Off-Key Sessions: Oceans & Ornaments

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So, this Saturday (13 April) there is something magical happening in Bristol, a rare chance to see some amazing live music via the Off-Key Sessions: Oceans And Ornaments — with music performed by The Boats, Orla Wren, Aus & Danny Norbury, Isnaj Dui, Cello & Laptop, Ruhe & Pascal Savy — all in the historic and stunning location of St James Priory which was founded in 1129.

If you in or around Bristol or even further-afield it’s worth coming along, proceeds are going to charity — it’s for a good cause and your support will be appreciated. There’s also tea and homemade cakes and an array of other edible goods on the night :)

http://www.fluidaudio.bigcartel.com/product/off-key-sessions-13-04-13

Atlantis – House of Tomorrow

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Atlantis “House of Tomorrow” now available digitally on Handstitched* Originally released on cassette (Digitalis Limited) July 2011. Limited to 75 copies (sold out). Label: Digitalis Limited ‎– ltd #211 Format: Cassette, Limited Edition, C33. All songs written, recorded, and produced by Tim Diagram at Roadmap Studios, Cambridgeshire, UK, 2011.

www.digitalisindustries.com/music/
handstitched.net

Maps and Diagrams – Timbre

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Maps and Diagrams “Timbre” Originally released on the Dronarivm imprint in a limited edition of 32 cassettes, now long-since sold out but available digitally, with bonus track (The Sea Garden Of Lost Desire) included in the download.

Atlantis – The Index – Bokukko

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Two new Atlantis releases are out this month, The Index is released on cassette and is available to pre-order now over at the wonderful Unknown Tone Records and the Bokukko EP is out now on mini 3″cd on the lovely Beko label.

TRUST – Time Released Sound (TRS23)

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I received my copies of the TRUST album today, the amazing new compilation on Time Released Sound, as ever, the packaging is amazingly outlandish and the music is equally as good! It’s now sold out… BIG thanks to Colin over at TRS for once again making it all possible.

 

 

 

Atlantis – The Institute Of Technology

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The new Atlantis cassette is out now, on Chemical Tapes – 2C-G-5 (3,6-Dimethoxy-4-(2-aminoethyl)benzonorbornane)

Going back to where it all started for Chemical Tapes, Tim Diagram who’s opening salvo for us was his excellent kosmische workout ‘Maps And Diagrams – Red Moon Rising’ returns under his Atlantis moniker with The Institute Of Technology c30. Subaquatic synth soundscapes document the expedition into the deep. From the hazy tranquil moments at the surface to the curious glitched rhythms of the depths.

Released 26 July 2012.  All tracks written, recorded and mixed by Tim Diagram at Roadmap Studios, Cambs UK 2011.  Copyright 2012 Atlantis.

Atlantis – The Lost Island

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Atlantis – The Lost Island. Released 03 July 2012, ultra-limited edition cdr. Follow the links to futuresequence to listen and buy….before it sells out!

Karst “Halcyon Drift” (video)

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“Halcyon Drift” Karst from Mark Kuykendall on Vimeo.

Official video for song 6 “Halcyon Drift” off the album Cyprea by Karst.

Footage was shot in 1959 by Carl Stoops (Pilot), Mark Kuykendall’s grandfather. Here we see the coasts of Florida in the 50′s, then the lazy drifting flight of engineless airplane gliders in Oklahoma, mid to late 60′s..

Karst – The new collaboration from Tim Diagram (Maps and Diagrams) and Mark Kuykendall (The New Honey Shade).

The album “Cyprea” is a collaboration which draws influences from both artists’ work which binds human and unevolved ideology with automated synthesis.

In this modern-day world both artists’ have found a similarity and harmonious approach towards a more primitive time, a time when man began to produce the earliest works of art, human burial was a newfangled idea and the cavernous dwellings were considered home.

“Cyprea” is a place where rivers and sounds disappear underground lost to endless limestone fissures, sinkholes, underground streams, and caverns, only to spring up again as fountains on the surface, the hollow wail of field recordings can be heard through arpeggiated cavernous spaces and over ice formations and glacial debris, which form the structure of the songs.

Karst have engendered a sound which is a regeneration of the construction and deconstruction of everything that has passed before us – without forgetting who came before us.

Artwork by Darren Dirksen (Tulsa, USA)

Karst – The Colour of Veins

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“The Colour of Veins” taken from the forthcoming album “Cyprea” by Karst. Released on Handstitched* (April 2012, limited to 100 cd copies for the world).

Karst – The new collaboration from Tim Diagram (Maps and Diagrams) and Mark Kuykendall (The New Honey Shade).

The album “Cyprea” is a collaboration which draws influences from both artists’ work which binds human and unevolved ideology with automated synthesis.

In this modern-day world both artists’ have found a similarity and harmonious approach towards a more primitive time, a time when man began to produce the earliest works of art, human burial was a newfangled idea and the cavernous dwellings were considered home.

“Cyprea” is a place where rivers and sounds disappear underground lost to endless limestone fissures, sinkholes, underground streams, and caverns, only to spring up again as fountains on the surface, the hollow wail of field recordings can be heard through arpeggiated cavernous spaces and over ice formations and glacial debris, which form the structure of the songs. Karst have engendered a sound which is a regeneration of the construction and deconstruction of everything that has passed before us – without forgetting who came before us. Artwork by Darren Dirksen (Tulsa, USA)

Circa (video)

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Video for “Circa” by Daniel Hopkins. “Circa” taken from the Maps and Diagrams album “The Town Beneath The Sea” on Nomadic Kids Republic (best viewed large).

The video is going to be shown from February 2 – March 1, 2012 at the exhibition – 17 Days at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Frostic School of Art, Kalamazoo, MI (USA).

More info can be found here.

city::genetic

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CITY::GENETIC is an on-going project, a creative adventure and a meeting of inspired minds. A number of artists from different disciplines are sowing the seeds for a “genetic” experiment. They start with a single piece that represents the beginning of a story. Then they pass the seed to a second artist who makes the story evolve with a second piece. The process repeats until the creation of a genetic chain: the art work.

Simultaneously, the curators of Citypulse send the same seed to another 3 artists in each discipline in order to create a total of 4 parallel stories per format, all sharing the original DNA.
This site is updated continuously as the genetics of creative evolves.

Each music “branch” can be found here.

These artists are sowing the seeds:

Atlantis – The Day The Music Died (hs07)

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“The Day The Music Died” is the new album from Atlantis, this sonic expedition ventures into new, unchartered worlds which before have only been visualised by explorers and scientists alike. As on previous releases, Atlantis uses self-experimentation to conjure a vision of imagination and nostalgic intrigue. Written, recorded and produced at Roadmap Studios, Cambs UK, 2011. Artwork and packaging designed by Tim Diagram, CD sleeves produced by Steph Gherardi.

Available now for pre-order, released 2 December 2011. Purchase digital or physical CD over at Bandcamp…

Maps and Diagrams – Snowglobe EP

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27/11/2011 marks the release of the Snowglobe EP by Maps and Diagrams, six exclusive tracks recorded for Sutemos. The Snowglobe EP marks a return to a rhythmic structure for Maps and Diagrams who has spent the past few years on an ambient-acoustic kosmiche journey creating textural soundscapes and drone work. Appearing on this release are six remix artists, giving their own interpretation of each song in their own unique way.

Follow the link for more information and to download the release over at archive[dot]org.

Maps and Diagrams – Snowglobe EP (Sutemos30)

01 Dominoeffect
02 Jupiter Incidental
03 QRBG
04 Astropod
05 Hebakotb
06 Triangular Triquerta
07 Dominoeffect – The New Honey Shade Remix
08 Jupiter Incidental – Dark Mahoney Remix
09 QRBG – Ylid Remix
10 Astropod – bdobcmx
11 Hebakotb – The Green Kingdom Remix
12 Triangular Triquerta – Pleq Remix

Tracks 1-6 produced by Maps and Diagrams at Roadmap Studios, Cambs, UK (2011). Tracks 7-12 produced by respective artists.

Maps and Diagrams – NKR009 & NKR010

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Next up are two new albums by Maps and Diagrams on the Nomadic Kids Republic label, release dates vary in the UK but both albums are already released in Japan and the US. Check the reviews for both The Town Beneath the Sea and Lights Will Call On You over at Fluid Radio.

Lights Will Call On You which is out now can be found at these good record shops;

Norman Records.
Nomadic Kids Republic.
Stashed Goods.
Boomkat.

A review for The Town Beneath The Sea can be found over at Futuresequence.

And reviews for both albums over at Headphone Commute.

Video for One Kind of Blue from the album Lights Will Call On You by Daniel Hopkins…

Atlantis – Ly-Alpha Forest

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Taken from the forthcoming album “The Day The Music Died” by Atlantis. Released on Handstitched* 2011.

- Applying antediluvian, contemporary and illusory charts and graphs, tonal topographer Tim Martin (Maps and Diagrams) embarks upon a quest as Atlantis to find the lost acoustic continent that has eluded all other ambient explorers for centuries.

With his latest blueprint Atlantis, Martin locates this misplaced celestial dominium and releases “The Day The Music Died” to document his extraordinary expedition.

The necessity to move effortlessly predestined enforced and rudimentary tactics for sound, structure, melody and rhythm. The consequential textural quantities retain a lucidly defined emphasis on science friction.

Drifting in uncharted analogue oceans with only synthesisers, electronics and tape manipulation to guide him, he eventually plots an audio atlas that contains ten transitory improvisational melodies.

These unearthly anti-pop voyages of expressive self-experimentation leave the listener to ponder whether times other than the present moment exist, with questions about the nature of identity over time.

- Dean Rocker

(video by handstitched*)

Updates…..

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Maps and Diagrams Get Lost, reviews, info and buy:

Maps and Diagrams The Voices of Time, reviews, info and buy:

From Norman Records….

Not content with the awesome Get Lost CD which landed a couple of weeks ago here’s another brand new album! I’ll talk about the sexiness of how it looks cos it’s one of the fittest releases I’ve seen in a while. It’s packaged in a case-bound wiro booklet made from old book covers, stencilled with a Japanese stencil (from 1936) that Mr Maps bought and they’re all hand stamped on the front. They look amazing and if you’re obsessed by packaging then it’s time to get on board as this is pretty unique! It’s ambient city as well with 13 tracks of varying ambient styles. There’s some Schole-y more piano-y led electronic numbers, there’s some proper old school style ambient tunes like the ones you used to get in the early 90′s with lots of whooshy noises (ie. interesting ambient music), celestial sounding ambient jobbers and some electro acoustic pieces. A few of the tunes have an aquatic feel so you Dolphins Into The Future fans will dig bits of this. 10 years on and he’s still doing the biz. Nice!

You can buy The Voices of Time at Norman Records.

The Voices of Time will also be available digitally via Bandcamp.

Some sounds from forthcoming and older releases up at Soundcloud

dual obsessions (Resident Advisor)

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Over the course of his career, Martin has maintained dual obsessions: electro-acoustic ambient music, and handmade artwork to package it in. He’s a prolific studio artist, having put out ten albums in less than a decade, plus a smattering of cassettes, 7-inches and CD-Rs. Voices of Time is his second album this month, after Get Lost, a travel-inspired album that comes with a compass. That one came out through the design-happy imprint Time Released Sound; Voices of Time will see release on Martin’s own label, Handstitched* Recordings….. Read the full article over at Resident Advisor

Kanshin (for Japan)

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Released today Kanshin is a double CD compilation album compiled by Fluid Audio & Hibernate that presents a collection of sound design work from some of the scene’s finest artists from across the globe. It has been put together to raise money for the current recovery in Japan following March’s earthquake for distribution via our good friend Ian Hawgood.

To listen and buy the album go to Kanshin on Bandcamp.

Included in the amazing line-up is Hessien and Maps and Diagrams with Ylid:

The Voices of Time (review)

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As Maps and Diagrams Get Lost is released on Time Released Sound (see below for details) another Maps and Diagrams album is lurking, waiting for release; The Voices of Time features on Fluid Radio with a review…

The reputation garnered by a slew of excellent releases on labels such as Static Caravan, Fluid Audio, Smallfish, Moamoo and Symbolic Interaction has made each Maps and Diagrams release an event within itself, inspiring a mixture of anticipation and excitement. Once again, this latest album from UK based Tim Martin exceeds expectations and delivers an excursion through the artist’s vast imagination, this time made available by Handstitched.

The Voices of Time opens with Your Weakness and Martin signals his intentions by weaving together various sound sources with meticulous care, guitar usually holding centre stage. The organic lo-fi beauty of Your Weakness and indeed, on each of the tracks which follow, bring to mind recent output from musicians such as Taylor Deupree, Marcus Fischer and Offthesky, all artists who work in an unusual and unique way with audio, but nonetheless create music which has some cohesion when taken as a whole. One feels that there should be almost another term coined to describe this genre within a genre which comprises found sounds and broken melodies to make music which is less about the destination reached and more focused on the journey taken.

On an album of innumerable highlights, title track The Voices of Time is as fine a moment as any to note as possible apex, with gentle piano notes rolling atop a shifting foundation of guitar, synth and drones, peppered with static throughout – though in truth any such track could be chosen at random with similar results, such as the gentle floating ambience of Letraset Addiction or the abstract experimentalism of Three Blows To The Mind. The Voices Of Time is an album without fault and is a joy to experience.

This is not an album to be thrown on while jogging or doing the dishes, or at least to do so would be missing the point. Rather, The Voices of Time should be enjoyed as a whole in one sitting, enabling one to lose track of time and become immersed in the sonic memories which the artist so generously shares with us here.

The Voices of Time comes packaged in case-bound CD covers, stencilled with a Japanese Plum Blossom stencil and individually hand-stamped. Release date: May 27.

- Review by Adam Williams for Fluid Radio

Maps and Diagrams “Get Lost”

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Get Lost, the new album by UK- based sound artist Tim Martin aka Maps and Diagrams certainly embodies this statement to perfection. Over the course of nearly an hour, Martin explores strange and beautiful worlds, in a vein not dissimilar to On Land by Eno himself – worlds all unique in their own way, familiar and yet profoundly alien. Fluid Radio

Available now from Stashed Goods, the new album by Maps and Diagrams on Time Released Sound, order at Stashed Goods or direct from the Time Released Sound website and over at Experimedia

The album comes in 2 different formats, one in handmade, bespoke packaging constructed from an old atlas, limited to 60 copies and the other as a digipak version, limited to 300 copies.

Tokafi (feature)

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Maps and Diagrams features on Tokafi….

It’s been a busy month for British experimental electronic composer/producer Tim Martin, the sole member of Maps and Diagrams. The band name is a perfect fit for his music, which floats non-linearly in celestial patterns, moving from slow-motion post-rock figures to swirling nebulae of sound to driving minimalist rhythms. Red Moon Rising, a limited release of 30 casette tapes via the Chemical Tapes label, and The Voices of Time, a CD-only release limited to 100 copies on Handstiched*, were both released in April 2011. The two albums work wonderfully as Yin and Yang companions, the former a buzzing soundfield of analog synths and pulling rhythms, the latter an ambient, cinematic vista of gentle organic and electronic sounds.

The aptly titled The Voices of Time takes a textural approach that focuses on compositional space, both in terms of temporal “events” and movement of sound across sonic space. Reversed sounds cycle between the speakers behind deftly played three- and four- note piano figures. Spoken voices emerge from and fade back into swells of sustained analog synth chords. The title track is a nuanced blend of twinkling keyboard, choral harmonies, shimmering electronics, and electric guitar arpeggios, floating listlessly between two slowly morphing chords. In “The Next Frontier,” the album’s epic finale, quiet vocal snippets float atop churning tides of vocals, electronics, and tape hiss. “Rapid Ear Movement” features howling guitar distortion over oceanic swells of synth chords. To pigeon-hole The Voices of Time as “ambient” is to unfairly simplify a series of songs burgeoning with textural subtleties (and the occasional “not-so-subtlety”), but the album does deliver a hypnosis-inducing quality that shifts the listener between bouts of passive and active listening.

Conversely, Red Moon Rising is marked by a seeming textural simplicity. Most of the nine songs are constructed around minimalist layers of keyboard, making for a propulsive and occasionally dance-y listen. From the first notes of the opening track, “Lost In Space,” you’re sucked into a mesmerizing maze of contrapuntal synth lines, ping-ponging bass lines and buzzing electronics that encase slowly morphing, ultramelodic motifs. Unlike the borderline stasis and cloudy haze of The Voices of Time, the compositions of Red Moon Rising are endlessly restless, churning rhythms and melodic figures through ongoing augmentation and diminution. Separate electro-lines fuse and divide over undercurrents of rhythmic repetitions. As unified as the overall sound is, the separate electronic lines have distinctly different timbres, making it easy to follow any one part through the entirety of a song section. The composer’s constant use of arpeggios and the manner in which different sounds complete each other’s melodic/rhythmic patterns before fracturing into separate lines has a strong Baroque quality, making for a space age take on Bach miniatures. The entire album clocks in at just 30 minutes, with each track serving as a mathematical etude that develops an economy of material into rich prisms of counterpoint and texture.

Taken together, The Voices of Time and Red Moon Rising offer an intriguing cross-section of Map and Diagrams’ compositional process. Both albums share a fascination with economy of material. The former stretches limited material through sedate textures and epic swells, focusing as much on the empty space that surrounds the sounds as on the musical ideas. The latter condenses small sets of ideas into busy interlocking patterns, making for an equally nuanced and hypnotic sound, but approached from the opposite extreme.

By Hannis Brown

Tokafi

Waking Up (video)

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Unofficial video by Levan Kakabadze for Waking up from Red Moon Rising by Maps and Diagrams on the Chemical Tapes label. Also appearing on the Chemical Tapes stellar line-up is Machinefabriek, Flotel, Indian Weapons, Mohave Triangles, Drekka and Relmic Statute with more to follow…to listen to all songs featured on Red Moon Rising or for more information about all the new and forthcoming releases visit the Chemical Tapes website.

 

Chemical Tapes [Red Moon Rising]

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Maps and Diagrams new album Red Moon Rising is out today (4 April) on the Chemical Tapes label and is available on cassette, featuring 9 new and exclusive songs focusing on the ever-evolving sounds of Kosmische. Strictly limited to 100 copies. Also appearing on the Chemical Tapes stellar line-up are Machinefabriek, Flotel, Indian Weapons, Mohave Triangles, Drekka and Relmic Statute with more to follow….



What the label says: Maps And Diagrams takes us back to the analogue kosmische universe with his new album Red Moon Rising.  A joyful journey of modulation, movement and deep exploration. An edition of 100 pro-dubbed c30 cassettes.

To listen to all songs featured on Red Moon Rising or for more information about all the new and forthcoming releases visit the Chemical Tapes website.

The Voices of Time (Handstitched*)

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Almost instantly after the release Get Lost on Time Released Sound is another long-player by Maps and Diagrams. The Voices of Time is released on Handstitched* and features 13 new songs, focusing on compositional space, sound source and dimensional musical mechanics. The Voices of Time deploys de-automised production with a transfer away from technologically driven tenets in favour of a more tactile tonal humanity, as sound and texture are trusted to recognise their own ambitions. Released as a limited edition CDR of 100 with handmade recycled covers, each one individually hand-stamped. Release date TBC.

Time Released Sound

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Some new releases have landed here at Handstitched* HQ from Time Released Sound over in the US;

Founded in 2011, Time Released Sound is a lovingly hand made, limited edition release music label that is as much an art project as it is a musical outlet. Focusing primarily on classically infused and folk based ambient and electro-acoustic sounds by the artists we know, love and admire, we will be striving at all times to produce visuals and packaging for these fine releases that are as original and uniquely beautiful as the music itself.

Releases out now include; 

Shaula “The Girl in the Clock”,
Alessio Ballerini – “Music from the Puddle”,
Fabio Orsi “The Theft of a Rose”

To follow shortly after the aforementioned releases on Time Released Sound is Maps and Diagrams full-length album “Get Lost”. More information about how to buy and listen to audio samples from the schedule can be found on the Time Released Sound website.

Stashed Goods

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Stashed Goods, over at Fluid Radio:

Ever since Fluid Radio was initially set up the plan was to have an online store that would serve to support small labels and artists alike as well as to help fund the ongoing costs of running the station. After 2 years of thinking about it we finally set up Stashed Goods and hope over time it will become a hub for selling alternative music that never raises it’s head above the mainstream parapet. We are not just interested in selling the latest music available. The focus of the store is about stocking music that we love first and foremost regardless of genre, age, format or popularity. As time goes on the Stash will grow and we hope that you find something of interest for your listening pleasure!

Stashed Goods

Maps and Diagrams “Get Lost”

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Maps and Diagrams announces the new album “Get Lost” on the wonderful label Time Released Sound -release date to be announced shortly. Other releases scheduled on Time Released Sound include; Shaula, Fabio Orsi and Allessio Ballerini. More info can be found here

Two short edits from the forthcoming album “Get Lost”

maps and diagrams – Angle of Acceptance by Time Released Sound

maps and diagrams – The Strait of Malacca by Time Released Sound

Truth Serum, I, absentee

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Released: January 31, 2011. Compilation featuring The Remote Viewer, Leyland Kirby, The Seven Fields Of Aphelion, Lackluster, Manual, Maps and Diagrams, Ian Hawgood, Hessien, Green Kingdom, Hakobune…. and many more. All profits go to The Humane Society and UNICEF.

Erasure Media Exhibition

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Erasure is the first new media exhibition at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent and runs from 29 January – 2 May. The exhibition asks, ‘What is created when you remove something?’ It features work from local artists as well as two major pieces on loan from Arts Council England.

There will be a programme of associated activities and events, as well as a dedicated website www.erasureexhibition.org.uk The Museum outreach team worked with pupils from Gladstone Primary School throughout autumn to create various short digital films using Scratch and Art Rage, and these will be on show during the exhibition as well.

Appearing with Broken Mirrors is Matt Pearson who is a writer, coder and generative artist also known as zenbullets. Pearson creates organic forms by electronic means. He adapts logical programming language to create a chaotic, unpredictable naturalistic aesthetic. He is also interested in digital memory and its recording of social interactions. These interests have converged to create Broken Mirrors 1 – 4, a generative art work which directly responds to social interaction with the viewer. Broken Mirrors 1-4 is a large-scale reflective projection, that only exists while a spectator is interacting with it. Each viewer’s movements control one of four generative animations, so no two visits will produce the exact same visual. The experience is made more immersive thanks to a specially written soundscape by Maps and Diagrams who has constructed a series of loop-based compositions to accompany each module of Broken Mirrors. Each of the four pieces were based around each of the four animations and sketches on sound were built-up around the visual pieces to create a feeling of movement and a sense of tactile interaction. Matt Pearson has previously created visual work as zenbullets for Hessien.

Other artists appearing at Erasure are; Chris Twigg who uses bold colours and patterns in dramatic, static pieces, Toby Zeigler combines subtle patterns with scale, and John Frankland creates permanence for transience.

zenbullets
Erasure Art Exhibition