The meditative, welcoming style of debut Airport People record From Nine Mornings taps into this state of mind. Out later this summer on Whited Sepulchre Records, the album offers a neo-classical sound marked by its modest tones and easy space, inviting the listener to step out of the perpetual movement of their day if only for a short while. The result is not only comforting, offering the sedate pace and order of the airport as a balm against hectic life, but also deceptively rebellious in nature. Standing in opposition to the accepted modes of existence. When so much contemporary wisdom relies on clear plans and paths of progression, on being productive and racing from A to B, then embracing the slack rhythms of the in-between becomes an act of defiance. Why race to flee the liminal spaces, Johnson asks, when they might hold our only chance of peace?

The idea extends to the very creation of the record. After losing his job and moving home, Johnson used the freedom of the in-between to work on a new melody each morning, soon building up a collection which would eventually be curated and edited to leave the nine mornings of the album. Melodies supported and developed by arrangements of piano, violin, upright bass, guitar, drums, field recordings and manipulated orchestral samples, elements all handled with characteristic precision which to craft a sound both bright and careful.

Take single ‘from morning no. 2’. Textures of gentle rainfall draw the listener in before the piano emerges, fond and vibrant and coloured by just the smallest shade of sadness, as all fond things must be. But Airport People does not present its moods clearly, instead working to accentuate whatever the listener might be feeling. A personal soundtrack open to interpretation, crafted to fit any listener’s surroundings.

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The resulting compositions moved between plaintive and chaotic, though eventually found meaning and joy in the sheer physicality of noise. As we concluded:

It’s a wordless reminder that although Mark Trecka is committed to exploring serious themes, his work is far from devoid of hope. Rather, Acknowledgement is a compassionate work of art which insists that we as a society share both our joys and our burdens.

This autumn sees Mark Trecka return with Implication, a brand new album again on Whited Sepulchre that has its roots in the same recording process as Acknowledgement. Aside from one exception, all the sounds on the record were sourced from single prepared piano improvisation performed during that very same session, with Trecka manipulating the result with various loops and effects to build a strikingly diverse palette.

The exception to the rule comes via ‘Radiance’, a track at the album’s heart which sees Trecka joined by Walt McClements and his processed accordion. With a glistening tone and patient movement, the sound lives up to its title, presenting an almost celestial air as McClements wrangles the loops into a kind of slow-moving order. But despite this otherworldly style, there’s a rawness too. An unprocessed experimentalism that grounds the track as the product of two humans interacting with, and responding to, one another.

True to the Mark Trecka oeuvre, the aims and intentions of Implication extend beyond the sound’s surface. The title track was first created for a performance broadcast on Bethlehem, Ramallah and Amman-based radio station, Radio alHara. Trecka had gathered writing from incarcerated people in New York State, and shared them during the performance via the station’s chat channel. This intertextual dimension again drew attention to those ignored or forgotten by society, and the impact far exceeds that of the songs alone. The intimate and imperfect collaboration of ‘Radiance’ comes to represent a truly human beauty, while the warmth of closer ‘Focus as Shelter’ cuts through the traditional barriers to carve out a safe and benevolent space. Implication is therefore both a statement and a sanctuary, a reprieve from the violent disregard of society and an indication of how communication and collaboration might work to dismantle its hold.

Implication is out now via Whited Sepulchre Records and available from the Mark Trecka Bandcamp page.

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This sentiment is central to her latest release, Cheap Emotions. The songs in effect serve as a bridge between the high art sensibilities of classical music and something more accessible, electronic samples and spoken word segments lending a real immediacy. And the balance between the familiar and unfamiliar extends beyond style too, with the meaning of the pieces emerging ambiguous but intuitive, leading the listener into something strange yet undeniably rooted in the human experience.

Lead track ‘The Inevitable Withdrawal’ is the perfect example. A collaboration with the writer Phoebe McGowan, the song represents a melding of two separate pieces—those of music and writing, the personalities of Zarabozo and McGowan—blurring the boundary between two discrete entities if only for a moment. Rising from thin and feathered electronics, wisps of spoken word glide across the sonic canvas, always fleeting and always removed, concerned with the end of things. This sense of transience is fundamental, as though illustrating that nothing can exist for long within such a commingled state. A reminder that things are always fading, and that with impermanence comes both tragedy and beauty.

The others songs on the release follow the thread set out by ‘The Inevitable Withdrawl’, probing down the avenues it opened and seeking out new ground. ‘Mind the___Gap’ continues further into ambient pop, crooned vocals swirling beyond a flurry of apologies and garbled talk. But even within the moments of rising energy, a sense of distance remains, as though it is all but an echo. ‘Do You Remember?’ finds further levels of vigour, possessing that scrambled-mind volatility that comes in the aftermath of things, that moment in which the end has arrived but the realisation has not.

Cheap Emotions is out now and available from the Darlene Zarabozo Bandcamp page.

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This month saw the release of the album’s follow up, Dance Music Volume II: More Songs for Slow Motion, but the record is far more than a simple sequel. Alongside a string quartet and standard electronics, Van Tassel also uses the Ondea for the first time—what is described as “a contemporary re-creation” of the early French synthesizer, the Ondes Martenot. Representing one of the first electronic instruments alongside the theremin, the Ondes Martenot was invented by Maurice Martenot, a cellist and World War II radio operator who wished to combine his two occupations. Thus emerged an instrument with the grace of the cello and the eerie mystery of radio oscillations, allowing the operator to weave emotive, ethereal and almost extraterrestrial sounds by working a ring along a wire.

The Ondea is just as versatile, and Joshua Van Tassel explores its range in the most intuitive manner—through practise and learning. Single ‘Eternal Turtle’ arose early in his days with the instrument, the product of a creative freedom only possible when starting afresh. An instinctive way of operating, almost akin to play, and then acting upon unconscious associations to follow through the emerging logic of the music. “I had gotten the instrument about two months prior,” he explains, “and had been practising every day, very slowly, and trying to play in tune.” With the added layer of effects pedals, Van Tassel crafted an ambience that struck a chord out of nowhere:

For some reason, the sound immediately made me think of a giant, slow, and very old turtle moving slowly through and even older forest. I improvised the main line that runs through out the piece thinking about how this creature would move, then layered everything else immediately after. Compared to the other pieces on the album which in some cases took weeks, this one came out in one sitting and was the first time I felt like I had touched on the sound of the album I wanted to make.

With intentions similar to the first record, Dance Music Volume II aims to transport the listener, offer some alternative dimension in which to reside. “There’s a lot of really ugly shit happening in the world,” Van Tassel says, “and I wanted to make a really beautiful album.” But that is not to say the songs present some flat utopia. Like the strangeness of the radio oscillations, there is a an odd quality to songs like “Conjuror-er,” a mournful, alien atmosphere through which anything might emerge. The poignant ‘Their Hands On Their Hands’ has a desolation beneath the surface, and ‘Nest of Light’ something close to foreboding in its slow, foggy unfurl.

But in setting out to chart such strange waters, Joshua Van Tassel makes sure to anchor his sound in the ideals of slowness and beauty. The result is a repositioning of ambiguity, reclaiming the unknown as a site of possibility rather than fear and dread. ‘Shadows Smile For You’ might be the clearest example of this, a personal song written for his son who has a “great conversational relationship with shadows.” A shadow can be many things—a friend, a follower, a version of yourself cast back dark and different—and Van Tassel offers no answer or judgement.

Dance Music Volume II: More Songs for Slow Motion is out now via Backward Music and available from the Joshua Van Tassel Bandcamp page.

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His latest project, a song series titled Made in China, homes in on a more specific point in terms of geography, but is as ambitious and far-reaching as anything Jonny Pickett has done to date. Consisting of a series of compositions released over the past year, the project explores the last hundred years in Chinese history by focusing on figures who shaped it. Releases on the politician and revolutionary Chiang Kai​-​shek, his nationalist wife and First Lady Soong Mei-ling, and her communist sister Soong Ching-ling highlight Pickett’s ability to locate the personal within the historical, a drama both familial and national.

The latest single turns its attention to Wang Nan and his role in the Tiananmen Square protest. “I understand upon releasing this song, I will most likely not be able to return to China,” Pickett says. “When I was in Tiananmen Square last year I was crushed by a profound pain and cried for Wang Nan and the others whose names we’ll never know. There was no plaque, no remembrance for what happened in that space. This is my own way of remembering Wang Nan and the others who disappeared in this time.”

Further highlighting the international spirit of the music, the track sees contributions from around the world, with Irish composer Gareth Quinn Redmond lending violin, Salvadorian composer Daníel Domínguez the viola, and a Chinese musician listed here as Francis N (for the sake of anonymity) playing the erhu. These players come together to create something that sounds as grand as it does mysterious, the mournful quivering of the erhu evoking a uniquely Chinese grief.

Artwork by Oscar Pearson

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The invention and ambition of the Sheers sound is formed in part by the formative experiences in which it developed. Breshears tours as a member of the bands of Haley Heynderickx and Alexandra Savior, and has lent harp to recordings by Jenny Slate, Lonnie Holley and a number of other artists, meaning they have steeped themselves in a wide range of musical styles and genres from Portland and beyond. Therefore, rather than operating within the limited conditions of a small local scene, Sheers draws from a vast pool of influences, collecting small elements from across the field to craft something entirely new.

Because, in resisting the pull of genre conventions, Breshears opens up a space in which genuinely novel combinations can be explored. But rather than being some experimental collision of pop and classical, ‘high’ and ‘low’, the Sheers sound is instinctive and heartfelt, the various threads knitted seamlessly. This is not a clumsy reach for novelty for novelty sake, rather a versatile and innovative artist using every tool available to best convey what they have to say.

Today we’re delighted to share a brand new track, ‘Indistinct Clatter’, what Breshears describes as “a song for the sleepless nights, for the days that feel too loud to hear through.” The atmosphere is equal parts haunting and comforting, lapping with a tidal patience and slowly gathering intensity. The restrained atmosphere might never quite be punctured, no thundering crescendo arrives, but the track’s impact lies in its gradual build, Breshears’s vocals echoing with a mantra-like power.

The song comes complete with a video by Aaron Curry, recorded at Fairchild Chapel in Oberlin, Ohio during a tour with Haley Heynderickx across the East Coast and Midwest. Check it out below:

You can find Sheers on Bandcamp.

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Yuri Tománek does a lot of work for films and scores, both under the Drowning by Numbers moniker and his own name. The latter tends to be used for a piano-based minimalism, and Tománek’s classical training shows through in the subtle nuances that create the striking and spacious soundscapes. New EP In the End is the perfect illustration of this, a lesson in the power of restraint and delicate care.

The EP opens with ‘In the end, we all fade away’, a song that lives up to the existential title through a kind of quiet weight. Here, the spaces between the notes are as important as the notes themselves, loss and longing woven into every aspect of the track. The relatively short length belies the impact of the sound, though the abrupt end to the build feels pertinent to the themes too, the song fading away before you’re ready to let go.

‘1st of October’ stirs from a similarly minimal piano, though unfurls into a wider ambient sound. There is a prudence to the atmosphere, Tománek never allowing the stirring mood to ever quite reach its climax, and the threat of this only reinforces the simplicity and control. ‘I have no more to give’ is warmer and softer still, and after the existential predecessors feels like calm after the storm, as though having past through to some other side, or else looking back at what has been with with renewed fondness.

In the End is out now and available from the Yuri Tománek Bandcamp page.

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Opener ‘Aïre & Annemasse’ is firmly in the neo-classical bracket, its subtle emotion rising into insistent peaks and poignant lulls. This piano-based style feels like the backbone of Time & Place, the structure around which Jonny Pickett experiments and explores, circling back to the piano from his various travails in other fields. Follow-up ‘Woman of Gold’ is one such venture, something of an electronic dream pop song, channelling the likes of Aero Flynn and even Sufjan Stevens in its sincere, plainspoken delivery.

Forming something of a pattern, the piano-driven ‘Lluc’ returns to the purely classical sound, though one far more reflective than the previous example. The track unfurls slowly and with patience, becoming more playful for a short while before quietening into its rhythm once more. With old film footage of the American landscape, the accompanying video lends a nostalgic edge, the song becoming a plaintive ode to the simpler past we hold in memories, where all rough edges are softened by the camera’s focus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqe_8nLjEtk

Leaning further toward the folk end of the spectrum, ‘Adam’ utilises banjo and clarinet to produce a sound both earthy and warm, rich in history and bound to the land. The closing section of the track rises into a more poignant, classical-based style, from which closer ‘An Ending’ emerges, its sparse beginning coalescing into gentle piano rhythms. The two tracks serve as a neat summation of Pickett’s sound—organic and flowing, yet ambitious enough to channel this course in various and surprising directions.

Time & Place is out now and you can get it from the Jonny Pickett Bandcamp page.

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The recording moniker of Weber’s solo work, REW<< has itself been the vehicle for a number of styles and sounds, with Weber’s solo visions as experimental and ambitious as any of his partnerships. Recorded in a series of hotel rooms across much of Asia, Departeures offered a subtropical and reflective slice of dream pop, while 2015’s Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Sirens Sing Swan Songs pushed into neo-classical territory. Still, the latter employed pop sensibilities to counter the classical vibe, making for a record that blurred the distinction between avant garde experimentalism and accessible pop.

New album Les Racines Parmi Les Sabots Des Chevaux is another direction for the REW<< sound, with Weber shedding the pop aspects in favour of a pure neo-classical aesthetic. Centring the piano as the driving force, the record is a lesson in minimalism, at least when contrasted with REW<<‘s previous releases, dropping much of the dressing in favour of stark emotion. This is typified in the album’s opener ‘Victoire Impossible,’ the tone somewhere between pensive and sparkling, or perhaps both at once—concerned with the quiet beauty of things, and the process of elevating such appreciation into our everyday lives.

The joyous finale of the opener sets the tone for the record, with tracks such as ‘Ralentissement Debout’, ‘Monde Magique et Solitaire’ and ‘Attraper un Aperçu de la Femme de la Peinture’ all finding different ways to bloom into deeper life from their minimal beginnings. Which is not to say that Weber is not equally adept at pure restraint, as highlighted by the sombre tones of ‘Équilibre’ and field recording textures of ‘Volière d’Oiseaux Sans Vol,’ but it’s clear that his tendency with this record leans toward the transcendent climax.

Les Racines Parmi Les Sabots Des Chevaux is out now and you can get it from the REW<< Bandcamp page.

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‘Ambitions’ is an apt word, because We Gathered at Wakerobin Hollow is more than an album. To be released over an 18-month period, the project consists of forty songs split across nine chapters that combine to form a speculative narrative. Beginning in Odena, Alabama, where a fire devastates an oil refinery, the release charts the lives of various characters as they grow from children to adults and eventually spread out across the country, following their own stories. Still, the world impinges on their lives in its strange ways, with a variety personal, public and ecological forces eventually driving them away from homes in Asheville, New York, and Bennington and back to Odena and Wakerobin Hollow.

This month sees the release of the first chapter of the project. Subtitled It All Starts in Odena, these five songs introduce Emma, who appears to be the central protagonist, along with her father Alan and sister Jen, plus friends Julia, Marsha and Jon. The beginning of the story also serves to introduce the Mending sound, which is marked by a sense of weight and poignancy, the melancholic-yet-affirming instrumentation almost conjuring The Antlers’ Hospice.

As the narrative unfolds chronologically, Chapter 01 is understandably concerned with openings. ‘Alan at Emma’s Cradle’ depicts just that, a father not sure he can be what is required of him but determined to try all the same, while ‘Black Soot’ heralds the oil refinery blaze, a portent that some great event is occurring on the horizon. ‘Alan after the Fire’ zooms into the disaster headlong, though the immediacy is offset by a sluggish tempo, as though shock and trauma has numbed the violence of the moment.

As if to prove its novelistic heft, the closing two songs switch the focus away from the fire and onto Emma’s youth. ‘Emma, Jon, and the Bee Sting’ is a fairly bucolic vision of her younger days, though there is a sense of danger and loss hanging over the scene both through the bee sting of the title and the risk of someone leaving. This continues into the adolescence of ‘Nicholas Quarry, the ordinary scene of teenage risk and rebellion shot through with a sense of natural wonder and happenstance, as highlighted by an encounter with a doe in the final verse.

The close is appropriate in that it captures the Mending aesthetic, a close engagement with both the highs and lows that serve to jab and jolt us into remembering how we are alive. Ultimately, this sense of awe is what marks the first chapter, and the ambition to explore it so profoundly and patiently seems to be Mending’s unique talent.

The first chapter of We Gathered at Wakerobin Hollow is out now and available from the Mending Bandcamp page, and the next chapters will be released on a bi-monthly basis.

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