Every reviews about KrysaliSound releases…

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https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=2342988981/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/

[krysalisound] Cullante e dolente procede il suono come quieto torrente, che lentamente scava un profondo solco incidendo un sospeso paesaggio emozionale. È ancora una volta Krysalisound ad accogliere una ripubblicazione rivista di uno dei tanti lavori di Paw Grabowski, prolifico autore danese che si cela sotto lo pseudonimo øjeRum. A finire nel catalogo della label […]

via øjeRum “the forest is sleeping within the trees” — SoWhat

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Vom Abschied und Neuanfang.
Es gibt manchmal Dinge im Leben, die schleppen wir mit uns monatelang herum. DunkleSchatten in der Seele, die einem mit jedem Atemzug durchbohren. Wir halten daran fest, Hoffnungen, die doch verblassen eines Tages. Doch ein Schritt wäre auch loszulassen, alle Gedanken zu sammeln und diese ein letztes Mal zu verabschieden. „Last Goodbye“ vom japanischen Musiker Hirotaka Shirotsubaki ist so ein letzter Brief im akustischen Sinne, der es allerdings sehr schwer macht, loszulassen mit einer hoch-melancholischen Aura. Doch wo eine Tür sich schließt, öffnet sich meist eine Neue.

Der Komponist Hirotaka Shirotsubaki aus der kleinen Stadt Kobe in Japan mag zwar ein unbeschriebenes Blatt sein, zumindest auf unserem Kontinent. Er begann 2011 seine Karriere im musikalischen Bereich, inspiriert von der Natur und Geschichte seiner Umgebung. Seit dieser Zeit veröffentlichte der Japaner viele Musikstücke in regelmäßigen Abständen. Last Goodbye ist das neue Album, gewidmet auch einem Konzept:
In Japan endet die Ära “Heisei” in diesem Jahr. Eine Zeitspanne, die für Hirotaka Shirotsubaki bedeutsam war. Daher auch der finale Abschied mit all den positiven und negativen Aspekten und Zeit, eine neue Ära einzuläuten.

Gefühle von Sehnsucht, Verlorenheit und Empathie

​Last Goodbye ist ein Album geworden, welches einem sofort gefangen nimmt mit der ruhigen und fragilen Art. Texturierte und melodische Klanglandschaften, verträumt und romantisch in den Strukturen, wie ein leiser Wind, der einem sanft durch die Haare fährt. Hervorgerufen durch wirklich ätherische Gitarreneffekte und elektronischen Tagenden. Die Klang Kollagen bergen eine Essenz der reinen Melancholie, die dem Hörer sanft den Boden und den Füssen zieht, um in auf akustischer Wolken der Perfektion zu betten. Die vorherrschende emotionale Breite besteht aus Gefühlen von Sehnsucht, Verlorenheit und Empathie. Vertraute Klänge, die tief unter die Haut reichen.

Dem Album gelingt es auch perfekt, tief in die eigene Gefühlswelt einzugreifen und diese auf den Kopf zu stellen. Es kann durchaus tief greifende Gedanken vernebeln oder Dinge klarer sehen lassen. Der Hörer entscheidet selbst, wie er zu den Traum-verlorenen Klangdimensionen steht. Die Stücke auf dem Album haben die ideale Spiellänge von 6-8 Minuten, Zeit, um sich darin voll und ganz verlieren zu können. Alleine die romantische Klangästhetik von Songs wie „Rokko“ oder „December Snow“ sind Herausstellungsmerkmale für das Album und dem Musikbereich des Ambient.

Akustische Reise zwischen gedankenverlorenen Dimensionen

​Doch das Album hat noch mehr zu bieten: Wer bei den Songs „Sputnik“ und „Solitude“ nicht einen leisen Schrei seiner eigenen Seele vernimmt, besitzt wohl ein Herz aus Stein. Das Gefühl von Einsamkeit wurde hier besonders akustisch aufgearbeitet. Insgesamt finden 6 Stücke den Platz auf Last Goodbye, die Spiellänge ist mit 41 Minuten reichlich, um eine akustische Reise zwischen gedankenverlorenen Dimensionen anzutreten. Da es immer schwer ist, diese Gefühls-gesteuerte Musik in Worte zu fassen, ist ein Zitat von Nietzsche die perfekte Umrahmung von Last Goodbye: „Die größten Ereignisse — das sind nicht unsere lautesten, sondern unsere stillsten Stunden.“

Das Album „Last Goodbye“ reiht sich nahtlos ein für das Jahr 2018, wo es einige Hochkaräter im Genre des Ambient gab. Es blickt dem Hörer tief in das Herz, Zerstreuung, Frieden oder Isolation wird darin mit den Klanglandschaften manifestiert. Das ist auch immer die große Stärke von herausragenden Komponisten, Gefühle mit der Musik auf eine oberste Ebene zu verknüpfen, die einen lange im Ohr bleibt. Veröffentlicht wird Last Goodbye am 09. Dezember 2018 über Krysalisound, empfehlen können wir das Album allen Musikliebhabern, die zu Etwas oder Jemanden einen letzten Abschied gedenken.

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KLĀS’TĬK “Night’s Highest Moon” Krysalisound. CD 2018 di Alessandro Nobis Cercare di descrivere le sensazioni e le emozioni che suscitano le registrazioni dell’etichetta Krysalisound è sempre una sfida con me stesso. Non essendo un musicista e tantomeno un conoscitore dei processi creativi che avvengono nelle sale d’incisione, mi resta poco da dire se non che queste […]

via KLĀS’TĬK “Night’s Highest Moon” — ildiapasonblog

 

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La nuova proposta dell’etichetta italiana Krysali Sound è una tra le più anomale e ardite della sua lunga collezione. Il debutto del duo tedesco/polacco composto da Masaya Hijikata e Andrea Koch, a nome klās’tĭk, si allontana di molto dalle consuete sonorità ambient per addentrarsi in terreni che ricercano linguaggi musicali differenti. 
Gli elementi fondamentali sono sovrapposizioni vocali e ritmi percussivi su base elettronica e di archi. Un percorso tra antico e moderno in cui si è in contatto sia con la musica primitiva e le sonorità tribali (vedi Aktuala e Lino Capra Vaccina), sia con un drummingrapido e ultramoderno arricchito da voci aliene e cori sovrapposti figli del minimalismo. Ma un ulteriore fattore da tenere in considerazione, il meno noto ma probabilmente il più determinante, è quello vicino all’Oriente, la danza Butoh, danza contemporanea nata in Giappone negli anni 60. Il risultato finale è tutto sommato abbastanza omogeneo, con brani che spingono maggiormente in una direzione piuttosto che in un’altra. 
L’iniziale “Chauvet” che cita la famosa grotta, luogo dei primi esempi rimasti di arte preistorica, è un esempio di ritmi cangianti e canti sovraincisi entrambi al confine tra modernità e tribalismo, tra età della pietra e musica elettronica contemporanea. La title track “Night’s Highest Noon” è un inaudito collage di ritmi forsennati quasi breakcore, percussioni, basso, elettronica che si inseguono in un moto senza sosta, come per una perfetta colonna sonora dei balli psicotici Butoh. “Delle marianne” è ben più classico (i primi secondi ricordano vagamente il “Requiem” di Mozart) e approfondisce tematiche ambient/minimaliste à-la Philip Glass con voce e archi per cercare atmosfere allo stesso tempo oscure e vitali. “Regina Coeli” abbandona ogni aspetto antico per farci ritrovare in un tribalismo ultrafuturista, con versi di alieni e synth impazziti. 
Il complesso caleidoscopio di suoni e colori del progetto Klās’tĭk non puo certo lasciare indifferenti. Il rischio di non far coesistere in modo adeguato le tante idee e riproporre un mero collage era molto alto, ma è stato fortunatamente scongiurato.

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Un ideale punto di connessione tra una visceralità primordiale e l’evanescente consistenza di un futuro incerto realizzato attraverso una roboante sequenza di ruvide spirali irregolari. È dalla ricerca di un nuovo lessico risonante che trae origine il primo capitolo collaborativo che vede insieme Masaya Hijikata e Andrea Koch sotto la sigla klās’tĭk, progetto sperimentale incentrato su un fitto incontro/scontro tra trame ritmiche e insondabili modulazioni vocali.

È un universo crepitante, fortemente decostruito, ad emergere dalla congiunzione sinergica degli elementi in gioco, uno spazio sonoro che vede voce e pulsazioni avvolgersi in complessi tracciati dissonanti permeati da una persistente aura solenne. Ricorrenti scie sintetiche si insinuano in questo serrato dialogo fungendo da ulteriore collante capace di conferire densità ai differenti flussi, strutturati seguendo progressioni estremamente convulse e pirotecniche che a tratti convergono verso andamenti ipnotici da nenia fino a divenire allucinato mare di placide frequenze cullanti.

Un lavoro fortemente evocativo, ma sicuramente di non semplice assimilazione che si pone l’obiettivo di individuare le prime tracce di nuove possibili strade da percorrere. Un’esplorazione stimolante.

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Previously self-released as a limited edition cassette in 2015, this single track 30-minute piece is a slow-release pill of organic and ambient bliss that begs to be on repeat in the morning hours. Danish collage artist (responsible for his own cover art) and musician Paw Grabowski is back on my rotation with Stilhedens Strømmen I Fuglenes Blod for KrysaliSound imprint. His previous appearance was with Væv which was released by Eilean in 2016. Centered on solo-guitar motifs, Grabowski uses repetition of phrases, offset by field recordings of a natural environment, to create a neo-folksy reverie, played around the campfire in a brisk and quiet dusk. “The result is a spiritual and meditative flow where the listener can dive and let himself be lulled by repeating melodies, evocative small variations and a great hypnotic style.” Besides the latter citation, I also want to quote Brian Housman‘s words for Stationary Travels, calling this a highly meditative piece: “[…] this is one of Grabowski’s most sparse, delicate, and beautiful works as he allows generous space around the clean guitar lines, bathing them in light filtered through the sheerest of veils. Cue the subtle chorus of birdsong in the background and we are gently transported away to an Arcadian dream…” Be sure to also check out Grabowski’s alternate soundtrack to Chris Marker‘s 1962 film, La Jetée, which is titled He remembers there were gardens, along with nearly 20+ releases in the last four years alone from this prolific artist. Things can only get better from here on out.

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Tonal Glints is the second of three albums James McDermid dedicates to his sister Harriet, who passed away in August 2016 after 2 years of illness. Most of the music was written for her and for himself, to deal with the grief, ‘to articulate what I was feeling’.

‘After she’d passed away, there was the question around what to do with the many tracks I had written; they had, in all honesty, been written for her. For me to perhaps leave them sitting on a hard-drive seemed a disappointing end to what amounted to, in my mind, a tribute to her.’

McDermid decided to publish the tribute when he was offered to release the 25-track(!) Ghost Folk on Polar Seas Recording in April 2017.
And now the follow-up is released by Krysalisound: 40 minutes in twelve personal musical sketches.

Knowing about such a heavy and personal background possibly defines what you hear in the music. And although, on one side, it is important to know about the process that lead to the creation, on the other side it might be better to nót know about that and let the music come to you aligned to your own personal frame of mind. (Alas, if you read until here, I’m afraid that is impossible now).

The inspiration for this music may have come from a very sad personal situation, but the music is not necessarily ‘hard’ or ’emotional’ to listen to. On the contrary perhaps: it offers a lot of consolation. What it is defined by the perception of the listener, it may offer whatever he/she needs at that moment.

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James A McDermid is an English Ambient artist who has appeared on Polar Sees Recordings, Cathedral Transmission and 1834. This is possibly his most personal album.

“This album is dedicated to my sister, Harriet, who died in August 2016. Throughout the 2 years she was ill – leading up to her death – I had started writing music as a way to privately articulate what I was feeling. After she’d passed away, there was the question around what to do with the many tracks I had written; they had, in all honesty, been written for her. For me to perhaps leave them sitting on a hard-drive seemed a disappointing end to what amounted to, in my mind, a tribute to her. About 6 months later, I was fortunate enough to be offered a 25 track album release (titled Ghost Folk) though Canadian label, Polar Seas Recordings, in April 2017. 
Her death is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me; once the original shock dissipated, a wall of grief fell on me and, as a result, I found it an almost impossible task seeing my world in quite the same way as I once had. The wear and tear of life became suffocating, so I continued with the idea of channeling what I was feeling, into music; however, coming to terms with Harriet’s death, rather than her illness, started to cloud and confuse what I was doing.

“The Vagabond” is a short and sweet opener utilizing various chimes and a slightly cold drone which comes in waves. The chimes resonate out and cast light against the drones. You get the feeling that this is a bit of letting go, as if it is environmental and the chimes are making the music by a breeze rushing through them.

“All the Shutters Are Closed” a slow building series of drones and field recording build up enveloping the listener in a storm of sound. Buried deep other drones start to become noticeable with their darker textures. They start to force their way through and are able to shine, They are deep and low drones with tendrilous sound that have a somewhat melancholic edge to them. As the track continuous the drones become more pronounced taking centre stage  and proceed to wring out as much emotion as they can. A howling drone takes in the background coating the track and adding another layer before eventually taking over the track towards the end.

“I Put A Letter In My Pocket” the types of drones contained herein are ones that I always associate with being airborne and flying over everything, looking down and surveying the territory. They have that floating feeling, as well as one that has fluctuating synth generated sounds. Having the slightly experimental flourishes of the fluctationg drones give the music an extra layer of freedom, as if something is being blown away and taken by the wind.

“I’ll Take One Who Loves Me” a lo-fi opening with static/distortion and a rollicking somewhat free form acoustic guitar which is a change of flavour to the music. Music that is of a lo-fi nature for me has a more intimate nature than that of something highly produced it. It also has a sense of immediacy. In the back ground the faintest of shape shifting drones can be heard and they have sounds that compliment to the tones generated by the guitar. The drones pulse, chop and resonate as their presence becomes more defined, switching with guitar as being the tracks focal point. The guitar finishes off the track with a nice repeating section at the end.

“Bunny” Harsh storm, Field Recordings and Ghostly apparitions give this the feeling commonly associated with Ambient music that is centred around memory and how it informs our lives. What this all means is possibly only known by the artist himself.

“Within Reach” the music isn’t crystal clear, but it feels like dawn is upon us and the day is just starting with all possibilities available. Shimmering sounds radiate over a collection of drones, fractured sounds and possibly a voice buried deep within. The music is constant in the way it flows with a relaxing feel present and only briefly extends outwards. The ending of the track is the converse to the opening where it feels like things are coming down.

“Worse Than The Last Look” distorted and wind-swept sounds battle it out to be heard. The piece feels a bit more experimental than the others as a lot of the elements are buried and you can hear melodies deep within, that if not for the distorted approach to the track could totally change the effect of the music.

“If You Concede” from silence acoustic guitar, quiet voices and drones appear. The repetitive nature of the voice whispering the title forms part of the music which is loop based with acoustic parts also repeating. The music is joined by a collection of rumbling, dark distorted drones which are threatening to overflow and drone out the voice and acoustic guitar. Hypnotic in nature the track feels like a bit of tug of war between the two elements, resulting in the darker side winning, but with the clarity of the voice and guitar still being heard. Sonicly a rich track, it is more than just two sound types with a lot of layering and textures involved in creating such a heavy sound.

“Eastern Block” A relaxing warped drone track with backwards loops and icy tones that cut across. Chimes are featured, but have a very cold sound to the track, which sounds like it’s being played backwards and consists of a series of short drones. As the piece builds, the more layers are added and more complex it gets. Vocal elements add a melodic touch to it, which steers it away from being too cold.

“Last Year” Completely manipulated sounds that sound positively Sci-Fi based warp and pulse in this short-lived interlude which seems quite different from the rest of the album. I am not sure of its position on the album.

“I Saw Red, And Through The Red, Nothing” rumbling, cloaked drones that sound like they are broken up and not linear from the basis of the track. Minimal in nature, the movements are not deep troughs and high valleys, rather more entrenched in frequency and slight variations. They are layers to the piece with the top layer being more haunting, as well as a slightly ominous one that is best heard in the last thirty seconds of the track as the other elements make way.

“Faraway Too Close” field recordings of rain feel like they are washing away something. McDermid is adept at slowly drawing out the depths in the pieces and this is best displayed in this track. A horn like drone forms a rhythm while a whispered indecipherable voice repeats something that  feels over and over. Melodic drones billowing in the wind add a feeling of hopefulness to the music. The contrast between the penultimate and final tracks are outstanding and show the many dimensions to McDermid’s work.

You get the feeling of McDermid’s sisters passing in the music. The album is  quite moody, at times dark and at other times shrouded and buried. It’s not totally in despair, but you get the feeling that the artist is coming through the other side, such is the balance of light and dark that is either included in the same track or on different tracks.  If you like music that plays with colour and shade, “Tonal Glints” may be for you.

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