“‘Marking Time’ is Richard’s first widely available record and might be the most perfect distillation of his sound to date. Using a selection of bowed string instruments and lavishing these sustained howls with the most delicate of fingerpicked guitar and gentle piano, he takes us through a most harrowing journey. These short songs are deft and deeply touching musings on loss and of the importance of time. Comparisons could be made to plenty of Richard’s modern-classical or avant folk contemporaries but few imbue their music with such a deep sense of humanity and patience. This is an album which truly rewards those who give it the time it commands.”

Marking Time by Richard Skelton at Type Records
Marking Time by Richard Skelton limited vinyl edition for sale at Boomkat

“Hakobune aka Takahiro Yorifuji uses layers of guitar to create sonic landscapes.”

Twig and Twine by The Green Kingdom on eMusic.com
Twig and Twine by The Green Kingdom on Amazon.com

“Streaming is an implausible and inefficient use of wireless bandwidth.”

“Why would we voluntarily increase our reliance on expensive, scarce wireless bandwidth delivered by abusive thugs when we are awash in cheap, commodity storage that grows cheaper every day and which we can buy from hundreds of manufacturers and thousands of retailers?”

“The more we pretend that there is a technical possibility of designing a downloader that can’t save its files, the more incentive we create for legal and technological systems that attempt to make this come true.”

I get all his arguments, and I agree with them in theory. The thing is, for me, none of them have ever really mattered. The reason I don’t use streaming music services is because they don’t seem to make any sense to me. I’m never quite sure what to listen to, because without a library of music that I’ve spent time acquiring staring me in the face, I don’t have any cues to prompt me as to what to listen to.

It’s not so much that I like to “collect” music as much as I need to in order to remember to go back and listen to it.

Streaming will never stop downloading
Cory Doctorow
guardian.co.uk

“Strom Noir creates beautiful ethereal guitar drones adding detail with field recordings and other sounds and is essential for fans of Beautumn and Sleepy Town Manufacture.”

You should download this record!
Mit Ohne by Steinbrüchel on eMusic.com (7 downloads)
Mit Ohne by Steinbrüchel on Amazon.com (7 tracks for $6.93 USD)

A few weeks back, a package arrived from Wales containing a nicely crafted disc of music from Nest, which consists of Otto Totland from Deaf Center and Huw Roberts, who runs Serein. It will be released January 31, 2010, and it is definitely worth picking up.

“Crónica is very proud to present its forty-seventh release, a very special split 5″ vinyl by Janek Schaefer and Stephan Mathieu in a limited lathed edition of 50 numbered cuts. All of the discs in this release are unique originals, with different audio content, packaged in 50 original covers.”

“DEAF RAVEN is a two-body operated independent music collective based in New York & Atlanta, Georgia. Launched in late 2009, DEAF RAVEN focuses on getting sounds heard by the wide array of talent in the outer-limits of music & audible art: such as ambient, drone, electronica, noise, shoegaze, experimental & the avant garde. Although vinyl releases are planned for the future, our releases will consist of packaged silver CD’s, 320kbps mp3/aac, & FLAC formats. We look forward to bringing a whole new light to the new & unknown sounds of the underground available for listening.”