Photo SIGNE LUKSENGARD
Seeing as how we all have another stressful week ahead of us, self-titled thought we’d start by pointing out a recent ambient record you may have missed: Both Lines Will Be Blue, the first strictly instrumental effort from the shape-shifting environs of Carmen Villain. Featuring Chilean-Norwegian flutist Johanna Scheie Orellana and Prins Thomas on percussion, it finds the multifaceted musician in a meditative state of modular effects, self-guided synths, robust field recordings, zithers, pianos, and drums.
“It’s a constant evolution,” Villain says of her creative process. “The music usually takes control of me in the studio. I’ve learned a lot; I’ve grown and changed a lot. I’ve unlearned some things as well.”
To hammer that point home, we asked Villain to make us a mix of “mainly downtempo things that I find inspiring or am really into the moment, both old and new.” She also picked a particularly influential Jon Hassell record to reflect on at our new ambient site self | centered if you’re up for some crucial Fourth World cuts as well….
Jon Hassell – Empire III
Biosphere – Too Fragile To Walk On
Arve Henriksen – Bird’s-Eye-View
Beatrice Dillon & Rupert Clerveaux – I
K. Leimer – Archies Dub
Finis Africae – Bahia De Los Genoveses
Beta Librae – Pink Arcade
Visible Cloaks – Mask
Motohiko Hamase – Pascal
Laurie Spiegel – Drums
Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek – Botuto
Don’t DJ – Perseus-Pisces
Parris – Flowering in Threes
Biosphere – Moistened and Dried
Huerco S – Anagramme of My Love
Don Cherry – Utopia and Visions
Kara-Lis Coverdale – Moments In Love
