Hallow Ground Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 11 Items

Martina Berther and Philipp Schlotter are prolific in their respective ways, having been active in pop and jazz music, respectively, as well as playing in bands and exploring the outer fringes of sound art or composing music for film. Their first joint album »Matt« was recorded over the course of four days in a church in the Swiss village after which the album was named. Berther and Schlotter worked with the buildingʼs organ as well as synthesizers and electric bass to follow an experimental approach that oscillated between composition and free improvisation. The five pieces, recorded directly to tape by Flo Götte without any additional overdubs, are characterised by an intimacy and rawness that calls to mind the introspective atmosphere of Hallow Ground label mateʼs Fuji||||||||||ta or mastering engineer Lawrence Englishʼs latest album for the Swiss label. »Matt« is the result of two versatile composers and musicians executing minimalist ideas by giving them plenty of space to unfold.

The album opens with »Unruhe,« a composition that is based on the twelve-tone technique. Using a stopwatch to ensure the adherence to the pre-determined temporal intervals between the individual notes, Berther and Schlotter used the church organ and synthesizers for an ominous piece that traverses different moods and levels of intensity throughout its 14-minute run time. »lfo1« and »lfo2« are different variations of the same concept: Based on a synthesizer preset and structured by an organ drone, two tone generators slowly fall silent, resulting in elegiac pieces that call to mind the work of Éliane Radigue. »Frachter« and »Gallia« put more emphasis on percussive elements. Again working with organ as well as Bertherʼs prepared electric bass, this improvisation comprises interlocking textures that sound almost menacing on »Frachter,« while they create a very different atmosphere on »Gallia.« These notable discrepancies in sound and mood are even more astonishing if you consider that the two pieces are based on the exact same recording, played at different speeds.

As two variations on the same idea with very different results, these two pieces perfectly represent how the duo effectively creates emotionally affective sound worlds with very few means. Berther and Schlotterʼs conceptual minimalism yields rewarding, multi-faceted aesthetic results. »Matt« is an intimate album, marked by a sense of vividness and spontaneity, but also the product of compositional conciseness.

Trance-derived melodies, murky industrial grooves and all-consuming harsh noise attacks, created and recorded in transit between New York, Seoul and Berlin between the fall of 2016 and the winter of 2017. Over 23 minutes, the EP shifts from densely layered textures to subtle piano notes and hard-hammering beats, seemingly mirroring the drastic changes of the times in which they were conceived.

DarkSonicTales is a project by Rolf Gisler, the Lucerne-based musician and sound artist explored the peculiar sonic environment of a countryside building and its surroundings through the use of field recordings, modular synthesizers, guitar, bass, kalimbas, a singing saw as well as self-built instruments. The seven tracks, which were finalised in late 2019 and the spring of 2020, are as much a reaction to the setting that they sprung from as they reflect upon and express Gisler’s state of mind in days of solitude.

The title of Miki Yui’s seventh solo album Aperio! is derived from the latin origin of April, "aperire" meaning “to open” or “to reveal”. Hinting at the way her music unveils another reality which is hidden beneath the surface. The title also reflects the aperiodic character of the music, its irregularity. Like a magic word to reveal the mysterious cosmos, each song opens up another intimate world of wonders.

Mats Erlandsson Makes His Debut On The Swiss Label Hallow Ground With "Minnesmärke," At Once A Nuanced Sonic Exploration Of The Industrial And Political History Of His Native Sweden And A Deeply Personal Album. One Of The Key Figures Of The Stockholm Drone Scene, The Prolific Composer Worked With The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble's Hillary Jeffery, Violinist And Long-Time Friend Gaianeh Pilossian As Well As Sound Artist And Frequent Collaborator Yair Elazar Glotman For A Two-Part Composition Built Around Tuned Sustained Tones Performed By Electronic And Acoustic Instruments That Were Combined With Field Recordings In Order To Evoke A Psychedelic State Of Reflection, A Dream-Like Elegy For The Acoustic Properties Of The Former Iron Ore Mine Ställbergs Gruva Where The Music Has Been Conceived And Recorded. Following Up On Releases On Labels Such As Hallow Ground Label Mates Kali Malone And Maria W Horn's Xkatedral Imprint, 'Minnesmärke' Is Erlandsson's Most Accomplished Work Yet. Originally A Commissioned Work By The Non Existent Center For A Month-Long Artist Residency In Ställbergs Gruva Last Summer, 'Minnesmärke' Conceptually Picks Up On The Socio-Political And Economic History Of The Bergslagen Region Where The Mine Is Situated. After Mining Operations Had Been On-Going For Decades Prior, In The Industrial Age Iron Became One Of The Country's Largest Exports, Making The Mining Industry An Integral Part Of The Country's Progression Towards A Socialdemocratic Welfare State In The Years After World War Ii. With The Rise Of Neoliberalism And The Simultaneous Erosion Of The Welfare State However, The Mines Around The Region Started Closing, Which Resulted In The Surrounding Community Losing Its Relative Prosperity. Erlandsson's Interest In This Story Though Does Not Exclusively Stem From The Historical Significance Of The Mine, That Has Been Re-Opened In 2012 As A Centre For Cultural Activities And Critical Thought. In Fact, His Grandfather Was Born And Raised In The Vicinity Of It And Thus His Life - An...

»Tropic of Capricorn« is the second album by Lawrence English and Werner Dafeldecker. Based on field recordings that were subtly but decisively altered with electroacoustic techniques, these two long-form pieces blur the lines between acoustic ecology and aesthetic interventions, concrete local sound worlds and boundary-defying art. They put a focus on our relationship with nature as listeners as much as they call into question where nature ends and human perception begins.

»Arches« is written for and performed on self-built prototypes of wind instruments that were inspired by the classic pipe organ, but allowed the two composer-performers to go beyond its limitations in several ways. Simon and Tobias Lanz have a combined background in electronic music as well as a shared penchant for drone music. They hence designed these novel instruments in a way that allows for microtonal tuning to be able to overcome the restrictions inherent to the dominance of a twelve tone-based scale in Western music and work with a sonic palette that is much wider and nuanced than that of the conventional pipe organ.

Andrius Arutiunian’s debut album »Seven Common Ways of Disappearing« was first conceived as an installation for the Armenia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022. The Armenian-Lithuanian artist and composer uses hybrid forms of music, focusing on sonic vernaculars, hypnotic musical forms, and aural cosmologies. Arutiunian is known to work with installations, sound objects, and time-based collaborations with ensembles and performers.

»Picture a Frame,« the debut album by the Belgian composer Elisabeth Klinck, was born out of strict isolation and is nonetheless a result of a collaborative process that saw her working closely with artist Oscar Claus. Enriching her compositions for violin with electronic soundscapes and field recordings from their surroundings, the two entered an artistic dialogue that took place inside its own idiosyncratic space outside of conventional time. It is an intimate record in which Klinck’s expressive playing that incorporates unconventional techniques forms the basis of something much bigger: an invitation to inhabit a specific space at a specific time together with the two of them.

Musique Infinie is the collaborative project of Manuel Oberholzer a.k.a. Feldermelder and Noémi Büchi. Their album »Earth«, is based on a spontaneously composed live score for Alexander Dovzhenko’s 1930 silent film »Zemlya« (»Earth«). The Swiss duo complemented it with atmospherically rich electronic soundscapes that are both deeply immersive and highly evocative. As a stand-alone music release, the two-piece album »Earth« captures the essence of Büchi and Oberholzer’s collaboration that is marked by mutual trust and musical versatility that puts them in a state of »togetherness trance,« as they call it.