Silent 国分友里恵

Mediterranean and Nordic Christmas music with Arianna Savall and her Baroque ensemble Hirundo Maris. Since the founding of their ensemble in 2009, Hirundo Maris, the Catalan harpist and singer Arianna Savall, and the Norwegian tenor and violist Petter Udland Johansen have committed themselves to music from the Middle Ages up to the Baroque period. And a special emphasis has been Mediterranean and Nordic music. For their current album, 'Silent Night Early Christmas Music and Carols' both musicians and ensemble conductors have chosen traditional Christmas songs from the north and south. And in doing so, invite you along on a journey of sound into the magical world of centuries-old winter, Advent, and Christmas music.

The American synthesist Paul Ellis is a fast growing power in electronic music. From the Berlin school-orientated music he created with the band Dweller at the Threshold and on his early solo works, he switched to an impressive mixture between Berlin school, ambient and lots of own inventions. His album "The Sacred Ordinary", his first on the Groove Unlimited label, already was a masterpiece but what he has done on "Silent Conversations" is no less than sensational. On "Silent Conversations" there is an important place for the genius of ambient Steve Roach, who contributes on four of the nine tracks. This can be heard on the excellent opening track with the great title "The Only Known Photograph Of God" and "Peripheral Vision". Ellis is a master of sequences. Tracks like "Trillium", "The wind-up synthesizers of the Glass Reich", "Continental Drift" and "Dialing in the Sun" show some of the best sequencer lines ever…

Dark Age is a band that I really like. They’re not a big and famous band, but their album are just great!So here we go about The Silent Republic.This album begins with a synth introduction which has a big weak point: the volume is too low, so you’ll have to raise the volume by yourself. But raising the volume will permit you to be really hit by the second song, which is the title song of the album. It has really great rhythms and lead guitar riffs (if you doesn’t headbang on that song, go and see a doctor), and the synth is quite good too.

Erik Wøllo is an architect of ambience, a poet of electronic landscapes. The 2-CD Silent Currents showcases a different side of Erik Wøllo's sound. Here he explores fascinating electronic / ambient landscapes with slow-motion structures, surreal soundscapes and floating currents. Drawn from two separate live radio broadcasts, 104 minutes of music traverse a more ambient, atmospheric and textural side than experienced on his other albums. Recorded in the studio of the famous Star's End radio show in Philadelphia, these performances from 2002 and 2007 are each a disc-long continuous piece with several chapters. With more focus on the deep drones than on melody and rhythm, zones drift and morph, organically flowing into each other. Layers of electronics and processed sound combine with light touches of electric guitar melody floating on top…