Emerging R&B talent T R U V O N N E drops powerful yet moody track “Take My Hand,” with fluid blend of wistful lyricism and an alluring soundscape . Led by melodic vocal lines laid over haunting synths and hazy beats, the ambient number is rooted in the rising act’s cinematic signature.
Managing to balance a captivating and resonant instrumentation with a lo-fi atmospheric vibe, the track takes us on a soulful journey built upon gentle yet crisp musical layers.
With a narrative-led touch to her ever-evolving artistry, T R U V O N N E whose music has featured in various hit TV shows continues to pull everyone listening into her effortlessly yet carefully crafted sonic world as she sets herself up for bigger and better things in 2023.
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David Kitt has also announced a tour around Ireland and UK to celebrate new album, Idiot Check.
Phenomenal Kerry-based musician David Kitt has returned with the announcement of his new album, Idiot Check, via RE:WARM. On the upcoming LP is ‘Wishing Well,’ the third song on the tracklist.
“’Wishing Well’ is about being on the run from memories/your past and memories fading/morphing/appearing in dreams and asking yourself what are you running from exactly,” Kitt explains.
“Running from yourself or something other than yourself? Some ghostly spectre that you can’t really pinpoint. It’s also about the void left by the absence of religion/superstition and who we ‘blame’ or project things onto in that absence. The song explores where these two things overlap I guess.”
The song is a lo-fi, ambient spin on traditional folk music. It sets the expected experimental tone for the rest of the tracks in Idiot Check, which are expected to explore a range of not just genres, but socio-political topics too, like the absence of religion.
“‘Wishing Well’ relates to the void left by the decline of religious institutions and what we turn to in the absence of faith and superstition. These are the themes that recur throughout the record on both micro, personal levels and macro, societal levels. The record also explores the defiant necessity of the creative act against the backdrop of its apparent folly.”
Idiot Check drops March 31st, 2023. The 10-song LP is the artist’s ninth album, self-produced and recorded between 2016 and 2020 across Europe, in thrilling locations like Dublin, Paris, and the remote Ballinskelligs.
Kitt credits the beautiful Kerry haven as the “perfect environment” for writing.
“The lack of environmental noise and distractions, and being 30 seconds from the Atlantic Ocean all created the perfect environment to get the job done. It still continues to be a source of great inspiration, succour and the principal driving force in what’s been a genuine purple patch for me.”
Since the writing process began in 2016, Kitt reflects that “many of the songs were started in a pre-Covid world, but when Covid happened it gave the half-finished songs a new hue as if they were from some former version of reality, and this led to all sorts of creative inspiration that was quite unexpected.”
“The pandemic gave everything the quality of a remote dream that was somehow really healthy for my imagination.”
David Kitt by Neil J Smith.
Some of the themes of the album also focus on personal issues Kitt faced as a result of the pandemic.
“My partner had moved home to Australia and my intention had always been to follow her,” says Kitt, “but Covid completely changed the situation and unfortunately our relationship didn’t survive the pandemic. You can hear this in the lyrics I suppose, perhaps most obviously in ‘Wexford Strawberries’.”
Accompanying Kitt in his new LP is Dublin alt-pop band Soda Blonde’s drummer, Dylan Lynch for the ‘Wave of Peace.’ Katie Kim, a regular collaborator, covers the back-up vocals in several songs.
Finally, for the haunting track of ‘Oh Folly,’ Canadian singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O’Hara lends her voice.
The tracklist for Idiot Check is as follows:
1. Every Little Drop 2. Not So Soon 3. Wishing Well 4. All Folly 5. Its In Some Of Us 6. Leave Me Making 7. Wexford Strawberries 8. Till The End 9. Balances 10. Wave Of Peace
New Paltz resident Cheryl B. Engelhardt was 2 1/2 years old when her parents took her to her first live music event, a piano concert. The toddler sat mesmerized and wanting to hear the music without distraction, put a chubby finger to her lips and shushed the people around her.
A few decades later, she’s Grammy-nominated for Best New Age, Ambient or Chant Album.
Engelhardt’s love of music continued through high school and into college at Cornell University, where she majored in marine biology. She took music classes as electives, but her advisor pointed out she almost had enough credits for a double major. Engelhardt only took one marine biology job after graduation, and since then her career has been all about music.
Before she became a New Age artist, Engelhardt was more of a singer-songwriter, a “Sarah Bareilles meets Alanis Morissette meets Cheryl Crow” type, in her description. She put out four albums, toured, played house concerts and ski resorts and worked on film scores.
But then she got a composer residency in Greece, which spurred a shift to experimental piano music. It was there that she made “Luminary,” her first New Age album.
Engelhardt wanted to work out some anxiety, grief and other emotional residue from her father’s death a few years prior, and the intention was to make music, not an album per se. But by the time the residency ended, she had 10 tracks that worked together.
“The first tracks are a little busy and dark, and then they slowly unravel, slow down, and turn more positive,” Engelhardt said. “Each track latched onto some sort of emotion — anxiety, sadness — and I realized that’s what I needed to help me with my meditation and processing.”
Typical meditation music was either too simplistic or too melodic for Engelhardt.
“I found I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing during meditation, which was look at what I needed to look at in myself,” Engelhardt said. “So I thought, what if I could have the music help you latch on, help with focus, keep you present?”
It worked. “Luminary” was released and shot to the top of the New Age charts on Amazon and iTunes, doing much better than any of her pop albums. Engelhardt said she laughed and asked herself, “Am I a New Age artist now?”
The answer was yes, and Engelhardt now confidently describes herself as an “edgy Enya.” Engelhardt quickly followed up with another New Age album, “A Seeker’s Slumber,” which also did well, before she arrived at the place where she composed and recorded “The Passenger.”
While “The Passenger” was born from a deeply emotional place, it wasn’t recorded in any one physical place. The music was written by Engelhardt in a roomette on Amtrak as she traveled between New York and Los Angeles. She’d planned to attend the 2022 Grammys with her best friend and collaborator, Kevin Archambault, but then the Grammys were postponed and Archambault died from cancer. Engelhardt decided to go anyway, not for the award ceremony and not with her friend, but maybe to compose an album. She thought that nobody had ever made a record on a cross-country train trip, and she wondered if she could.
By the time Engelhardt reached Los Angeles, she’d cried over the loss of Archambault while also being moved to tears by the natural beauty — the full moon, hundreds of elk, the frozen Colorado River — that she witnessed on the journey. Engelhardt traveled with a mini keyboard, laptop and headphones — essentially a mobile recording studio — and after crossing the country, she’d recorded 12 tracks, nine of which would become “The Passenger.”
On the return trip, Engelhardt worked on edits and reached out to collaborators such as Lili Haydn, Sangeeta Kaur, and Danaë Xanthe Vlasse. A few men perform with the Dallas String Quartet, but other than that “The Passenger” is completely composed, produced, mixed and mastered by women. It was released in April 2022, and quickly became a New Age bestseller on Amazon and iTunes.
Meditation brought Engelhardt to compose New Age music, and it gives her story a perfect arc that she was at a meditation retreat when she found out she’d been nominated for a Grammy.
“A nomination for this project gives extra meaning to a hard time, and highlights again that music does in fact heal when used as a tool for processing,” Engelhardt said.
In 34 years, only two solo female artists have ever won a Grammy in the New Age category. But that didn’t stop Engelhardt from visualizing a win during a two-hour meditation after she heard the news.
You can listen to “The Passenger” on various streaming platforms and follow Engelhardt’s news on her website, Facebook and Instagram.
Since forming in 1993, Ulver have built a reputation for constant, drastic reinvention. Although they first rose to prominence as a black metal band, the Norwegian trio (whose name translates to “wolves”) have spent the past two decades exploring various electronic genres, covering ground as varied as trip-hop, ambient, drone, progressive electronic, and synthpop. Their work is epic, exploratory, and often sneakily playful. Certain throughlines exist in Ulver’s discography, but they are found less in the specific musical elements and more in the intention behind the music: a sigh of loneliness, a lament for the lost innocence of childhood, a dream of transcendence.
They also have a penchant for collaboration that has led them in the direction of drone metal and modern classical. The core trio of vocalist Kristoffer Rygg (the sole remaining founder) and instrumentalists Tore Ylwizaker and Jørn H. Sværen, alongside a frequently rotating cast of collaborators that have been brought into the wolves’ den, conjure up a different musical palette with nearly every release. In some ways, exploring Ulver’s musical universe does not mean discovering one great band but discovering many great and radically different bands that happen to share a few members in common. Rarely returning to the same musical style more than once, Ulver can now be counted among the most daring experimentalists in modern electronic music.
With 30 years’ worth of studio albums, live recordings, and collaborative works to discover, Ulver’s discography can be daunting. This guide covers seven albums showcasing some of their most drastic musical shifts.
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The liner notes for Perdition City (Music to an Interior Film) read: “This is music for the stations before and after sleep. Headphones and darkness recommended.” When Ulver released this downbeat, jazz-inflected electronic odyssey in 2000, it shocked metalheads and set a precedent for the musical experimentation to come. The record assembles glitchy trip-hop beats, noisy industrial flourishes, and mournful saxophone into a haunting and melancholy nocturnal soundscape. Though much of Perdition City is instrumental, its sparse lyrics paint a somber portrait of wandering a desolate half-empty city alone on a cold rainy night at some unspecified point in the cyberpunk future where everything has gotten just a bit worse, with only the crackle of untuned radios for company.
The long-form downtempo compositions that make up the first part of the record form a focused, cohesive mini-suite, followed by a more industrial-influenced second half rich with atmospheric ambient interludes. The influence of contemporary electronic artists with a focus on moody ambiance, such as Portishead and Boards of Canada, is undeniable, but Ulver also bring a focused intensity that’s entirely their own. Throughout the album, Ulver carefully juxtapose the heavier, noisier elements with moments of true beauty, capturing always-resonant themes of alienation, loneliness, and longing. Perdition City remains one of the most captivating works in Ulver’s discography, both because it signaled a shift towards experimentation and for its own inherent majesty.
On 2007’s Shadows of the Sun, Ulver continued developing the somber, contemplative electronic sound they introduced on Perdition City, but with a new approach to arrangement and songwriting. In a departure from Perdition City’s woozy trip-hop beats, Shadows of the Sun often eschews percussion altogether, instead focusing on the rhythms and textures of intricate, electronic-tinged instrumentation. Featuring the Oslo Session String Quartet, theremin contributed by Pamelia Kurstin, trumpet by Mathias Eick, and “supplemental shimmer” by guitarist Christian Fennesz, this album is a delicate wonderland of graceful desolation, like a sunrise after a long and troubled night.
With its ambient-influenced songs, Shadows of the Sun might easily appeal to fans of David Sylvian and Talk Talk, but its experimentation ensures that this album stands apart from such touchstones. A jagged sheet of noisy distortion might appear to suddenly split a song’s soundscape in two, while an unexpected aesthetic turn, such as the Black Sabbath cover “Solitude,” keeps the listener wondering what Ulver has in store next. This is music that revels in the smallest moments and decisions, from the whisper of a viola to the precise instant in which a wave of noise is deployed and the way those tiny moments shape our experience as a whole.
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Commissioned by the Tromsø KulturHus and recorded in collaboration with the Tromsø Chamber Orchestra, Messe I.X-VI.X seamlessly melds intricate chamber music arrangements with drums, guitar, and electronics, building a minimalist classical work that treasures silence as much as sound. Burbling synthesizers twinkle across neoclassical soundscapes like stars in a dark sky, and intricate string arrangements nestle alongside electric guitars. Its mood varies from contemplative to haunting to playful, shifting through unexpected territory with confidence.
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After years in each other’s orbits, Ulver and the legendary drone metal band Sunn O))) finally melded their musical approaches into a set of free improvisation pieces that showcase what makes both bands so revered on 2014’s Terrestrials. Ulver’s poignant melodies are a natural match for Sunn O)))’s moody atmospherics, and the addition of strings and trumpet lift these droning explorations out of the gloom. This is gentler, more contemplative music than most drone metal, and its cavernous sonic environment seems calculated to uplift the listener rather than crush them under waves of heavy distortion. Across these three pieces, the two bands craft a soundscape shaded in subtle dissonances and enlivened by moments of instrumental beauty, like dark clouds parting to reveal a ray of sunlight.
In 2017, Ulver decided it was time to dance. The Assassination of Julius Caesar is a deliriously groovy, synthpop concept album about the decadence and fall of Rome and its long history of brutality that stretches from the classical era to the modern day. It differs from Ulver’s previous breaks in tradition in its unashamed celebration of the dancefloor, which is re-invented as a site of pessimistic historical analysis critiquing the founding myths of Western civilization and exposing its violent underbelly. It’s downright thrilling to hear Ulver remake synthpop in their own image, combining bouncy electronic instrumentation and blissful pop hooks with baroque flourishes of weirdness.
“Rolling Stone,” the album’s epic centerpiece, might just be Ulver’s crowning achievement. Over nearly ten minutes, it develops from a piece of modern-day new wave, complete with sing-along backing vocals and a bassline so crunchy it must be heard to be believed, to an outburst of electronic noise and shrieking saxophone performed by the great Nik Turner, best known for his work with Hawkwind. Other highlights, such as the shimmering ballad “So Falls the World” or the dark, atmospheric closing track, display a full mastery of synthpop’s sonic palette. Ulver’s proud embrace of the genre may have come as a shock, but The Assassination of Julius Caesar proved that these iconoclasts were still growing and evolving with each new album.
Originally presented in 2018 as a two-night live performance enhanced by laser visuals at a storied Norwegian art museum and venue, Hexahedron is a transporting hour of industrial-tinged progressive electronic and ambient drone flecked with moments of spaced-out new wave. “Enter the Void,” the shimmering organ-focused drone opener, is a textual meditation indebted to classic electronic and krautrock artists such as Tangerine Dream, but the album soon takes off into further-ranging territory as it evolves through a series of expansive grooves. Ulver even manage to work in a synthpop-influenced piece in the form of “A Fearful Symmetry,” a return to their longstanding lyrical preoccupation with William Blake that features a masterful build of noisy tension before exploding into a pure pop confection. Ulver’s musical practice has grown to increasingly encompass live sound and improvisation over the last decade or so, and Hexahedron is a gleaming document of one of their most recent incarnations in this mode.
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Ulver celebrated Halloween in 2021 with the surprise release of this delightful piece of spooky kitsch. Inspired by their earlier performance of a live score to John Carpenter’s classic slasher Halloween (1981), this album, labeled a “Pandemic Pastime Project,” interpolates the film’s iconic soundtrack with Ulver’s own synthwave compositions and also features mixing from the underground horror synth star Carpenter Brut. It’s a playful album that pays tribute to an increasingly significant influence on Ulver’s sound, acknowledging the origins of the synthwave sound they’ve adopted while also winking at the band’s own fondness for darkness.
Halloween music has a rich history, from its campy 1960s heyday to its recent electronic revival. Though few fans would have predicted Ulver’s sudden outburst of holiday cheer, their entry into the Halloween music tradition feels in some ways like an inevitable step forward in the band’s constant evolution. Equal parts atmospheric and nostalgic, Scary Muzak is a perfect album to listen to on the spookiest night of the year.
It may be time to add some energetic pop music to your soothing sleep playlist.
A team of Denmark researchers found there is not a “one size fits all” genre of music people play to fall asleep.
“It was surprising to see how many different types of music people use for sleep,” Kira Vibe Jespersen, an assistant professor at the Centre for Music in the Brain at Aarhus University, told The Post in an email.
“Not only different genres, but also different audio characteristics … ranging from slow, soothing instrumental tracks to more energetic uptempo pop music.”
The authors of the study, published this week in the journal PLoS One, analyzed more than 200,000 songs from nearly 1,000 Spotify playlists associated with sleep.
Billie Eilish performs at The O2 Arena on June 10, 2022, in London. Samir Hussein/Getty Images for L
While the researchers said they have not collected data on if uptempo music actually helps people sleep, they do know people use it for sleep.
They were able identify six distinct sub-categories of music that people turn on when it’s time to get some shut eye.
Co-author Rebecca Jane Scarratt told SWNS that three of the subcategories, including ambient music, align with the typical characteristics identified for sleep music. However, the music in the other three subcategories was louder and more energetic.
“These tracks included several popular songs, including ‘Dynamite’ by the band BTS, and ‘Lovely’ by Billie Eilish and Khalid,” Scarratt said.
The authors also list “Jealous” by Labrinth, “Falling” by Harry Styles, and “The Scientist” by Coldplay as popular additions to sleep playlists.
While the researchers said they have not collected data on if uptempo music actually helps people sleep, they do know that people use it for sleep. Getty Images
In some cases, familiarity with songs — even loud tunes with vocals — may help with relaxation.
“Our hypothesis is that familiarity with the music makes the music very predictable to the brain, and this predictability may enable sleep, despite the music being upbeat and energetic,” Jespersen told the PA news agency.
“We are currently working to test this hypothesis.”
BTS performs during the iHeartRadio KIIS FM’s Jingle Ball show at the Forum on Dec. 6, 2019, in Inglewood, California. WireImage
The researchers still have data to collect. Without any sleep data from the music lovers, Jespersen said, they can’t be certain that tunes with a higher degree of energy help induce sleep.
“People listen to music at bedtime for different reasons. One reason can be to facilitate relaxation, but music may also be used for mood regulation, distraction or for masking external noise,” she added.
Scarratt said these findings could “both inform the clinical use of music and advance our understanding of how music is used to regulate human behavior in everyday life.”
A new study has identified several characteristics typical of music associated with sleep, such as being quieter and slower than other music. However, popular sleep music playlists on Spotify include faster, louder, and more energetic tracks. Rebecca Jane Scarratt of Aarhus University, Denmark, and colleagues presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on January 18, 2023.
Many say that they listen to music to help them fall asleep, raising the question of whether music chosen for this purpose shares certain universal characteristics. However, research on the characteristics of sleep music is limited, and prior studies have tended to be relatively small.
To better understand the characteristics of sleep music, Scarratt and colleagues analyzed 225,626 tracks from 985 playlists on Spotify that are associated with sleep. They used Spotify’s API to compare the audio features of the sleep tracks to the audio features of music from a dataset representing music in general.
This analysis showed that sleep music tends to be quieter and slower than other music. It also more often lacks lyrics and more often features acoustic instruments. However, despite these trends, the researchers found considerable diversity in the musical features of sleep music, identifying six distinct sub-categories.
Three of the sub-categories, including ambient music, align with the typical characteristics identified for sleep music. However, music in the other three subcategories was louder and had a higher degree of energy than average sleep music. These tracks included several popular songs, including “Dynamite” by the band BTS, and “lovely (with Khalid)” by Billie Eilish and Khalid.
The authors speculate that, despite their higher energy, popular songs could potentially aid relaxation and sleep for some people through their familiarity. However, more research will be needed to explore this possibility and identify the various reasons different people choose different music for sleeping.
Overall, this study suggests that there is no “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to the music people choose for sleep. The findings could help inform future development of music-based strategies to help people sleep.
The authors add: “In this study, we investigated the characteristics of music used for sleep and found that even though sleep music in general is softer, slower, instrumental and more often played on acoustic instruments than other music, the music people use for sleep displays a large variation including music characterized by high energy and tempo. The study can both inform the clinical use of music and advance our understanding of how music is used to regulate human behavior in everyday life.”
Journal Reference
Scarratt RJ, Heggli OA, Vuust P, Jespersen KV (2023) The audio features of sleep music: Universal and subgroup characteristics. PLoS ONE 18(1): e0278813. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278813
The concert celebrating the inauguration of Pennsylvania’s new governor Josh Shapiro, like the rest of the festivities held on the evening of Jan. 17 at Rock Lititz, attempted to showcase the best of Pennsylvania.
For example: the food being served included, among many other options, Pennsylvania regional specialties like tomato pie, scrapple and waffle bites, Primanti Bros. sandwiches and a full cheesesteak station. Dessert choices included whoopie pies, Tastykakes and Eat’n Park smiley cookies along with baklava and cheesecake.
Similarly, the live entertainment included performances by musicians that served as a sampling from across the state, with the two top acts being two of the best rappers from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, respectively.
For the opening entertainment, the Sixers Stixers drumline warmed up the crowd. While they had to fight the ambient noise of the crowd to get their chants heard, many in the front row of the crowd were game and joined in with their S-I-X-E-R-S chant. And the background noise couldn’t drown out the Stixers’ impressive drumming.
Next was indie rock group Mt. Joy, named after the Lancaster County borough found less than a half -hour drive from Rock Lititz.
Frontman and Philadelphia native Matt Quinn told the audience that the band was happy to celebrate the new governor, though he joked that the band may have some policy suggestions after they finished the song “Astrovan.”
“We’re singing songs about doobie-smoking Jesus, and Wiz Khalifa is also on the program,” said Quinn. “There might be certain initiatives that we would like to happen.”
The band’s cheerful alt-rock groove was a lovely way to ease into the rest of the night’s music. The group shared renditions of “Johnson Song” (which Quinn said was “one of the goofiest songs we’ve ever written” and that he was overjoyed that it was approved for their set list), “Julia,” a mashup of Gnarls Barkey’s “Crazy” and Bill Wither’s “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and closed with “Silver Lining.”
They were followed soon after by Motown legend Smokey Robinson, who remains an impressive singer at 82 years old – a full decade older than Earth, Wind and Fire singer Philip Bailey, who was still crushing it as of their concert in Hershey last summer. Robinson joked with the crowd that Motown Records began “30 years before I was born,” but it might be easy enough to believe that timeline based on how well he’s still singing and strutting across the stage.
The singer indulged in cheers from the crowd as he began his set with “Being With You,” and shared a microphone with one of his backup singers in an intimate moment that reminded everyone that yes, Motown music is incredibly sexy.
Robinson shared a few more jokes and stories, including one with an impression of friend and collaborator Stevie Wonder, between renditions of “I Second That Emotion,” “Tears of a Clown,” “Fly Me To the Moon” and “My Girl.”
He even shared the answer to a question he used to get all the time from friends, which hasn’t changed in all of his years in the business.
“‘Smokey, what do you do when you hear your music on the radio?’” he asked rhetorically. The answer? “Turn it up.”
Next was Meek Mill, the evening’s surprise performer, whose appearance was not announced in advance. Mill was an advocate for Shapiro during his campaign for governor and recently received a full pardon from Shapiro’s predecessor, Tom Wolf, for questionable charges that had dogged the rapper since 2008.
Mill’s set was brief, including segments from songs “Ima Boss” and “Dreams and Nightmares,” but between Mill’s enthusiastic verses and the pyrotechnics, it was more than enough to get an enthusiastic response from the crowd.
Mill gave shout-outs to Shapiro and his optimism for his leadership of the state, saying, “if you’re from PA put a hand up one time!” and changing a verse in one song to “if you ain’t talking about Shapiro, what you talking about?”
Shapiro and his visibly excited family exchanged hugs with Mill on stage before the new governor gave his brief remarks. He said that Pennsylvania is a place where we believe in opportunity, real freedom and second chances, specifically citing Mill and his own experience trying to find redress through the criminal justice system.
“And folks, we can’t wait to get back to work for you tomorrow,” Shapiro concluded, as the DJ took over once more.
Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa performed last in the night, opening with “We Dem Boyz” and then going directly into his hometown anthem “Black and Yellow.”
“Make some noise for Josh Shapiro up in here,” Khalifa said. “PA all day!”
Khalifa delivered an energetic set, with the crowd cheering when he let down his locks during “Young, Wild & Free” (with the line “so what we smoke weed” notably absent from the chorus) and leading them to sing along to “See You Again.”
The rapper’s enthusiasm was infectious, and he was all smiles as he worked the stage. He ended his set with a brief appeal for the crowd to enjoy the rest of their night and travel safely.
“I’m about two things, peace and love,” he said, before bidding the audience farewell and one last round of congratulations to the new governor. And while Mt. Joy had been subtle about their suggestion for new legislation, Khalifa was a bit more overt: “And if you’re 21 and older, smoke some weed!”
More:
Gov. Josh Shapiro takes office with a burst of energy, optimism
Five takeaways from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s inaugural speech
Gov. Josh Shapiro, with his family, wife Lori, daughter Sophia, sons Jonah, Max, and Reuben, pose for a photo before leaving the podium. Shapiro will begin his four-year term as governor with Lt. Gov. Austin Davis. January 17, 2023. Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com
Toronto-based producer Alaskan Tapes released his full-length album last week, and after sinking our ears into the narrative of this 9-track body of work, we had to put our thoughts down in writing.
Most ambient albums can often be hard to review, as they too commonly are a collection of soundscapes and ambiance strung together without rhyme or reason (both literally and figuratively). But the soft arrangements, more complex instrumentation, and masterful works of sonic engineering that Alaskan Tapes was able to bend his sound into for this album are second to none.
We are so enamored by the album itself that we are even hosting a contest with the label and artist, providing you an exclusive opportunity to win one of two copies of the album on vinyl! Just provide some extra information so we can contact you in case you win before diving into the comprehensive review of Who Tends A Garden.
‘Of Woods and Seas’
The album’s opening song sets the tone with lush and ambient pacing, with delicate synth pads and delicate textures slowly building to an inevitable something. As these textures cascade upwards, they reach their apex before fading to silence, and Alaskan Tapes’ signature piano style is there to replace them.
The halfway point of this leading record marks the end of the prelude and the true start to the body of work overall. And while, throughout the rest of the song, the textures continue to ebb and flow as they do, the piano does its best to remain the steady constant.
‘Who Tends a Garden
The second track starts with a similar. soundscape texture, derived from a more acoustic-sounding source, evokes a greater sense of authenticity and connection between the artist, the music, and the listener. From this bed of texture and sounds, Alaksan Tapes’ keys can be heard but faintly in the backdrop of the music.
The arrangement slowly drifts and evolves behind it without a clear direction. The song’s wandering journey and narrative arc leave new details to be discovered upon each listen, begging repeat after repeat!
‘Everending’
with more foley and natural-sounding details used as the foundation for this track, ‘Everending’ lives in a far more realistic space than the previous songs on the album. Gongs and chimes create the primary melodic foundation of the track, and Alaskan Tapes’ signature atmospheres continue to develop from there.
Added delays and more intricate effects slowly wash over the chimes, creating an ethereal and hyper-real quality in the sole hook of the track, allowing us to get lost in the sounds and music.
‘Then’
Without the complex layering and nuances of the previous tracks, the straightforward simplicity of the fourth track on the record speaks for itself. String lines form the primary foundation of the track, with slow-evolving, plucks of a dulcimer-like instrument playing off the sweeping strings.
Sometimes, the harmonies and chord progressions drift to a halt, giving time for reflection and peace before the plucks enter into the mix and bagpipe whispers keep each section fresh and lively.
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‘Library Fields’
This track is where the album takes a more playful turn in its overarching narrative. Far more rapid-paced pianos give a defined melodic structure, whereas before, the album was based on soundscapes and textures more than singular melodies and motifs.
With a sparser arrangement, more attention is left to direct all of the focus upon the felt pianos, allowing us to hear every action and stroke the hammer’s play perfectly.
‘Still Diving and Diving Still’
Another track that creates its foundation on the authentic recording and textures of the natural world, ocean ways and delicate keys create a world of their own where ghost-like vocals drift and chime their way around.
Much like the waves beneath the music, the melodies and harmonies ebb and flow without ever reaching their apex. Reversed atmospheres and melodic make the primary motifs of the song ephemeral, making the track lack any form of distinction and never finding its center – only further proving the point of made in the title.
‘A Long Line of Violet Hills’
Listening to ‘A Long Line of Violet Hills,’ it’s easy to see how the album in its entirety has lead up to this moment. Like a restrained orchestra, strings and woodwinds create anthemic-and-blissful moments that feel larger than life while simultaneously as if they are playing just for you.
As the track waxes toward its climax, delicate guitar lines and subtle and supplementary meldoic textures work their way into the mix without detracting from the core idea.
‘Swimming and Dancing and Floating in Circles’
By far the longest track on the album, ‘Swiming and Dancing and Floating in Circles’ tells a vast story of small scope. The expansive textures and clever use of the stereo field create a scene and backdrop that feels as if you could reach out, grab it, and store it in the thimble. The textures and harmonies brush against each other in fluid motion, drifting to and back in a seamless echo.
As the album looks towards its ending, this track reflects where we’ve been throughout the journey and gives us solace in knowing that we can return.
‘W(e) ave’
One of the shorter tracks on the album, this track has a haunting quality that transports the listener to a new place to view the album as a whole in a new light. The heavenly textures and supple nuances of the track allow us to view the album with new perspectives and leave us with a completely different emotional draw than many of the tracks on the album that came before it.
Fading to silence a full fifteen seconds before the official end of the track, the music airs on the side of finality and fades to white upon its leaving.
American singer, songwriter, model, and actress, Sky Tonia – Credit: Diogo Baptista/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Sky Ferreira has opened up about the delay in the release of her new music. The singer took to Instagram to explain that the holdup between music releases “is not my fault & it’s not a conspiracy.” She alleges that unspecified people have deemed her “difficult,” which has apparently held the release of her songs and long-awaited album back.
On Saturday, Ferreira shared a clip of a song and wrote, “I WANT TO PUT THIS OUT.” On her Instagram Stories, she pointed out that the song was from 2019. “I TRIED TO PUT THIS SONG OUT FOREVER AGO. This is not my fault & it’s not a conspiracy or whatever.”
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The singer has not released a follow-up album to her 2013 debut, Night Time, My Time, though she has been teasing her upcoming sophomore LP, Masochism, for years. Ferreira dropped the ambient “Downhill Lullaby” in 2019, which appeared to signal that a new album would follow shortly, but it did not come. Last year, she dropped “Don’t Forget,” which again pointed to the possibility that her second set was forthcoming, but it has yet to arrive.
“I am not a hysterical/lying/lazy lunatic. I can pull up performances from 2014 of unreleased singles too. This is beyond fucked up. I am so frustrated & over it,” she added in her Stories.
She also implied that her allegedly being deemed “difficult” by unnamed people was one of the reasons for her music not having been released yet.
“Being ‘difficult’ or ‘high strung’ doesn’t give people the right to damage & stall my career. I am in a DIFFICULT situation & I have to be ‘difficult’ to get through it,” she wrote. “I have to protect my work & myself somehow? A lot of it is not being allowed to say or do anything I want/need without it being dismissed. The thing I actively tried to avoid happens & it somehow gets reversed.”
Reps for Ferreira did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.
“I can’t think of a time in the last 7 years where I’ve been able to just focus on what I’m supposed to do & my work being presented the way I want it to or my shows being the way one needs it to be to be perform & play well,” she continued. “Despite having to basically sacrifice every aspect of my life to make sure it happens & the amount of time/work I put into everything beforehand. It’s not okay. If I’m not allowed to say something without consequence & the people who are supposed to do their job refuse to look out for me… How am I not going to be ‘difficult’?!?”
While her solo single releases have been sporadic during the delay and her new album has yet to have a drop date, Ferreira has made guest appearances on songs by Charli XCX (“Cross You Out“) and Primal Scream. She has also been acting, appearing in the television reboots of Twin Peaks and Twilight Zone as well as Edgar Wright’s film Baby Driver.
The thrill of musical collaboration lives in the uncertainty and potential that springs from the genesis of people engaged in trying to find a common language between two separate means of creation. But there’s another, equally thrilling moment that occurs when two artists of different backgrounds and different ways of working start to turn that tiny spark into a flame. You can hear that moment come alive on “Agoya,” the fourth song on Saccades, the debut full-length collaboration between Rian Treanor and Ocen James. The sputter of Treanor’s intricate beats and the melancholy tone of James’ violin become engaged in a graceful, high-energy dance, working together as a fluid whole of both beauty and urgency.
There are many such moments on Saccades, a project defined by unlikely harmony from disparate disciplines and tonal palettes. British-born Treanor’s body of work is largely in the frantic BPMs of IDM and footwork, a spiritual descendant of early Warp Records sounds and a literal descendant of producer Mark Fell, his father. Ugandan musician Ocen James plays the rigi rigi, a one-string violin, which forms the melodic basis of most of the album’s 10 tracks, though just as often is put to use in the service of harmonic clangs or dissonant shrieks. A work of two unmistakable talents, it’s often where the lines blur and the frequencies overlap that Saccades is at its most compelling.
Moments like the sprightly “Rigi Rigi” are a kind of proof of concept for Treanor and James’ conceptual pairing; James’ title instrument is the focal point, bouncing and ricocheting off of Treanor’s skipping rhythms, the rare moment on record that’s fairly straightforward in nature. The same could potentially be said about “The Dead Centre,” in which James becomes layered over himself in an overlapping exercise in looping and harmonization with oneself, eventually descending into a more sinister form of ambient music defined by the vibration of cymbals and low, metallic tones—more Nurse With Wound than Aphex Twin. And the stark plucks of “Memory Pressure” carry an eerie subtlety, the suggestion of a specter just beyond the frame of vision.
As a beatmaker, Treanor often leans toward the frantic and the adrenalized, which frequently results in something as ecstatic and fun as leadoff track “Bunga Bule,” a giddy moment of inspiration in which the textures and tones of programmed drums and sounds wrought from James’ instrument become harder to distinguish from one another. A similar effect can be heard on “Naassacade,” the percussive twinkle of which feels more aligned someone like Four Tet, an artist whose work is bound by spiritually like-minded textural contrasts. As much as James’ violin feels like a more human anchor to these wildly unpredictable compositions, Treanor takes a special pleasure in capturing its strangest and least immediately pleasant sounds on “Tiyo Ki,” wherein some of the most discordant pieces are built up into an unlikely breathtaking whole, grounded in part by the subtle presence of Angelo Badalamenti-like synth drone.
Though the same can be said of many of the tangled abstract techno and IDM influences that Treanor’s production sometimes nods toward, Saccades is an electronic album that’s meant for close, headphone listening as much as it is physical response. James’ performances and the different shapes his rigi rigi takes tend to lead down surprising paths and take on unfamiliar forms. Though the musicality of it is undeniable, Saccades reveals itself slowly through movements and permutations that gradually find its disparate elements converging in abrasive yet inspired harmony.
Label: Nyege Nyege Tapes
Year: 2023
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Jeff Terich
Jeff Terich is the founder and editor of Treble. He’s been writing about music for 20 years and has been published at American Songwriter, Bandcamp Daily, Reverb, Spin, Stereogum, uDiscoverMusic, VinylMePlease and some others that he’s forgetting right now. He’s still not tired of it.
