30 April 2019: Ian Boddy "Altair" (DiN59)

Ian Boddy  Altair   (DiN59)

Release date 17th May 2019

Limited to 1,000 copies Digipak Double CD

FreeForm Radio thanks Ian Boddy for providing a preview copy of this remarkable release to share with our listeners.  Please visit his Bandcamp page to order this and other DiN releases.

DiN label boss Ian Boddy has been performing his own brand of ambient electronica since 1979. Over those 40 years he has built up a wealth of experience of what works in a live environment as well as being able to tailor his shows to the particular setting he finds himself in. As well as playing all over the UK and in Germany & The Netherlands he has also crossed the Atlantic several times to play shows in Philadelphia. The main reason for the latter destination is the wonderful community of listeners built up by Chuck van Zyl at The Gatherings series of concerts which provides a dedicated fan base for Boddy’s style of electronic music. Chuck is also the host of the excellent Star’s End Radio show on WXPN in Philadelphia and Boddy has often combined these concert trips with live radio shows for both Star’s End as well as Echoes Radio hosted by John Diliberto.
Thus 2018 ushered in a fresh adventure for Boddy with a new invitation to play at The Gatherings. His past performances have found their way on to releases such as Shrouded (his 2000 show) and React (DiN29) with Robert Rich. Several of his Star’s End live sets have also been released on DiNDDL as download only albums. However the trip in 2018 produced what is in Boddy’s opinion, his best pair of performances to date and so he has decided to release a double live album to showcase this trip. The first disc documents his Gatherings show on the evening of 20th October in the beautiful St. Mary’s Church in Philadelphia whereas the second disc is his live radio show on Star’s End performed at 2am on the Sunday morning immediately after his Gatherings show.
The music on The Gatherings disc features some tracks from his previous studio album As Above So Below (DiN51) as well as new material composed specifically for this concert. Boddy performed the show playing analogue keyboards and a modular set up borrowed over in the USA alongside Ableton Live laptop work. Muscular analogue sequenced grooves are overlaid with atmospheric beds of FX as well as grandiose sweeping chords. The music gradually building up to the climax of the track The Thaumaturge from his As Above So Below album for which the audience certainly show their appreciation.
The second disc from the Star’s End show is a more introspective set with atmospheric string interludes over deep ambient soundscapes. The music gradually crystallises into a delicate sequencer on Spire before the full Berlin School sequencer work out of Apostasy. Full of haunting tones the final track Remnants closes the set which works as a perfect companion disc to the earlier Gatherings concert.
Altair thus shows Boddy at the height of his powers playing two very different concerts within a few hours of each other in very different venues. Produced in a beautiful fold out 6 panel digipak this double CD album is a must for both Boddy fans as well as lovers of live electronic music.

The Gatherings
01 Shrine 9:00
02 Stay 10:09
03 Quantum Of Memory 10:30
04 Incognito 8:55
05 Altair 17:07
06 Two Blocks 13:36
07 The Thaumaturge 8:38
Total Time 77:54

Star’s End
01 Sanctum 8:16
02 Unquiet 9:04
03 Spire 14:13
04 Apostasy 19:23
05 Remnants 12:06
Total Time 63:02

Released by:   DiN

Release date:  17 May 2019

℗ Something Else Music Limited

 

You can hear a demo mix of this release at Soundcloud.

#thegatherings     #star's end    #IanBoddy   #DiN     #Altair   #eurorack   #modularsynth 

23 April 2019: Beware the Blue Sky / Peter Gabriel

Beware the blue sky are an Icelandic instrumental post-rock band formed in 2016 in Reykjavík.
The band consists of Hilmar Gylfi Guðjónsson (drums), Hlynur Már Árnason (keyboards, guitar), Pétur Haukur Ásgeirsson (bass guitar) and Viktor Aron Bragason (guitar).
FreeForm Radio is proud to feature their debut EP Above Atlas during the first half of tonight's show. 
A collection of four songs, it is an excellent introduction to their music.  We encourage to check them out on Bandcamp, Facebook, YouTube,  Instagram, and Spotify.

For the remainder of tonight's show, we'll be showcasing Peter Gabriel's soundtrack for the Martin Scorsese movie, The Last Temptation of Christ:  Passion.
Passion (re-released as Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ) is an album released in 1989 by the English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel. It was the first Peter Gabriel album to be released on Real World Records. It is his second soundtrack and eighth album overall. It was originally composed as the soundtrack album for the film The Last Temptation of Christ, but Gabriel spent several months after the film's release further developing the music, finally releasing it as a full-fledged album instead of a movie soundtrack. It is seen as a landmark in the popularisation of world music, and won a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album in 1990. It was remastered with most of Gabriel's catalogue in 2002. 

As the soundtrack for the film, Gabriel used the resources of the organization he founded, WOMAD, to bring together musicians from the Middle East, Africa, Europe and South Asia. He worked with them to create music meant to enhance the mood of the film, but also added a modern ambient musical touch to the original pieces, producing a musical work that has influenced many musicians in the years since its release. Passion introduced many listeners to such artists as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Youssou N'Dour, L. Shankar, and Baaba Maal.
Later in the year a companion album was released, Passion – Sources, featuring additional songs on which Gabriel does not perform. Gabriel described this album as "a selection of some of the traditional music, sources of inspiration, and location recordings."
The cover art for the album, Drawing study for Self Image II (1987), is a mixed media composition by the artist Julian Grater.^[10] When re-released, the album was titled Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ due to "legal barriers" according to Gabriel in its liner notes.^[11]

2019 04-18: DiN @ 20

DiN | Ian Boddy Newsletter April 2019

 

DiN @ 20 

It is with great pleasure that I'd like to announce the 20th anniversary of DiN.

If in any way you can help spread this news or feature DiN in your programming or blogs that would be much appreciated.

Yes I can't quite believe it myself. Twenty years of producing & releasing albums on the DiN label. It was in April 1999 that the first 3 albums were released, namely Box Of Secrets (DiN1), Distant Rituals (DiN2) & Strange Geographie (DiN3). Since then there have been 58 physical releases in total on the main DiN label, 22 download only albums on the DiNDDL sub-label & last year the launch of the Tone Science sub-label with the first 2 compilations released on CD featuring various musicians working within the field of new modular.

To help celebrate this momentous occasion an old friend of mine, Sid Smith, who used to frequent Spectro Arts Workshop in my formative years back in 1978 - 1982 has written a nice piece about the history of DiN. Not only is Sid a professional writer (most notably the author of In The Court Of King Crimson) but he also joined myself for several pre-DiN meetings in local pubs whilst I was formulating my ideas for DiN in 1998. It thus seems suitably apt for Sid to give his viewpoint on the DiN label.

http://ianboddy.com/news/

To help with the celebratory spirit there will also be free downloads (you can of course feel free to chip a few pennies into the DiN pot) of the 5 current DiN sampler albums as well as the 2 DiNDDL compilation albums. The CD versions of the 5 DiN iNDEX albums will be @ 50% off their usual price so that's just £2.50 (+ VAT where applicable & postage).

iNDEX01 (DiN10) download (covers DiN1 - 9)
iNDEX02 (DiN20) download & CD (covers DiN11 - 19)
iNDEX03 (DiN30) download & CD (covers DiN21 - 29)
iNDEX04 (DiN40) download & CD (covers DiN31 - 39)
iNDEX05 (DiN50) download & CD (covers DiN41 - 49)
Submission 01 (DiNDDL10) download (covers DiNDDL01 - DiNDDL09)
Submission 02 (DiNDDL20) download (covers DiNDDL11 - DiNDDL19)

This special celebratory offer will run until May 17th - which will be the release date for the next DiN album. This will be Altair (DiN59) a double live album of my performances last Autumn in Philadelphia, USA, at the Gatherings Concert series & on the Star's End Radio show.

More news on this in the next Newsletter but for now here is a demo mix of this special album on Soundcloud.

Altair (DiN59) demo mix

16 April 2019: Faust / Riverside

Faust (English: "fist") are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.

1971–75

Faust formed in 1971 in the rural setting of Wümme. They secured a recording contract with Polydor and soon began recording their debut, Faust, which sold poorly but received critical acclaim for its innovative approach and established a devoted fan base. Meifert was sacked shortly afterwards because, as Peron wrote in 2004, "he discussed things, because he had flat buttocks and an absolutely beautiful girlfriend, because he practised every day, because he always kept his room neat and woke up every morning to first wet a cloth he'd put in front of his room to keep the dirt out, because he played such a hard 4/4th that we had to travel into the tongue, ready to drop, ding dong is handsome top."^[2]
In 1972 the band recorded its second, slightly more accessible album So Far. Faust became one of the premier bands in the international appreciation of the genre that would eventually be known as krautrock.^[3]
Faust became one of the first acts to sign to Richard Branson's Virgin Records, who embarked on a marketing campaign somewhat daring for its time, aimed at introducing Faust to British record-buyers. The Faust Tapes was a cut-and-paste album, which spliced together a large number of bits and pieces from their extensive collection of private recordings not originally intended for release. Virgin issued it at the then price of a single, 48 pence. The Faust Tapes reportedly sold over 100,000 copies but its low price tag rendered it ineligible for a chart placing.^[3]
After collaborating with Tony Conrad on the album Outside the Dream Syndicate, Faust recorded Faust IV at Virgin's studios in England. The band broke up in 1975 after Virgin rejected its fifth album (some of the recordings later appeared on the Munich and Elsewhere album), but reissues of their recordings and various additional material through Chris Cutler's Recommended Records maintained a level of interest.

Faust performing in Manchester in 2007.

Faust experimented with the presentation of their early records. Their first album was originally released on clear vinyl, in a clear sleeve with an X-ray of a human fist silkscreened on the outer sleeve. Their second album, So Far, made extensive use of the color black, though inside the sleeve were sheets with a different illustration for each song. The Faust Tapes had a visually unsettling op art cover design by Bridget Riley, while that for Faust IV consisted of a series of blank music stave.

Eye of the Soundscape is an album by Polish progressive rock band Riverside, released on 21 October 2016 through InsideOut Music
The album is a collection of older experimental instrumental pieces in addition to four new tracks: "Where the River Flows", "Shine" (released in Poland as the only single), "Sleepwalkers" and "Eye of the Soundscape".^[2] It is the first, and only, posthumous album to feature guitarist Piotr Grudziński after his death on 21 February 2016.

Track listing

All tracks written by Mariusz Duda, Michał Łapaj and Piotr Grudziński.

Disc 1
No.	Title	Original album	Length
1.	"Where the River Flows"	New song	10:53
2.	"Shine"	New song	4:09
3.	"Rapid Eye Movement" (2016 mix)	"Schizophrenic Prayer" (single)	12:40
4.	"Night Session - Part One"	Shrine of New Generation Slaves (bonus disc)	10:40
5.	"Night Session - Part Two"	Shrine of New Generation Slaves (bonus disc)	11:35
Total length:			49:57

Disc 2
No.	Title	Original album	Length
1.	"Sleepwalkers"	New song	7:19

09 April 2019: Babylon / Kindly Spoken Thieves

Babylon was a progressive rock band from Florida that emerged from the band Helicopter.^[2] Babylon was formed in 1976 by Rick Leonard, Rodney Best, Doroccas, J. David Boyko, and Gary Chambers.^[3]
They have been compared to Marillion, Gentle Giant, Rush, and Nursery Cryme period Genesis. The members state their main influences as Gentle Giant, Van der Graaf Generator, Happy the Man, Genesis, and others.^[4][5]. 
Very Genesis influenced Floridian band who put out a coveted album in the late seventies. This is album is extremely in the Genesis style (like Marillion) yet avoids the commerciality that this band eventually dived headfirst into.) Syn-Phonic also released two bootleg quality live albums from their heyday which show them in a rather muddy light.
Imagine an incredible dynamo of progressive energy in the mold of Nursery Cryme period Genesis, but with some slight punky undertones thrown in as well. Add to this the affected vocals of singer Doroccas, and you have a sound that, while not unlike a high energy version of early Marillion, pre-dated that band by five years. They only released one self-titled studio album around 1978, featuring four long cuts. Hopefully someday that fine album will be reissued on compact disc. A few years ago, two limited issue LPs of their live show were released, (Night Over Never and Better Conditions For The Dead) which included all of the songs from the original album, plus several other tracks not included on the studio LP. While the quality of the recording is no better than an average bootleg, the performance on both of these live albums is incredible.
Babylon, in some ways, is better than Nursery Cryme-era Genesis, although certainly not nearly as innovative, given that their album was recorded in '77. Detectable influences include peak-period Genesis, Gentle Giant, a bit of Zeppelin, even. The vocalist has a very high voice, Plant-like in tone, but phrased more like early Gabriel (if you can imagine that). There's some vague resemblance to Rush, but much more progressive and less metallic. I wish they'd been better recorded; the home-grown qualities of the studio album detract from its appeal, though it's certainly better than the "bootleg quality" ascribed to those live albums. If some really exceptional remastering (or remixing!) is done for the CD reissue, this could be a major winner!
 

Discography

• Babylon (1978, reissued 1995 and 1999)
• Night Over Never: Live at the Empty Keg 1 (1989)
• Better Conditions for the Dead: Live at the Empty Keg 2 (1989/2002)

The electronic and ambient collaboration of Steve Setzepfandt and Josh Wittman out of the Minneapolis, MN area.
Recorded from beginning of 2016 to the end of 2018. It is the first album released by the duo under the moniker, Kindly Spoken Thieves.
 

released March 30, 2019

All tracks recorded, mixed, and performed by Steve Setzepfandt and Josh Wittman

Cover Art By: Artem Gordienko
Titled: "Anthropomorphism"
Instagram: www.instagram.com/gordienko.artem/

ambient downtempo electronic guitars piano synth Minneapolis

1.	Black Lines 04:45
	2.	Copter 05:58
	3.	The Graze 07:48
	4.	Straights of Fear 03:42
	5.	Cable Two 05:58
	6.	In Queens 06:37
	7.	Grey Cradle 04:52
	8.	Vyrmillion 03:12
	9.	Amphibious 05:55
	10.	Moonraker 05:52

 

02 April 2019: In Memory of JB

Tonight's show will be two hours of jazz dedicated to the memory of JB Heineman,

 a talented musician, teacher, surveyor, and host of Sunday Night Jazz who recently passed away.
His influence on the music scene in Kodiak cannot be overestimated.