Tag: music to write to

S.E.T.I. – The Geometry of Night

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

There are two ambient acts called S.E.T.I. – both, as I understand it, take their name from the original S.E.T.I. Institute, as in Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Websites such as Wikipedia or allmusic seem to confuse the two and lump their releases/activities together.

One S.E.T.I. is made up of Taylor Deupree and Savas Ysatas, and they released several albums. While the two artists still collaborate, they no longer use the S.E.T.I. moniker.

The other S.E.T.I. is Andrew Lagowski, who uses other names (his own, Legion) as well as S.E.T.I., and still does perform/record as S.E.T.I. – he’s performing on May 24th at a festival in Germany.

The Geometry of Night by the Lagowski S.E.T.I. has had a lot written about it – just search the web, far more than I can do justice to or need to duplicate here. It has been around for a while – first released in 1996, but still available. The music is complex and often quite rhythm driven, though never really danceable. The rhythms drive the mood. The bass lines, the melodies, the choirs, the strings: it all swells together into something dark and brooding, though somehow uplifting. While I only listen to the album as a whole – it builds and swirls and demands this kind of extended listening – my favourite track is Mare Crisium: five minutes of sound development before any beat kicks in. This is precise and finely crafted music. Writing to this is energising and vital and gives a real vibrancy to my words.

You can stream the music from last.fm, or better yet, stream or purchase the download from bandcamp

Mikronesia – Tissue Paper Ghosts

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

The Gears of Sand label has an eclectic mix of recordings. Mikronesia’s album Tissue Paper Ghosts is one that straddles the lines – at times a bit glitchy, at other times quite drone based. The last track “Remember / Home” is both the longest (around 10 minutes) and quietest, and probably my favourite, and a great way to close out the album. Wonderful to write to – edgy enough to keep me alert and busy.

Hol Baumann – [Human]

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

On high rotation over the last couple of weeks has been Hol Baumann’s [Human] from ultimae records. As I’ve written before, ultimae’s catalog is a little more beat-driven than I would usually listen to, and [Human] is probably at the upper end of beats in my collection. That said, why I’m enjoying it, and enjoying writing to it, is that the album is still very atmospheric – the beats fade off into the background and quiet melodies shuffle forwards. At times it’s edging into world music – a woman singing in a language I don’t recognise (on the song called “Radio Bombay”, so perhaps it is Hindi). I guess that part of writing to music is avoiding music with lyrics I can understand – those words would distract from the words I want to put on the page: I’m seeking atmosphere, and the human voice can create haunting senses … this is an album filled with atmosphere and drive.

I plugged the album in at work for a while and a colleague thought for a moment that it was Massive Attack – so perhaps that’s an indication of the style and tone of Baumann’s album. Again, as with other ultimae releases, this is in a beautiful package – a three-fold digipack, with a 16 page booklet filled with stunning photographs. And a mini “hidden track” too, after a few minutes of silence in the final track.

If you want to sample Baumann’s music, this is his last.fm stream.

Silver Lines – music by Anna Rose Carter

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Silver Lines is a laid-back EP (around 20 minutes) of solo piano works. All the information about the who and what is on the Schedios Records Bandcamp download site. I’m not often a fan on pure piano – though I do enjoy manipulated works, so it was a surprise to enjoy this so much. Silver Lines is a wonderful engaging background piece to stream or download. The download costs four pounds (GBP), but of course the neat thing with bandcamp is the full streaming so you can listen right through before you decide to buy. There is a CD available too – direct from Schedios.

Schedios Records is fairly new outfit – this is just the second release and the first – Clem Leek has sold out, but is still available digitally (stream and download).

Igneous Flame – Intox – gorgeous ambient

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I have a couple of Igneous Flame albums – Intox and Oxana. Both are wonderful drifty drone-ambient pieces. Intox is a little over an hour long – so it suits me for a writing spell. It’s good music to be more concentrated to, there’s nothing too invasive or requiring too much attention (unless you want to to really give it attention). Oxana has some shipping forcasts later in the album which adds a little edge.

I still like CDs for variety and some of Igneous Flame disks are still available at Shopsonic, but you can stream music from the Igneous Flame MySpace page. There are also some neat videos at the NME site.

[The Core] by I Awake

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I Awake – [The Core] is a 60 minute-plus album (it has a “hidden” track at the end) that’s probably more chill than strictly ambient. There are a lot of beats compared to some of what I listen to. Nothing too fast or imposing and much of the record is made up of atmospheres and gentle drifty melodies, supported by some deep bass, choir sounds and a little singing. [The Core] is made up of shorter tracks – mostly between four and five minutes, unlike many ambient albums around which often have tracks which clock in at 15 minutes and upwards. I like to write to this album when I’m wanting to be fast and punchy – the music is an hour with energy and drive, ebbs and flows and this gets reflected, I think, in slightly more upbeat writing.

Like other releases on the exquisite Ultimae label, this comes with a gorgeous 16 page booklet of photographs.

Matthew Florianz

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Dutch ambient artist Matthew Florianz has a great catalogue of minimal ambient music to drift off to. His work is deep and subtle and very moody, and has been well reviewed in the ambient community. I have most of the releases on CD, and have been lucky enough to get some limited edition releases too. Niemandsland from 2006 was originally released with two disks of extra material and the three make a great developing soundtrack for a day of creativity. It’s nice to listen to CDs, rather than just streaming or listening to downloads through Winamp – in part because I can have the computer off and just edit or handwrite.

Florianz’s CDs are available through Shopsonic, and you can check out his MySpace page for updates, happenings and samples and songs to listen to while online. There is an album’s worth of tracks to listen to on the MySpace page.

Sounds The Songs of Seabirds

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Sounds The Songs of Seabirds is prolific Vancouver artist Bob Singley. With an extensive catalogue of ambient and experimental music available to stream and download on his Bandcamp site, Sounds The Songs of Seabirds has hours of exquisite background sounds to tickle your ears as you work, rest and play. Some of the releases are long – over 100 minutes – one, the archive, stands at over 340 (like, six hours) and is growing. Suffice to say I haven’t listened my way through everything yet, but a couple of albums in I’m liking it so far. Most of the music is free to download, but with some nice self-deprecating humour there one album is billed as a fundraiser: “Hello. This album is a fundraiser for myself. I am trying to raise up money to pay my rent. And buy some eggs …” It’s $1 (or more, if you want). Cool that if you buy it, there’s a 25 minute bonus track which takes the running time up to an hour twenty (ie – burn a CD of it). The next album, Soorya Namaskaram, is a crisp work, droney with enough whiskers of melody and strum to keep it interesting – you can listen from the embed below, but do check out his download site, or his myspace page. While much of this is improvisational and live and doesn’t quite have the polish of many professional releases, it’s still very cool, with a freshness and immediacy that’s inspirational. Great stuff.

What is this blog about?

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been watching my posts over recent times and realise that I’m all over the place. So, I’m going to try a little structure for a while. In general the blog has always been about creativity, whether that be writing, music or art. When I started it was pretty much all music (hence the blog name), then as my publication list began growing, the blog shifted to more of a focus on writing and, over time, has become very broad (perhaps some would say scattered). Anyway, here’s my plan for the next little while, assuming I keep blogging on weekdays**

Monday – weekend musings: how my projects have gone over the previous seven days
Tuesday – music to write to: a short review of music I’ve been listening to as I write
Wednesday – random notes on what’s up
Thursday – reading for writing: a short review of the book I’m reading*
Friday – music to write to or random

I will also, as they occur, post notes about current publications, music releases, general news, etc.

*I try to read a book a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. During marking blocks, heavy writing times and so on, sometimes I slip so I might write about something I read a last year, or the year before, or 1989 or whenever.

**Being to the left of the international dateline, if I post at, say, 9am on a Wednesday, that’s around midday on Tuesday in LA, 3pm Tuesday EST, so if my posts seem early …