Heinali – A Wave Crashes

Heinali is a project by a music composer and a sound artist from Ukraine, Oleg Shpudeiko. Oleg is a self-taught artist, who started to compose in 2003 and even though his music style can be defined as stylistically eclectic, many of his compositions are electroacoustic and often incorporate sound processing methods and techniques. He became a part of Solama art group and started to compose music for installations and performances.

Heinali’s live shows usually feature free electroacoustic improvisations. Oleg also works as a music composer, writing music for films, games and other media.

The upcoming album by Heinali, "A Wave Crashes" consists of material recorded during electroacoustic studio improvisations incorporating analogue synthesizers and analogue and digital sound processing. It’s a kind of a sound sculpture of a certain moment almost frozen in time, letting you experience it from the different angles of space.

The EP mastered by Lawrence English, while album photography credits goes to Alex Naselenko.

Okada – Okada

Okada is darkly cinematic, but it’s never bleak or depressing. In fact, the bubbly female vocals haunt the music, lifting it up with caring hands out of the dark mire and into a subdued electronic coloring that sits easily with the listener.

Okada is a project by Greg Pappas from Alabama, US. Initially known to the music world as ZXYZXY, Greg used it as a vehicle for experimentation and refinement of his writing technique while dabbling in electro-acoustic, ambient, post-rock and even wonky genres.

It’s a bruise that discolors the music’s original pale skin, her original pale genre, and the vanilla blooms into a new, shady gem right in front of our eyes. The low, dull sound of classical instrumentation has been brushed aside like a September cobweb, cleaned of its original timbre. An ambient layer peels itself away, and later a hushed electronic beat shuffles itself and the music forward, proving that electronic rhythms can indeed be subtle, caring and sophisticated.

Conflicting emotions cycle through the music. It can lead to serenity but it can also bring a flood of intense love. It’s gentle, fragile, the cycling beat and the melancholic black and white notes flowing naturally, freely. It’s graceful music that lives and breathes a seemingly simple life in the face of musical complexity. There are a lot of layers underneath its surface; a slowly shifting labyrinth of sound that continually takes you by surprise.

Lucho Ripley – Mirakler

Spainish artist Lucho Ripley, deals in glistening tones and shimmering reverb cascading around dreamy melodies and majestic arpeggios. He started to record music in 2013, without musical education, totally self taught. His music, made only with guitars, is a melting pot of post-rock, dream-pop, ambient and classical music, but the final work can’t be defined by any of these genres separately.

Lucho Ripley's new album is an extremely focused set of instrumental compositions that seem to resemble a modern day song cycle.

Every recording of Lucho Ripley is made exclusively with guitars but not in an ordinary way. The music flows always free, far from any convention imposed by the instrument. His new record is not an exception, but a confirmation of his idiosyncrasy.

As the cover by master watercolorist Joe Cartwrtight seems to suggest, Mirakler is a study of light. The light outside and the light within. The light JMW Turner so incessantly pursued in his paintings. The light of extraordinary events or maybe the simple joy of a summer evening on a small seaside town. It's for the listener to decide.

Lucho's songs have often been described as "having a sense of wonderment", equal parts childlike and zen. Mirakler probably builds the ultimate case for those kinds of statements: never before have Lucho's painstakingly arranged layers of guitars sounded so radiant or the emotions so stirred. The compositions flow with a purpose that never lets go, from the tension-building, arresting "Poledouris" to the eternal return that is "Vostok 6". In between those two, mysteries abound.

This is music for open spaces, bright watercolors and wind chimes. Go ahead. Bask in the sunlight.

Dessin Bizarre – Air Frais

Dessin Bizarre is a musical project of a Russian composer Ivan Krasnov. His musical ship travels in the calming waters of ambient and his feeds and makes it more beautiful with the influences coming from post-rock. Ivan is a self-taught musician. His music is based on a lighter feel accompanied by simplicity combined with different acoustic techniques and sound-processing during sound recording.

Drifting through the crystal air with the ambient music of the "Air Frais" album you will go deep down to the inner man. You will flow with the swell gravity waves of atmospheric sound and possibly find at the end of journey answers you always wanted to know. The true art of relaxation joy and meditation.

He created "Eidfjord" under the impression after a trip to Norway, with its cold, penetrating enveloping fogs, flowing sparkling waterfalls and mossy Atlantean mountains. Immediately, place Eidfjord, opened for him the whole palette of beauty, serenity and unity with nature.

"In all the compositions I used natural noises and sounds from these places: the water, the creaking of the wooden bridge pier, silent play of the polar night." says Ivan.

As an extension, the purity and depth reflected in the "Air Frais" and the gray shroud of brooding cliffs in pressure, when the sky and water merge into one gray gradient. And at the end - the flow track reflecting the net surface of the water.

Secoya – Ghosts

Secoya is an ambient/experimental project of George Robinson, a producer from Bristol, UK. He started his musical journey by playing piano at early age. As he grew older, he discovered different types of music and different ways of creating them. George's music is often lo-fi and possesses an ability to evoke emotions provided by his surroundings, green countryside and darker cities. This combination flowing from mixture of ambient, experimental, lo-fi and classical music aims to capture and evoke certain emotions.

George's music is characterised by commonly extensive dynamic changes. These contrasting atmospheres develop in nostalgic and melodic brand of ambient music.

“90% of my music is made at about 8 am, while I'm still in bed.” Secoya

Ghosts is the debut album from Secoya. The album combines reverb laden melodies and nostalgic chord progressions with a lo-fi feel to create an aural reflection of Robinson’s thoughts, feelings and surroundings at that time. The joyful tone and interesting textures on this album bring back the happy memories that everyone has. Another interesting detail about the album is our label founder Taner Torun did all the album artworks.

Listening to Secoya is like a gate opens to past for all of us. Get ready go through old movies, amusement parks and dusty things in the attic.

Halcyon Chamber – Halcyon Chamber

Halcyon Chamber is an electronic ambient project born on December 31st, 2013 during an unforgiving winter ice storm. Jason Baron created a basement studio where melodic soundscapes were coaxed from classical and digital instrumentation, providing warm refuge. Halcyon Chamber intertwines analog synthesizers, female vocalizations, classical strings, meditative sections, and shimmering melody. A gentle, evolving mixture of chamber music and electricity.

The Halcyon is a mythical bird with the power to calm the rough seas and quiet the waves during the harsh winter solstice. Each song is considered to be an individual halcyon chamber, a small containment of this mythical calmness into a fleeting physical existence.

Halcyon Chamber’s self-titled initial release carefully balances electronic, classical, ambient, and meditative influences. Moog synthesis, classical violin, cello, and effects-laden guitars coalesce in ambitious harmony. Female vocalizations become another component of the sound, yet do not dominate the structure. Listeners will drift among cold winds, expansive deserts, and cinematic melodic textures.

Row Boat – In Between

Postrock has become so varied and broad along the music spectrum that many people find it hard to explain these days. This would also explain Mark Wardale’s latest album release ‘In Between’. A mix of numbing piano sounds, ambience, subdued electronica and ‘dirty’ strings produce the different shades that make up the light and dark of romance in note form. New sounds and feelings are evoked whilst a sense of familiarity lingers and comforts.

‘In Between’ was an idea, an interpretation of romance, written in note form for listeners to relate to in a different and unexpected way. Love can have so many meanings, good, bad, confusing. This album was written to show not just the light side, but the darker and unexplored sides of romance.

What makes the album so unique is the creative collaboration between musician ‘Mark Wardale’ and writer, reviewer and all round music lover ‘Daniela Patrizi’ on ‘In Between’ to create the perfect artwork and imagery in reference to the music.

The 40 minutes of music itself meets all listening expectations, from the strong and empowering piano’s and ambience of ‘Meet me at the Colosseum’ and ‘Later That Day’, to the darker edgy and more reflective songs like “The Dying Art of Romance” and “Hollow.”

Astrowind – Somewhere The Music Had Been Played

Astrowind (Kirils Lomunovs) is Latvia based sound and video artist. Starting from the early 90-ties he represents essential experimental electronic music and alternative musical stage of Latvia.

For the last few years in consequence of his own activities his music was published in such countries as Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Turkey, Spain, USA, Ukraine and Russia.

Deep interest of sound exploration led K. Lomunovs to participate and establish several dissimilar musical projects and to try to invent his own sound.

Being true to analog sound and experiment in the form of live improvisation with old Soviet and Japanese analog synthesizers and effects K. Lomunovs invented experimental and authentic music style - Paleopsychedelic ambient and also realized a Glitch-Hop project Kriipis Tulo. The style of Paleopsychedelic ambient brightly represented and continues to develope within Astrowind project established by K. Lomunovs in 2006.

“Somewhere The Music Had Been Played” represents Paleopsychedelic ambient again. Once issued on "Resting Bell” label in 2007, edited version this feature certainly worth to be reissued in more "touchable" media today in full-length.

Recorded on tape recorder during live improvisations at Tokctoka studio in Riga in August 2007, but it still represents contemporary sound.

All the tracks are left untreated and unprocessed as they were on original tapes. All where improvised on analog hardware. Analog synths and echo machines speak a language each one understands well. Astrowin brings out unordinary nostalgic melancholic paleopsychedelic experimental ambient music with a distinctly spatial nature and territorial associative relation to a region of Baltic Sea.

AL_X – Shunt

Liverpool electronic music artist Al_X (Alex Dunford) returns with a new 22 track album, ‘Shunt’. A less ‘song’ oriented album that his debut release, but it sees him move into a more comfortable soundtrack based genre.

The album started life as a small 4 track EP, but over the last year, grew to a huge 70 minute soundtrack to Al_X’s dreams and nightmares. “I always have trouble sleeping, and when I do, I have very vivid dreams and nightmares, and they stay with me for a few days. The subject seems to be quite dark or deals with large spaces, so I can try and work with what I can remember, and attempt to put that into music with various instruments and textures”, Alex states. “It’s a concept album, I suppose, but a very close one at that”, he adds.

Recorded towards the end of 2012 and most of 2013, utilising large halls, field recordings, analogue equipment, AL_X has produced an album that would grace most soundtracks.

Starting with ambient textures, Al_X takes us on a journey through folk, electronica, ambient, new age, but to name a few, and then back to his signature folk / electronica, to end the album on a rather uplifting tilt, taking us through a lot of emotions along the way.

Shunt once again features collaborations from Jeff Jepson, Dom Kearne and Kirsten Sharp.

Inner Trip – Initiate

Inner Trip' is the solo project of Saman N (born 1984, graphic artist and musician) formed in 2011. Saman lives in Iran. With his debut album "Somewhere Near The Pulse" he has overcome the prejudice and made a good start on his musical journey. The album received good response from listeners & music writers.

Inner Trip continues the journey with his sophomore album. Nine pieces from nine different lands of music make the second album of Inner Trip which entitled "Initiate". In a closer view, the album is based on electronic and ambient atmosphere with some touches of oriental music. Although there are two songs with vocals, "Initiate" is almost an instrumental album.

Saman says "Inner Trip's dough, imagination and dream, have a bold role on my music. Each track has a deal with my inner fantastic world." Initiate might be the right choice to discover what lies beneath.

REVIEWS

Beach Sloth

Inner Trip makes a hauntingly sad album with 'Initiate'. No light it is let in through its almost unnerving sense of clam. Much of this is nearly pure ambient. This is atmospheric music at its most intense. The album start with a pinging rhythm before it builds up into an enormous piece. Some of these pieces are extremely minimal. ‘Maya’ barely has a pulse; it lingers as a quiet moody track. On the absolute opposite side of this is the track ‘Reincarnation’ which gets extremely loud (in comparison to the rest of the album). Watch the volume levels on this particular track as it almost shocks with its sheer burst of energy. For me the lower-key songs are fascinating. Overall this is a sad album. The quiet adds to the downbeat mood. It is rather gorgeous in its quietness.

A Closer Listen / James Catchpole

Inner Trip’s personal touch over Initiate sets it apart from other releases; this is his music and his history, opening up as it does a rejuvenating honesty and a quickly established trust between both the artist and the listener. Inner Trip takes a voyage deep within ourselves, as each piece delves deeply inside our own circular thoughts and the immense labyrinth of the mind. The music is designed to kindle our own search for inner peace, and it resounds effectively as the initiation to the process. With Inner Trip taking us by the hand, our deepening meditation is in very safe hands. Safe is a very dangerous word for musicians, yet there is a reassurance of coming back to what we know; we may have been here before, or in a world similar to this somewhere long ago in our past, a place that is vaguely recalled and yet strangely distant on remembering. Whatever thoughts arise from Inner Trip’s music, the imagery may likely be shared by all, as one consciousness. Initiate can change perceptions; it may be that this young musician is the ignition that is so needed.

MRU / Vanessa Baker

Less than a year after Somewhere Near the Pulse, Inner Trip has completed his second album, Initiate. The nine tracks are largely ambient, with a hint of an electronic and modern classical sound thrown in for variety. The Iranian artist, also known for his graphic art as Saman N, admits to taking inspiration from cinematic soundtracks. While the influence is noticeable as the narrative flow and heavy reliance on piano recall a certain familiarity, Inner Trip’s sound goes beyond cliché, exploring a musical identity that is all his own.

He claims to have gone deep inside himself for the production of Initiate, trying to ignore outside influences as much as possible. As a result, the tone of the album is very dreamy and visual, calling to the mind soothing, ethereal images of grand, scenic landscapes from around the globe. Each song comes from a different location, bringing listeners on a journey to far away lands without ever leaving the comfort of their own minds. Two of the tracks feature soft yet strong vocals that perfectly complement the natural instrumental sounds they’re paired with. Whether you’re searching for background music for a romantic dinner or a relaxing bubble bath, or just want something to unwind to, Inner Trip provides the perfect soundtrack. This album really does inspire listeners to take a trip within themselves toward clam and inner peace.

Sound Shock / Calum Robson

Saman’s ambition is evident; to create cloud-destined ambience that never grounds itself until the final note finishes. And he succeeds in keeping the listener anywhere but reality. Inner Trip’s electronic diversity ensures this with a sound made up of strange samplings, symphonic strings, classical choir, psychedelic utterances and even featuring instrumentation from clarinet, mandolin and piano. There are dark vocals on occasion too – the trippy effects, strange beats and punches of psych electronica on ‘Consciousness’ are accompanied by deep vocals steeped in a curiously lulling dread and given an almost spoken word quality. Any fan of Ulver’s experimental exploits will appreciate the ambient electronics of the project and it’s surely only a matter of time before this talented musician is appreciated on a wider scale. Assume relaxed position on the recliner chair, burn the incense, initiate ‘Initiate’, lock your eyes shut and begin.

Caleidoscoop / Jan Willem Broek

The Fluttery Records steadily continue delivering great music from around the world, mostly in the postrock corner. 28 year old Saman N., a musician and graphic designer from Iran (Tehran), who makes electronic music with his musical vehicle Inner Trip. His goal here is giving you a new imaginary soundtrack. Last year, he made his debut with his wonderful CD Somewhere Near The Pulse containing his extraordinarily original compositions in which crossovers of neoclassical, ambient, electronica and trip come together. In his new album Initiate, the neoclassical splendor with breathtaking (electronic) orchestrations here is beautifully complemented by the glitchy electronics, piano parts, gently pulsating beats, field recordings, dark vocals and beautiful samples of soprano and chorus. The music goes regularly to the bone, very beautiful. Breathtaking, isolationist music where you imagine yourself on wintry landscapes full of beautiful, moving images.

You get the cinematic music of Phylr, the chilling music of the dark and Heinali, postrock of Labradford (just listen to "Consciousness"). There are also influences from Massive Attack, Gargle, Olan Mill, Craig Armstrong, Clint Mansell and Pleq found in this intimate music. Saman creates a mysterious magical reality that you just totally go dreaming. An overwhelming sequel to the already strong debut. Grand!

Track List

Heinali - A Wave Crashes

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Okada - Okada

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Lucho Ripley - Mirakler

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Dessin Bizarre - Air Frais

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Secoya - Ghosts

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Halcyon Chamber - Halcyon Chamber

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Row Boat - In Between

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Astrowind - Somewhere The Music Had Been Played

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AL_X - Shunt

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Track List

Inner Trip - Initiate

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