A somewhat Angeresque visual collage, made with edited and compiled Public Domain material from The Prelinger Archive. Music: Lost Galaxy by Dead Admiral (from the album Of Spirits & All Flesh, 2010). Vimeo Festival & Awards 2012 entry, in the Remix category.
A composer of prodigious talent and impressive musical inventiveness, Nehoryn offers a "retrospective" of his earlier compositions in a 12-track collection by the eloquent title of Memory's Garden. It is always exciting to observe how an artist's work has evolved with time, what elements and influences determined its development, which of them were left behind for good and which were the crucial ones to remain and mature into something even richer and more accomplished.
An appetising single of ambient electro, inviting us to a voyage of the heart and the spirit; the melodic lines, percussions/drums and sound effects form a universe of stark beauty, soothing for the ear and purifying for the soul.
Vermillia is one of those one-of-a-kind artists who pursue their own vision regardless of genres and classifications. A musical as well as visual concept - concise collections of intensely evocative instrumentals, with very pretty hand drawn covers that depict Anime style female figures and faces.
An odd, haunted waltz suspended in mid-air through the mist. A slow oriental melody snaking its way along a lazy counterpoint of percussions and bassline. A fragmented, intoxicated march flirting with languorous violins.
A delicate mermaid choir, electric guitars, synth and an ostinato drum groove echoing the rhythm in Ravel's Bolero: the eponymous opening track of Urzhia-Kan's second album, Atlantik, promises an engaging and adventurous musical experience.
Symphonic arrangements and experimental researches in an album featuring unexpected piano harmonies, quasi-minimalistic stings and winds and an almost outworldly choral part, as well as a couple of more rhythmic tracks where the tendency of stylistic exploration is significantly prominent.
A slideshow video clip of sorts for the Turquoise of Winter instrumental by Dead Admiral (from the album Queen of Clubs, 2009).
13 moments of death by The Gloomster (yet another project by the poet Arne Pahlke) is described by the author himself as the "soundtrack" to a "film" depicting the many different ways to die. Death by accident, recklessness or illness, by law (execution), by the hand of a murderer or by one's own hand. Being killed in a war is a serious possibility as well, but that would be an entirely different story and what mostly interests Arne here is, I believe, the view of death as a private, individual experience - a more or less unpredicted occurrence in the routine of an otherwise peaceful, or at least ordinary life (with the obvious exception of Long way to the electric chair) - though "ordinary" is actually a term too generalised to apply to the vicissitudes of each particular person's way of living.
A beautiful and gripping title and an alternation between darker and luminous, tender and energetic themes, with the eponymous track being one of the highlights of the album. The reference to a "canonically" sinister literary character such as Lady Macbeth could not be better accompanied than by blood and roses, both symbols of femininity and metaphors for the dangerous facets of the human soul.
There is no "immaculate conception" in art any more, but on the other hand there is an abyssal gap between this undeniable fact and the currently dominant mentality in the music industry, according to which everything new that is created has to be an almost identical copy of something already known and "officially recognised", so that it "has the right" to fit into a strictly defined category or genre. But genuine music (and art in general) is, and should be, what defines, redefines and/or defies the existing genres and categories; totally indifferent to the established "rules", it forms its own if necessary, only to do away with them when they are no longer needed.
Video clip for the Vanessa & Annabella instrumental by Dead Admiral (from the album Pareidolia, 2009). Poor image quality is due to age and low resolution of source film excerpts.
3908 is the fruit of an unexpected, if not improbable, collaboration between two artists whose diametrically opposite musical temperaments promise an intriguing (at least) auditory experience. The extremely minimalistic cover and laconic, enigmatic title do a really good job at disguising the tumultuous richness hidden within. This is an album that should by all means be seen - and most importantly, listened to - in conjunction with the personal view of art expressed by each one of its contributors.
Besides being the stunningly mature and elaborate work of a young prodigy, Music of Youth by The Melchiades Estrada Band constitutes also a historical point of reference for digitally composed music, since the medium used for the creation of these tracks (Protracker on an Amiga) is now obsolete. But the artistic value of this work is undeniable as well, demonstrating the composer's absolute mastery of his material and means.
This isn't usually the kind of music I listen to, but I was attracted by the black humor of the cover. The 1-hour track begins with a rhythm and female vocals that have a kind of dreamy quality, only for the rhythm to become gradually more energetic and invite the listeners to dance, or simply get immersed in the ambience and enjoy.
A very sweet and original album, conveying the alternating ambiences for the four seasons of love in a descriptive and at the same time pleasantly abstract and figurative way.
Besides the powerful beauty of the music, one of the elements that always impress and pleasantly surprise me in both Digital series by Project System 12 is the titling of the tracks. Titles that could also refer to paintings or other works of visual art; unexpected combinations of words, pieces of sentences that seem to have been cut out of a narration, references to mythical events or unknown stories that the listener is tempted to "reconstruct", using his/her own imagination and feelings.
The title predisposes perhaps for something different, but what the creators of this album have in store for the listener is in fact an orgy of guitars: two amazing guitarists demonstrate their talent and virtuosite in improvisations full of passionate madness (or mad passion).
A pleasant album with nice lyrics and good recording quality. The singer's voice is very warm and the instrumental melodies create a dreamy atmosphere that carries the listener away.
It is always welcome and refreshing to see an original idea applied to well-known material. This album takes us back to the lost paradise of childhood, through beloved, universally familiar melodies.
