by Floating Points
Floating Points Elaenia (PBS feature record)
Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points has been releasing his music intermittently for almost a decade, never feeling rushed or on a schedule. His releases are always greeted with a warm anticipated excitement due to their outstanding consistency. All of them with a distinctive sound and acoustic quality that is uniquely his own.
Shepherd's first long player Eleania is the result of a trajectory of an ambitious musician and producer who wrote, recorded and engineered the entire record. Everything down to the cover art, is a result of his attention to every facet of this release. It was created with a harmonograph he built using fibre-optic cable and wood. The album is made up of seven tracks (including one 10-minute suite 'Silhouettes (I, II & III)') and is a considered piece of modern electronica / jazz.
Stylistically, Floating Points fans could consider Elaenia a departure from some of his previous offerings, such as the club-ready single 'Nuits Sonores' but this record was the inevitable evolution of his work as a electronic music producer, composer and studio engineer. For some time Shepherd has been integrating live elements into his electronic production including strings or vocals. In creating Elaenia, Shepherd enlisted the help of various contributors including two drummers, Tom Skinner and Leo Taylor, violinists Quian Wu and Edward Benton, and Joe Zeitlin on Cello among others to create a new live ensemble.
The album plays as one through-composed track, sweeping through large crescendos to the most delicate pianissimo with a dynamic contrast not heard often in modern productions. It is by far his most ambitious work to date, and like everything Shepherd has created his ambition has come to fruition with possibly the most poignant and powerful album of the year.
By Edd Fisher – Tomorrowland
Archie RoachCharcoal Lane: 25th Anniversary Edition (Featured on The Breakfast Spread)
Archie's Paul Kelly/Steve Connolly-produced 1990 debut album, remastered and expanded. The original album includes the iconic song 'Took The Children Away' as well as other classics like the title track and 'Down City Streets'. This super deluxe edition includes a second disc with previously unreleased recordings and new interpretations of the classic Charcoal Lane material and also includes a 28-page booklet with previously unpublished images and liner notes by Wayne Coolwell, Clinton Walker, David Fricke & Grant Hansen.
By Crispi – The Breakfast Spread
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