Stationary Travles 2020 in Review

评语：【The Art of the EP】 The multi-talented Sarah Neutkens who is visual artist, writer, and model as well as a pianist & composer, captures the melancholy essence of the arrival of autumn in this suite of music for saxophone beautifully performed by members of the Nederlands Saxofoon Octet.

评语：【The Art of the EP】 Mesmerizing sonic alchemy here in the blending of ambient, choral, an pop motifs by Lucy Gooch, zaké, and Black Brunswicker who furnishes a pastoral mediation on guitar & tape that comprises the B-side. As with all THESIS releases, the music is accompanied by unique artwork and packaging specially designed by Gregory Euclide.

评语：【The Art of the EP】 Under the moniker of amble, Australian pianist, composer, & sound designer Aaron Gleeson released this beautiful EP he simply describes as “an attempt to piece things together”. Warm textures, tender melodies and searching improvisations played on close mic’d piano create an ideal space for personal reflection.

评语：【The Art of the EP】 While it may be his first solo release, Juha Mäki-Patola has been involved in the Finnish music community for over a decade playing bands and working behind-the-scenes as a producer, musician, and recording engineer for local and international artists. Taking inspiration from such composers as Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Philip Glass, and Arvo Pärt, this EP is Juha’s first foray into neoclassical minimalist compositions of his own and quite a refined and beautiful one at that.

评语：【The Art of the EP】 As El Conejo, Brazilian musician Bruno Nunes Coelho creates music inspired by the first chords he played on his grandfather’s old guitar and the memories of places he has lived. Here he offers a beautiful acoustic lullaby and an ambient reprise accompanied by an adaptation of a poem by Mary Oliver that hints loss and healing with devastating poignancy. Recorded at the artist’s home, the music admits the listener into a quiet space of plaintive reflection where fluttering sweeps and splayed arpeggios of guitar radiate a warm light giving comfort and soothing repose.

评语：【The Art of the EP】 New releases are rare and precious commodities the sleep themed Slaapwel label. The first since the summer of 2018 is this long-form electroacoustic reverie by guitarist & composer Ciro Berenguer, a garden of audio delights called “Los entresijos de la noche” (literally: ‘The ins and outs of the night’).

评语：【The Art of the EP】 A transatlantic collaboration between American pianist & composer Philip G Anderson who lives in the state of Georgia, and Italian violinist & composer Laura Masotto who lives in countryside of Bologna. Seeking a creative outlet during their respective Covid-19 lockdowns and having collaborated previously on single tracks, they began a musical conversation across the water that resulted in these five charming vignettes.

评语：【The Art of the EP】 Released on Piano Day, this 3-track EP includes an elegant new solo piano piece by Polish composer & multi-instrumentalist. Olga Wojciechowska along with two tracks previously written for dance to offer a comforting atmospheric diversion that showcases the softer acoustic side of her work.

评语：【The Art of the EP】 An EP with only seven minutes of music may seem like quite a modest offering, but like a perfectly drawn ristretto shot, it can provide a sublime jolt to the senses in its own diminutive way that lifts the spirits and reset the mind. So it is with this fine pair of lowercase sketches from Kyle Woodwort, a musician from Baltimore, Maryland who records under the name woodworkings.

评语：【A Sense of Place and Time】 One of my favorite projects of the year, a beautifully conceived musical interpretation of Scottish author Nan Shepherd’s masterpiece composed and recorded by Jenny Sturgeon in the very Cairngorm mountains about which she wrote. The arrangements are pristine and Sturgeon’s voice rings with uncanny purity and authenticity. Ensuring that that the sound of the mountains resonates in the music, Jenny even plays a custom-made Nan Taran guitar on many of the pieces that was crafted from reclaimed Scots Pine and other local woods by luthier Rory Dowling.

评语：【A Sense of Place and Time】 What a year Ishmael Cormack had with four label releases along with other self-released side projects. My selection for this list is his spring offering on the Handstitched label, a tenderly pastoral work that blends acoustic guitar, understated electronics, and delicate field recordings in attempt to create a literal bird’s eye view of the coming of spring. A beautiful and fascinating work that creates a sense of immersion not through enveloping sounds, but through its vivid and detailed sonic depiction of the natural world.

评语：【A Sense of Place and Time】 As meanwhile.in.texas, sound artist Angelo Guido takes us to Sant’Andrea Island and other locations near Brindisi in Southern Italy through field recordings collected during the summer of 2018 which he blends with electric guitars, tape loops, field recordings & piano to create a vivid sonic tapestry tinged with melancholy. The setting may be picturesque, but Heimat is no tourist postcard painting scenes of sun-kissed coastal charm. Rather the album explores themes of loss and decay with bright watery sounds embedded with exfoliating static, gritty textures, and distressed melodies.

评语：【A Sense of Place and Time】 A rare appearance by Taylor Deupree outside of his own 12k label, Canoe was his contribution to the Longform Editions project. A fragile, meditative meander rooted in the idea of being lost at sea, not in an ominous or foreboding way, but in the sense of letting go and, as Deupree puts it, “of floating, but not knowing where you are, like a child who closes her eyes while swinging high on a playground swing.” In the piece, he transposes this to an experience more familiar to to himself personally, spending foggy mornings or quiet dusks canoeing on lakes & rivers.

评语：【A Sense of Place and Time】 As if Harry Towell’s Whitelabrecs was not productive enough during 2020, the label added a Home Diaries series in repsonse to the pandemic eliciting fascinating works by a wide variety of artists. Canvas Homes is Towell’s own contribution to the series under his solo moniker of Spheruleus. It features short guitar and ukulele sketches he wrote during the day as his daughter played and then turned into finished recordings at night adorning them with documentary field recordings and additional MIDI textures. A charming family portrait and beautiful improvisational exercise.

评语：【A Sense of Place and Time】 One of the world’s preeminent field recordists, Chris Watson lets us safely explore two diverse ecosystems from the comfort of home with two vivid audio walks that offer “imaginative access to a Highland and Lowland environment” – one featuring field recordings of a Caledonian pinewood in summer and one through the heart of the Scottish peatlands known as Flow Country in spring.

评语：【Post Rock】 The Spanish atmospheric post-rock trio released their first new music in three years with this single recorded one summer afternoon in Barcelona last year, a piece as majestic and uplifting as the mountains that loom over the horizon beyond their home town. “Distance only exists for what we long for…”

评语：【Post Rock】 Aftrer having a northeastern US tour cancelled in the spring due to Covid-19, two bands found a different way to collaborate and connect with fans by recording new tracks for this split EP whose geographic spread from LA to London is depicted by map points on the cover. The wayfaring “Winnebago Drive” is an imaginary road trip with Signal Hill at their summery sounding best while North End’s math-rock oriented “Cabra” is full of hairpin turns and high-speed crescendos.

评语：【Modern Classical】 The Icelandic duo of Bergur Þórisson and Pétur Jónsson known as Hugar lend their considerable talents to creating soundtrack to a documentary about early video art pioneers Steina and Woody Vasulka, sometimes called the “grandparents of the YouTube generation”. Temporarily setting aside the glacial post rock atmospherics that crested on last year’s Varða, they weave a more pensive and lulling atmosphere that allows a narrative arc to gently unfold.

评语：【A Sense of Place and Time】 Field recordist and sound designer Melissa Pons takes us deep into the “dark, overwhelming forests of Sweden” molding a narrative around sounds she captured during hours of hiking remote areas and patiently allowing the flora, fauna, and changing weather patterns to reveal themselves. These field recordings had the approach of experiencing the forest for a first time. The snow was still melting and it was deep in spots where the sunlight barely touched the ground. Beautiful lakes – large and small – make the acoustics like a mirror and call a variety of wildlife that we can listen to sometimes at the distance, other times much closer. MELISSA PONS

评语：【Ambient & Drone】 It is always nice to be floored by an album you did not see coming, especially late in the year, and so it was for me with this record from Los Angeles based multi-instrumentalist, composer, & sound designer Dann Michael Torres as Meanderings. Our Hope Is Lost at Sea is an exploration of loss, hope, and nostalgic contemplation conveyed through “solemn patterns and melancholic phrases” using extended range & textural guitars, prepared strings, tape loops and field recordings. From the arresting “Empty Words” that opens the album to the soulful undulations of “You’ve Simply Had Enough of Drowning” that ebbs it toward its gentle conclusion, these eleven pieces resonate with elegiac beauty and raw emotion.

评语：【Ambient & Drone】 Based in Hamburg Germany, Jeannine Schulz is an artist who only started releasing her ambient music this year. In a short time she has created a number of enjoyable EPs and this excellent full-length label debut on Stereoscenic which offers a collection of hushed melodies ornamented with intricate filigree patterns and varied textures.

评语：【Electroacoustic & Experimental Folk】 A musical exploration of what guitarist & composer Ralph Kinesella refers to as the liminal fringe spaces where rural and semi-rural Scotland meet its urban areas. Drawing on his background in lo-fi indie rock & shoegaze while stretching into more obscure sonic territories, Kinsella creates a sort of musical edgeland where abstract soundscapes are juxtaposed with beautiful melodic shapes and the reassuring thrum of acoustic & electric guitars.

评语：【Electroacoustic & Experimental Folk】 Until now, each Illuminine album has featured other musicians as either ensemble performers or in the role of creating new interpretations and reworks. At the core of it all, however, has always been Kevin Imbrechts’ dulcet guitar lines and introspective style of composition and for Baptism in Solitude he isolates himself to just these elements. Immersed in the simplicity, sincerity, and sheer unadulterated beauty of these songs created in isolation, we emerge soothed and consoled.

评语：【Electroacoustic & Experimental Folk】 Book-ending the Lifelines series on the concluding side is another Italian artist and founder of the Krysalisound label, Francis M. Gri, with a tenderly introspective six song opus reflecting on “the regret found in the knots and divisions caused by our missteps. A carefully tended garden of fragile and empathetic sounds.

评语：【The Art of the EP】 From 2014 to 2016, musician & sound engineer Fletcher McDermott put out an exceptional series of albums & EPs as twincities, so it was wonderful to hear from him again in 2020. This spring release features some of his most optimistic and melodic work across four miniature soundscapes that live on the edgeland between composition and decomposition.