Video for “Pollen Tube” taken from the new Atlantis album “The Day The Music Died”.

Video produced by The New Honey Shade. (Mark Kuykendall).

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

“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…

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 Sutemos.

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.

Get more info on the compilation at FutureSEQUENCE.

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…

Get more info on the compilation at FutureSEQUENCE.

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*)

TRS-05 is available via Time Released Sound, Norman Records & Stashed Goods.

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:

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

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.

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

The obvious digital element is dealt in such a way that it is not often identifiable as such (no visibly obvious ones and zeroes) meaning the more tactile elements like the instrumentation then sit in the mix without leaping out as obviously separate tones. Read the full review at Cyclic Defrost

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Vibrant and consistent, both show Martin’s continual relevance in the continually changing landscape of the style he was centrally involved in developing.

Maps And Diagrams ‘A Pulsating History’

 Tim Martin’s work as Maps And Diagrams over the last several years has focused increasingly on texture, mood and increasingly subtle dynamic manipulation; and his most recent full-length release, A Pulsating History, follows in this vein. A continuation of the experimentation with field textures that became a primary element in Koom and Foel (and continued through further ambient works Cubiculo, Tööpudus and Tintinnabulate) the album presents as a dual sided digital LP release through French netlabel Beko, four songs per digital side (A&B) and an accompanying text document on the history of lentils.

The lentil essay is an engaging red herring – presenting something so incongruous with the material reminds this aging reviewer of Tool’s presentation of a recipe for hash cookies, read in a sinister German context on Aenima several years ago. Whatever the point of this diversion is, it comes as a welcome circuit breaker to your perception of the music on offer, and is also a welcome injection of humour into what can at times be a self congratulatory and po-faced genre.

Those familiar with and appreciative of the Maps And Diagrams releases above will find this material to their liking – one primary point of distinction is the creative use of what sounds like field recordings, seemingly consistently used throughout the release. The enveloping nature sounds behind the static drone of opener “This Modern Century” continue through the manipulated guitar of “Anti-Clockwise” before the addition of the reassuring bottom end of “First Quarter.”

The release notes provided with the record state that the project was designed around the concept of pulses, and nowhere is this more apparent than on “First Quarter.” Elsewhere, unconventional loop work and restrained peaks and troughs prove effective in continuing the pulsating theme. The emotive “On Esquiline Hill” (featuring Cactus Island stable-mate Ylid) proves a tantalizingly unsolvable puzzle with its submerged conversations at the tail end of the track. The devolving drone of “Particles Of Earth” deconstructs gently into the electronic lilt of “Coming In From The Cold.” The Baraka-esque percussion of “The Lonely Planet,” and its insistent representation of mobile phone interference, closes out a well-paced and intelligent exploration of mood and electronic experimentation.

As with other Beko releases, This Pulsating History is available from their site at no cost, as is Martin’s recent collaboration with poet Estela Lamat (which also falls squarely into the category of electronic experimentation). Vibrant and consistent, both show Martin’s continual relevance in the continually changing landscape of the style he was centrally involved in developing.

A Pulsating History is out now on BEKO DSL. Download it here

Audio Gourmet presents Hidden Landscapes… A limited edition CD of just 200 copies.
More info here

For the first full compilation to be released on Audio Gourmet, we have teamed together with Hibernate Records, the Felt Collective and a selection of some of the finest names in the modern ambient music scene. The compilation, called ‘Hidden Landscapes’ features fourteen pieces of music in which the artists were briefed to compose something particularly wintery to match the mood of the colder season.

The resulting soundtrack should be the perfect listening companion for colder times, with its icy cold exterior. Perhaps once the ice melts and the temperature begins to rise, parts of this album will reveal themselves to you and sound different in the warmth. There are 200 limited edition CD copies of Hidden Landscapes available for purchase thanks to Jonathan of Hibernate Records. He has kindly offered to design and print this stunning album as a physical copy. He’s also provided the front cover photography through his Cragg Vale Photography project.

The digital counterpart is available through the Audio Gourmet Bandcamp account, with proceeds going towards keeping the netlabel section up and running. This has become necessary with Bandcamp now charging account holders to distribute music for free. Since we wish to continue using the site for its aesthetics and ease of use, these compilations will become a frequent feature here on Audio Gourmet.

First: “The worst of us” is a collaborative effort between UK-based sound artist Maps and Diagrams and Chilean poet Estela Lamat.

For this haunting EP, Maps and Diagrams has engineered richly textured soundscapes to accompany Lamat’s intense and elegant recitations, but it is much more than that: one cannot so easily separate the music from the poetry, the speech from the sound, for within this palimpsestic and polyglot play of vocal and non-vocal cartographies, figure continually melts into ground and ground thickens to emerge as figure. The real strength of these tracks is the way in which they unfurl into greater and greater complexity. For example, in “caminaba como un pájaro,” the expansive resonance becomes punctuated (and punctured) by ominous percussion while lyric clarity gives way to distorting opacities of speech; this is a work of layered condensation, of static hiss and refraction.

In “the land of never ever,” the brooding and pulsating contours of Maps and Diagrams’ sonic landscape become variegated with stuttering interferences and ratcheting dissonances which ultimately converge and dissolve, leaving behind only a spectral signature; likewise, Lamat’s voice splinters into an articulate disintegration, shadowing itself, mimicking its echo, as if in a fugal flight away from its own identity. Thus, when she signs off her trance-like and entrancing audiotext with the phrase “Yo, la peor de todas, en el país de nunca jamás [I, the worst of all, in the land of never ever],” we are paradoxically (and uncannily) unsure of whose voice we are hearing and where it is coming from.

This conceptual collaboration truly allows (to paraphrase Ezra Pound) the poetic image to become a dark vortex of vibrating energy, from which, and through which, and into which delirious drones, vertiginous reverberations, and sonic fragments are constantly rushing.

“The worst of us” (beko_71) is released on the Beko Digital Single Label on 13 December 2010 and can be found here and more information on Estela Lamat and her work can be found here

Second: A Pulsating History. . .. .. . .. . ..

Next up is Maps and Diagrams, working along the “pulsating” theme with new and exclusive tracks for a mini album… “A Pulsating History” (beko_lp03). The mini album also features an appearance from Ylid and contains Dean Rocker’s written text about the history, benefits and under-estimated phenoniums that are lentils. This written document has never seen the light of day, until now…..