Alarm Will Sound - Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin

As much as electronic music in general (especially more experimental) to me sounds inhuman and machine-like Alarm Will Sound pretty much convinced me that it can also be just as much as warm as is, say, folk or something similarly mellow like that.

Alarm Will Sound is a project in which a full blown professional 20 member orchestra plays Aphex Twin tunes and they play them extremely well and precise. They also have other albums where they play music from other contemporary artists but I think this is their most interesting work of art. The only non-orchestral instrument they use is drums for obvious reasons (as much as I like timpani I don't really think they would be able to work here) but other than that it's violins, tubas, trumpets, harps and everything else Aphex Twin sampled they transformed it to an acoustic sound. They play a wide arrangement of Richards tunes but they are mainly from Drukqs. Some mellow tracks and some really dissonant ones, you get a bit of everything.

If you like Aphex Twin you should really get this if you don't have it already. If you like dissonant contemporary classical music then you should get this as well.

Tracklist:

#	Song	Arrangements by	Original album	Length
1	"Cock/ver 10"	Stefan Freund	Drukqs (2001)	5:14
2	"Logon Rock Witch"	Jonathan Newman	Richard D. James Album (1996)	3:28
3	"Meltphace 6"	Payton MacDonald	Drukqs (2001)	6:20
4	"Blue Calx"	Caleb Burhans	Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994)	7:14
5	"Fingerbib"	Jonathan Newman	Richard D. James Album (1996)	3:49
6	"Gwely Mernans"	Ken Thomson	Drukqs (2001)	4:57
7	"4"	Jessica Johnson & Payton MacDonald	Richard D. James Album (1996)	3:31
8	"Prep Gwarlek 3b"	Courtney Orlando	Drukqs (2001)	1:08
9	"Omgyjya-Switch7"	Evan Hause	Drukqs (2001)	5:08
10	"Track 01" (aka "[cliffs]")	Caleb Burhans	Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994)	7:20
11	"Jynweythek Ylow"	John Orfe	Drukqs (2001)	2:29
12	"Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount"	John Orfe & Payton MacDonald	Drukqs (2001)	3:41
13	"Avril 14th"	John Pickford Richards	Drukqs (2001)	1:58

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Art Farmer - Baroque Sketches

Oh wow, I barely remember writing that last post haha. All of the sudden I was wondering why I started getting more followers on Tubmlr.
Here's a peculiar album that has been waiting to be posted for a few months now (yeah, lazy as usual). Baroque Sketches is an interesting mixture or more precisely an attempt to "jazzify" classical baroque music. Did it succeed? Well I think it did, to a point.
Art Farmer wasn't exactly an world wide known jazzist but he did have his own style and I throughly enjoy his works. To blend jazz and strict-to-the-note classical music is perhaps a daring challenge because these two types of music usually don't cross paths very effectively. Jazz tunes played by an orchestra don't really sound right, something is missing. So why should it be different if it's vice versa?
Well for starters Jazz is open for improvisation so there's a basic melody and structure in the skeleton of the music but it goes beyond. It dares to change it and rearrange it. I think this album does it fairly well. It's a strange little album that clocks for only about half an hour so it flows really fast to me. Worth checking out if you're into jazz and have knowledge of baroque music. Otherwise I can't really recommend this to you.
Tracklist:
01. Fuja Ki
02. Aria
03. Little David's Fuge
04. Prelude in ''E'' Minor
05. Sinfonia
06. Zortzico
07. Alfie's Theme
08. Jesu
09. Etude
10. Prelude in ''A'' Minor
11. Rhythm of Life

Download.

Bitrate: 320

Ólafur Arnalds - Eulogy For Evolution

Recently Ólafur Arnalds released their/his new album this year I think so it made me remember his first album called Eulogy For Evolution. I posted his EP a while back and this one in comparison is a lot different from the EP. This was a let down for me at first but you get used to it. I didn't like it at first because the EP had an very interesting mixture of classical music, post rock and electronic ambiance while this one is a straight classical instruments + post rock arrangements album that a lot of people like but such albums often fall flat as very uninspiring and repetitive. A lot of albums might suffer from that but I don't think this one does. It has its charms.

It's a concept album about evolution so naturally the first track starts rather simple and with fewer instruments. As the album goes it gets more and more rich with sound and more energetic. Because of that for me it never grows old. Over time it became one of my favorite post rock albums and I spent my whole autumn of 2009 listening this album. So yeah, it's good. :D

Oh and I forgot to mention that most of the songs are just with classical instruments. Drums and guitar come in waaay later in the album.

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Isaac Shepard - Deep Joy

Everybody has their own favorite instrument. My happens to be the piano closely followed by harp and cello but I'll always rather listen to a piano rather than a cello and so on. Well this album is all about the piano. From what I read Shepard tends to switch to several genres with every album but he made this and another one (can't remember the name) that's solely composed for piano. I found about him through a (good) video game actually, some indie crap on IGN.

The music itself is very soft, sometimes a little energetic but mostly calm and relaxing. Perfect for this autumnal time of the year and wrist cutting. ;D

Tracklist is messed up a bit, the songs aren't numbered.

But anyway:

01. Back to Basics
02. Before Dawn
03. Evening Chat
04. Facing the mirror
05. Felicity
06. Fleeting Moments
07. Gentle
08. Leaves in the Wind
09. Letting Go
10. Romance of the Seas
11. Softly, Sweetly
12. Struggles
13. Triumph of Love

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Max Richter - 24 Postcards In Full Colour

Composer Max Richter was born in Germany in 1966 and grew up in the UK. He studied composition and piano at Edinburgh University, the Royal Academy of Music and in Florence with Luciano Berio.

Though he has a strong background in the canons of classical music, his influences were more modern composers and in particular, Iannis Xenakis whose musical compositions applied mathematical and physical laws and Philip Glass whose sound was a major influence on Richter. His influences also include rock bands The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Clash, as well as electronic music groups Kraftwerk and Autechre.

This particular album holds (as you might have guessed) 24 songs. Each has an different approach and mood change. They really are like postcards. His piano parts remind me of Yann Tiersen for some reason. Quite interesting album.

Tracklist:

1		The Road Is A Grey Tape (1:01)
2		H In New England (1:50)
3		This Picture Of Us. P. (1:36)
4		Lullaby From The Westcoast Sleepers (2:02)
5		When The Northern Lights / Jasper And Louise (1:00)
6		Circles From The Rue Simon – Crubellier (1:04)
7		Cascade NW By W (1:12)
8		A Sudden Manhattan Of The Mind (2:51)
9		In Louisville At 7 (1:03)
10		Cathodes (1:01)
11		I Was Just Thinking (0:59)
12		A Song For H / Far Away (2:08)
13		Return To Prague (1:02)
14		Broken Symmetries For Y (1:00)
15		Berlin By Overnight (1:27)
16		Cradle Song For A (Interstate B3) (2:11)
17		Kierling / Doubt (0:50)
18		From 553 W Elm Street, Logan Illinois (Snow) (0:57)
19		Tokyo Riddle Song (1:00)
20		The Tartu Piano (2:05)
21		Cold Fusion For G (0:35)
22		32 Via San Nicolo (1:23)
23		Found Song For P. (2:24)
24		H Thinks A Journey (0:57)

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Yasou Getsuna (梁邦彦) - 12 Kingdoms - Piano Memories

12 Kingdoms was a peculiar anime when I first saw it. It is divided into several arcs and it spans over 45 episodes. It's about a person who is confronted by a certain being and then is dragged into an middle aged fantasy world that is divided into 12 kingdoms. At first this person hardly survives and is regarded as scum. As the story goes on she becomes a princess and governs from there a kingdom. It's kinda weird because I expected this to happen a lot slower but I guess the main point of this series is politics. The story has a lot of lore and well thought out rules and settings. Something like a D&D wet dream.

Since this setting was highly influenced by middle age China so is the soundtrack (to some extent). I didn't like the OST very mcuh and I find it to be very, bland. The piano version on the other hand is magnificent. Grety arrangements follow through the whole album from combat music to sheer mellow music we all like. It's mostly just piano but some other instruments kick in from time to time. Check this one out if you enjoy the sound of a piano.

Tracklist:

01. Juuni Genmukyoku Piano Arranged Version (3:31)
02. Rakkou Piano Solo (4:13)
03. Shihouka Piano Solo (3:50)
04. Kuni Seinaru Hibiki (4:07)
05. Yoake Tabidori (2:52)
06. Touhou Raisan Minimal China Piano Arranged Version (3:46)
07. Itsumo no Asa Yokan (5:27)
08. Koshinkyou Piano Arranged Version (2:37)
09. Yasou Getsuna Piano Arranged Version (4:28)
10. Genkou Shinshou (2:54)

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Mono & World's End Girlfriend - Palmless Prayer / Mass Murder Refrain

Ever tried to define beauty? Well if I would ever try to define it I would define it with this album. This, sound, is something so melancholic yet so wonderful that I wish it would never end. Sadly it does but the album is very long so I tend to replay it every now and then when I wish to hear sheer genius. I highly recommend this. Amazing mixture of post rock and classical music.

A collaboration between instrumental post-rock band Mono and fellow Tokyo native and modern electronic composer World’s End Girlfriend

In 2006 they released Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain, a five-part sojourn of neoclassical grace and luminescence that defies lazy categorization. As dark as the bottom of the ocean and nearly as otherworldly, “Palmless” finds Mono inhabiting a magical world previously only hinted at in their most orchestral compositions.

Forgoing their tendency to erupt into hellish bursts of speaker-destroying noise, Mono instead exhibits remarkable restraint, stretching song lengths past the 15-minute mark, turning subtle crescendos into earth-shaking events. This record is a miniature panoramic view of the sea on an eerily still day, the current swaying at an impossibly lazy pace, and the sound of a thousand tiny waves crashing all at once.

Tracklist:

01. Palmless Prayer / Mass Murder Refrain (1:14:08)

Get.

Ólafur Arnalds - Variations Of Static

Fragile and emotional neo-classical music would maybe be the best term to describe Ólafur Arnalds’ music. Combining classical instrumentation with an ambient aesthetic there are obvious comparisons to fellow Icelanders Sigur Rós and composer Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, but Arnalds is sculpting his own epic, string-laden compositions. While his debut album is fully neo-classic and post rock-ish music this EP takes an more experimental twist and it sounds really amazing. Small soft glitch electronics combined with orchestral music and the lovely piano played by Olafur sounds and blends really great in creating this soft melancholic atmosphere. Also an interesting thing is that though this is an instrumental record there are vocals but he used Microsoft voice software or something like that and surprisingly it does not ruin the mood it kinda lifts it up in a weird way. Anyway, really good stuff check it out.

Tracklist:

01. Fok (4:29)
02. Við vorum smá... (2:22)
03. Haust (5:28)
04. Lokaðu augunum (3:45)
05. Himininn er að hrynja en stjörnurnar fara þér vel (5:37)

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久石譲 (Joe Hisaishi) - Tonari No Totoro OST

Hayao Miyazaki is today one of the most popular/famous animators and he's been making some great movies through all his life. Most notables are: Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke. Tonari No Totoro (or My Neighbor Totoro in English) might not be so popular as the ones I've been mentioning but it's still an nice movie and fairly known. More importantly Tonari No Totoro is actually an reflection of Miyazakis childhood that he spent with his brother and a lot of situations in the movie also occurred in his childhood (no, he did not see huge furry trolls in his childhood but for example his mother had the same disease as the mother in the film etc.) . The reason he used two girls instead two boys as main characters was ( as he explained in one of his interviews) because it would be too painful for him to do that. As usual Miyazaki hires Hisaishi to music for his animation and as always the soundtrack is exceptional. Just as the movie theme the music is also mellow and warmhearted.

Tracklist:

01. Sampo (2:43)
02. Gogatsu No Mura (1:39)
03. Obake Yashiki! (1:24)
04. Mei To Susuwatari (1:34)
05. Yuugure No Kaze (1:01)
06. Kowakunai (0:44)
07. Omimai Ni Ikou (1:22)
08. Okaasan (1:07)
09. Chiisana Obake (3:55)
10. Totoro (2:49)
11. Tsukamori No Taiju (2:15)
12. Maigo (3:48)
13. Kaze No Toorimichi (3:17)
14. Zubunure Obake (2:34)
15. Tsukiyo No Hikou (2:06)
16. Mei Ga Inai (2:32)
17. Nekobasu (2:11)
18. Yokatane (1:15)
19. Tonari No Totoro (4:18)
20. Sampo (2:44)

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Clara Rockmore - The Art Of The Theremin

Theremin is an very interesting instrument. Actually it's the only instrument in the world that you don't need to physically touch to play it. To play it you move your hands around the antennas, controlling frequency (pitch) and amplitude (volume) which is really awesome. There are some schematics that are floating around telling you how to construct it. I think it would be an awesome noise instrument and I would really love to try it out but the construction is not so simple. Anyhow this instrument can usually be heard in horror movies or some certain rap songs. Nevertheless Clara Rockmore took this instrument to an entirely different level by playing classical compositions with it. This album is an compilation of her covers by various composers. Under her control, the theremin sounded like a blend of the violin and the human voice. Be sure to check this one out!

Tracklist:

01. Vocalise (3:44)
Composed By - Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff
02. Song Of Grusia (4:15)
Composed By - Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff
03. The Swan (2:56)
Composed By - Camille Saint-Saëns
04. Pantomime (3:44)
Composed By - Manuel De Falla
05. Hebrew Melody (5:22)
Composed By - Joseph Achron
06. Romance (4:45)
Composed By - Henryk Wieniawski
07. Berceuse (3:06)
Composed By - Igor Stravinsky
08. Pièce En Forme De Habanera (2:41)
Composed By - Maurice Ravel
09. Berceuse (4:12)
Composed By - Piotr Illitch Tchaïkovsky
10. Valse Sentimentale (2:06)
Composed By - Piotr Illitch Tchaïkovsky
11. Sérénade Mélancolique (7:40)
Composed By - Piotr Illitch Tchaïkovsky
12. Chant Du Ménestrel (4:00)
Composed By - Alexander Glazunov

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