MELAINE DALIBERT & DAVID SYLVIAN - VERMILION HOURS


Musique Pour Le Lever Du Jour ('Music for dawn'), the first of two tracks on this album, was previously released in 2018 as a CD on the Elsewhere label. The solo piano version was a 61-minute version of Melaine Dalibert's 'infinite piece', a piece 'without beginning or end' that theoretically could play forever. For that release (and three others to follow), David Sylvian is credited as the cover artist.
This new version is condensed to 20 minutes (fitting a vinyl LP side), with the CD adding an extra short version of 4 minutes. Here, Sylvian adds subtle electronic background atmospheres, shadowing the piano notes.
The concept inevitably brings to mind Brian Eno's generative piano pieces, such as Ambient 1: Music for Airports, or perhaps Satie's Vexations. And of course, David Sylvian has his own history of ambient soundscapes, most notably his collaboration with Holger Czukay on Plight & Premonition and Flux + Mutability.
There is an important difference, however: in these two compositions, the piano is placed quite loudly in the mix. It demands your undivided attention (and thus can perhaps hardly be called 'ambient'). Sylvian's electronic contribution to the soundscape is subtle and modest.
Dalibert wanted to revisit Musique Pour Le Lever Du Jour because he 'no longer felt entirely in sync with the slightly rushed tempo of the first version'. I'm not familiar with the 2018 version, but on first listen I found this piece slightly rushed, especially in combination with the strong attack on the piano keys. The second piece, Arabesque, feels a bit calmer, somewhat less 'rushed'. At least to my ears, at least.


Vermilion Hours is released on the Mind Travels series on the French Ici D'Ailleurs label, 'an ode to experimental, ambient and neo-classical music'. The vinyl version is already sold out, but (at the time of writing) the CD is still available (as is the digital download obviously)


Vermilion Hours by Melaine Dalibert & David Sylvian








AKHIRA SANO - D-R


The 45th album in the summer edition of the ongoing Laaps series comes from Tokyo-based artist Akhira Sano. The musician/painter has previously released music on labels like 12k and IIKKI (the Laaps sister label, releasing albums combined with fine art books).


D-R, which stands for Demande - Réponse ('Question - Answer') is truly music for warm summers: soft, repeating (acoustic or electric) piano themes, 'assemblages of long overlapping tones and blurred resonance, cut through with textural crunch and hiss'.
Music like this - dreamy, slow, repeating piano loops, that seemingly could go on forever - inevitably invites comparison with Brian Eno's Ambient 1 - Music For Airports. The comparison is almost inevitable in Demande Deux (both titles come in two pieces), with its electric piano sound.
But there are differences too: the addition of (hardly to identify) found sounds or field recordings, varying the volume - Demande Deux and Réponse Deux repeatedly fade out and in again, suggesting this piece could last much longer than its 10 minutes - or deliberately adding a sonic dropouts and hiccups (Réponse Un). In Réponse Deux, the piano is almost fully replaced by electronics. D-R may refer back to Eno's classic 1979 album, but at the same time it is firmly rooted in (the summer of) 2025.
D-R is available on (white) vinyl and on CD (the latter almost being sold out before the release date, so the CD may be gone now). Of course also available as a download.


D-R by Akhira Sano

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

Ver todos los episodios