2017 Archives - HearFeel

Albums of the Decade: Blanck Mass – World Eater (Sacred Bones, 2017)

Chris — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 18:06:59 +0000

Despite all our advances and supposed civility, the modern world exists on a thin and fragile veneer of connective stability. With almost every country now revolving around the black hole of capitalism, obsessed each day with profit margins and stock prices and the dream of eternal growth, it feels like we stretch ourselves increasingly thin. […]

The post Albums of the Decade: Blanck Mass – World Eater (Sacred Bones, 2017) appeared first on HearFeel.

The Top 20 Records of 2017

Chris — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 18:01:49 +0000

Well here we are again, HearFeel’s fifth end-of-year list. Firstly I feel that I should apologise: despite the fact that 2016 felt like the year to end all years I still managed to average at least one post per week and 2017 has fallen quite short of that. I have never posted as little as […]

The post The Top 20 Records of 2017 appeared first on HearFeel.

Olli Aarni – Nielu (Florabelle, 2017)

Chris — Sat, 02 Dec 2017 15:55:37 +0000

The Solstice looms, one of the pair of symbolic days that cleaves the year in two, though one is significantly more welcome than the other. Winter approaches fast, and with it the turbulence of uncertainty in the weather’s fickle states, each day a potential battle anew between eerie, cold calm and punishing precipitation. Nielu is “vortex”, […]

The post Olli Aarni – Nielu (Florabelle, 2017) appeared first on HearFeel.

Benoit Pioulard – Slow Spark, Soft Spoke (Dauw, 2017)

Chris — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 20:16:36 +0000

I was walking in the forest a couple of weekends ago, on a very fine Autumn day. It was the last leg of the walk back to the car and the Sun was behind me, low and heavy with the day’s weight. Bronze rays just about made it over the treetops of the clearing and […]

The post Benoit Pioulard – Slow Spark, Soft Spoke (Dauw, 2017) appeared first on HearFeel.

Mikael Lind – Sounds That Escaped (2017)

Chris — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 21:00:49 +0000

The paint never used, the shutter never triggered, the clay left to dry and crack: expressions all of lost potential, of missed and missing art. Sounds That Escaped feels that pressure to record, to capture in intimate detail, those important moments Lind is desirous to permanise into musical language. There is a force and energy here […]

The post Mikael Lind – Sounds That Escaped (2017) appeared first on HearFeel.

Arash Akbari – The Rest is Silence (Unknown Tone Records, 2017)

Chris — Sat, 11 Nov 2017 16:27:24 +0000

There’s a lining of Laphroaig left in the empty whisky glass next to me, an alcoholic rime that I find intermittently catching my nose as I turn my head. I bring it to my face and take a sniff of the smoky, peat fire embers of its distinctive scent: a thin bead rolls slovenly at […]

The post Arash Akbari – The Rest is Silence (Unknown Tone Records, 2017) appeared first on HearFeel.

36 – Black Soma (3Six Recordings, 2017)

Chris — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 18:23:02 +0000

Light and dark, the oldest juxtaposition in existence. The something vs. the nothing, the good vs. the bad. Preceding each piece here is a counterpoint, a piece of subterfuge which casts a glimmer of melancholy and doubt into its matrix: black. Notions of lightness and purity, places of promise and hope, become tainted with a darkling […]

The post 36 – Black Soma (3Six Recordings, 2017) appeared first on HearFeel.

Channeling – Bluffs (Polar Seas Recordings, 2017)

Chris — Sat, 21 Oct 2017 16:18:42 +0000

We don’t always need big, sweeping albums to make statements, even in Ambient. Sometimes it’s good, refreshing even, to listen to a release with a shorter runtime, especially if its thoughts and feelings are well crystallised. Channeling’s Bluffs barely makes it to the half-hour mark in its three refined pieces, but it’s quality over quantity at its […]

The post Channeling – Bluffs (Polar Seas Recordings, 2017) appeared first on HearFeel.

anthéne – for the first time in years (Polar Seas Recordings, 2017)

Chris — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 16:00:06 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed this time of year as September makes way into October and the first suggestions of Autumn become detectable in the weather and the foliage. The seasonal change always seemed to mirror that of my own life’s course, what with the turbulence in returning to a new school or university year and all […]

The post anthéne – for the first time in years (Polar Seas Recordings, 2017) appeared first on HearFeel.

Ben Frost – The Centre Cannot Hold (Mute, 2017)

Chris — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 14:57:50 +0000

I like to sit on the fence, play Devil’s Advocate, be ambivalent: is there not, afterall, some merit to both sides of almost any discussion? I have opinions of course, will find myself leaning towards one cause or another, but I always leave room for doubt, for flexibility. In today’s world this attitude seems almost […]

The post Ben Frost – The Centre Cannot Hold (Mute, 2017) appeared first on HearFeel.