VARIOUS ARTISTS
2 | Favourite Places
AB026
Audiobulb Records 2009
10 Tracks. 56mins30secs

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The concept is pretty simple: take a number of contemporary musicians with a taste for moods and atmospheres, task them with recording sounds from their favourite places in the world and use them in a composition. This is exactly what David Newman, head of Audiobulb, did two years ago, and the result was compiled in the first instalment of Favourite Places, with contributions from Biosphere, Taylor Deupree, Claudio, Leafcutter John and John Kannenberg amongst others. The second volume in the collection brings together musicians from the UK (Michael Santos, Icarus, Autistici, Calika), Australia (Lawrence English), Belgium (Yannick Franck), Japan (Sawako), USA (Jeremy Bible, He Can Jog) and Canada (Michael Trommer), giving them each a chance to introduce their very own favourite place. The booklet accompanying this CD contains photographs and a description of these spots, providing concrete complements to the recordings. Continue Reading »

MICHAEL SANTOS
The Happy Error
KARU11
Baskaru 2008
11 Tracks. 52mins04secs

London-based musician and sound artist Michael Santos has already been featured on a handful of compilations, and a first collection of compositions was released as part of Benbecula’s Mineral Series of CDRs in 2006, followed by another CDR release for U-Cover. The Happy Error, brought to you by the rather excellent Baskaru imprint is, however, is first proper release.

Working from a classic set up of processed guitars and sine waves, Santos creates evocative little atmospheric pieces. Continue Reading »