Simon Leoza has been honing his craft in the three years since the release of his debut album Albatross.  A live album was followed by a pair of singles and scores for a ballet and a short film.  In September, he turned his attention to a major project, releasing the first of what would eventually be three “scenes” of ACTE on three EPs, three tracks per EP; the full set is now released, including a slightly reshuffled order and three additional tracks.  The scoring influence is immediately apparent, as the album is intensely theatrical and possesses a keen sense of flo ..read more

Serendipity is the phenomenon of finding valuable things without searching for them. When you’re fulfilled, this is just a happy coincidence, but when you’ve suffered a loss, it can be a profound, even quasi-religious moment. Nature can be a particularly rich source of serendipity, but in the years since we’ve become captives of technology, we often forget to open our eyes to it. In order to understand the serendipty present in this album you need to understand something about growing up on the British Isles. On the islands, you can’t help but be aware of the sea. Even at its most distant, it ..read more

Glowworm ~ now the duo of Kevin Scott Davis and pianist & vocalist Asia Dojnikowska with guests on strings and double bass ~ has already made a huge impression with the video for “The Garden,” directed by Andy Trimbach.  The opening scene even includes a bright, teal-colored glowworm!  The aching of the protagonist is palpable, conveyed sonically by the piano and strings and visually by the choreography – a brief escape, perhaps only imagined.  Davis writes that while “Midnight Intervals was a somber reflection on the dark night of the soul, (Harvest is) about the joy t ..read more

This year’s spring slate is packed with so much sweetness, it can hardly be contained.  From solo piano albums to chamber orchestras, ballet to film scores, entire worlds are represented.  Some artists find a Crayola box of timbres in a single place, while others suggest a walk in an arboretum.  And let’s not forget World Piano Day, which lands on the 88th day of the year, March 28, the heart of Holy Week.  This preview may be compact, but it contains music of great weight and power, perhaps the best value per note of any preview in our spring collection.  We’re proud ..read more

Some may recognize the name mayforest from our review of nocny a couple years back or his self-titled release a few years before that.  Christian Maiwald’s music is eminently peaceful, the reflection of what we thought was a relatively placid, carefree life.  But then we encountered ablatio, which challenges our assumptions not only of the artist, but of life itself. This is the first release we’ve ever encountered that is offered with a glass eye: and not just any glass eye, but one of five that the artist wore for a year.  ablatio gives him t ..read more

This past weekend, Gustav Möller’s Sons (Vogter) debuted at the Berlinale ’24 Competition, and is already received critical acclaim.  Möller’s prior film, “The Guilty,” was adapted into an English-language film starring Jake Gyllenhaal; composer Jon Ekstrand may be best known for the TV series “Top Dog” and the films “Morbius” and “Life.”  The Danish film Sons tests the Swedish composer’s mettle, and he rises to the challenge.  The score is set for release on OONA, who also released Rebekkah Karijord’s Songs of Earth, one of our top film scores of 2023. The f ..read more

Olivia Belli‘s albums are always a highlight of the contemporary piano landscape, and Intermundia is no exception. A deep thinker, a sophisticated composer, and an exquisite pianist, Belli can effortlessly switch between electrifying virtuoso playing and tender lyricism. Her albums are always profoundly coherent, whether it be the childhood memories of Where Night Never Comes, the flow of a river from source to sea of River Path, or the way our behaviour threatens Mother Earth in MATER. As the topics explored in her albums illustrate, place and landscape is often important to her and, reading ..read more

The pairing of painting and music makes this a special little release.  The cover art comes from the Barcelona-based artist’s aunt, Conchi Escamilla, the internal art from a pair of other local artists, Adolfo Lozano Sidro and Snorri Arinbjarnar.  We miss the days of vinyl, because the hues here are particularly vibrant, a match for the tender, emotive music. This is the second EP for composer Jaime del Adarve, following last year’s Neu, also on piano and coffee records.  Las Horas (The Hours) may refer to the hours of the day, although the EP can be played f ..read more

The demarcation between pop and experimental is less a border between uneasy nations, with a DMZ to confirm the gulf between, and more the line where sea meets beach, ebbing and flowing to gravity’s pull. Berlin-based Toechter return to our pages almost two years after claiming with their impressive debut that pop is experimental to them, with a successor that explores the pop incursions gracing parts of Zephyr.  Once more, the genesis of all sounds on Epic Wonder is analogue: violin, viola, cello and voice. Some of the melodies they produce and even some vocals ~ of which there are plent ..read more

We’ve been impressed at the versatility of harpists over the past year, from the ambient appeal of Mary Lattimore to the experimentalism of Kety Fusco to the remixes of Lara Somogyi.  This year, Lavinia Meijer follows three seasonal EPs with the 18-track Winter, and as fans of winter music, we’re glad she selected this season for an expanded release. Winter has a trifold appeal.  First and foremost, it’s a gorgeous album that sounds like winter, with peaceful tones reminiscent of Christmas (Benjamin Britten’s “Corpus Christi Carol”) and snow (Franz Schubert’s “A Winter Interlude ..read more