Exploring the increasingly blurred intersection of our real & virtual lives, Jacek & Ewa Doroszenko gently guide you into contemplating your changing reality before increasing the intensity, forcing you to question the Web 3.0's guiding hands &  motivations in this appropriately ambient electronic meditation on modern living for Audiobulb, with Ewa intriguingly somehow contributing her skin & body parts to the project. 

We are a creative couple. In our symbiotic everyday reality, art blends with life. We operate in the era of digital dependencies. Contemporary technologies increasingly affect our lives and work, and the dynamics of their development makes them more and more integrated with reality. Our situation seems to be dominated by virtual images and content – digital immersion is an inseparable element of every day we spend together. There is no longer a dichotomy between the virtual and real worlds, we exist in a new, hybrid space in which boundaries extend beyond the tangible experience. Fascinated by these phenomena, in the “Bodyfulness” project we try to capture the coexistence of physical and virtual life, talk about the intimate experience of the body online and offline, show a subjective audiovisual study of the way modern technology and culture change our intimate relationships. 

The project is also inspired by popular Internet practices: online guided meditations on the YouTube platform, ASMR session recordings with a multimillion viewership, naive self-improvement tutorials, smartphone apps for meditation and sleep. Despite technological progress, virtualization and digitalization of reality (or maybe because of it?) there is a growing interest in rituals and spiritual practices that allow to reach a state of deeper awareness or at least simulate it. 

The “Bodyfulness” consists of a series of photographs and musical compositions revealing the potentials and paradoxes of digital intimacy. The work is accompanied by video referring to popular online voice-guided meditations, whose listening is supposed to calm down, relax, or regain concentration. Both visual and sound works are based on recordings of our care and relaxation rituals, evening conversations, meetings, close-ups, including virtual ones – full of digital blurring, distortions, imperfections. Based on the performativity of these activities we experiment with the post-organic body to present audible carnality.

CREDITS
​Performed by Jacek Doroszenko: various electronics, prepared piano, field recordings, sound installation recordings, various analogue synths, bells, various strings & Ewa Doroszenko: skin and body parts, synthetic pellets. 

Recorded at The Quality Studio and the artist’s studio in Warsaw, additional sounds recorded in a frame of the Artist-in-Residence at Salzamt, Linz, Austria. 

Mastering: David Newman. 
Artworks: Ewa Doroszenko.

You can stream the Slow Ambient playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

Softly spoken voice art & appropriated sounds hover over varying degrees of IDM freneticism, as exotic percussion accentuated New Age vibrations slide through the cracks to commune with the pervading ambient atmospherics & turn Wordcolour's new LP for Houndstooth into a sonic speedball.

‘The trees were buzzing, and the grass.’ is described as an album of collaboration with contributions from percussionist Michael Anklin, voice artist Natasha Lohan and performance artist Es Morgan as well as vocal appearances from friends. From the moment you press play, Wordcolour immerses you in his world, enveloped by the sound of rustling leaves, footsteps, gong-like synths and ghostlike, sometimes haunting, vocals. 


As you listen through, you will find the signature twinkling, magical style of Wordcolour, as it twists and turns through ambient and IDM. “In one sense the album is quite cinematic. Not in the sense that it is big or epic, but in the way it is structured. At times the music literally cuts like a camera - moving the listener from one acoustic environment to another. It indulges a fascination with the hyper-real world of Foley and film sound effects, natural ambiences, and Spielbergian film music." 


The Wordcolour project started back in 2017, with the first output under the moniker via a Blowing Up The Workshop mix in 2019 which was named one of Pitchfork’s mixes of the year. With these ideas and sketches in mind, this album feels like a culmination of Wordcolour, marrying the two worlds he currently orbits in, between the early experimental concepts and the recent more club-focused output. 


Named as One To Watch in 2021 by The Guardian, Wordcolour made his first appearance on the famed London label in November 2020 to great acclaim with ‘Juno Way’. The EP received support from Crack Magazine, The Guardian, DJ Mag, KEXP, Worldwide FM, FACT Magazine, and more. 

He has since followed up with ‘Bluster’ EP, inviting The Soft Pink Truth, Djrum and DJ Python to create their own distinctive interpretations of the lead single. With a background in jazz, pop and contemporary classical, Wordcolour has also previously produced music for TV and theatre as well as released on Spanish imprint Lapsus Records with ‘Tell Me Something’. He’s one of the most exciting producers coming through the next generation of club music.  

CREDITS

​All tracks composed, produced and performed by Wordcolour, except tracks 4, 5 and 7 featuring percussion by Michael Anklin, & tracks 4 and 5 featuring vocals by Natasha Lohan. 
Additional percussion and vocals by Michael Anklin and Natasha Lohan throughout. Text written in collaboration with Es Morgan. 
Voices by CJ Fantoni, Caroline Whiteley, Dasha Loyko, Design Default, John Chambers, Kate Howden & Natasha Lohan. 

– "for Dad" 

Cover photo: Three white-tailed deer running, Michigan by George Shiras III (1893-1898)

You can stream the Slowtronic Playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

The Middle East and Africa bridging sounds of Ethiopian jazz will never get old for me so it's nice to hear Kibrom Birhane drop his sophomore LP for Flying Carpet Records of this most evocative, almost mystical jazz sub-genre, whilst giving it a personal West coast twist here and there for good measure.

Summer 2022 marks the release of Here And There, the new album by the critically acclaimed Ethiopian jazz musician Kibrom Birhane. His third and most adventurous record to date, Here And There is a conscious exploration and deep dive into the waters of life; complex yet harmonious soundscapes stem from a diverse range of influences across a broad spectrum, ranging from the sacred and profane, to the pioneering and contemporary. Having absorbed thousand year old Ethiopian orthodox chanting as a child, while expertly acquainting himself with the traditional instruments of the region, Kibrom has focused his diverse musical talents studying past Ethiopian Jazz legends from the 1970s with modern day contemporaries while continuing to reach new depths and discovery. The result of this is the new album Here And There: an inimitable body of work that is a fresh and compelling proposition in today's musical landscape. 

Supported by a stellar, multicultural roster of some of LA's finest session players and recorded direct to two inch tape during an intimate live studio session without headphones under the direction of engineer/producer, Kamal de Iruretagoyena Humphrey at Flying Carpet Studios, this latest jewel truly captures Birhane's unquestionable talent. The resulting tracks recall such jazz masterpieces as "Celestial Blues" by Gary Bartz and Joe Henderson's "Earth", creating a special atmosphere within the recording that adds much character to the album as a whole. 

The Upbeat Groove of 'Merkato' swings like the outdoor markets of Addis Ababa, while the bossa nova influenced 'Weleta' melds Afro-Latin soul with 1960's West Coast cool. Kibrom offers a stiffing homage to family and community on 'Mender', reflecting further on his family ties in 'Enate', a jumping vocal tribute in 11/8 time that features a notable sax solo by Randal Fisher. 

Here And There not only delivers the ancient traditional and deep jazz roots of Kibrom's native Ethiopia, but also lifts the listener to a new and unique musical space informed by his work as member of L.A. based Ethio-Cali; an ensemble that boasts such illustrious musicians as Kamasi Washington, Dexter Story, Mark De-Clive Lowe and Todd Simon. In this album, Kibrom has woven Ethiopian Jazz, East-African Funk, Spiritual and Soul Jazz with Psychedelic threads into a rich tapestry of musical colors. 

Kibrom Birhane is the future of Ethiopian jazz. He has a deep connection to the past and a vision for the future. His keyboard playing and improvisation reaches the deepest depths of the cosmos inside an unlimited musical universe.

​CREDITS
Wurlitzer, Piano, Organ, Krar, Talkbox and Vocals – Kibrom Birhane 
Guitar – Nadav Peled 
Saxophone – Randal Fisher 
Trombone – Fabio Santana 
Trumpet – Glenn Holdaway 
Percussion – Kahlil Cummings 
Drums – Jake Najor 
Bass – Dave Pinewood tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,11 
Bass – Misgana Mulat tracks 8,9,10 
Composed and arranged by Kibrom Birhane 
Produced, engineered and mixed by Kamal de Iruretagoyena Humphrey

You can stream the Slow World Playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube and Soundcloud

The sonic semantics of Félica Atkinson suggest she sees things somewhat differently to most. In the new LP for her Shelter Press imprint experimental musical surroundings are constructed from the finest scap sounds, neoclassical dips in and out at will and agreeable noises provides a bed for her ASMR discourse, but there is always a sense of ambient peace amongst the reality probing peculiarities.

Image Langage 

Opening the window, I look at the light, it connects me to something more vast. 

Felicia Atkinson’s music always puts the listener somewhere in particular. There are two categories of place that are important to Image Language: the house and the landscape. Inside and outside, different ways of orienting a body towards the world. They are in dialogue, insofar as in the places Atkinson made this record—Leman Lake, during a residency at La Becque in Switzerland, and at her home on the wild coast of Normandy—the landscape is what is waiting for you when you leave the house, and vice-versa. Each threatens—or is it offers, kindly, even promises?—to dissolve the other. Recognizing the normalization of home studios these days, she revisited twentieth-century women artists who variously chose, and were chosen by, their homes as a place to work: the desert retreats of Agnes Martin and Georgia O’Keefe, the life and death of Sylvia Plath. Building a record is like building a house: a structure in which one can encounter oneself, each room a song with its own function in the project of everyday life. 

At times listening to Image Langage is immediate, something like visiting a house by the sea, sharing the same ground, being invited to witness Atkinson’s acts of seeing, hearing, and reading in a sonic double of the places they occurred. In an aching moment of clarity in “The Lake is Speaking,” a pair of voices emerge out of the primordial murk of piano and organ, accompanying the listener to the edge of a reflective pool that makes a mirror of the cosmos. “I open my feet to fresh dirt, and the wet grass. I hold your hand. You hold his hand. In the distance without any distance. The comets, the stars.” At other times, listening to Image Language is more like being in a theater, the composition a tangle of flickering forms and media that illuminate as best they can the darkness from which we experience it. On “Pieces of Sylvia,” a noirish orchestra drones and clatters beneath and around a montage of vocal images, stretching the listener across time, space, subjectivities. Atkinson says that Image Language is like the fake title of a fake Godard film. There is indeed something cinematic about Atkinson’s work—not cinematic in the sense that it sounds like the score for someone else’s film, but cinematic in the sense that it produces its own images and language and narratives, a kind of deliberate, dimensional world-building in sound. 

Image Langage is built from instruments recorded as if field recordings, sound-images of instruments conjured from a keyboard, instruments Atkinson treats like characters, what she calls “a fantasy of an orchestra that doesn’t exist.” And then, speaking of Godard, there are the monologues, operating as both experimental-cinematic device and a literary style of narration. Voice can be a writerly anchor or a wisp of a textural presence. Atkinson’s capacious and slippery speech plunges into and out of the compositional depths, shifting shapes, channeling the voices of any number of beings, subjectivities, or elements of her surroundings—not unlike her midi keyboard, able to speak as a vast array of instruments. 

Image Langage is an environmental record, in the vastest sense of the world. It is about getting lost in places imagined and real; it registers, too, the dizzying feeling of moving between such sites. It puts forth a concept of self that is hopelessly entangled with the rest of the world, born of both the ache of distance and the warmth of proximity. 

— Thea Ballard, 02.2022

CREDITS
​All music: Félicia Atkinson 
Mastering: Stephan Mathieu 
Artwork: Aidan Koch 
Design: Bartolomé Sanson 

Shelter Press / La Becque Editions 
2022

If you've been checking the blog or Slow Folk playlist you'll already be well aware of Lindsay Clark, and I'm happy to report her LP for Audiosport is finally here and living up to all my lofty expectations. This really is a most enchanting folk LP, as her distinctive vocals are elevated further heavenwards by clouds of lovingly crafted, reality dissipating arrangements. Just wonderful.

Thank you to Jeremy Harris for your support and friendship, seeing my vision and writing the perfect arrangements. Abby, Alela, Amy, Casey, Dao, Emily, Greta, Hanna, Har Anand, Laura, Leah and Robin for your friendship, 500 Sumner household (in all its iteration), Zach for playing cello with me on the early versions, Sean Ogilvie for recording the early demos, Johanna for singing with me, Erik, for being a source of love and positivity for myself and my music, Michael Hurley, for your unique friendship, lots of folks in Astoria, Oregon, The Sou’wester Lodge, Can Serrat and my favorite Spanish town, all the artists that I’ve met in residency over the past three years who felt like such kindred spirits. Matthias, Oscarson, Tim and Theo for support and kindness. Daniel for trading songs with me through the long months. Shawn, for taking care of me and showing me a new side to love. My Portland circle of friends and musicians who continue to inspire me, who are too many to name here — if you think you might be one of them, you are. :) Steven, Blue and School of Song. Healing plants, places, and whatever universal force keeps me going and making art. Meredith, Hannah, Crystal & Ted for the visual creations. My sweet cat Aster Moon. I love you all. 

CREDITS
​Carpe Noctem was recorded at Panoramic House (Stinson Beach, CA), and also Color Therapy (Portland, OR), Bocce Studios (Vancouver, WA), in a dear friends backyard studio and somewhere in Tennessee by Jeremy Harris (engineer, mixing with Euan Hinshelwood, string / wind arrangements on 2, 3, 8, co-arrange 11), Ryan Oxford (additional engineer) and Brandon Eggleston (additional engineer). I am deeply grateful for everyone who played on this album including Alexis Mahler (violin, viola, cello on 2, 3,8), William Tyler (electric guitars on 1, 5, 9, second acoustic guitar on 4), Meike Bruggeman (flute, Aalto flute, clarinet on 3, 11), Andy Rayborn (bass clarinet, clarinet on 3, 11, co-arrange 11), Sage Fisher (harp on 5, 6) and Alela Diane (additional vocal harmony on 8). Mastered by Amy Dragon at Telegraph. Layout/design by Greta Merrick. Photography by Myles Katherine, back cover by Montse Andrée. Lindsay Elizabeth Clark (production, arrange/co-arrange, guitar, piano, vocals and constant tea making)

You can stream the Slow Folk playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube and Soundcloud

Just in time to soundtrack your summer lounging & intimate moments Sessa has dropped his new LP of whispered neo-Tropicalia for Mexican Summer. Seemingly recorded after a couple of bowls, he continues his unhurried, whimsical musings on the varied nature of love swept along by vintage strings & the classic sounds of this most musical of countries.

Sergio Sayeg (aka Sessa) has always been entranced by what he calls “the mess” of music: the accidental, tortuous nature of it, a path on which musicians and audiences alike can attain a higher purpose. A love supreme, if you will. While Sessa’s 2019 debut Grandeza explored the corporeal pleasures and gentle drunkenness of being in love, his new album, Estrela Acesa (which translates as Burning Star), gazes up to the heavens and ponders love both sensuous and spiritual, in the throes of its resultant hangover.
​
CREDITS

Sessa: Vocals, Nylon Guitar, Percussion 
Biel Basile: Drums, Percussion, Piano 
Marcelo Cabral: Bass 

Ciça Góes: Vocals and Percussion 
Ina: Vocals and Percussion 
Paloma Mecozzi: Vocals and Percussion 
Lau Ra: Vocals and Percussion 

Kate Goddard - Violin 
Ruby Wang - Violin 
Hannah Selin - Viola 
Ansel Cohen - Cello 
Simon Hanes - Conducting 

Gabriel Milliet: Flutes 

Vocals arranged by Ciça Góes, Ina, Paloma Mecozzi, Lau Ra, Biel Basile and Sessa 
Band tracks arranged by Biel Basile, Marcelo Cabral, Mikey Coltun, Cem Misirlioglu and Sessa 
Strings arranged by Simon Hanes except "Helena" arranged by Alex Chumak and "Irmão de Nuvem" arranged by Alex Chumak and Simon Hanes. Flutes arranged by Alex Chumak. 

Produced by Sessa and Biel Basile. Additional production by Mikey Coltun. 
All tracks recorded by Sessa and Biel Basile between June and August 2021 at Estúdio Grilos, Ilhabela, SP and Sítio Santa Inês, Piracaia, SP except "Helena" recorded by Nick Graham Smith at Pendulum, São Paulo, SP in October 2020. Strings recorded by Al Carson, assisted by Robert Aceto at Gary's Electric, Brooklyn, NY. Mixed by Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets, Providence, RI. Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles, CA. 
All songs written by Sessa 

Copyright control Sergio Victor Sayeg (BMI) 

Artwork by Joshua Nazario, Photo cover by Biel Basile. Insert photos by Biel Basile and Helena Wolfenson. Lyrics translated from Portuguese to English by J. Westfal. Designed by Alex Tults. Art direction by Sessa and Jonathan Shedletzky. 

Acknowledgements: 

This record wouldn't be possible without the generous help of my friends, family and lover: 
Helena Wolfenson, Chico França, Pat Bergantin, Virginia Kalili Sayeg, Victor Salomão Sayeg, Marcelo Sayeg, Laura Pereira, Monique Maion, Talita Cabral, Helena Sasseron, Sabine Holler, Sara de Santis, Joana Bem-Haja, Larissa Braga, Jonathan Shedletzky, Bled Celhyka, Cem Misirlioglu, João Bagdadi Neto, Gui Jesus Toledo, Isabel Wolfenson, Taygoara Schiavinoto, Joel Stones, Diana Foxell, Selva Aydin, Ricardo Lerman, Arthur Decloedt, Keith Abrahamson, Jonas Morbach, Nick Graham Smith, Tim Bernardes, Juan Wauters, Luiza Lian, Venilton Aparecido de Souza Rosa (in memoriam), Vanielza de Goes Maciel Souza, André Poppovic, Cristina Pereira Barretto, José Gomes, Antônio Lessa, Bob Wolfenson, Mariza Guimarães, Silvinha Couto, Mamãe Gorda, Gacel, Lili, Osasco, Guarulhos, Diadema, Soninha.

You can stream the Slow World playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube and Soundcloud

A delightful debut EP from Vancouver's Troll Dolly as she puts the fun into freak folk & the pleasant into psychedelic pop in this thoroughly charming, beautifully fused, sonically detailed & playful listen for Astoria Tracks.

Produced by Jen Yakamovich & Shilo Preshyon 
Songs written and arranged by Jen Yakamovich (Troll Dolly) 

Engineered by Shilo Preshyon, Trevor Lang & Jen Yakamovich 
Mixed by Shilo Preshyon 
Sauna Song and Deedee mastered by Justin Coletti 
Microcosms, Wee Beasties, Fishin', Long Lake, and Pooly mastered by JS 

Recorded in Cedar, British Columbia on Stz’uminus, Snuneymuxw & Snaw'naw'as Territories 

Cover art by Trevor Lang 

Personnel: 
Jen Yakamovich- vocals, percussion, drums, acoustic guitars, piano, Wurlitzer, synths, samples, vibraphone 
Shilo Preshyon- electric guitars, electric bass, upright bass, synths, samples, organ, vibraphone 
Trevor Lang- backing vocals on Fishin' & Pooly, bass, guitars, synths, samples, percussion 

with additional performances by Willow Sereda-Meichel (backing vocals on Sauna Song), Alex Maunders (backing vocals on Fishin' & Pooly), and Finn Smith (vibraphone on Wee Beasties & Long Lake).

You can stream the Slow Pop playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

Ambient jazz communes with ambient Americana at the Aural Canyon ashram in the wonderful new LP from Cole Pulice & Nat Harvie. For oncel the musicians & instruments outnumber the machines & sound all the better for it, in this gently restless exploration of the most cosmic of kosmische realms.

Cole Pulice - tenor & alto saxophone, wind synth, hardware 
Nat Harvie - synthesizer & sampler 
Hilary James - cello 
Zach Warpinski - pedal steel 
Charlie Bruber - double bass 

Arrangements by Cole Pulice & Nat Harvie 

Recorded and mixed by Cole Pulice & Nat Harvie at Salon Sonics in St. Paul 

Mastered by Dave Vettraino at Public House Sound Recordings in Chicago 

Painting by Patricia Canelake: "Unleashed" © Patricia Canelake 

Lettering by Tara Slaughter 

© Cole Pulice & Nat Harvie 
Ⓟ Aural Canyon

You can stream The New Age of New Age playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

Precision sonic placement, perfectly judged field recordings, minimal sounds that generate maximum effect, a slowly evolving LP that opens with a cello led, neoclassical stateliness before morphing into somewhat detached ambient constructs with a sombre beauty. It can only be Iu Takahashi, back with perhaps her finest work yet for Luminous Drift.

"What are some of your favorite sounds in the world?" -Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis 

"My favorite sound in the world right now is the sound of a quiet museum or gallery. I love the sound of the space, which is a combination of the sound of the ventilation fan, the irregular footsteps of visitors moving around while looking at the works, and the sounds of the outside coming from far away." -Iu Takahashi 

This quote via interview by Brad Rose sums up the deep respect and love we have for Iu Takakahi's take on the world and her work as a sound artist/composer perfectly. 

Initially hearing Depthscape and Late in Life, Iu's work jumped out by virtue of its delicate authenticity, intricate field recordings, and worlds of stunning emotive layers of ambient composition. 

Still Left is a fully realized work that folds in and in upon itself until it reaches an almost granular level. Beginning with the solo cello of "Innocence" and ending with the stunning ambient drift of "Sand River", this recording is an intricate puzzle that invites the listener into its increasing complexity and unexpected simplicity in ways that are difficult to articulate, and likely will become a unique relationship with each person to spend any amount of time with it. It is deeply intimate and authentically fearless in expression, and humbling to interact with as a listener. 
-Burke

You can stream the Slow Neoclassical playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube and Soundcloud