12K US Vinilo y CD

Review: Tomasz Bednarczyk makes a long-awaited return to 12k after his 2009 debut Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow (12k1055, 2009) and a couple of follow-up releases on Australia's Room40. On Windy Weather Always Makes Me Think Of You Bednarczyk has collected sounds via a smartphone dictaphone and Sony field recorder over the past 10 years with a goal to transform all gathered recordings into new, multilayered harmonies. Field recordings come from voyages around the globe and originally consisted of melodies interwoven by multilayered sounds of the environment. After the gathering and layering of sounds the process was to deconstruct theminto single sounds and samples. This has served as a basis for creating the entire concept of the album; to establish completely new harmonies using solely those short fragments.

Review: Giuseppe Ielasi is back following his 2020 release Five Wooden Frames. There he returned to the guitar exploring shifting and modulating loops and the interplay of tuning and drifting to create five stark yet ethereal pieces. On The Prospect, Ielasi sticks to solo guitar but this time in a much more pure form. Each of the two pieces consists of parallel electric guitar lines recorded simply through a tube amplifier free of studio tricks or heavy editing. Like much music written over the past few years The Prospect is reflective and personal. Created during a time of tragic family loss there is clear melancholy in the stark arrangements where spaces between notes become the sounds of searching. Ielasi's haunting guitar brings us along to a new phase in his life that is as unknown to us as it is to him.

Review: MOSS is a project from four accomplished sound artists: Molly Berg, Olivia Block, Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello which was originally released on 12k in 2011. MOSS (Recur) celebrates the 10th anniversary with a re-release on cassette that contains a recording of a very unique live performance rehearsal on its B-side. The rehearsal catches the artists in a candid atmosphere going through their sound setups, listening to themselves, listening to each other. Snippets of conversations and laughter woven throughout make for a private peek into what was to become a stellar performance and a sonic highlight from the 12k catalog. Just the right amount of these vignettes find their way in and around the beautifully performed rehearsal, adding to the story of the captured moment.

Review: With Salt og Vind Pjusk retums from an eight year album hiatus. This release is also the first seeing Pjusk as a solo project consisting of Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik. Salt og Vind (Salt and Wind) is, not surprisingly, about the forces of nature and the contrast between the volatile and the existing. In a wider sense it is about man's inability or struggle to grasp the eternal and instead seek temporary fulfillment. Salt og Vind is Pjusk's 4th album for 12k and comes in with an urgency and drive not often seen in their work.From the noisy, atonal start to "Det som aldri forsvinner" to the lush, exotic rhythmic pulse of "Ordene som blaste bort" there is a breadth of sound from the icy sublime to the detailed complexity. Pjusk's sense of space and production, as always, makes Salt og Vind an expansive and deep listen.

Review: Will Samson returns with a new album Harp Swells after more than ten years of crafting delicate sounds that are often led by his own tender voice. Now back on Taylor Deupree's experimental label, he fully immerses himself in the ambient world he previously considered only a side project. Thse record is a real meditation that sees him move away from the melancholy of his past and towards more bright and optimistic melodies. His aim is to heal himself through music and this record has six movements, each of which is based around his use of a 70s portable reel-to-reel tape recorder known as the UHER 4200. It makes for a widescreen and mesmeric work that stretches out in all directions around you with glistening melodies and slowly shifting energies that truly uplift.