Electro/Ambient

MATTHEW COLLINGS is a Scotland-based composer. Not only being a solo recording and live artist, he collaborates regularly with artists from all kinds of fields including musicians (e.g. Dag Rosenqvist from JASPER TX and Denovali label mate TALVIHORROS), dancers and filmmakers. He's responsible for several installations using custom-made software, which have been exhibited at Burning Man Festival in San Francisco or Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts. His work for films includes a specially commissioned live score for Dziga Vertov's 1929 silent classic, ¶he Man with the Movie Camera' and an invitation to work on ¶he Invisibles', a commission from Amnesty International. Before settling down in Edinburgh, he lived in Iceland for six years, where he wrote a number of albums issued under the name of his lo-fi/ambient project Sketches for Albinos and where he met fellow collaborator Ben Frost. His music can be roughly described as 'an elemental whorl of electro-acoustic (de)composition' (Boomkat.com), ranging from tiny delicate moments of intimacy to all consuming noise. Collings' gentle blurred singing voice is added consequently as an melodic instrument, that never dominates, but soaks through a composition, which seems to be distorted through its state of constant shift. Strongly influenced by avant-garde guitar music, it calls the minimal music of Steve Reich or Gavin Bryars to mind in like manner. While looking back to an extensive period of creating music with his ambient project Sketches for Albinos Collings felt the urgent necessity of starting with a completely different approach to music, as the ambient aesthetic didn't match any longer with new ideas burgeoning in his head. He wanted to create a more direct sound to involve a much grander and more dangerous range of emotions. The composition process of Splintered Instruments came out of personally reckoning with two contrary forces, something vicious and unrelenting challenging with a soft and kind energy - getting to their core and the dynamic interrelation to one another Filtered through melody and vaguely resembling songs, driven by nested rhythm patterns, one can imagine that the first sound Collings picked up on as a leading impulse was like Sonic Youth's The Diamond Sea' meeting music for 18 Musicians'. I wanted to take songs and kind of dissolve them and then bring them back again, with everything just being on the edge of these various types of structures. He worked closely with Ben Frost on the creation of Splintered Instruments, who took influence in the physicality and size of sound and helped to achieve him to reach into the deepest parts of human nature, pulling it out in a hybrid-pop-experimental-noise form. According to Collings, the record is a revolt against machines understanding the sense of precision as something pretty unnatural. He avoids working with computers only using them for convenience, not as a principle. 90% of the record is organic sourced from or played on acoustic instruments or objects, being drawn to sound of every kind which is more human, more imperfect in its subtle variations. Splintered Instruments '.is not about noise or the decibel levels - it's about the sheer uncompromised approach to raw sound design' (Headphone Commute) Record Label: Denovali Style: Experimental

After a period of dormancy from the mid-nineties to 2009, Slovenian act Borghesia began to once again create music. The result of these efforts can be found on And Man Created God. The concept behind the album is the idea that the corrupt, diseased systems of old are just replaced with more of the same. As the band says, ...In the meanwhile a bad system was replaced by a worse one. The rich have been stealing from the poor since the dawn of human race. Today these dimensions have become absurd: capital, money making money, has become a new deity. Money, this new age golden calf. Money. We've all ended up being good consumers. One should fight a system which does not work for the benefit of people. Therefore, the record is entitled And Man Created God. Record Label: Metropolis Records Style: EBM/Electro

Artist: Compendium Label: maxelect records

Artist: A Vida Azul Label: Maxlc

Artist: Field Label: maxelect records

Artist: Nate Young; Artist: Regression Label: NNA Tapes

MATTHEW COLLINGS is a Scotland-based composer. Not only being a solo recording and live artist, he collaborates regularly with artists from all kinds of fields including musicians (e.g. Dag Rosenqvist from JASPER TX and Denovali label mate TALVIHORROS), dancers and filmmakers. He's responsible for several installations using custom-made software, which have been exhibited at Burning Man Festival in San Francisco or Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts. His work for films includes a specially commissioned live score for Dziga Vertov's 1929 silent classic, ¶he Man with the Movie Camera' and an invitation to work on ¶he Invisibles', a commission from Amnesty International. Before settling down in Edinburgh, he lived in Iceland for six years, where he wrote a number of albums issued under the name of his lo-fi/ambient project Sketches for Albinos and where he met fellow collaborator Ben Frost. His music can be roughly described as 'an elemental whorl of electro-acoustic (de)composition' (Boomkat.com), ranging from tiny delicate moments of intimacy to all consuming noise. Collings' gentle blurred singing voice is added consequently as an melodic instrument, that never dominates, but soaks through a composition, which seems to be distorted through its state of constant shift. Strongly influenced by avant-garde guitar music, it calls the minimal music of Steve Reich or Gavin Bryars to mind in like manner. While looking back to an extensive period of creating music with his ambient project Sketches for Albinos Collings felt the urgent necessity of starting with a completely different approach to music, as the ambient aesthetic didn't match any longer with new ideas burgeoning in his head. He wanted to create a more direct sound to involve a much grander and more dangerous range of emotions. The composition process of Splintered Instruments came out of personally reckoning with two contrary forces, something vicious and unrelenting challenging with a soft and kind energy - getting to their core and the dynamic interrelation to one another Filtered through melody and vaguely resembling songs, driven by nested rhythm patterns, one can imagine that the first sound Collings picked up on as a leading impulse was like Sonic Youth's The Diamond Sea' meeting music for 18 Musicians'. I wanted to take songs and kind of dissolve them and then bring them back again, with everything just being on the edge of these various types of structures. He worked closely with Ben Frost on the creation of Splintered Instruments, who took influence in the physicality and size of sound and helped to achieve him to reach into the deepest parts of human nature, pulling it out in a hybrid-pop-experimental-noise form. According to Collings, the record is a revolt against machines understanding the sense of precision as something pretty unnatural. He avoids working with computers only using them for convenience, not as a principle. 90% of the record is organic sourced from or played on acoustic instruments or objects, being drawn to sound of every kind which is more human, more imperfect in its subtle variations. Splintered Instruments '.is not about noise or the decibel levels - it's about the sheer uncompromised approach to raw sound design' (Headphone Commute) Style: Experimental

Having received remarkable praise for his debut Splintered Instruments, Denovali Records is re-releasing the debut album accompanied by the release of his new second album called Silence Is A Rhythm too. Style: Experimental

Composer: Offenbach; Conductor: Arthur Fiedler; Orchestra: Boston Pops Orchestra Label: Analogue Productions (RCA Living Stereo)

The Analogue Productions/QRP pressing reissue treatment delivers sonics and luxury packaging second to none for discerning collectors. Now we've given three titles by Canadian songstress Sarah McLachlan this premier makeover and you reap the benefits: "Solace", "Mirrorball" and "Afterglow". Each on 45rpm LP and Hybrid SACD. McLachlan's rebellion is hushed on "Afterglow", her first studio album since 1997's "Surfacing". At times even the piano chords at the heart of the sound are tucked neatly beneath layer upon layer of strings and overdubbed voices. Listen to what’s being sung within this soothing aural bed, though, and hear the just-before-sleep murmurings of the quietest riot girl: »I’m a train wreck waiting to happen ... a wildfire born of frustration,«, »How stupid could I be ... you’re no good for me, but you’re the only one I see,«, »I have to push just to see how far you’ll go.« The latter song ("Push") resolves itself with the assurance, »You complete me.« Ultimately, McLachlan fans will be comforted again by what turns out to be her reliably untroubled aesthetic. Record Label: Acoustic Sounds AAPP 054-45 Style: Pop

Artist: Eric Dolphy Label: Analogue Productions

Artist: Agonoize Label: Traffic Entertainment Group

Artist: Born Electric Label: Born Electric (Alive)

Composer: Deutsche Wertarbeit Label: Bureau B

Artist: Deutsche Wertarbeit Label: Bureau B

Artist: Orlando Julius With the Helioc Label: Strut (Alive)

Composer: Death Dealer Label: Hellion Records Germany (Soulfood)

Artist: Gut Und Irmler Label: Bureau B

Artist: Various Artists Label: Numero

Artist: Gut Und Irmler Label: Bureau B