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Renowned neoclassical composer and pianist Dirk Maassen announces the release of his latest album, "Inception". Scheduled for release on October 4, 2024, "Inception" represents a significant departure from Maassen's previous works, embracing a theme of raw, organic creation that captures the essence of musical inception. The album "Inception" is a narrative about crafting stories and capturing moments of creation in their purest form. This concept is vividly expressed in tracks such as "Waterways" and "Sailing", each embodying unique aspects of this creative process. It also delves into the theme of beginnings, reflecting on moments that initiate change and transformation in our lives. Each piece on the album explores the emotions and stories tied to these pivotal moments, showcasing Maassen's signature blend of intricate piano melodies and cinematic ambience. The album's concept encourages...

Ryuichi Sakamoto's first world release, released in 1987 and reissued in analog format.

This solo album, Sakamoto's seventh in total, was co-produced with Bill Laswell for worldwide release and features top musicians from different genres, including Sly Dunbar and Bootsy Collins. Based on an electronic sound, but fusing organic and ethnic musical elements such as Okinawan and Balinese traditional music, the album was recorded in Tokyo and New York, and released in more than 20 countries around the world, making it a milestone in his solo career.

New album of piano pieces by Matthew Bourne, provocatively titled This Is Not For You. The album is a return to solo piano following a series of recent collaborations with other artists playing a variety of instruments, including Keeley Forsyth, Alabaster Deplume, Keith Tippett, MINING, Nightports, Mzylkypop, Visionist, Paula Rae Gibson, Shiver, Jameszoo, Emil Karlson and Marcus Vergette. This Is Not For You. showcases Bourne"s more contemplative side, but there are flashes of the unpredictability that makes him such a unique and inspirational performer.

Cologne - based composer and multi - instrumentalist Ozan Tekin’s second studio album “Anarya” will be released via Gülbaba Records on May 27 th . Tekin winds his musical journey back from Cologne to Adana with a long layover in Istanbul in “Anarya”. A triangle of migration drawn by musical notation and performance. The album is composed of 14 tracks and each one of them is a sound story that echoes Tekin’s distinct memories from these three cities. “Anarya” is the end product of a process in which Tekin and his upright piano co - tuned each other. It is an artistic representation of the idiosyncratic phenomenon called stimmung in German; a spectrum of tones, moods and atmospheres expressed in personal and instrumental terms. Tekin concludes the piano conversations from his previously released EPs in 2021 (“Anarya I” and “Anarya Ii”). The remarkably catchy melodies and immersive melancholic arpeggios fl ow throughout. The transposed narrative of “Anarya” sprung up from its roots when Tekin came across with a 66 - years old worn out piano in Cologne. Mesmerized by its unique sound, he felt the urge to make recordings with this piano before it fell apart. Aft er spending months learning its mechanics, Tekin recorded his second album with the old upright piano he repaired and brought back to life. The uneasy changes in time signatures and ambient ornamentations with gloomy synths of 80’s, lush strings and room tones set up the atmospheric stage of “Anarya I” in the first five tracks. Following six tracks of the album attempts to revisit Tekin’s emotional and episodic memories in Istanbul. His unaffected absorption into piano music in the first two parts of “Anar ya” are followed by his coyishly joyful tracks later in the album: an idle “ode”, a lost “lament” and a colorful “jam”. These three tracks blend the neoclassical, jazz and ambient sounds of Cologne and Istanbul with sentiments of childhood and rascality in Adana. The piano conversations of Tekin throughout “Anarya” are accompanied by his analogue synthesizers, vocals, bass guitar, Hanitra Wagner’s violin and Berke Can Özcan’s drums , percussions and vibraphone, and Emre Malikler’s mix and mastering. The sou nds of collaboration go deeper and louder as the album’s tracks move forward and Tekin’s memories go backwards simultaneously. Anarya gitmek (“to go back”) is a vernacular saying from Tekin’s hometown Adana and Tekin makes a figurative attempt to migrate b ackwards via the compositions that came into being in his most recent home, Cologne. Having been born out of an upright piano, Tekin’s compositions have instrumental origins, however, due to his constantly mutating sense of belonging, his melodies can’t be pinpointed to any specific heimat . Tekin’s continuously transforming music is an invitation to his listeners to explore and experience his music in their own terms. Tekin’s personal memories that shape “Anarya” is open to new forms of sonic exploration and rearrangement. This openness lies in Tekin’s determined faith in not to be entrenched in any single genre. The immersive intimacy radiating from the collaborative piano conversations in “Anarya” is an invitation signature to his music’s current and fut ure followers. Text by Mehmet Ekinci