Catalog

If someone told you there was music that could lull pillowy-winged moths into a fluttery state of happiness, that the Aurora Borealis can sing even better than you and I, or that the roots of the American elm trees in Central Park are a bustling ensemble waiting for their cue, would you believe them? Matthew Burtner would, and he’d have no trouble proving it on PROFILED FROM ATMOSPHERES, the veteran ecoacoustic composer’s sixth release with Ravello Records. Burtner lifts the veil between humanity and its planet, translating its messages into an intimate medium invariably understood amongst its inhabitants. These messages make an urgent case in the titular work Profiled From Atmospheres, a collaborative work between atmospheric sound profiles derived from humanity’s top three greenhouse gas emissions and saxophone/percussion duo Michael Weiss and Elizabeth Soflin. The result is an eerie, haunting sonification that serves as a poignant reminder; if we want to continue hearing the songs of the atmosphere and the planet it blankets, it’s our responsibility to preserve it.

CYCLES OF FORMATION from John Ritz presents varying degrees of prescribed musical material and open-form elements. Each piece explores the potential interactions between human performance and interactive computer signal processing algorithms within a particular musical context. Featuring jazz pianist Gabe Evens, and classical percussionist Greg Byrne, and Ritz himself as the album’s composer, cellist, and analog synthesist, this Ravello Records release delivers a stimulating world of electroacoustic sound, a smooth blend of suspense and innovation.

If you crave a deep dive into a new and exciting solar system of starry digital soundscapes, Jeffrey Hall’s EARMOVIE II is certain to take you on an interstellar ride. This digitally synthesized album is described by its composer as “the musical equivalent of science fiction,” and delivers in all aspects. Hall likes his listeners to think of his compositions as an EARMOVIE — a soundtrack to an imaginary film inside your head. In this way, Hall opens up the door for the listener to build their own understanding of EARMOVIE II; the titles of its movements are only a guideline to the experience; what the music truly evokes and tells is entirely up to you.

The critically-acclaimed MIND & MACHINE series from Ravello Records returns with its fifth edition with an all-new roster of today’s electro-acoustic composers. This installment taps into and unpacks the foundations of our universe, from the hidden corners of our psyche to the fibers that hold our world together. Offering meditative reflections on the ephemeral moments in our lives and exploring resemblances between music and scientific concepts, MIND & MACHINE, VOLUME FIVE delivers a sprawling artistic soundscape that allows for deep introspection and self-discovery.

On the coasts of the Atlantic, sparrows whistle atop the trees, Eastern winds whisper through spartina grasses, and fiddler crabs skitter within their sandy burrows — a great symphony of shorelines soon to be left incomplete. As rising sea levels continue to threaten coastal reefs, shores, and the hundreds of lifeforms inhabiting them, the Coastal Conservatory urges us to consider our efforts of restoration and offers us an avenue for restoring coastal futures, a meditation on the music of the most integral barriers to the ever-pressing Atlantic. SOUNDSCAPES OF RESTORATION is both an exploration and a reflection, a listening experience that leaves one changed with the desire to make change further. It is a journey that cannot, and should not, be forgotten.

Martin Daigle skillfully unearths the melodic qualities of the drumset on DRUM MACHINES from Ravello Records, an album featuring the works of composers Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Sylvain Pohu. Daigle, the 2022 winner of Music NB’s “Innovator of the Year” award, performs two solo pieces that feature innovative applications of technology in this release, producing unique timbres through electronic augmentations of the drumset. These unique flavors paired with Daigle’s adept musicality and inventive grooves make for a one-of-a-kind listening experience that’s sure to stir the senses.

Cultural pessimists might argue that we've never lived in an age as isolated and atomized as this one, and a certain recent pandemic certainly didn't help. Cultural optimists on the other hand might quote German poet Hölderlin: "But where the danger is, also grows the saving power." Whatever the truth may be, the collective minds behind THE QUARANTINE AT THE CORE OF OUR HEARTS elegantly disregarded rumination, and instead chose to act.

Deeply immersive electronic soundscapes and haunting harmonies stir the senses in THE BLEAK NIGHT from composer David Peoples. Featuring percussion, synthesizer, electronics, and electrophonic orchestra with narration and the manipulation thereof, Peoples captivates the ear and mind with suspenseful ostinatos that melt into entrancing waves of sound. A soothing beginning dissolves into hair raising junctures in Rock Me to Sleep, subtle grooves emerge amidst an ethereal atmosphere in Shinytastic, and tensions build to a boiling point before gently floating back down in The Bleak Night.

NOWS from David Rosenboom and Sarah Belle Reid is a captivating expression of the radical challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The music examines the notion of “co-presence,” or togetherness, when experienced in isolation. This seemingly self-contradictory concept became an everyday occurrence as in-person gatherings became video conferences. Performer-composers Reid and Rosenboom spent this time passing fragmented musical ideas back and forth. In this organic way, a collection of “sound correspondences” accumulated between the two artists, made with instruments ranging from strings and horns to modular synthesizers, analog signal processors, urban and desert soundscapes, and much more. The resulting album, NOWS, is a post-genre masterpiece that speaks to our unique moment in history.

Lauded by critics as “interesting and captivating” (Cinemusical), the MIND & MACHINE series from Ravello Records returns in its fourth installment with a fresh roster of today's electro-acoustic composers. From the depths of the sea to the wildlife that populates our atmosphere and the breaths that form within us, a myriad of mystifying soundscapes await discovery. Innovatively-captured sound samples intertwine with contemporary social issues in this album, commenting on climate change, justice and inequality, and more. Our fragility and recovery are revealed in Gasp, human influence on the environment manifests in green line 2065 and Water Birds, and resilient voices respond in the face of oppression in Hanggang sa Takipsilim.

If glaciers could speak, what would they tell us? On ICEFIELD, veteran composer Matthew Burtner answers that very question with an eclectic series of works that explore the intersection between the environment and controlled sound. Combining specialized field recordings of glaciers and Arctic storms, electroacoustics, and traditional instruments, Burtner creates surreal soundscapes that blur the line between audio and physical experience—from the opera Auksalaq to the audio synthesization of data on Sonification of an Arctic Lagoon, each piece on the album channels the whip-crack chill of the air, the blinding snow, and the awe-inspiring sight of glacial fields breaking apart and bringing sea levels higher and higher.

SYNCHRONIES, James Dashow's second double album on Ravello Records, offers a selection of the composer's work for traditional instruments with and without electronic sounds. His approach to these two musical resources combines the intimacy and flexibility of beautifully designed chamber music with full scale sonorous constructions: some achieved by finely textured orchestrations of the classical instrumental ensemble, others by the symphonic use of rich electronic timbres that are characteristic of the composer's music. Dashow's unique sound is immediately recognizable, enhanced by his ground-breaking ideas on the spatialization of sound, where the location and movement of musical events in space are now fundamental elements of his compositional practice. The performers in these pieces are true virtuosi of contemporary art music; their artistry and subtle understanding of these works yield deeply expressive interpretations that resonate with both listeners and performers alike.

MIND & MACHINE VOL THREE offers a new look into the Ravello Records series of electro-acoustic and electronic music lauded by critics as “interesting and captivating” (Cinemusical). This latest edition features an array of composers and sound-artists who offer his or her own striking exploration into the means by which technology can be used to alter time and form to create entirely new musical experiences.

James Dashow’s double album SONGS FROM A SPIRAL TREE—new from Ravello Records—collects many of Dashow’s vocal works into an abundant two-disk set. The album presents his compositions for voice, with instruments and electronic sounds, setting poems by Theodore Roethke, John Ashbery, John Berryman and Gian Giacomo Menon.

Jeff Morris presents his fourth Ravello Records release, this one focusing on woodwinds and employing his characteristic live sampling and electronics. CLOSE REEDING is the latest since HEARING VOICES, an album which set its sights on the most fundamentally-human musical instrument: the human voice. Now, Morris turns his attention to woodwind instruments, which he terms the “next most human” family of instruments. By way of digital manipulation and live improvisation, Morris gives this thesis a convincing exposition.

In HEARING VOICES, his third album of electronic music with Ravello Records, Jeff Morris captivates the psyche with music that is equal parts space age and primeval. With Morris’s characteristic sensitivity, the collection harnesses the expressive power of digital glitches, sonic manipulation, and underneath it all, the human voice.

Clarinetist Andrea Cheeseman infuses every note of her performances with a sense of passion and purpose. It is with this intentionality that she approaches Ravello Records’ SOMEWHERE, an album of electroacoustic works that expand the clarinet repertoire to new heights while also showcasing Cheeseman in the genre where she feels most at home.

Jeff Morris's second album, WITH STRINGS, explores the possibilities of 21st-century counterpoint. He builds up rich musical textures by sampling violin and cello live and folding them back into the mix, influencing the performers in turn.

Matthew Burtner returns to Ravello Records with the haunting beauty of GLACIER MUSIC, an electroacoustic collection featuring the Alaskan natural landscape as the central instrument. Most of the natural sounds were recorded on Alaskan glaciers, featuring the sounds of snow, trickling streams, and the cracks, pops, and thundering as glaciers break apart and fall. Burtner, who was born in Alaska and grew up among the glaciers, also sculpts scientific measurements of glacial melt into the music through a technique known as sonification.

Using the sounds of handmade paper, electronics, and surf guitar among others, Ted Coffey composes a sometimes fragile, sometimes brutal order that swings from texturalism to song. Written for dance, both fixed media and live computer-mediated performance, Coffey’s music feels spontaneous without sacrificing finely calculated craft.