fifth in this case?) world. intense journey, yet, at the same time, relaxing and re-vitalizing. could've been an effervescent multi-vitamin pill, if it wasn't a cassette tape. but that's good ~ because that way you can enjoy it again and again, without any substantial side effects. and you just have to buy it once.

Skyryks is an obvious reverence to the golden era of new psychedelia, cassette revival, blogspots and mediafire links with new age tape rips, but made with so much love and dedication that it turned into a sonic hologram, where every part has something from all those other parts, influences and inspirations, yet remains a coherent whole, refracting all these sound streams just like a powerful gravitational lens ~ so we can see the whole galaxies inside it.

listen ~ support ~ cassette rip

 

tegu

tegu ~ owl island (not not fun, 2024)

Across 53 minutes, the music moves between séance and visitation, alternately lurking and expectant, bathed in a sheen of starlight and streetlights. Fellow voyagers Wave Temples and X.Y.R. join for a pair of smoky, cosmic cameos, but otherwise this is a solitary affair – locked in, looking up, mapping new constellations in the expanding void. ~ britt brown, not not fun

owl island is a place far somewhere in the universe which the US label Not Not Fun has been meticulously crafting for past 20 years ~ hazed fourth-world utopianism, full of exotic paysages which are more and more becoming a pure fantasy on our densely populated planet. though it's not necessarily Earth where Tegu sounds are taking us, since the music on the tape has no signs of humans ~ even the ever-present drums here sound more as natural phenomena in their monotonous propulsion, while well-rounded synth melodies which support them probably are metabolic product of some exquisite air-purifying plant family. there is no pathway in these thickets but nothings too dangerous as well, maybe only the possibility of dissolving in this inviting greenery. is this paradise gardens? (as the cover art suggests) or it's a fresh start for this spark of sentience once dazzled by its own greatness?

listen ~ support ~ cassette rip

 

never temple

never temple ~ throwing around an invisible ball (golden ratio frequencies, 2021)

An enigmatic duo that traverses the multiverse of time and space, Jaclyn Blumas (Doomsquad) and Alexandra Duvekot (Blue Crime) have been living in and presenting the world of the NEVER TEMPLE since 2018. We at Golden Ratio Frequencies first encountered their hallucinatory dream world during the 2019 edition of 24hr Drone festival at Basilica Hudson New York, where we were bewitched by their entrancing midnight ritual of haunting synths, ethereal cello, otherworldly voices and fantastical costumes and have been left hypnotised under their spell ever since. ~ GRF

british label Golden Ratio Frequencies is known for its love to all things drone ~ from guitar or analog rawness to digital new-agey bliss, quite often organically combined and always easily transporting you out of this realm. on this tape we have a documentation of url performance of Never Temple from 24-hour long drone festival which took place during the covid days (feels like forever ago). it has a taste of guided meditation tape, with the mesmerizing voice of Jaclyn Blumas reciting some trippy affirmations, though it's never reaches the level of cheesiness those old affirmation cassettes had. instead, it only makes you drown deeper in the thick overlays of synth and organ drones with some lysergic effects happening in the culmination points. the whole thing resembles a ritual which purpose is to reprogram your brain into a more dreamy state of functioning, to make the parking-lot-reality a little bit less persuading ~ as it has no walls after all, especially when you're throwing an invisible ball over them.

listen ~ support ~ youtube [cs rip]

lamina

lamina ~ sueños aquáticos (mappa, 2024)

under the mythical name Lamina, the aquatic creations of french artist Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle gain their own existence, free of any determinist norms and square-based logics. "Aquatic Dreams" is a very apt name for music like this ~ edited, collaged, re-composed recordings of water sounds indeed turn into dreams here, sometimes fairy-like, sometimes nightmarish (probably when they enter urban water supply systems) but never repeat themselves. even though music has a taste of electronics, it still remains organic and fluid, spahe-shifting phenomena so familiar and yet so strange. 

in connection to music, Clarise creates ceramic sculptures, which she fills with water and then makes recordings of their interaction ~ it's really captivating process, so i strongly recommend checking out her website and instagram, her installation work is a whole mysterious world of its own.

listen ~ support ~ youtube

osaki seichi

osaki seichi ~ the tale of a long forgotten sunken city
(the tidal charm, 2022)

this lovely ambient album from japanese artist was lucky to get picked up by the youtube algorithm a couple of years ago, which gained him immediate popularity in small circles of japanese-style ambient/environmental music. later issued on cassette by dutch Tidal Charm, it was sold out in mere hours (though there's a rumor about reissue). the album tells a story of submerging into the depths and sounds respectively ~ sparse aquatic tones get murkier as we go through these long-form compositions, even though never reaching dark ambient music territories. the mood here is rather melancholic and pensive, yet still melodic and relaxed, giving a good analogy of a sunken city being a symbol of subconscious regions, which our awareness is not always able to reach. probably the idea here is that one should follow a magical creature like a siren in order to reach those depths (i.e. following your intuition?). this mystical vibe permeates the album way more than resemblance to the classical kanyo ongaku examplesm even though their aftersounds are heard here as well. but this is music of inner environments, even though it's obvious they're always reflective of outer world ~ and vice versa again.  

artist bandcamp ~ youtube (original upload) ~ youtube (cassette rip) ~ label bandcamp

new mexican stargazers

 

new mexican stargazers ~ the oasis (self-released, 2023)

enigmatic (hypnagogic!) New Mexican Stargazers is a crepuscular cult of those who still deliver some juicy slices of the tropical utopia once discovered by Ferraro, Clark and Lieven Martens and many other heroes of this blog. a natural blessing, this project is a keeper of the portal to this fourth world dimension, through which our current cyberpunk dystopia doesn't feel that much overwhelming or forever lasting. there are oases in every desert, and you just found one. even if it turns into a mirage, your mana gets restored here.

direct cassette rip

+ 

be sure to check out two of his tapes for Not Not Fun
(sold out but some are up on discogs)

and the whole artist's bandcamp!

and if you're into vaporwave, then go here

navel

navel ~ meditating amoebas lp (not on label, 2024)

very far out. experimental space ambient. cosmonauts. oceans of sounds, drones, visions. since 1998.

navel is gage & floyd (günter schlienz & floyd wenzel)

no hay nada que me haga más feliz que los regalos inesperados en forma de vinilo. suena "transfer, die räume dazwischen" y ya en seguida percibes algo familiar: nuestro duo favorito de ciencia ficción está de vuelta. meditating amoebas es el equivalente auditivo del agua en el espacio exterior. un oasis rodeado de infinitos planetas y agujeros negros y meteoritos, pero también de árboles y pajaritos. new age, field recordings, notas de piano y guitarras acústicas. y esa calidez que siempre desprende todo lo que hace günter schlienz. al contrario de lo que ocurre con la música de günter en solitario, creo que requiere de una escucha más atenta para percibir todos los detalles (¿es tal vez más abstracta?), pero una vez lo haces te das cuenta del suave equilibrio entre lo orgánico y lo subterráneo. escuchar ya no es un ejercicio pasivo, es una colaboración. de la misma manera que un lector colabora con un escritor para dar vida a un libro....escuchad si no 'transfer, die räume dazwischen'.

aferrándose a lo familiar del universo, navel combina sonidos oscuros y ambientales con notas aisladas de piano y guitarras acústicas tan acogedoras como una puesta de sol. el broche final lo pone "ist das hier", que google traduce como "¿está esto aquí?" y me encanta, no imagino un título ni un final más bonito. 

...edición limitada de muy pocas copias que se van en un plis plas📀📀

listen / support

endurance & inner travels

 endurance & inner travels ~ to the ancestors
(golden ratio frequencies, 2024)

 

in the early 10s, when the cassette format has gained a renewed interest, ambient and new age were the genres to embrace it with the most love. one of the prominent projects of that period was Inner Travels, an alias of Steve Targo, a sound healer and experimentalist from Wisconsin. his albums were released at some of the best of today's new age labels ~ Sounds of the Dawn, Inner Islands and Aural Canyon. meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific, in Japan, Joshua Stefane under the Endurance alias, released plenty of cassettes as well, exploring the ambient minimalism and running Muzan Editions label together with two friends. guess it was just a matter of time before Steve and Joshua crossed paths in this relatively small world of cassette music but this meeting has brought us something truly beautiful, thanks to another top new age label of our times ~ Golden Ratio Frequencies.

even though Endurance's music could barely pass as new age, there's a certain vibe in it, which makes it close to japanese "environmental music", kankyo ongaku. Inner Travels, on the other hand, was also not so esoteric, as new age could be, but more nature-oriented, with album names like Sea of Leaves, Garden Music or Earth Connection. so what we have on this album (which in fact was made 6 years ago) is an interesting blend of environmental minimalism, clearly rooted in the outputs of such giants as Hiroshi Yoshimura and Takashi Kokubo, crystal clear modular electronica which could easily top instagram trends, and sparse asian melodism, where pauses between notes possibly play even bigger role than the notes... the sort of music which tells you more between the lines ~ and that's probably the reason why there are no track names on this tape, only their duration.

the listener is invited to a ceremony, which sometimes echoes ancient sounds of Gagaku music, but these echoes are traveling under the treetops through a refreshing morning scent of coniferous giants. the edge between the natural and electronic is blurred here ~ it doesn't matter if that's cicada or an electric circuit, both being merely an expression of life's energy which always takes numerous forms, only to express one simple thing ~ the beauty. while beauty is an expression of harmony. looking for harmony is a common place for japanese culture and new age movement, as well as for enviromentalism (most obviously) and basically any spiritual practice. but harmony between people or their doings is rarely achieved if it wasn't build on a solid foundation, namely in harmony with Earth itself. dedicating this [not too modern, yet not too retro] music to the ancestors, Endurance & Inner Travels seem to establish an important bridge between future and past, a little bottle note which says "learn from the trees", keep your roots well in the ground and reach out to the skies, to sunlight. as simple as it is.  

listen ~ support

bayou version

leslie keffer + nyoka shoje ~ bayou version (shield maiden, 2024)

In usage in the Southern United States, a bayou is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area. It may refer to an extremely slow-moving stream, river, marshy lake, wetland, or creek. They typically contain brackish water highly conducive to fish life and plankton ~ wikipedia

there are many types of drone music ~ from wall-of-sound type and harsh abrasive textures, to mellow tones sustained in the air, pure sound fields of transparency. and that's natural, in the sense that music is a part of nature as well, (a living) being produced by human creatures, which are part of nature as well, want they or not. while most of what we normally consider music is usually an expression of purely human affairs (thoughts, ideas, emotions), drone music always tends to reflect something way more basic. a pure element, refined to complete transparency in almost alchemical sense ~ to see the essence of it. as Maeror Tri, german drone music pioneers stated: "the purpose of this is to reveal primordial forces, the very foundation of consciousness...". "and nature" i should add, because the foundation is common here. 

for example why we should think of a vinyl record as something artificial when it's no different from a tree bark ~ it ages, it can be scratched, it can be destroyed in fire... but it has a history written on it. the only difference i can think of is that every tree has its own history and no bark is the same. nature is very good at making copies, keeping each and every copy unique, but what for? we can follow "the nature" (as some separate object in our mind) by trying to do the same, or we can just accept the fact that through us nature tries the new ways to copy things, to sustain them. and that's why our uniqueness is important, even if it's unseen to the modern eye wearing the market value glasses.  

this album, the first to jump-start a new Shield Maiden label, doesn't try to impress you from the first seconds. it won't be picked up by social media algorithms, it's not something you can impress a party with, only if that's a sleepover party of some droneheads like myself. but this album is meant just to be there. somewhere in the depths of Bandcamp. and i'm glad it exists. because sometimes, late at night or early in the morning, when the life is slow, i can silently enjoy it. not necessarily thinking all the thoughts i had above. maybe not even thinking at all. just being like a tree by a slowly moving stream. soaking some sunlight. and being grateful to be there.

listen ~ support

monopoly child star searchers / dolphins into the future ~ tour dates

 

neo fourth world age post drone alien psychedelia living legends monopoly child star searchers and dolphins into the future are on tour which just started yesterday! 

25 cities in 12 countries:

23/5 Barcelona 🇪🇸  El Pumarejo
24/5 A Coruña 🇪🇸 Acefala
25/5 Vigo 🇪🇸 Radar Estudios
26/5 Porto 🇵🇹 Hotelier
27/5 Coimbra 🇵🇹
29/5 Parede 🇵🇹 SMUP
30/5 Lisbon 🇵🇹 Sala Lisa
31/5 Paris 🇫🇷 Cmptrmthmtcs
1/6 Ljubjana 🇸🇮 Niansa
2/6 Ravenna 🇮🇹 Magma
3/6 Palermo 🇮🇹 Epyc
4/6 Milano 🇮🇹 Caned Icoda
5/6 Roma 🇮🇹 Teatro Delle Belleze
6/6 Perugia 🇮🇹 Spazio Modu
7/6 Prague 🇨🇿 Punctum
8/6 Vienna 🇦🇹
9/6 Sofia 🇧🇬 Equipage
11/6 Tampere 🇫🇮 Telakka
12/6 Turku 🇫🇮 Himera
13/6 Stockholm 🇸🇪 Larry’s Corner
14/6 Ghotenburg 🇸🇪 Skjulet
15/6 Samsø 🇩🇰 Agerupgard
18/6 Brussels 🇧🇪 Atelier 210
19/6 Roubaix 🇫🇷 Ateliers Jouret
22/6 Antwerp (Monopoly only)🇧🇪 De  

•••

for infos check insta here & here

also, for the occasion Edições CN is producing 4 tour-only editions.
these will only be available at the concerts and Spencer just put 3 new tapes out along the HR Giger's Studiolo vinyl reissue!

gunter herbig / laie

gunter herbig - lux (cosima pitz 2024)

…lux

Is the second chapter of my journey into transcribing Thomas de Hartmann’s piano arrangements of Gurdjieff’s music for the guitar. It also completes the sentence ex oriente lux. The light comes from the east, the first chapter having been released by the Swedish label BIS under the name ex oriente.As is typical for anyone who delves into Gurdjieff's teaching, the realisation that nothing moves in straight lines never takes long to establish itself. Mr. G, as he was often affectionately referred to by his closer followers said himself:  "without struggle, no progress and no result. Every breaking of habit produces a change in the machine".

"The recording sessions for lux started with realisation that my amp was broken and produced a distorted sound as soon as you played more than one note at a time. Many weeks of practice and preparation had gone into getting ready for the recording and the frustration to consider to abort was great. The decision to go ahead anyway was made on the spot and, in hindsight, it reveals the inner workings of the path. Nothing ever happens the way you expect and acceptance is one of the greatest lessons we can learn. I decided to go ahead with the distorted sound and let the light shine through the broken prism in its own beauty."

listen ~ support

laie - programmat (cosima pitz 2024) 

 On tender soles, Laie is wandering in between his imaginary machines, programming sound like seeds, which bloom and dance in kosmische ways, day in, day out into new directions...  

Laie aka Phil Struck's long awaited contribution to the Pitzsche Cosmos...

 listen ~ support 

sound mirrors

miroirs sonores ~ voyage au coeur de la matière (1988)

first time i got familiar with this album was through incomparably amazing Sounds of the Dawn who has been a huge source of inspiration since their blogspot times. SotD has a CD version though and Discogs haven't had an entry for cassette release, so i was sure it was CD only ~ until suddenly stumbled on this tape while digging private announces. so here's the cassette rip as well, for the sake of archiving this unique work. "miroirs sonores" is a name of a specific sound sculpture/instrument made by Bernard & François Baschet ~ french brothers, who were creating some unique sound sculptures their whole life. their own recordings date far back to 1965, when they released a documentation of the experiments with glass and metal sound objects as Structures For Sound 10" vinyl. recently their work got a renewed interest with a double LP release on the parisian Transversales Disques label, probably in the raise of interest to another renown sound sculptures creator Harry Bertoia. 

this specific tape though involves other people playing the Baschet's "sound mirrors" ~ Olivier Milchberg, his father Jorge Milchberg and Rob Yaffe ~ all of them being participants of Los Incas band, who you may know as the ones recording "El Condor Pasa" song with Simon & Garfunkel. so they come from a bit different background, playing mostly folk music through their careers and yet, they managed to create deeply meditative recording for this project ~ it's as serene and slowly paced, as Himalayan Bells of Karma Moffet or numerous Klaus Wiese singing bowls albums ~ vibrational music with a lot of air in between resonating wellsprings of sound.  

listen: cassette rip ~ cd rip

loris s. sarid

loris s. sarid - music for tomato plants (constellation tatsu, 2020)

"Music for Tomato Plants is the first collection of tracks by Glasgow-based artist Loris S. Sarid.

Written between October 2019 and January 2020, music for tomato plants is the result of Loris's growing interest in quiet, asmr-like , hyper-realistic sounds. Recorded as a series of short kalimba and glockenspiel improvisations at first, then broken down and rearranged incorporating more elements and various types of audio manipulation.

 "Music for Tomato Plants was born while taking care of a little tomato plant, grown on the windowsill of his flat during the winter 2020. The album is a homage to the unapparent courage of simplicity, and the beauty and lightness of the most ordinary things." "In the same spirit of Mort Garson, Green-House and others who synthesize the natural and musical worlds, this ambient serenade for tomato plants is a welcome saunter through a humble garden" - Charlie Moonbeam 

único vinilo publicado hasta ahora de nuestro querido sello de cintas de cassette Constellation Tatsu, pero qué vinilo!. Green de Hiroshi Yoshimura, Plantasia de Mort Garson, David Edren, Green-House, Golden Pear... ¿Qué tienen las plantas que atrae a tantos músicos e inspiran los discos más bonitos? Este vinilo rojo y comestible está dedicado a las plantas de tomate. improvisaciones de kalimba y glockenspiel, delicadas texturas y arreglos y ese aroma añejo a disco rescatado de los años 70. afirmar que las plantas escuchan y disfrutan la música que les ponemos tal vez sea dejarse llevar, pero dejarse llevar estoy segura de que es el objetivo de este disco precioso. Placidez pura.

 listen ~ support

guenter schlienz / lori pate

 guenter schlienz ~ gilded eternity (peak, 2023)

 

Seen Bigfoot? Send music!

 

qué cucos los sellos eligiendo a günter para sus primeras hornadas. peak es un pequeño sello italiano y de momento solo tiene tres cintas editadas. dos de ellas han captado toda mi atención: 'guilded eternity' de günter y 'sightings' de lori pate. ambas con portadas de big foot. ¿quién es lori pate? podría ser el propio günter. las dos cintas giran en torno a esta criatura mítica como fuente de inspiración ("¿has visto a Big Foot? envíanos tus sonidos de Big Foot") "Sightings" emerge de la nieve cual alien envuelto en burbujeantes sonidos de sintetizador. con 'guilded eternity' me derrito de nuevo, lo sé, soy gunteradicta. tan marciano, cálido, acogedor y mullido como siempre. sin querer, he aquí otra de mis cintas favoritas de un ser que no es de este mundo....su poder evocador es tal que ya no tengo palabras.

❄️ sold out ❄️

listen ~ support

 

  lori pate ~ sightings (peak, 2023)

 

 Seen Bigfoot? Send us your Bigfoot sounds.

 

listen ~ support

 

patricia escudero

patricia escudero ~ el sueño de satie (satie sonneries) (ediciones cúbicas, 1989)

"Patricia Escudero is a mysterious person who resonated with the movements of a group of musicians originated in Madrid in the 1980s, the ultra-acoustic group. She edited the 1987 record she left behind in the ''Comet of Madrid'' series and made it into a cassette tape in 1989 with the subtitle ''Sati's Dream'', produced by the genius Luis Delgado. A collection of 15 Satie electronic arrangements that will take you into the labyrinth of dreams. It's a work that originally has an end and a beginning, but when you listen to it in infinite reverse on a cassette tape, it feels like there's no way out. This is one of the high-quality reissue series that brings out a different flavor from the original, with new editing and beautiful illustrations by Gloria Van Aerssen (Vainica Doble)." sheyeye

"Spanish contemporary musician Patricia Escudero's 1987 album featuring scores by Erik Satie. It was released from the independent Spanish label Grabaciones Accidentales. Produced by Luis Delgado, a leading figure in Spanish new age/experimental music. Satie's works are often featured as modern/contemporary piano music, but this album features Delgado's synthesizer programming. It is a very fantastic sound, full of unique resonance and floating sensation. Hats off to Luis Delgado's diverse talents."

 

uno de esos discos verdaderamente especiales que siempre será un misterio para mí. había incluido varias canciones en diferentes recopilatorios, pero nunca le había dedicado una entrada. hoy elijo la portada de la cinta de cassette (dibujada por Gloria de Vainica Doble), pero el link para escucharlo corresponde a la reedición del vinilo, que a su vez, creo, también suena diferente tanto de la versión original del vinilo como de la cinta de cassette. un poco lío, pero da igual...todas las versiones al final suenan igual de mágicas. el sueño de Satie es eso, un sueño. también una rareza. uno de esos discos flotantes-milagro que, con apenas un par de instrumentos (timbres y tratamientos sonoros), se contentan con sumergirse en su propio sonido, imposible de ubicar en cualquier estilo y que, por alguna razón, asocio con Enno Vulthuys, Norma Lyon y, sobre todo, con Planeta Imaginario ("Valse Du Chocolate Aux Amandes - 1913"). su reinterpretación trémula, casi fanstasmal, de la obra de Satie, lo convierten en un regalo poético-musical casi imposible de describir: piano clásico y sintetizadores analógicos, notas de piano que aparecen y desaparecen gradualmente creando una atmósfera que te sitúa justo en el corazón del París de principios del sigo XX.

Patricia no hizo nada más, pero tampoco hizo falta. Además, está producido por su compañero de viaje inseparable, Luis Delgado (figura clave en la música experimental/new age española). la foto de la portada del vinilo, la imagen difuminada y casual de Patricia en algo que parece un jardín botánico, o el interior de una estación de tren, cual figura inintencionadamente fantasmagórica, me produce la misma sensación que la foto de la portada de Spiderland que hizo Will Oldham: quizás porque son momentos aparentemente intrascendentes en los que, no sé por qué, hay un profundo misterio.

si hubiese que hacer un ranking de discos imprescindibles y especiales a los que siempre vuelvo iría encabezado por Plantasia de Mort Garson, Norma Lyon o Cults Percussion Ensamble. o los tres a la vez. Patricia Escudero (es gallega) también estaría allí, entre los diez primeros. también cap n' jack o valerie webb & paul labrecque. curiosamente, casi todos ellos comparten la peculiaridad de haber sido sus únicos discos publicados. quién pudiera tener esa copia firmada por la propia Patricia: "para el kastillo de las lágrimas".

filed under: discos que nunca caerán en el olvido.

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molero

 molero - ficciones del tr​ó​pico (holuzam, vinyl 2020)

"Born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Alexander Molero is no stranger to the exotic idealism that westerners have towards South America. A move to Barcelona a few years ago gave him new notions of how the Amazon was imagined by the west. The inspiration for this record came from the book by Anton Goering "Vom tropischen Tieflande bis zum ewigen Schnee" and was also influenced by the writings of Victor Segalen and the visions of Werner Herzog in “Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre”. The way that these artists explored and romanticised ideas of the unknown were the trigger for the creation of the sounds heard in “Ficciones Del Trópico".

 

Using a Yamaha CS-60 Synthesizer, Molero creates an enigmatic and utopian voyage inspired by the tropical and exotic desire of European’s first contact with these foreign and unexplored sites. For his first record, he wanted to create soundscapes for the wilderness reminiscent of the European explorers that faced the unknown and beyond of the Amazon forest in the 19th century. Eight pieces, 44 minutes, with titles referencing birds, animals and landscapes that simulate a continuous discovery.

 

 

The spirited patterns of the pieces invite you into Molero’s mind and to explore the way his imagination materialises into sound. Developed and recorded during 2017 and 2018, “Ficciones del Trópico” resonates references and soundscapes that Molero has conceptualised over the last decade.

 

The constant structure and rhythms created a unique – and continuous – sound-aesthetic. Molero’s tropical fiction is like diving into the sea with Jürgen Müller, exploring Alpha Centauri with Tangerine Dream or building new exotica through the lens of Mike Cooper. But this time everything happens in a jungle.

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manoir molle

manoir molle ~ accords (pylône éditions, 2024)

"The manoir molle makes music like the hive make honey. Like a house makes dust. Like the sky makes rain. It doesn’t have any doors, only many open windows. The manoir molle is a see-through flag, drooping in the wind. Threads loop in and out. And under this shroud, a hand-carved orchestra of air.“accords” compiles twelve unreleased tracks from Manoir Molle, French microtonal electronic composer & half of the mysterious Jean-Marie Mercimek. More than crumbs, these are whirring sentient vignettes, a bee swarm of dripping wax, dancing shadows in the funhouse mirror." -twjr

para qué añadir nada más a la preciosa descripción de turner williams jr (autor de ese sol amarillo radiante de "ensoleillée" en les disques omnison). pylône éditions es su nuevo sello y viendo la primera cinta de cassette que ha escogido para inaugurarlo no tengo duda de que nos deparará muchas alegrías musicales. ¿quién es manoir molle (en realidad Marion Molle)? la voz es la de una chica que, aunque la cinta es sobre todo instrumental, a veces canta en francés. turner dice que “accords” recopila doce temas inéditos de Manoir Molle, compositora electrónica microtonal francesa y la mitad del misterioso Jean-Marie Mercimek ('nocturne 2'!, 'la flourenn'!) junto a Ronan Riou.

suena 'un jour' y me derrito. piano, instrumentos de viento que no logro reconocer. todo muy lo-fi. es como una versión particularmente acústica y abstracta de los discos submarinos de los años 70 ('imprimante'). pienso en la simpar miaux, daphne oram, laurie anderson ('fecrier') e incluso, sin parecerse en realidad, en la abuelita islandesa sigríður níelsdóttir (cuya cinta grandma lo-fi / the basement tapes tanto nos gustó allá por el 2011). será porque manoir mulle, efectivamente, hace música como en la colmena se hace la miel, y pienso en miaux cuando me la imaginaba componiendo melodías extraterrestres mientras preparaba tartas de manzana vestida con un traje antiavispas. también pienso en günter (escuchad cómo se cuela algo parecido a un sinte modular y esa flautilla tan Les Halles en 'remedium'), en las orquestas callejeras, en los órganos vetustos de pierre palla y en las fotos y portadas que reposan sobre tapetes de ganchillo. esas extrañas asociaciones que hacen que ciertas músicas vayan siempre unidas.

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torso

torso ~ set out (ozato record, 2019)

Spirits of earth and air push and pull in this set of gloriously rich and involving pieces for flute, cello, sax and tapes.

Some music makes you aware that it is only really made of moving air. Droning or rattling, shaking against your eardrum or snaking past it, sound happens between moving objects and the waiting air. This collection of layered duets between kenji (sax and flute) and Orie (cello), give you exactly that feeling. The Cello, thick and earthy, full of warm resonance, is a hard packed floor for the sunny, glassy flute to move over. While fine details are filled in by glockenspiel, wordless vocals and sympathetic electronics.

If this description (and quick glance at the cover) makes you think you’re about to hear some worthy and ‘good for you’ full fibre improv noodling, think again. Set Out is a deeply addictive record full of stretched, looping melodies informed by indie pop structures and an aching Europe-endless cafe music sadness. Fans of Mama!milk, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Sylvia Tarozzi and Penguin Cafe orchestra take note.  Magic." all night flight

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