morton feldman

morton feldman -rothko chapel / why patterns? [1971] (keep tapes alive, 2015)

Morton Feldman's 1971 commissioned piece for the Rothko Chapel is one of the most sublime works in his vast catalog of recordings. In tribute to the chapel and to his friend the painter Mark Rothko who killed himself a year before the chapel opened, Feldman uses tonal rhythms, bells, viola and a chorus in stark but lyrical consort with the reverential acoustics provided by the chapel itself. Long fascinated by the sonorous qualities of tones and how they decay and diminish over time, Feldman shared with his friend Rothko the aim to unveil the mystery of perception. Performed with a slowly unfolding arc of restrained movements and silences, there has never been a more appropriate matching of acoustics and vision than the pairing of these two 20th century mavericks. aquarius

"Think you dont like "classical" music? think again... Morton Feldman (1926-1287) NYC, is like no other. beautiful compositions constructed with patience and beauty. Theres no other mind like his, he turned composition and standard methods of composing on it's head. He used Persian rugs, artwork, silence and space as influences while most others used Bach or Beethoven. Playing alot with "in-between notes" and off kilter timing. He creates an unmatched world. You pretty much can't go wrong with any of his work. (...) A soundtrack for viewing and being in the presence of art! amazing (..) Elegant, beautiful and refreshing. A must have for any music fans collection. Limited to 100 copies on high bias chrome tape." sanity muffin

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exit to exist / the sunrise

 

exit to exist ~ self-titled (πάνθεον, 2015)

«Mirage-album, with music like laminating fog, that involves listeners to a walk in the aural forest. There's dark and pathless ocean of green everywhere around, and only music, which is mixed with silver haze, runs the show of slightly visible trail». pantheon

This album is the first tape release for Exit To Exist project hailing from Minsk, Belarus. Despite almost 10-year history of music making under Exit To Exist and many other aliases (Insumthinmagma, Nemertis, Golova!, Owl Majesty, Winter War in Tibet), Vitaut Starovojtau (the man behind E2E) released almost all his albums only in digital format, except maybe just one limited edition cdr collab with Creation VI, done by australian Twice Removed Records. This album was made with traditional guitar ambient approach – warm, soft and lo-fi sound, often so quiet that it's easy to fall asleep while listening to it. However, there are uncertain moments of dizziness and anxiety unfolding all around, so you can feel soil slipping from under your feet, turning into a hazy texture, illusory and unreliable. All of this seems very similar to a long night walk under the the rain, when small droplets dim the view and everything turns into a shiny surfaces buried in the unstable fog. Water blends houses, streets, sky and trees into a single whole... In the right mood this music works same way, filling gaps in space with soft haziness that transforms all visible objects into some vague twins. It's very easy to lose a moment when reality becomes a dream. But if you catch it and stay in it - time ceases to exist and everything occurs at the same time - with you, but at the same time with someone else. Aural paradox, mystery album. Recommended on repeat playback.

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the sunrise ~ field's silence (warmshelf records, 2015)

«The last album about fields. It's filled with all experiences about summer and nostalgic memories». the sunrise

 

 As the name suggest, here goes field recording album. Mostly natural sounds and atmospheres mixed with quiet ambient passages and loop manipulations – once again very traditional, but, at the same time, nicely working approach to ambient music making. All sounds were created & manipulated by Ivan Vavilov from Samara, Russia – short pieces of music, arranged in a way similar to portable recorder files. They may start with a click of 'rec' button and finish abruptly, but it doesn't seem unnatural. Only disadvantage here is the overall playing time of 26 minutes, but this may be explained as the part of the idea of "plein air sketches" - they might be short but it's enough to capture the beautifulness and overall impression. Listening to this tape at the beginning of snowy December brings warmest memories about summer, spent out of the city: in the steppe, by the sea, listening to wild pigeons, humming bees, evening crickets and night dogs, barking in the distance under the huge starry skies. At some point these sounds may form a kaleidoscope of tiny quanta of impressions and memories so densely intertwined, that it allows you to travel through space-time of the memory and reach some long-abandoned territories of childhood experiences – wordless, nameless, full of sunlight and life that goes in its naturally silent way. And you feel yourself as organic part of it, without reflecting on it, without any knowledge at all – just perceiving, just daydreaming, simply being alive... Such experience worth a lot and if music can bring it so easily, it deserves attention of everyone who needs such simple magic in its life.

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