Elori Saxl - Drifts and Surfaces - VINYL LP

The PBS series Earth Focus delves into the intricate connections betweenSouthern California's natural landscapes and urban development. Eachepisode explores a specific location, including the Los Angeles River, DiabloCanyon Nuclear Power Plant, Joshua Tree National Park, and the MojaveDesert. The series' soundtrack, composed by Elori Saxl, underscores theemotional narratives of these places, emphasizing the interplay betweenhumans and nature and the impact of human-constructed environments.Drawing inspiration from artists like Alice Coltrane and Hiroshi Yoshimura,Saxl craed the music using digitally manipulated recordings of water andwind, analog synthesizers, MIDI samples, and processed woodwindsperformed by Stuart Bogie (clarinet, bass clarinet, flute). This unique blend ofsounds evokes the musical heritage of Los Angeles and the overall ambianceof wind, sun, and Southern California culture. The music loosely referencesthe psychedelic and dreamlike sounds oen associated with Los Angeles'past and present. However, it incorporates a modern twist, blending real andsynthetic elements to reflect the contemporary and increasingly palpablesense of precariousness surrounding the human-built landscape throughoutLos Angeles and it's neighboring regions.

Combining processed recordings of wind and water with analog synthesizers and chamber orchestra, Elori Kramer's The Blue of Distance is an audio dissertation on the role technology plays in our relationships to geography and nature, unspooling into an examination of memory and longing across seven sections that layer filmic minimalism over churning electronic soundbeds. Half of the suite was written in the Adirondack mountains during summer amid lakes, rivers, and moss-laden forest floors, while the other half was conceived on a frozen Lake Superior island in deep winter, creating a subtextual dialogue between the two extreme settings. Kramer, who was born in 1990 and grew up alongside the internet, uses her music to explore nature in the actual and the virtual world, through direct experience and facsimile alike, focussing and blurring the line between the two. InchLooking back at my videos of that summer- which is where the processed audio came from- I tried to remember what it had felt like to be there,Inch she recalls, Inchthinking about questions of reality versus imagination; physical versus digital; and the ways in which memory shifts through our minds and technology.Inch The title The Blue of Distance was derived from Rebecca Solnit's book A Field Guide to Getting Lost, referring to the phenomenon of faraway mountains appearing blue due to light particles getting lost over distance. InchIf we were to go up to the mountains that appear blue from far away, we would see that they weren't actually that color.Inch she says. InchThis beauty is made possible because of their distance,Inch much in the same way that the splendor of a rich season is only fully realized in the throes of a bleak one, and the joy of an event can only be felt when it has long since been consigned to remembrance.

Schuster / Joachim - String Quartet [COMPACT DISCS] date 11/17/2017