“When you listen to birds, they usually talk about food, sex/family, or anxiety. If they knew about the true nature of humanity’s cruel and exploitative relationship with birds, they would be discussing rebellion. Humanity’s current trajectory about birds is to cause the extinction of one-third of all bird species by the end of this century. This record crystallises the borders between memory, beauty, and anxiety. At the core is an amalgam of all the birds we have met and heard, their sounds synthesised from a blend of memories. Esthetically it simulates the qualities of bird sounds, hitting similar frequential sweet spots. There is a great variety of birds captured here, from high to low frequencies, from solo voices to groups, from birds standing on their own to complex world-building, where the bird voices are part of an ecosystem, becoming one of the instruments.

You could stop there, enjoying this record on a musical level, but it invites us to do one step further, to consider reconfiguring our relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. To question our impact, and to ask why we need synthetic bird music. Is it just a visionary endeavour or is it because we are failing at fostering a world in which organic birds and other creatures can thrive? 32 artists from the whole world, including our favourite artists from Eastern Europe, have contributed to this compilation both with new and previously released music. Their music is ordered from dawn to dusk and into the night. For many of the artists it’s their first time on mappa, but some have previously released an album with us”. (Mappa Editions)

@ SOS/BLS

“In 2018, New York based composer and improviser Lucie Vítková made recordings in caves in the Czech Republic and an abandoned Gothic church in Slovakia. Their album Cave Acoustics combines a beguiling exploration of the physicality and acoustics of these unique locations with profoundly personal themes of family legacy and roots. Lucie performed with their sisters in Výpustek Cave – an underground system of tunnels and former Soviet-era bunker. The choreography-based piece creates crescendos of metallic noise as the trio moves around the spaces. It begins with echoing clanks of tins and coins and accelerates towards a rattling cacophony with distant singing floating up from deep in the shadows. Bearing in mind the siblings had never performed together before, their frenzied kinetic outpourings seem even more special, a wordless cohesion forming between them. Lucie clearly doesn’t shy away from a physically full on experience; they embarked on a Fitzcarraldo-style journey to carry heavy props up a steep hill and across a river to reach the less accessible Jáchymyka Cave. [...] The album is a calm, contemplative but also energetic and moving reflection of these rare and unheard environments and Lucie’s reunion with the people and places that have shaped them”. (mappa / Skupina)

“The pieces resulting from these interactions encourage the listener to tune in for a delicate negotiation of language, (audible) gesture, and storytelling”, heißt es im begleitenden Text, ferner: “This project invites us to experience places outside the divided sociolinguistic provinces, resulting from multigenerational displacement and neglect of the Romani communities from the explored areas. The result is in many ways revelatory and poetically impactful”. Das Album erscheint als LP und digital.

Die kleine Szenarien offenbaren alle ihre eigenen Wesenszüge und Stimmungsbilder, dennoch zeichnen sich mit der Zeit gemeinsame Tendenzen ab, die dem ganzen einen erkennbaren Rahmen geben: Helle, silbrig-ambiente Dröhnung bildet oft das Fundament für ausnehmend schöne Melodiefragmente auf Synthies ebenso wie auf den unterschiedlichsten klassischen Instrumenten, man meint Akkordeon, Piano und Streicher zu hören. Mit ihren Reminiszenzen an mittelalterliche und sonstige Alte Musik lassen diese Melodien eine märchenhafte Atmosphäre entstehen, die durch Spieluhren und ähnliches noch untermauert wird.

Das kann im Einzelfall eine halbdunkle Entspanntheit induzieren, doch sind aufgeweckte und aufwühlende Momente keineswegs selten. Rasseln und Handdrums können wie in “Taumel” einen geheimnisvollen und vom Klang her “gedubbten” Ritualismus evozieren. In manchen Momenten scheint aber auch Gefahr im Verzug, wenn monumentale Elektronik die Pferde scheu macht oder – wie in “Schon wieder erleuchtet” – als dystopisch anmutender Maschinenlärm aus tiefen Kellern empordringt. Mysteriöse Schritte und undeutliche, teils geflüsterte Stimmen tun ihr übriges, und doch sind die Szenen nie frei von Wohlklängen und euphorischen Harmonien. Die im Titel genannten Freuden indes sind frei nach William Blakes Sprichwörtern der Hölle stets solche, die nicht lachen.

Manch einer würde sich das eine oder andere Stück länger wünschen, und auch der Rezensent hat dieses Problem bei manchen Tracks durch die Dauerschleife notdürftig gelöst. Das waren beispielsweise “Mach die Augen zu”, wo einfachste, tremolierende Tonfolgen eine Entrücktheit erzeugen, für die andere eine halbe LP-Seite gebraucht hätten. Ferner “Verstimmt” mit seiner leicht orientalisierenden Sci Fi-Orgel oder “Stille Nacht” mit seinen aquatischen, von Froschquaken oder ähnlichem durchzogenen Sounds.

All dem zum Trotz hat man doch bei mehr oder weniger allen Stücken den Eindruck, für wenige Augenblicke in eine in sich vollständige Welt zu tauchen, statt eine Skizze – oder schlimmer: eine schlichte Präsentation von Motiven – zu hören. In genau diesem Sinne ist “Kleine Freuden” eine perfekte Platte für die besinnliche Zeit. (U.S.)

Label: Mappa Editions

“Having begun life as freeform interplays between the duo recorded live at Maurice’s house, overdubs were later added and the material mixed by Maurice alone into finalised pieces. Maurice’s varied instrumentation litters the background with distant and oneiric miscellanies, from groaned saxophone phrases and heavenly organ drones to glissandi guitars. Carter’s voice sits in the centre, embodying and channelling (mostly) wordless human ecstasy – and at times unease – amidst the allotment of blossoming sounds. Maurice & Carter’s clairvoyant connection notwithstanding, music always offers a portal back to our buried intuitions. “Pin Down The Dust” is both a tribute and a guide to this spontaneity and instinct, putting aside thought in favour of feeling”. Das Album erscheint mit Artwork von Ádám Horváth und ist auch digital erhältlich.

“On uncharted areas of medieval maps where potential dangers were thought to exist, the inscription “Here be dragons” was used to warn as much as to tempt explorers willing to cross limits. Myth awaited them as a blank page of dormant territory, yet also to be proved unlike and reinvented. In such pliable borders, wonder had the favorable conditions to blend experience and imagination, crafting creatures with an eye instead of a bellybutton, arms instead of ears and ears instead of fingers, hypnotizing spirals where a mouth should have been. These chimeras, though fictitious, allowed explorers to express their delusions along with their fears. “Here be dreams”, we hear nightmares. Here be mushrooms the size of pyramids that sing lullabies for mountains. Here be talking roads that lead to volcanoes throats and spit you back to flight. Here be art of bending trees into braided bridges like in Meghalaya, and the time gap between seed and living ruins.

Let that be the compass, the astrolabe. Yet, the music in Squirlich Stroll comes with these journeys already embraced, unraveling as a story told by wanderers visiting town, nourishing fantasy. The sonic language and diction employed here are crystal clear. Sounds are sharp and pure. Growls, howls, shrieks, tingles, rattles, moans, excretions and even hymns sung by landscape and creatures alike do not run over each other. There is no chaos, but ambience, cohabitation. The duo masters dramaturgy, providing every voice with focused turns and character, guarding their parley with caution and care, convoking them mainly through soothing synth melodies that enable an analgesic, sedative mood. Clusters of sounds gathered are articulated through the album with the inherent luminosity and required stability to accomplish what peaks in, as the title of the final track reads, a new dawn.  ” (Mappa)

@ Mappa | Nonlocal

@ Mappa