The Love Songs - “Live in Dresden” (Resting Bell)

This is my new record! Online for free download at the lovely Resting Bell Netlabel. These are the liner notes:

“In June 2007, Sven Swift aka The Love Songs performed a 25-minutes live-set at the DIY 2.0 festival in Dresden. The whole set consists of one well-structured, tension-filled piece of drone music, created with analogue synthesizers and effect-feedback only (an exception is the little nightingale-chant framing the performance). The complete recording is naturally placed atop the sound of the audience and city underneath, people chatting around, an ambulance passing the venue. It was Alexander Peterhaensel who carefully recorded all of this.”
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New Sven Swift Mixtape @ Audiotalaia

After a couple of stylistically diversified mixtapes, the urge to do something more coherent became stronger day by day. Inspired by Biathalon’s awesome EP “2” and especially the longform meditation “Underwater is a Place to be Alone” (this is where i borrowed the title), i began to join my favorite free Ambient-tunes, keeping in mind to preserve a certain “underwater” atmosphere. Rich textures, hypnotic humming and and overall warmth, these were my criteria. Turn on your headphones and enjoy this 80 minutes trip to the depths and back!
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#73 Svefn - “Lightness”

Mysterious Ambient Dub | Svefn is about organic Ambient music, surface noise and harmonicism (which is a word i just invented). Svefn is Manchester-based Lee Chapman who created a tiny EP tellingly entitled “Lightness”. Svenfn refers to a song by Iceland’s ethereal superstars Sigur Rós who work fine as a loose reference also. Svefn is “Sven” with an additional “f”, and this is simply awesome.
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#72 Ian D. Hawgood - “The Fires Will Die At Night” (Resting Bell)

Vespertine Ambient Drones | Ian D. Hawgood is a traveler. He switches from Occident to Orient, living in the UK and Japan, recording music with a four-track machine at the Pacific Ocean or in his London apartment. His huge Ambient Drones carry along memories of American Minimal-Music, roughed up with moments of joyful noise and the fractal remains of analog instruments.
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#71 Inlets - “Vestibule EP” (Luv Sound)

Songs for the Allergic | Sebastian Krueger from NYC is the handsome fellow behind the Inlets-moniker. His “Vestibule EP” for the Luv Sound-Netlabel is a chamber musical treasure chest of heartbreaking melodies, bitter-sweet vocal arrangements and a dozen of hand played instruments. Decent opulence from a Brooklyn bedroom.
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DEAD Magazine #4

German-language DEAD Magazine is online with it’s fourth volume. Grap the free PDF here or ask the guys for a copy of the seriously limited print version which includes not only the mag itself but also a highly exclusive CD-compilation with neck snappers from Oskar Ohlson, roly-poly Ceschi, B-Ju and Mnemotrauma which both have a track on the latest Equinox-compilation “A Year & A Day” (check my article at Phlow Magazine). Inherently, the interview and photo series (!) of hairy Anticon-headmaster Tim “Sole” Holland is worth the download.

#70 Endlos - “Live EP” (1bit Wonder)

DSP Postrock | Endlos are a two-man band from Leipzig, Eastern Germany, fusing synthesizer melodies and drum machine-grooves with electric guitars and live battery. Exclusively for the elegant 1bit Wonder-Netlabel, Daniel Graumüller and Mario Kreuzer fixed a “Live EP” with five songs from their latest album “Kein Grund Zufrieden Zu Sein”. Energetic and a bit nostalgic.
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Where to Find Protest Music?

Sorry to bother you guys again with my own music, but while I was collecting links for my older reviews, I found Japanese label ON-LI having canceled online-activity after all. I released my second album “Some Protest Music for Today’s Youth” there and like to let you know that the MP3-files are available via last.fm still. No ZIP-link though but the whole LP is only five tracks, so… hit ‘em!
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#69 Marihiko Hara - “Cesura” (Zymogen)

Textures of Beauty | With Marihiko Hara’s “Cesura”, the inerrable Zymogen Netlabel dropped another outstanding Ambient-album. While Takeshi Nakamura, the other Japanese Artist on Zymogen, is commonly known for his razor sharp Digitronica, Marihiko Hara provides his diversified Ambient-textures with rather velvet gloves. Smooth electro-acoustic music with Pop-appeal and relevance? Here we go!
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The RUBored Box-Sets: Season II

And finally, here it is: the RUBored Box-Set Season II (016-030). Scan though the archives and find some gems you might have forgotten or never heard of… like for the first season, my personal favourites are indicated in red.

On_14 - “Green EP” (ON-LI)
Andrey Kiritchenko - “True Dilusion” (Nexsound)
Bazaar - “Pacha’s Ale EP” (Experimedia)
Liger - “The Infra-ordinary” (Beat is Murder)
V.A. - “eDogm V.A. 1” (edogm)
V.A. - “eDogm V.A. 2” (eDogm)
Ibakusha - “Novctzember” (Zymogen)
MonoCulture - “Animal Economy” (Urban Sprawl Records)
The Depreciation Guild - “Nautilus” (8bit-Peoples)
The Joe-K Plan - “Demo” (Trastienda)
Bruce Russel & Sakada - “Casa Precario” (Con-v)
Alexandr Vatagin - “Valeot” (Mirakelmusik)
PCF Moya - “Untitled/ God Slot EP” (Merzbau)
Zavoloka & AGF - “Nature Never Produces (…)” (Nexsound)
1.000 Hours of Staring - “Co-operative Thread” (Serein)

Reviews in HTML

Boring Music Vol. II - Direct Download