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Now listening: S.hel, “Disconnect”

S.hel, Disconnect (Whitelabrecs, 2020)

“S.hel” is the musical name of Iceland-based composer Sævar Helgi Jóhannsson, who released the album Disconnect earlier this year on the U.K. label Whitelabrecs. The album places Jóhannsson at the convergence of several related genres: compositional ambient, ambient electronica and minimalistic piano (often called “modern classical,” but not by me). Nils Frahm is an obvious reference point, but Jóhannsson is carving out his own space.

If the genre names above sound too esoteric to bother deconstructing, here’s another way to look at it: From the outset, it’s clear that Jóhannsson is both a composer and a sound artist. The terms are related but not identical: The distinction in my mind is that a composer excels at working with notes, while a sound artist excels at working with sounds. No doubt there is a lot of overlap, but anyone who has both skills is working with a broad music-making palette.

Jóhannsson is certainly working with a wide palette. White Label released Disconnect on Piano Day (March 28), and while piano is featured prominently, it is presented within a context of strings, electronica and found sounds, and the piano is more of a unifying element than a strictly defining one.

“Human Geography” gives us impressionistic piano that is minimal but not simplistic, with both melodies and harmonies that offer a sense of the unexpected. We also get synth pads, feedback, electronic pulses and shimmering metallic sounds, all progressing in a grand, cinematic build.

The delicate, hypnotic “Delay Common Sense” is on the minimalist piano end of the spectrum, sounding like it could easily have been written by Frahm. Driven by walk-down arpeggios in the left hand and a graceful melody in the right, the three-minute piece also features the trademark piano creaks one hears in Frahm’s music. The piece is short, but nonetheless offers ample evidence of Jóhannsson’s gift for melody and phrasing.

“Irritant Bodies” lies at the sound artist end of the spectrum, composed of percussive electronic and found sounds interspersed with piano. Here, Jóhannsson is building a collage more than crafting melodies and harmonies.

“Law and Market” offers the fragmentary and formless feeling of ambient at times, but it also gives us notes and patterns, not just sounds and textures. It builds slowly with gentle (and, again, creaking) piano chords. Most of the piece moves along with a 3/4 (or 6/8) pulse, but starting between the three- and four-minute marks, Jóhannsson begins to play with our temporal center of gravity: The pulse shifts, the piano loses its clear pulse and the strings seem to inhabit a separate rhythmic reality; meanwhile, electronic sounds intermingle with organic ones.

On “Eia Popea,” Jóhannsson almost veers into the territory of what is often called modern classical — minimalist and piano-based music that, when executed poorly, bears a little too much resemblance to the stylistic excesses of new age. What keeps “Eia Popea” from crossing over the fine line between beauty and schmaltz are its unexpected subtleties: atmospheric and electronic effects in the background, piano lines disintegrating into creaks.

Whether he’s working with piano melodies or electronic pulses, Jóhannsson is a sensitive and highly skilled artist capable of working on multiple levels at once to create a compelling whole. 

His seven-minute closing track, “Permission society,” is a case in point. One on level, we get an abstract melody on what sounds like some type of bells; on another, legato strings rise and fall in an atmospheric drone that augments but does not strictly align with the sound of the bells. The effect is lovely and contemplative: a bifurcated sound, with bells operating on one end and strings on another, creating an ambigious space that draws you in and carries you along. About two-thirds of the way into a seven-minute build, Jóhannsson brings in a drone, a counter melody and indecipherable electronic pulses. It’s the sound of a skilled composer and sound artist bringing everything together — beauty, mystery, tension — and creating something both inviting and moving.

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Now listening: Ben McElroy, “Soon This May All Be Sea”

Ben McElroy, Soon This May All Be Sea (2020)

Long ago in an entry-level college poetry class, I found myself dissatisfied with the ending of a poem. I don’t recall the poem, only that it raised a question that went unanswered. I pointed this out to my professor as a flaw. 

The professor replied that there are two types of people: the kind who need an answer, and the kind who are comfortable with ambiguity. No doubt she was right. Apparently, at that time and in that context, I was the type who needed an answer. Later, I went on to a career in journalism, where it’s malpractice to leave unanswered questions in a story.

Thankfully for all of us, art and journalism are played with different rules. Ben McElroy’s Soon This May All Be Sea is built on ambiguity — and it’s beautiful. In genre and form alike, McElroy is ambiguous, operating at the margins of several genres and thereby creating a sound that’s truly his own. In a world with no shortage of ambient records, McElroy’s musical worldview encompasses ambient but isn’t constrained by it. Instead, he is fluent in ambient, drone and folk, and he combines them masterfully. He is comfortable in the language of fingerpicked guitar and bowed strings, but he can also create wobbly, pulsating drones to go with them.

The opening track, “Fading Rhymes and the Last Flight,” opens with a gentle ambient pulse and a simple three-note motif on acoustic guitar, then brings in a windswept wash of sound interspersed with melodic fragments floating in and out. Once you’ve settled into this musical universe, McElroy changes direction — bird calls enter midway through the six-minute track, followed by a fingerpicked guitar and what sounds like a harmonium, along with strings, snare drum and bells. 

“Soon This Will All Be Sea” gives us eerie, layered drones, a bow skating across strings, a muted moan of feedback, a barking dog — and, then, a ramshackle piano building a simple edifice of chords around the continuing drone, feedback and strings.

“Outside the Bubble” is a blissful union of drone with Celtic folk music. McElroy captures the contemplative feeling and resonant sounds often present in Celtic music, making it his own not only by adding the element of drone, but also with the sparing use of his voice. (Used for atmosphere and melody rather than lyrics, vocals also show up on “This Pond is Life.”)

From track to track, McElroy dials up different combinations of his musical vocabulary: The 10-minute “All the Things That Once Were” is all drone and ambient, while the acoustic guitar part on “This Pond is Life” sounds like it could be a Nick Drake outtake.

McElroy’s short, (mostly) instrumental compositions are beautifully constructed works of mood and texture, evoking a full range of thoughts and feelings. But their beauty lies in the journey, not in the destination. The tracks on Soon This May All Be Sea don’t move you through a series of compelling harmonic progressions to a big, satisfying resolution. Instead, the album invites you into a rich, beautiful world of sound that is inviting and comforting — but also fleeting. No, we don’t get the certainty of the musical architecture of a pop song or a classical concerto. In its place, we get an intimate space to ruminate — and then, like so much else in life, it just dissipates. 

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Now listening: Portico Quartet, Seán Mac Erlaine, Fabio Orsi

Portico Quartet, “Trajectory”
Album: Memory Streams 2019 (Gondwana Records, 2020)

When I saw a BBC piece a year or two ago that listed Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain as an ambient masterpiece, my mind was blown — I’d just never consciously considered the connection between ambient music and jazz before, despite it being quite direct in much of the output of the ECM label. Now that I’m more cognizant of the link, I’m enjoying some recent discoveries, including the brilliant Trio Ramberget and now the Portico Quartet. Whereas the former’s music feels fragile and evanescent, the latter’s “Trajectory” is more driving and frenetic, evoking Steve Reich more than Brian Eno. Meditative textures play a role, but this 10-minute instrumental’s trajectory is mostly defined by hypnotic repetition and propulsive jazz drumming.

Fabio Orsi, “CD 1”
Album: Vibra (2020)

There are certain frequencies in music — and drone music in particular — that resonate in my brain in such a way that they induce instant euphoria and ecstasy. I can only assume there’s something going on physiologically, and I’m sure there are articles and books that could explain this is in more depth. The point, though, is that Italian drone artist Fabio Orsi hits the sweet spot with “CD 1,” a 12-minute, Eno-esque soundscape of mesmerizing drone. The heart of the piece is its repetitive underlying drone, but Orsi weaves in shimmering melodies and sounds throughout, offering multiple rhythmic, textural and melodic threads for the ear to follow. Where much ambient music floats in an amorphous rhythmic space, “CD 1” moves forward in a clear 4/4 path, underpinned by drone and propelled by all that Orsi adds to it.

Seán Mac Erlaine, “The Diplomat III” and “Horse-Drawn Thoughts”
Album: Music for Empty Ears (Ergodos, 2018)

Irish musician and composer Seán Mac Erlaine is another example of the confluence of jazz and ambient, having studied jazz performance. “The Diplomat III” is more cinematic ambient and drone than jazz, however, with layered, breathy clarinet melodies — alternatingly fractured and sustained — and a menacing electronic undertow. On “Horse-Drawn Thoughts,” the jazz connection becomes clearer with a resonant, ethereal melody in what feels like a deconstructed ballad for a world that has lost its way.


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Now listening: Bing & Ruth, “Dorsal”

Bing and Ruth, Dorsal
(4AD, 2017)

Led by Brooklyn-based pianist David Moore, Bing & Ruth is an instrumental ensemble making mesmerizing music that combines elements of ambient and classical minimalism.

The group has been at it for years, releasing its first album (as far as I can tell), City Lake, in 2010. It’s only been a couple of months, however, since I’ve come across their music. I’m lucky I did.

There is a lot of instrumental music out there these days, and it can be difficult for artists, even very talented ones, to make a distinct impression in such an environment. But Bing & Ruth does just that — with the strength of its writing, the sophistication of its arrangments and recording, and the depth and beauty of its work overall.

“Dorsal,” the title track from this 2017 release, opens with ambient textures and delicate piano chords, setting the mood for what could be a wide-pan scene of an expanse of land at dusk. With a subtle balance of refined piano and eerie ambient sounds surrounding it, the music leaves you wondering how the scene might unfold. Is this the solitary, reflective aftermath of a breakup — or worse, maybe the moment after a murder, when the gravity of what’s taken place is just starting to hit?

With the name “Dorsal,” the piece at least implies an end of some kind — someone is walking away, or has turned their back; something is ending. At about the halfway point, the piano gets faster and more insistent, while the ambient sounds grow darker and more foreboding. Around the 4:37 mark, an exquisitely sculpted note of what sounds like guitar feedback cuts across the piece in a descending arc. Then the mood returns to the murky curiosity of the opening: an eerie beauty, fragile and uncertain.

“Torche (ii)” is the most classically oriented of the three tracks on Dorsal, with slow, low-register chords resonating through a progression that moves between consonance and dissonance. The feeling is impressionistic; chords float and expand through time. Rhythmically and structurally, “Torche (ii)” doesn’t sound complex — but neither does it sound simple. Instead, it carries just enough mystery to keep the ear engaged, waiting for the next chord, not quite sure what it will sound like or precisely when it will come.

“Weightout” opens with light, fluttering piano and moves through layers of floating tones that glide in and out, above and below the piano melody. There are sliding notes, hints of drone, subtle waves of feedback — but most of all, a balance between the clear instrumental presence of the piano and the murkier ambient sounds whose origins can’t always be discerned.

Bing & Ruth writes music that I like to call compositional ambient — where ambient sounds are put to use in service of a compositional vision that encompasses but also extends beyond pure ambient music. It’s a space where beautiful, moving sounds can happen — and, with Bing & Ruth, they do.

The Spot on the Hill blog is about discovery and exploration — discovering new music and exploring the origins and key elements of music I already love. In Now Listening, I explore music that has captured my imagination, both past and present.

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Now listening: Edu Comelles, “Línia / Pedra / Paisatge / Solc”

Edu Comelles, Línia / Pedra / Paisatge / Solc
(White Label, 2020)

16-minute soundscapes drawn from environmental field recordings are not my usual center of gravity musically, but Edu Comelles’ two-track release Línia / Pedra / Paisatge / Solc managed to grab my attention. “Línia / Pedra” means “line” and “stone” in Catalan, while “Paisatge / Solc” means “landscape” and “groove.” The pieces — each 16 minutes long — are inspired by the skyline looking out from the ruins of a castle in the village of Culla in northeastern Spain.

According to Comelles, aside from an overdubbed double bass, sound sources for the recording include only found sounds and voices — an impressive feat, given that much of the recording sounds like it’s been generated by keyboard. Of course, the found sounds have been processed electronically — but even so, the musicality of the sounds is remarkable given their non-instrumental origins.

“Línia / Pedra” is absolutely beautiful — a meditative, drone-like piece with an underlying pulse that’s punctuated by subtle crackles. For much of its 16 minutes, “Línia / Pedra” is propelled by variations on a single pitch, with drone-like, ghostly vocals providing an atmosphere of mystery, but — quite deliberately — not a melody. Beginning with vocals, the piece eventually adds haunting, fractured strings, as well found sounds, including what could be a rolling marble and tossed rocks.

“Paisatge / Solc” veers less toward drone and more toward ambient. There are a few clearly recognizable sounds — the buzz of an insect, the sound of wind, a processed voice — but for the most part, you’re left to just listen and take in the mystery.

What draws me into Comelles’ sound world is its richness, its movement and its indecipherable origins. The music flutters, drifts, crackles and floats. By the time the clear melody of a double bass enters at the 10:27 mark of “Paisatge / Solc,” Comelles has established such a full sound world — without instruments — that the entrance of a clear melodic line is almost superfluous. And sure enough, after the bass melody drifts along for a short while with the river of ambience that surrounds it, it recedes. “Paisatge / Solc” is amorphous in shape, and in no hurry to arrive at a destination, but it delivers a rich experience along the way.

The Spot on the Hill blog is about discovery and exploration — discovering new music and exploring the origins and key elements of music I already love. In Now Listening, I explore music that has captured my imagination, both past and present.

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Now listening: Dirty Three, “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night”

Dirty Three, “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night”
Album: Whatever You Love, You Are (Touch and Go, 2000)

Sometimes a three-minute instrumental piece starts to feel long before it hits the two-minute mark; other times, a seven-minute work feels too short as it comes to an end. At 6:52, Dirty Three’s “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night” falls firmly in the latter category. With its wavering violins, alternatingly dirty and clean-but-warm guitar, and languidly paced but insistent drumming, “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night” evokes a range and depth of feeling that defies its origins in a mere trio of musicians.

The title is “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night,” but the regrets expressed in the music feel much larger than missing a night out. Maybe that night at home was spent obsessing over a relationship — or maybe it was spent poring over a whole life filled with regrets. Regardless, the emotional complexity goes far beyond the pain of regret; after all, there’s also power in moving forward in spite of regrets, and there’s closure and beauty in coming to a point of understanding (even if not always accompanied by acceptance).

When “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night” came up recently on a random playlist, it pulled me back to a time when I was more thoroughly steeped in indie rock and the early variants of its cousin, postrock. Using the traditional rock instrumentation of drums and guitar — plus the mildly nontraditional violin — “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night” is devastatingly compelling instrumental music, much in the same way that Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, the genre-defining postrock album, was devastatingly compelling instrumental music when it came out nine years earlier.

Dirty Three’s voice — led but not entirely defined by Warren Ellis’ violin — is a voice of both fragility and power, resignation and longing, regret and hope. From Warren Ellis’ heartwrenching and achingly fragile violin lines to the brilliant, hypnotizing accompaniment of drummer Jim White and guitarist Mick Turner, “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night” is a reminder of the emotions that instrumental music can convey — and that the genre of “instrumental music” is a wide river with lots of tributaries.

The Spot on the Hill blog is about discovery and exploration — discovering new music and exploring the origins and key elements of music I already love. In Now Listening, I explore music that has captured my imagination, both past and present.

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Now listening: Emmanuel Witzthum, “Book of Fragments”

Emmanuel Witzthum, “Book of Fragments”
Album: The Book of Dusts (Facture, 2019)

Like “minimalism” itself, the term “holy minimalism” is sometimes used as a pejorative — but you won’t find it used that way here. Composer/violist Emmanuel Witzthum’s Book of Dusts is inspired by “old notebooks, antiquarian editions, calligraphic writing, and piles of books dressed in spiderwebs of dust,” but it could just as easily have been inspired by gazing up at the arches of a cathedral or walking through a cemetery.

Clocking in at just 1:56, “Book of Fragments” is a meditation — perhaps on loss: the loss of time, of memory, of loved ones. Though the music emanates from a single viola, its melodic line feels more like a call and response between two instruments, as mournful, resonant legato notes ring out individually and occasionally meet each other in harmony.

Music like “Book of Fragments” is a gift of our postmodern era, in which all periods of music are freely available for composers to draw on. Witzthum is looking back hundreds of years, reaching for the spiritual resonance of plainchant in terms of acoustics, while drawing more on the Baroque era harmonically. And yet, “Book of Fragments” is fully of its time.

“Book of Fragments” — and the album from which it comes — is meditative, contemporary classical music that speaks deeply. The piece is brief — just a fragment of music, really — but like minimalism itself, it says a lot with few words.

The Spot on the Hill blog is about discovery and exploration — discovering new music and exploring the origins and key elements of music I already love. In Now Listening, I explore music that has captured my imagination, both past and present.

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Now listening: Olivia Belli, “Still Blue”

The Spot on the Hill blog is about discovery and exploration — discovering new music and exploring the origins and key elements of music I already love. In Now Listening, I explore music that has captured my imagination, both past and present.

Olivia Belli, “Still Blue” (2019)

Olivia Belli’s “Still Blue” is the kind of piece that makes discovering new music such a pleasure. Written for piano, orchestra and electronics, it resides in the zone between ambient and more classically oriented contemporary composition — a richly rewarding space.

“Still Blue” eases the listener in with a gentle opening of strings, woodwinds and electronically processed piano arpeggios proceeding in a slowly paced 5/4 time signature, evoking a freshly fallen snow viewed from inside with a warm cup of coffee. (The piece was released in December 2019 as a “little gift to wish you a Christmas rich of cozy moments.”) It’s a welcoming start to this six-minute track, and just as the piece rounds the two-minute mark, we get a subtle hint of holiday bells.

As the three-minute mark approaches, though, the arpeggios increase in speed and intensity, creating an almost bifurcated listening experience: the strings and orchestral sounds stay at the same slow, gentle pace, but they now co-exist with rapid arpeggios rising and falling above.

The experience is not enough to be disorienting, but it is enough to let you know that you’ve entered a different musical space — the warm cocoon of sound you had been inhabiting has a bit more going on than you might have thought upon entering. It’s that extra something that keeps your ear fully engaged — and that points to pianist Belli, who might be best known for her recordings of music by Max Richter, Philip Glass and Erik Satie, as a composer worth paying attention to in her own right.

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What was your (instrumental music) gateway drug?

Last year, Arvo Pärt was the second-most-performed living composer in the world. For years before that, he was the most-performed composer.

That was not the case, however, when I first heard Pärt’s Fratres in 1989. He was not a household name at the time — not among classical listeners and certainly not among the wider music-buying public. I was working at Peaches Records & Tapes in Columbia, South Carolina, and I was in charge of classical buying for the store. (My knowledge of classical music was and is limited; nonetheless, I had some background and was the only one interested in filling the role.) As the classical buyer, I would check out album reviews, new release lists from labels and distributors, chart lists from Billboard, and promo copies of records and CDs to keep up with what the store should carry.

One day I came across an ECM New Series CD sampler. I don’t remember what all was on it; I only remember violinist Gideon Kremer and pianist Keith Jarrett’s recording of Fratres.

I had never heard anything remotely like it. Its dark, spacious presence; its unexpected rhythms and chords — no amount of mostly Baroque, Classical and Romantic-era pieces I had heard or played in my life had prepared me for how beautiful and moving this music was. From its opening notes — Kremer’s rapid string crossings emanating as if out of the ether, rising in intensity and punctuated at the 1:04 minute mark by the entry of a deep, resonant and authoritative chord from Jarrett —  Fratres felt both otherworldly and like it was anchored in my own soul. No piece of music had ever touched me as deeply.

In general, I don’t have a particularly good memory. But Fratres — including when I first heard it — I can never forget.

There are plenty of other artists and recordings — both in the distant past and more recently — that have helped set me on a path of introspective instrumental music. Some are instrumental; others just have a meditative, minimalist and/or drone-like aesthetic. I’m thinking of artists like Brian Eno, Philip Glass, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Talk Talk, Djivan Gasparyan, Johann Johannsson, Hammock, Low, Stars of the Lid, Stereolab, Last Days, Greg Haines, Eluvium, Labradford, Sigur Ros, Goldmund, The Album Leaf and many more.

If I were to try to draw a direct line between a musical influence and what I listen to now, it would probably point back to Sigur Ros more than to Arvo Pärt. But Pärt was my gateway drug — the music that showed me that there was a completely different way to make, and to think about, music.

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So much music, so many ways to find it

We are blessed as listeners to have a seemingly endless supply of new music, coming to us as a result of both production and distribution costs having declined drastically from where they were 30 years ago.

Back in the ’80s and ’90s, bands fretted about things like how to save up enough money for studio time and how to distribute their record once they’d made it. Now, lots of musicians are able to record at home, and distribution (at least the digital variety) has become simple through such avenues as Bandcamp (launched in 2007) and DistroKid (2013). The result: More music is being released than ever before. As an artist, that can make it difficult to get noticed — but as a listener, it’s an embarrassment of riches.

Luckily, when it comes to contemporary instrumental music, we have a lot of resources to help us sift through what’s out there. For the purposes of this post, I’m leaving out sites like Consequence of Sound, Aquarium Drunkard and Pitchfork — all of which cover instrumental music, but none of which specialize in it. Here are a few sites that cover instrumental music; if you have others to recommend, please do.

A Closer Listen – This is the most comprehensive and in-depth site covering instrumental music that I’ve come across. Founded in 2012, the site has a talented stable of writers and focuses on album reviews, covering ambient, drone, modern composition, field recordings and more.

Stationary Travels – Like A Closer Listen, Stationary Travels is ambitious in scope, covering modern composition, ambient and drone, as well as electroacoustic and experimental folk. (I’m adopting the site’s own genre names here; surely genre names will be a subject of a future post.) Among the artists I’ve recently discovered via Stationary Travels: inventive Canadian violinist Christopher Whitley, who creates all sorts of sounds one wouldn’t generally associate with the violin, and ambient artist The Humble Bee & Benoit Pioulard, who somehow retains a sense of blissed-out ambient while simultaneously bringing more energy to the endeavor than you often find in ambient music.

Contemplative Classical – From hushed minimalist piano to New Age-like instrumentals, ragged-around-the-edges ambient and challenging contemporary composition, there’s a lot to like — and a lot to sift through — on Contemplative Classical’s playlists. On the whole, though, Contemporary Classical’s center of gravity resides more with contemporary minimalist piano than, say, full-on ambient or challenging modern composition. The site also posts mixes by guest artists and a podcast by Matt Emery on Soundcloud.

Mes Enceintes Font Défaut (My Speakers Are Missing) – Based in Montreal, this site covers ambient, electronic and experimental music. This month’s featured album is a dark but beautiful work of ambient drone: Matt Jencik’s Dream Character.

Ambiance Glitters – The focus here is ambient music, but it’s not all textural soundscapes; you’ll also find delicate piano and cinematic music. Includes reviews, interviews and mixes.

Spellbinding Music – Most of what you’ll see covered on A Spot on the Hill falls under the general heading of minimalist and meditative, which I use not so much as genre categories (especially in the case of “meditative”), but more in the sense of general approach and emotional quality. That leads me to certain genre areas: contemporary composition, minimalist piano-based works, ambient (focused more on texture), compositional ambient (focused more on form), postrock, etc. Spellbinding Music casts its net wider, writing about contemporary composition but also getting into jazz, folk and roots music more generally. While there’s limited overlap with what I’m looking for specifically, it’s worth checking on this site now and then for an unexpected discovery (such as French poet and sound artist Félicia Atkinson).

Drifting, Almost Falling – Like most music blogs, this one is a passion project — and the passion shines through. A couple of things I particularly like: (1) The name “Drifting, Almost Falling,” tells you what you’re in for. The site’s focus is relatively narrow — defined as “minimal ambient, drone and modern classical sounds” — allowing a reader/listener to have a sense of the kind of artists they might discover here. (2) Write-ups usually start with a quote from the artist’s own bio/promotional materials, which — even if sometimes exaggerated, as promotional write-ups are — offer insights into where the artist is coming from and what they are trying to achieve.