November 24th, 2024, marked the 50th Annyversary of Nick Drake's untimely passing at the age of just 26, so it seemed like the right time to honor another of his studio albums "FIVE LEAVES LEFT". This time I wanted to go back to where it all began and take Drake's is first album and put it on my Piano canvas. Everything about "FIVE LEAVES LEFT" has fresh, more positive vibe, in contrast to the harshness of his latest "Pink Moon" and thoughts of his impeding death.
Maria Callas remains one of the most iconic and transformative figures in operatic history. With her unparalleled dramatic intensity, exquisite phrasing, and extraordinary vocal range, she redefined the art of singing in the 20th century. Every note she sang carried profound emotion, blending technical mastery with a deep understanding of character and story. This collection captures Callas at her finest, breathing life into some of opera's most beloved arias. From the heart-wrenching despair of Tosca to the delicate vulnerability of La Traviata, each performance reveals her rare ability to inhabit every role completely. Her voice - at once powerful, nuanced, and unmistakably unique - continues to inspire generations of listeners and performers alike. Listening to Maria Callas is not merely hearing great singing; it is experiencing a profound act of storytelling. Her artistry transcends time, reminding us why she is, and always will be, "La Divina."
Maria Callas remains one of the most iconic and transformative figures in operatic history. With her unparalleled dramatic intensity, exquisite phrasing, and extraordinary vocal range, she redefined the art of singing in the 20th century. Every note she sang carried profound emotion, blending technical mastery with a deep understanding of character and story. This collection captures Callas at her finest, breathing life into some of opera's most beloved arias. From the heart-wrenching despair of Tosca to the delicate vulnerability of La Traviata, each performance reveals her rare ability to inhabit every role completely. Her voice - at once powerful, nuanced, and unmistakably unique - continues to inspire generations of listeners and performers alike. Listening to Maria Callas is not merely hearing great singing; it is experiencing a profound act of storytelling. Her artistry transcends time, reminding us why she is, and always will be, "La Divina."
With But remember what you have had, Stephen O'Malley continues and expands his musical approach by transposing it to multiphonic electroacoustic writing and acousmatic listening. Drawing not only on his extensive experience as a composer and live instrumentalist, but also on the countless studio production and mixing sessions he has taken part in the course of his many projects (in solo, with SUNN O))) or KTL, to name but a few), Stephen O'Malley's work on this new piece is ambitious, engaging in an inspired research that delves into the deep intricacies between polyphony, intonation and timbrality, enhanced by melodic motifs. To do this, O'Malley summons up his own very personal sound universe, constellated with amplified textures, instrumental sustained tones and raw energy, in order to diffract them into wavefronts, waves and blows that weave a complex, rich and fascinating matter. But remember what you have had stands out as an important work in Stephen O'Malley's repertoire: it brings together the multiplicity of his musical approach in an exemplary way, while laying the foundations and promises for the future of an already extraordinary journey.
Hampus Lindwall's Brace for Impact might just be the first album of post-internet pipe organ music. It's an album of five new contemporary classical compositions, all performed by the composer himself on the 78-stop grand organ at St. Antonius church in Dusseldorf, Germany. Featuring the electric guitar of SUNN O)'s Stephen O'Malley on the title track. A highly visceral forty-five minutes of music with undeniable elemental power.
Riparian is the first solo instrumental album by composer and multi-instrumentalist Eyvind Kang. Centered on the viola d'amore, Riparian unfolds two longform improvisations rooted in his self-devised concept of ecomusicality. Produced by Randall Dunn, the record offers a meditative, textural sound world shaped by Kang's deep lineage in microtonality, raga, and spiritual jazz. Music video features a commissioned performance by NY Yang Sheng Tai Chi Qi Gong Association in Chinatown, NYC. Warm, resonant, and quietly intense, Riparian invites deep listening across time and form.
Uranian Void is the new solo release from acclaimed composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Jessika Kenney. Best known for her collaborations with Eyvind Kang and her haunting contributions to Midsommar, Kenney and producer Randall Dunn weave ghazals, hydrophone recordings, sine waves, and original texts into an immersive meditation on perception, resonance, and memory. Drawing on years of inquiry into acoustic space and psychic interiority, Uranian Void distills experimental vocal practice into something mystical, prismatic, and deeply felt.
Sublime private-press piano improvisations channeled from another world by Willem Nyland. Remastered from the original tapes and reissued for the first time, with in-depth liner notes by Matt Marble of the American Museum of Paramusicology. A Columbia-educated chemist by profession and a self-taught pianist by affinity, Willem Nyland (1890-1975) is known as a spiritual teacher in the tradition of Greek-Armenian mystic George Gurdjieff. In the mid/late 1960s, a split with Gurdjieff led Nyland to start his own group in upstate New York. There, after a Friday night lecture on "The Work" and a shot of brandy, Nyland would launch into remarkable piano improvisations on a specially tuned baby grand, sometimes playing for over an hour. Each improvisation was meticulously recorded and cataloged, a major part of Nyland's teachings. 16 of these recordings were released as standalone LPs on Nyland's own Gauge Hill Press, with artwork by Hungarian American decorative artist Ilonka Karasz, Nyland's wife of over 50 years. These records, with their cascading, deeply emotional playing and beautiful cover art, have become highly coveted by collectors and "paramusicologists." Each contains depths of spiritual information and lyrical, almost visual instrumental storytelling. Nyland deftly and subtly shifts moods and tones throughout these truly inspired extended improvisations.
Tulpa is the debut studio full-length LP by experimental vocalist and composer Charmaine Lee. Blending extended vocal techniques, feedback, electronics, and formal rigor, Lee constructs a world that is visceral, dreamlike, and ferociously precise. Drawing from Taoist and Tibetan cosmology, speculative fiction, and performance ritual, Tulpa meditates on embodiment, disembodiment, and sonic multiplicity. Produced by Randall Dunn, the record channels the surreal into stark, physical presence.
Reverie is a soundtrack of atmospheric chamber music for violin, cello, and piano by sisters Rebecca Foon and Aliayta Foon-Dancoes, and marks the first full-length album collaboration between the two players/composers. Reverie melds cellist Rebecca's post-rock and semi-improvised sensibility forged from over two decades playing in DIY/indie bands like Esmerine, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, and Set Fire To Flames, with violinist Aliayta's more recent trajectory from award-winning virtuosic performer to academically-shaped explorations of interdisciplinary composition. Following several years in London at the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music, Aliayta's move to Princeton in 2023 for a Composition PhD put the sisters back on the same continent, regularly meeting and collaborating at Rebecca's Lost River studio in Quebec's Laurentian mountains. Working with co-producer Jace Lasek (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Patrick Watson, The Besnard Lakes), the result is an immersive suite of thematic variations that balances intimacy and detail with wide-spectrum spatial lushness. Subtle electronic interventions and gently blown-out acoustics ebb and flow throughout, further conveying Reverie's overriding mission to weave a meditative pastoralism with the underlying anxiety, sorrow, and tragedy of ecocide.
