Listen to the Hypnagogue Podcast: 90-minute journeys into ambient & electronic music, every two weeks. Your trip departs from HERE. You can find current and past playlists here.

Between Interval, The Edge of a Fairytale

Here is a sure sign that a CD is going to be a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended disc: I start the album on my iPod and then almost immediately put it on “Repeat All” because I don’t want it to end. Such was the case with Between Interval’s deep and darkly beautiful disc, The Edge of A Fairytale. This is one I simply can’t get enough of. Composer Stefan Strand has created a fully immersive work that not only loops perfectly, but which along the way offers a varied landscape of flawlessly constructed sounds, from spacey drifts and soul-quieting washes to pulsing urgency and grim, shadowy tones, that beautifully capture his intent to describe the “uncharted realms” between this world and the world of the imaginary. “Delta Capricorni” starts the disk with drawn-out sine-wave washes that feel like chorale voices with hints of electronic twiddle at the edges. A sense of mystery is established. Shadows and uncertainty creep in as “The Great Void” begins, and Strand guides us through this breathlessly dark place. This drops into one of my favorite tracks, “Minotaur’s Lair,” where a pulsing, robotic bass note twangs with perfect insistence over starshine washes and drama-thick chords. (If your head starts bobbing along to this one, you’re in good company…) The drama carries into the start of “Pillars of Creation,” where god-hammer notes resound as they fade into the distance. That same effect forms the base of “Three Years Ago,” though the notes here seem more attached to the moment, more present somehow. The voices return with sighing notes and a sparse, melodic sequencer line eases in as an unobtrusive accent. Call it my second-favorite track. A mournful voice and roughly textured pads define the slow-tide movement of “Atlantis Lost.” It’s a deeply thoughtful track. A sense of un-ease should creep over you at the beginning of “Eden in Shadows,” as a sinister drum pounds with a domineering cadence and you get the sound of someone walking through your head. But Strand soon lightens the space, night giving way to dawn to reveal the Eden we ought to know. The very short “Purgatory” starts off with slightly disorienting radio-static-coated voices under notes that plod with a planned lack of grace. “Sea of Darkness” is an oddly rhythmic track, a bouncy motif that repeats across its three-minute span. “Leviathan” slowly and gently carves out a meditative space in warm, moody washes that move sinuously like the beast of legend easing its way through dark water. Dive with it, eyes closed and breath growing calmer. It’s eleven minutes of quiet pleasure. …Fairy Tale closes with “Portals in Time,” another well-done round of a bassy sequencer line coursing over soft flows. And then it’s time to hit play and go through it again. Although this is a very long review for me, I’ve honestly found it hard to put words to this disc—or to find the right words to describe what Strand has going on here. I just know that it’s totally captivated me. There’s so much depth to every track, and it’s just such an immersive, enjoyable disc that the only way to really understand it is to listen. Which you must. As I said, this is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available from Spotted Peccary.

Marcus Maeder, Subsegmental

I made a promise to myself when I started reviewing music that if I didn’t “get” something, I would not subsequently trash it simply because I didn’t understand it. Neither would I try to attach some deeper meaning to what I was hearing but not connecting with. Not all music is for everyone, but there’s some music for everyone, you see? So I have to imagine that there are people who will listen to the extremely minimalist, sparse and experimental pieces offered on Marcus Maeder’s Subsegmental and hear something that appeals to them. It’s a little too out there for my liking, an organized lineup of various electronic sounds--sonic memes, if you will--stitched together in short works. If you’re into a more avant-garde approach to electronic music and can appreciate something that’s more intent than execution, try some sample from Subsegmental. See if it’s for you.

Find it at Domizil.

Anawaty/Russell, Monjour

Settle in for a pleasant ride along the New Age/jazz/world highway as Cass Anawaty and Paul Russell (the former in Oregon and the latter in Singapore), along with a host of guest musicians, conjure up some Caribbean-flavored grooves. Monjour is admittedly right on the cusp for a Hypnagogue review, much more of an acoustic work than electronic, but while it shows its late-harvest Windham Hill roots it’s also a varied, nicely constructed and overall engaging work. The title track sets the tone with snappy drums and coursing flute soaring along with Jenny Bird’s beautiful, wordless vocals—a consistent highlight throughout Monjour. (She’s at her absolute spiritual-honey-dripping sweetest on “Syrian Siren Song.”) Ms. Bird’s voice aside, there’s also a whole host of fantastic instrumentation going on here. I love the guitar work from the two principals, along with Don Latarski, especially the cut-loose riff in “Rainy Day Diva”; Jeff Leonard’s gorgeous fretless bass work—reminiscent, to my ears, of Michael Manring at his finest—that smoothly glides its way through many of the tracks; and the spicy flute work from Romy Benton and Steve Gorn. (I hope they’ll forgive me for not knowing which is which but I honestly don’t know my bansuri from my elbow. I just know it’s a beautiful accent.) For a long-distance collaboration, Monjour smacks of the kind of chemistry that normally only comes from being in the same room and sharing the same vibe. The interplay between instruments here sounds absolutely live-jazz organic. In fact, as I write this I’m listening to a fantastic give-and-take about six minutes into “Blue Year’s Day (And Night)”—a track I simply can't get enough of—which breaks into a very Oldfield-inspired final two minutes, creating, to me, one of the best segments of the disc. (Over repeated listens, I have become absolutely addicted to this track. It catches me at a gut level.) The epic 9-minute groove “A Minor Grand Funk Opera,” which is a helluva title, brings out the best in all the players, even if it does indulge in a bit of disruptive hard-heavy-chord-blast drama here and there. Since I received it for review, Monjour has been a go-to disc when I need a little rhythmic lift. I rather expect it to catch its share of airplay on New Age radio shows. It certainly deserves the attention. I’ve already included it in a Hypnagogue podcast, and will do so again—while also looking forward to more from Anawaty/Russell. For those who have a feel for a jazzy excursion, Monjour is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available at the Anawaty/Russell web site.

Ian C. Bouras, The Certainty of Being Found

It takes two minutes for Ian Bouras’ new disc, The Certainty of Being Found, to reveal its true identity. The first track, “The Clues Are in the Dialogue,” starts with a solid Spanish guitar-influenced opening that’s dramatically slow and grim. Then it’s like the backdrop raises behind Bouras and, lo and behold, there’s a funky little combo playing cool dub behind him. This is the essence of …Certainty: smokin’ and tasty dub, made with a dry rub of Spanish spices, that now and then fades under a more straightforward approach. Bouras’ guitar work overall is smooth and relaxing and a genuine pleasure to give in to—just have a listen to “The Gift of Desperation (Interlude)” and you’ll surely agree. But it’s his excellent classic doubling work and his delicious reggae-borne rhythms that bring me back to this disc. To this end, you can go straight to “On the Corner with Doubt” and just drop right into it. Here, the way his melodica work pairs up with the echoing guitars and drums will absolutely win you over. The standout track for me is “The Cliffs,” where all of Bouras’ elements really come together perfectly. Refreshing dub licks melt into rich harmonics that ping softly into sweetly picked melodies while the melodica waits patiently to sing in its distinctive voice. Just close your eyes and chill on the beach in your head when this one plays. Me, I’m having a pina colada…it’s on Ian.

Check it out at CD Baby.

Stray Ghost, Each Paradise Is A Lost Paradise

Things just sort of came to a standstill when I began listening to Stray Ghost’s three-piece offering, Each Paradise Is A Lost Paradise. Anthony Staggers’ work will set you floating, relaxed and completely trusting, in the deeper waters of his slow, hushed drifts and dimly described environments. Within moments you’ll understand that there is no hurry, there is no world, there is only the sound of Stray Ghost. Caught in the drift you see texture, interest, movement. The opening track, “La Belle Semaine,” eases you in. Over time the music fades like a patient exhalation, then comes back with a sense of excitement communicated through a rush of tremolo. The second track, “Au Revoir A La Belle Semaine,” anchors itself to the real world with chimes, voices and hints of environmental sound, but it’s all somewhere out there, less of a concern to you as the drift carries you along and past it. The final track, “Reminiscences Et Rêves De Beauté,” feels painted in sacred-music tones from a hushed pipe organ. Working with sounds from the previous two tracks it swells, growing lighter, and then, by design, falls apart, decaying and disappearing, the ruin that comes to us all in the end. Throughout Each Paradise… Staggers’ sounds are rich and layered, with a lot of attention paid to the quiet backdrops and augmenting elements. Nothing is wasted here; every sound, musical or otherwise, is crucial and placed just so—and the attention to detail shows in how well the music stands up to a deep listen. My one complaint, of course, is that this work is simply too short. Staggers has only been dabbling in the ambient world for three years, but has established himself as an artist to watch. Having listened to Each Paradise… a number of times now, and certainly with the intent to keep going back to it, I know I’ll be watching. And waiting for more.

Available from Hidden Shoal Records.

Jeff Greinke, Virga

To these ears, Virga, the latest offering from Jeff Greinke, is a stunning soundtrack in search of the touching, beautiful, meaningful film to which it should rightfully belong. A neo-classical work edged with ambient expressions, Virga is emotionally packed and gorgeously constructed. It’s engaging from the first spattering of here-comes-the-rain notes in the opening title track and proceeds to just get deeper and more interesting from there. Grienke has always composed with a strong cinematic flair and that, along with his stated intent to capture the feel of the environment as a storm approaches, carries clearly through all the pieces on Virga. In "The Wake," Grienke conjures darkening skies in a slow-moving, somber tone. I love the Asian-flavored edge at work in "East Facing Slope." (Similarly, I enjoyed that same feel in "Moving to Malaysia" from Winter Light.) There's a strong Mark Isham quality to the track--think Tibet--that makes it the musical equivalent of staring into a Japanese pen-and-ink drawing or watching the colors darken on a mountainside as weather rolls in. "Before the Storm" deftly captures its titular image as woodwinds swirl like gathering clouds and distantly rumbling bass notes carry the blue-black threat of hard rain. "Contrails" is suitably light in tone, with wispy piano notes and high synth strings describing washed-blue skies and the return of the sun. By contrast, its followup track, "Partial Light," imparts an edge of drama with an abundance of minor chords, long-held notes and phrases that ease down the scale in short steps, all with a gentle rush of wind beneath it. There's a pure and gentle romance to the stilted structure of "Old Friends" that quite honestly threatens to move me to tears. Greinke's master craftsmanship is on display here, track after track. Every piece of work here is rich and full, landscapes completely described in intimate detail while still leaving space for yuo to create your own mental pictures. This is a disk you'll return to often to re-explore, and it will easily stand up to the scrutiny. For its depth and beauty, Virga is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available from Lotuspike.

Telescope, Seahorse Uprising

Telescope is the duo of Bermie Sirelson and Van Alpert, who dabble in free-form, experimental, Berlin-school-influenced improvisational music. Seahorse Uprising offers a pair of such tracks, and I have to say that it’s a 50-50 proposition for me. The beginning of the title track gets a little too random for my tastes, a tangled mosh-pit of sounds and ideas and time signatures that quickly nudged me toward that “maybe I just don’t get it” area that I don’t like being in. I guess it’s meant to thematically represent the chaos of said uprising, but when I look at the iPod and see that I’m only 6 minutes into a 40-minute stretch, the chances of my staying onboard to see how the conflict turns out diminish drastically. At 10 minutes I went into search mode to look ahead for more listener-familiar ground. Hearing none, I simply moved on. The second track, “2:00 am (Happy Birthday Mom)” is easier on the head, opening with a halo of dulcimer-like notes bouncing back and forth. These notes spread and evolve into a more complex rhythm and melody, then ease even further into a vaster drift washed through with quietly angelic voices that sigh past your ears. It’s a calm, smooth piece that spirals hypnotically outward from that initial flurry, hints of it rising up in the flow in spots. It’s a 30-minute jaunt that’s a real pleasure to take. So to my ears, Seahorse Uprising is half a good album, and I'll likely be heading the Telescope's web site to try some more samples.

Available from Transclassical.com.

Bruno Sanfilippo, Piano Textures 2

To be honest, I cannot recall when I last heard a CD as simply graceful and beautiful as Bruno Sanfilippo’s latest offering, Piano Textures 2. Slow-handed piano melodies lazily describe themselves over calm, warm synth washes in the six pieces here, each one slowing life down just a bit and trailing color as they go. Relatively common in character, these pieces absolutely melt together, the moment between tracks coming like a reflective pause before you begin to drift away on the next one. Sanfilippo smartly drops away the background sounds for his closing track and lets his dramatic piano playing speak for itself. This is an expressive, pensive piece where pauses stretch as reverberating notes hang fading in the air. Piano Textures 2 is a superb disc for low-volume looping, ideal for winding down the day, meditating or just deep listening. Nothing jars the flow as Sanfilippo gently pours feeling across his keyboards and guides us along. A stunning, gorgeous piece of work that’s also a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available from AD21 Records.

Wes Willenbring, Close, But Not Too Close

With his second CD following close on the heels of the first, Wes Willenbring is very rapidly establishing himself as a new artist to watch—and certainly to listen to, carefully. The discs are loaded with layered, thoughtful pieces rich in instrumentation and heavy on a narrative sensibility. Close, But Not Too Close picks up where its predecessor, Somewhere Someone Else, left off, with pieces that wander and shuffle through bleak and melancholic landscapes like they need a little space to sort things out. Everything is played with a deliberate grace that allows each instrument’s contribution be fully felt, notes slipping perfectly into place at exactly the right time. Willenbring’s approach skirts the edge of minimalism in that there’s nothing here that isn’t absolutely inherent, nothing wedged or crammed in where it doesn’t belong. The notes fall like rain, the backgrounds shift and float like windblown curtains and everything sounds like it’s hanging at the precipice of heartbreak. "I'm Looking Forward to Your Funeral" is a brilliant starter, with Willenbring laying elegiac organ chords next to each other for most of the track, then paring them off to let a solo piano play out the last few moments. "Oh, Most" plays out simply, a set of repeated phrasings looping almost without wavering and yet feeling dynamic. A soft bass line moves in to replace the loop and add texture as the piece slips to a close. The Satie-esque piano structure of "My Ghostly Fingers" gets a lift from floating synth flutes that complement it perfectly. The abrupt shift that comes at the start of "The Burrow"--a sudden move from a brain-numbing drone to a motif on acoustic guitar--is very much a hallmark of Willenbring's work on Close... It's surprising and playful but still purposeful, never indulgent. Piano and guitar pair over mournful strings in the ache-ridden "For All the Strays," one of my favorite tracks here. Again, the deliberate way that Willenbring plays when he really wants to hit home emotionally is one of the things that's making him one of my favorite new artists. It's consistently done perfectly and without pretense, and every pause is exactly as long as it ought to be. "Still" takes the sustain from guitar chords and stretches it off to the horizon in intersecting lines, the resultant drones creating a sound-bed for the notes that follow. "A Half-Hearted Apology" is a short musical sigh, a droney lullabye for your brain. Willenbring goes back to the organ chords for the closer, "The Anti-Social Aesthetic," a gorgeous minimalist piece that rides on a breathy swell that takes a melody composed of three parts and artfully stretches it out. As this 7-minute piece ends, I find myself wanting to take a few moments to just breathe in the rhythm that Willenbring has painstakingly established. And then I'm ready to listen again. Because Close, But Not Too Close is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available from Hidden Shoal Records.

MusSck, Digital Ninja

Although I have in the past noted that I have a particular appreciation for artists who can take a bucket of noise, samples and found sounds and make workable music out of it, I have to admit that I came into MusSck's Digital Ninja with a bit of trepidation and some low expectations. It was because the press release announced that this disc was kicking off the new genre of "glitch hop." And my brain said, really? Glitch hop? Really? That phrase sounded at first blush like a couple of words thrown together to try to put a shiny gloss on some misguided crossover attempt that was just going to tip over under its own ponderous, preposterous weight. So yes, I worried because sometimes in this gig you have to listen to crap. And then I dropped into Digital Ninja , and got hooked. I found myself sprialing deeply into in a world of sharp beats carving the way for slick combos of wayward electro-sounds peppered with ear-grabbing samples. I was rocking to the grooves and just letting MusSck guide my head through his ideas. And they're good ideas, pieced perfectly together. Tempos shift and change, the flow stops and starts...it's a trip. The range of sounds is astonishing. True, the beats can get a little samey after a while and the formula doesn't waver much, track to track. This isn't a CD I'd necessarily sit through entirely, but individually the tracks are intriguing enough that if you toss this in a mix or hit shuffle, MusSck's work will always grab hold of you. You're going to pay attention. Digital Ninja is my first taste of glitch hop, and it's pretty sweet.

Find it at Global Vortex Records.