She's got talent: ElettroVoce Duo - "Parlando"

I ran into this video by chance, as this form of art is not my main field of interest. This is a recorded live performance of the act ElettroVoce Duo, comprising of Agata Zubel (voice) and Cezary Duchnowski (computer). And Agata Zubel herself is supposedly a young but already renown Polish vocalist and composer of contemporary academic music. And you just have to hear what she can do with her voice. That's not something I would call "music", as it obviously does not qualify for repeated listening. But judged on its own merits, as an artistic performance showing technical prowess, insane command of the voice and infinite imagination and creativity in finding new ways of expression and stretching the boundaries of what is humanely possible to do with the voice - it is absolutely brilliant to watch.

ElettroVoce Duo - "Parlando"

Therapy? - "Iron Man" (live in Firenze, Italy, 1994)

Therapy? is an outstanding hard rock / metal band from Ireland. Influenced by such stylistically diverse bands as Black Sabbath or Hüsker Dü they managed to build their own distinct sound, based on a wall of noise constructed from loud guitars and powerful drums on the one hand and melodic vocal lines, catchy tunes and clever emotional lyrics passionately delivered by the singer Andy Cairns on the other hand. A concert bootleg is probably not the very best start if you do not know Therapy? yet, in which case I encourage you to check out the albums Troublegum and Infernal Love, but should be interesting for every fan of this great band. The highlights of this album are rare songs Auto Surgery and Totally Random Man coming from an early EP, a poem by A.A. Milne sang a capella, a crazy cover of the Black Sabbath's Iron Man with the changed lyrics, an early version of Me Vs. You - again with different lyrics and finally extended Lunacy Booth with an insane speech of Andy Cairns. This release of the 1994 Firenze concert has been compiled from two separate sources: 1. "Shock Treatment" [bootleg CD, Octopus Octo 010] 2. "Iron Man" [bootleg CD, On Stage Records CD/ON2339] The first source had inferior sound quality, but it included 2 more songs. The second source had two songs missing (Isolation and Nowhere), but its sound quality was better and it included longer breaks between several songs. Tracklist: 1. Therapy? - Stop It You're Killing Me [03:24] 2. Therapy? - Trigger Inside [04:04] 3. Therapy? - Potato Junkie [02:49] 4. Therapy? - Auto Surgery [02:21] 5. Therapy? - Die Laughing [03:09] 6. Therapy? - Totally Random Man [02:23] 7. Therapy? - Accellerator [02:11] 8. Therapy? - Hellbelly [03:55] 9. Therapy? - Halfway Down The Stairs (A.A. Milne) [00:55] 10. Therapy? - Unbeliever [03:30] 11. Therapy? - Teethgrinder [03:09] 12. Therapy? - Brainsaw [04:04] 13. Therapy? - Femtex [03:15] 14. Therapy? - Turn [04:04] 15. Therapy? - Isolation [04:14] 16. Therapy? - Knives [01:48] 17. Therapy? - Screamager [02:39] 18. Therapy? - Nausea [03:24] 19. Therapy? - Nowhere [02:15] 20. Therapy? - Iron Man [05:24] 21. Therapy? - Opal Mantra [02:48] 22. Therapy? - Me Vs. You [03:38] 23. Therapy? - Lunacy Booth [06:25] Playing Time.........: 01:16:01

Wikipedia Biography Official Website Official Merchandise (please support the artist, if you can afford it)

Support artists, not recording industry Pay the artists directly. They do not profit from CD sales. If you buy brand new mainstream albums in regular record stores (no matter whether online or offline, CDs or downloads), almost all the money goes to the recording industry mafia and is later used for committing crimes such as unlawful harassment of fans and bribing authorities to implement changes in law, which would infringe basic human rights. If you really want to support mainstream artists (and you should, if you love their music!), go to concerts or buy merchandise off the official websites. If you can afford buying music, but it is not possible to pay a particular artist without a mafia tribute, consider supporting some independent artists instead. You can find many great acts on such websites as magnatune.com, jamendo.com, cdbaby.com, bandcamp.com, megatotal.pl. Supporting independent artists helps fight the recording industry mafia. Interested? Ask Uncle Google the magic question: 2457CD468C0FAAC677A885778A77AABB58DA9263C559E5ECF986650B1A5E9C7A avax More by Therapy?: Therapy? - "Infernal Love" (1995) Therapy? - "Lonely, Cryin', Only" [CDS] (1998)

Hoffmann, Michael - "Ruff-Stuff Edition"

A massive dose of experimental ambient (9/10) RUFF-STUFF Edition is a documentation of live-sampling experiments, which I produced in 2009 on a period of 12 months. All tracks are pure improvisations by using live-sampling work and were occasionally grafted by carefully additions (add. Instuments, Efx, mixing). I pondered for a long time how to review and rate this album - over 5 hours (!) of experimental improvised ambient. It is hard to comprehend, it is hard to listen in one take. It requires a lot of attention to catch the subtleties of particular tracks, which all are slow-paced, quiet and drum-based. For people that don't have much experience with such music it would be probably a torture. Of course, its inaccessibility for general public should not influence an opinion on music as such. So what is my opinion? I'm still not sure. I guess you won't be very surprised if I write that it's too long and it'd profit from some selection of the recorded material. However, you'll probably be very surprised when you read that I'd delete only three tracks. In all the rest the artist somehow managed to include enough interesting ideas or to produce fine disturbing atmosphere to keep my attention focused. This fact only deserves the highest praise, because it requires a true genius to improvise such massive dose of ambient music without making it boring or too repetitive. One must also have a lot of courage to publish such unconventional work. On the other hand I won't give the highest rating just because of the qualities of the artist himself. This is a review of music, not of the artist's talent as such (which is - without any doubt - enormous). I also won't rate the originality by itself, just like I refused to lower the score because of inaccessibility. What truly matters is if it is good music, enjoyable (in a broad sense of the word) and worth of repeated listening. The answer is of course "yes", but at the same time it is not perfect recording for me. I truly appreciate the artist's mastery as well as novelty and originality of this work, but I cannot give full 10 points. Anyhow, this is an exceptional album and should be on a "must-listen" list of every true fan of ambient. Apart from Jamendo, the album is available for downloading at archive.org in mp3 and ogg formats.

Royalty free music for professional licensing [Artist's Website]

SUPPORT INDEPENDENT ARTISTS If you like this album and you can afford it, consider supporting the artist by making a donation.

terenNowy.live - "Ambientnosc"

Impressive ambient (10/10) Project terenNowy it's an opened collective of creators that spontaneously develop motto: Creation through recreation, or the other way round. Multi-plot and differentiation of artistic statements become an basis for free multiplication of the idea of organics, meaning: each in self direction, but fun is for all. Co-influences and inspirations evolve into unexpected scenography-sound sets, creating the genuine sections such as terennowy.live, terennowy.kids, terennowy.movie and terennowy.art. There is no place for trials, or scenarios - each meeting generates own climate naturally adopted both to space and public, because these two elements are as vital to the project, as the collective itself. We say: interaction is an initiation of the creation. Or the other way round. Ambientnosc (Ambiency) is the ambivalence of the aesthetic tendencies. The oldest instruments of the humankind embraced in the improvisation process with newest technology create the indifferented music.

It is not a secret that ambient is not my favourite genre. Ambient works are often totally boring, because of the false apparent easiness of this genre. Some people think it is enough to break a constant drone with single notes once in two minutes to produce an ambient masterpiece. And in fact, it's quite the opposite. It is very easy to make a bad ambient recording. But it requires plenty of talent to make a good - not boring - ambient work.

The second cause of my somewhat ambivalent feelings for ambient is that these days the majority of ambient recordings are made on a computer, using only electronic sounds. There is nothing wrong with it generally, only that it becomes slightly boring after hearing a hundredth album with similar recycled sounds. One just starts to long for some decent guitar or real drums.

So it feels great to come across such album as this one. Such works convince me that with enough talent, you can make a masterpiece in every musical genre.

This is truly an outstanding recording. It contains improvised ambient music played on real instruments by a live band of very skilled musicians. The songs are full of mysterious strange sounds; very diverse, but never chaotic. All this improvised mess is in fact well thought-out and form a cohesive whole, despite including such different elements as synthetic sounds, reverbed human whispers and folk instruments. So much is happening throughout each track that you are never bored. So if you like ambient and/or experimental music, you cannot miss this one!

The album has been released by MegaTotal.pl, a social financing website similar to Sellaband. You can listen to the full album here or buy a CD for mere 5 euros. Unfortunately, they don't have English version of their website, but there is a Google Translate interface on the bottom of the page. I don't know if it is enough to really use this site without any knowledge of Polish, but I can assure you this album is worth trying. You can always drop me a line in case of any troubles and I will be glad to help you.

[Artist's Website / Myspace]

Happiness Project - "Happy Live Bomb"

Mediocre synthpop (5/10) Just a mediocre synthpop in live version. One track is great (3 I want you), with industrial feeling and interesting melody. But the others are weak. They are dominated by a disco beat, very unoriginal. Moreover, singers' voices are weak and uninteresting (especially male voice - female's is slightly better). As for the live act - it was really a stupid idea to fade out the crowd's applause. Interactions with the public are essential feature of a concert recording - adding to the atmosphere of the event. [Artist's Myspace]

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

k.ROCKSHIRE - "Foamy Leather [doggyBag music for hardcore fans]"

For hardcore fans indeed (4/10) Album of middle-aged, closing The Doggystyle and announcing the Dark Side of the Bone at a time, Foamy Leather is an album of b-sides, remixes and live performances to fans addressing the most hardened and incorrigible of k. Rockshire. If you are not willing to sell your mother to break your arm or the tecktonik for k. Rockshire, go your way. Others may enjoy 38 minutes of happiness. K.Rockshire fans may be surprised by the decidedly ponk and experimental album. Ingredients: acoustic and electric ukulele, harmonica, double griddle music (regular pocket maniaxRule & LM), organ of potatoes, broken vinyl, synthesizers & sequencers virtual samples, electric bass, trumpet hunting casio toy synth, electro-magnetic sensor , vocoder, kazoo, barking, Jew electric accordion, guitar and electric PopSet ™: Banana music, guitar and microphones popMusic Smurf Music. This is truly a material for hardcore fans only. Apart from tracks 01 & 03, this album contains poorly recorded fragments of jam sessions. You can listen to this out of curiousity, but that's all. Tracks 01 & 03 are better recorded and they are variations on themes that can be heard on "the doggystyle EP". Only for hardcore fans as well.