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viewing 1 To 7 of 7 items
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LP
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LR 177LP
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"Leaving Records presents Music For Living Spaces, the debut LP by non-binary Los Angeles-based artist Green-House. Olive Ardizoni helms the project, which made its debut with the charming 2019 EP Six Songs for Invisible Gardens. Music for Living Spaces represents an evolution of its predecessor's minimalist compositions into songs that move with winsome melodies and emotional arcs. Though recorded during a pandemic, the transporting nature of Music For Livings Spaces offers a remedy for dreariness. Music For Living Spaces' first single 'Sunflower Dance' sports a breezy, bucolic vibe. The track is intended to invoke the whimsical image of hamsters happily dancing in a field. Ardizoni brings an intentionality to these playful atmospheres. They state, 'In our culture, we prioritize profound artistic expression through emotions like sadness or aggression, but cuteness, silliness or fun, are the things that we trivialize in our culture. We say that they're childish and it gets invalidated.' The complex and radiant productions on Music for Living Spaces counter this view. Despite its general sunniness, however, Music For Living Spaces does not solely rely on exuberant, colorful moods. 'Royal Fern' is a sophisticated composition of voices calling and responding to each other in rippling waves, while towards the closing of the album Ardizoni's ethereal voice appears for the first time and carries a nuanced, contemplative aura that defies categorization."
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LP
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LR 236LP
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"Los Angeles-based Fabiano Do Nascimento is a multi-string guitarist and songwriter who melds the traditional idioms of his native Brazil (i.e., samba, choro) with the more contemporary and experimental strains of jazz, pop, and electronic music. Das Nuvens ('The Clouds'), out July 2023 on Leaving Records, is a crisp, frequently blissful, and deceptively groove-oriented showcase from a consummate musician -- a rich and varied collection of songs, all of which seem to prioritize, and thrive in, the soft and intentional spaces between notes. Das Nuvens constitutes the free-form, exploratory work of a musician who, having mastered a distinct musical language, seeks to apply his skill towards broader, more experimental modes of expression. Fittingly, track one -- built around a contemplative, pointillistic refrain -- is titled 'Babel,' a reference to the legend of man's attempt to build a tower to heaven, and how God thwarted this alleged act of hubris by shattering man's shared language, sowing chaos and confusion. Though a stern parable on its face, it is a myth that enshrines our world's dizzying array of languages (of modes of being), and the subsequent beauty of cultural exchange through art. In this regard, it is a fitting opening statement for an album that collapses and collages not only contemporary and classical Brazilian and pop idioms, but also the diverse range of indigenous music that Nascimento has encountered and studied in his travels as a touring musician."
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2LP
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LR 183LP
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"Initially quietly published then deleted via the 2020 pandemic-obscured Fresh Bread website -- this all-genre Sam Gendel anthology showcases unreleased tracks collected from Gendel's personal archive of home recordings and public performances spanning the years 2012-2020. Comprising predominantly solo works, contributing players on select tracks include Carlos Niño, Jamire Williams, Daniel Aged, Gabe Noel, and Philippe Melanson. This double LP edition was specifically curated by Sam Gendel to highlight Fresh Bread moments across two LPs, and includes 18 of the 52 tracks from the digital release, at a total runtime of 1 hour 24 minutes."
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LP
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LR 228LP
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"California's Nico Georis has always straddled (or, rather, negotiated) multiple dimensions. As a child, Georis flitted between the rigors of classical training and DIY experimentation -- studying under a disciple of Franz Lizst (a mentorship that would enshrine the piano as his primary instrument), then squirreling away to the basement of his childhood home, strewn as it was with his father's instruments and home-audio equipment, to play and record freely. Despite his evident virtuosity as a trained pianist, Georis has, across numerous projects, stints, incarnations, and chapters, persisted in this gentle and exploratory approach to music-making. Foregoing pursuit of technical mastery and acclaim within the confines of the contemporary classical world, he has dedicated his talents to songcraft, broadly-defined -- channeling unseen (or inaugurating altogether new) worlds through melody and repetition. Conceived after an isolating, five-year struggle with a severe case of Lyme disease, Cloud Suites documents Georis's initial return to experimental ambient keyboard compositions. Conceptually, there is little ambiguity here: the songs -- the 'suites' -- are clouds, or, rather, reflections of clouds, each named after a particular formation. Track titles range from the meteorologically specific to the expressive: 'Cumuloids,' 'Sundog,' and 'Soft Yellow Gazers.' Georis composed the suites in real-time, peering out the windows of his Big Sur cabin-home/recording studio (dubbed The Sky Shed), responding improvisationally to render specific clouds as music -- in effect to pluck them from the sky. Georis has referred to this process as a kind of musical game, and, indeed, its end product conveys the recurring and joyful revelations of play."
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LP
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LR 232LP
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"Ground Groove, the third full-length release from the LA-based, Iranian-American producer and DJ, Maral, begins with an invocation: the sprawling, achingly heavy Feedback Jam opens the floodgates of history. Conventional (linear) spacetime collapses, crushed beneath the track's lumbering 4/4 heartbeat and successive waves of distortion. As each wave recedes, samples trickle forward in the mix -- seeking, perhaps, to fill the void. Voices and instruments rise and fall in uncanny reverse. Overlapping, implied melodies flicker into focus, then flit away. 'Feedback Jam' is at once an initiation ritual, and a thesis statement for the record that follows. Drawing upon a vast personal archive of Iranian folk, classical, and pop recordings (some sourced from mixtapes made by her parents in the eighties/nineties), Maral presents, on Ground Groove, a further refinement of the signature 'folk club' sound she developed as a live DJ -- a sound she would later codify on Mahur Club (2019) and Push (2020). By collecting, dissecting, and re/presenting sonic fragments from Iran, Maral practices a kind of dancefloor ethnomusicology. The subject of her inquiry: Iranian culture and contexts, throughout history and in the present. But, crucially, this inquiry is instantiated within and throughout the body of the listener, whether this listener is dancing in the club, or riding the train, nodding along with headphones on. Composed largely on Ableton, Ground Groove features more frequent and more prominent live recordings from Maral (guitar, bass, and vocals) than either Push or Mahar Club. The cult favorite Roland MC-909 groovebox rears its head on Mari's Groove. Mixed by Trayer Tryon (Hundred Waters) and mastered by Daddy Kev, the attention to sonic quality on Ground Groove constitutes another significant step in Maral's development as a studio artist."
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LP
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LR 233LP
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"Strawberries ripen in the spring. Or so they used to, in a more reliable world, one that seems to be rapidly receding in our collective rearview mirror. Presently, 'spring' is a troubled concept -- fraught with anxiety. Our seasons, if they are seasons at all, are paradoxical. Crops fail, or they ripen prematurely, all at once, and into a burst of rot. Impossibly, somehow, the supermarket shelves stay stocked (mostly, for now at least), and there are buckets of strawberries on every corner. But, of course, their nature is suspect. And they don't taste like they used to. Or maybe that's just ruinous nostalgia. But somewhere along the way we certainly lost something. Everybody knows. Strawberry Season responds tenderly to this sorry state of affairs, not with false comfort -- nor escapism. Rather, the album conveys, often wordlessly, that there remains an abundance of sweetness amidst our increasing unease. While much of twentieth century American popular and folk music may have dwelt on the beauty and plenitude of the prairie, More Eaze applies a similar Romantic focus to the small bursts of fecundity that now hide in plain sight. Blending found sound, generative music, a knack for elegant, classically-informed melodic arrangement, and a sort of Liz-Fraser-by-way-of-hyperpop approach to vocals, Strawberry Season offers unique solace -- providing an occasion for the kind of deep listening that our overstimulated and undernourished spirits require if there is to be any hope at all (and of course there must be hope). More Eaze (serving as composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and sound artist) guides us incrementally to this locus of attentiveness."
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2LP
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LR 022LP
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"Bones in Motion, the Northern Ireland hailing producer's latest full length exercise, is dance music Leaving Records style -- thoroughly busted techno for the post-punk demo tape set. On a blurry path between house music's early analog experiments and astounding vistas in modern digital production, you will hear ghostly wisps of woozy trance, distorted and dazzling, cooing through a thick haze of warbling warmth and soulful, revolving resonance. Propelled rhythmically by a ramshackle assemblage of maimed drum machines and battered samples, Bones in Motion doggedly pedals ahead with no finish line insight -- towards the endless possibilities of electronic music."
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