Ἀρέθουσα
isolation, introspection, relaxation
ambient, folk, drone, acoustic, vocal, field recordings, early music, spiritual
Going slowly into the night with Anders Brørby’s layered ambient on Traumas (2018, Forwind). The start is calm, mysterious, but about halfway the album starts adding stellar beat-based work to the mix, as well. A rewarding listen.
Put the Ospreys on it and You’ll Know the End was released by Andrew Weathers for last month’s Bandcamp Voter Friday event. It’s one of his classic longform americana-tinged drone works, gradually crescendoing synth and electric guitar. Hazy as the desert.
Hespèrion XXI; Jordi Savall - Ostinato (2001 Alia Vox)
Starts out with a nice selection of courtly dances, before moving into a series of more mournful extended Baroque compositions. Purcell, Cortiz, et al.
James Murray’s Falling Backwards (2018, Home Normal) is deeply contemplative, melancholic ambient. Synths and drawn out bowed strings conjure music that is as accepting yet unsettling as the literal voluntary falls the album refers to.
Munir Bashir - Mesopotamia (2003, Harmonia Mundi)
The Iraqi oud master on a double album, deeply traditional in inspiration but virtuoso in his workings. Bashir shreds.
You can always rely on Rabih Abou-Khalil for a choice blend of jazz and middle eastern classical music, but the latter is particularly prominent here on Yara (1998, enja). Haunting and masterful work on the strings and percussion here.
Rapoon’s Offworld OP1 Equs (2018, Winter-Light) is a brilliant piece of space ambient, eschewing the usual trappings of the genre, and bringing the full weight of his experience to bear. Alien bells, strange arcane devices… Offworldly, indeed!
Swallowed into the Abyss by Sangam: warm urban ambient (2018, Geometric Lullaby). Nighttime strolls, neon haze, strangers in the night. Sometimes unsettling, but never violent or lurid.