I begin the journey of El Tren Fantasma at the station, as the announcer calls out the “last call for the ghost train”. The train enters a dark tunnel and I drift away with a rhythmical beat of the wheels falling into the spaces between the old tracks. These sounds remind me of my childhood, when I traveled by train to visit my grandparents for the summer. I arrive in the Mexican village, where the birds chirp and the roosters crow, as the train screeches to a halt somewhere in the heart of the country between Pacific and Atlantic coasts. My ears are awake, picking up on the sounds of the trees talking to each other in the wind, butterflies dismissing the air with their conceded flapping, and the woodpecker’s cryptic beat. The train moves on, and soon its rhythm turns into a soothing pulse, slowly hypnotizing me as I drift in and out of dream state.

Using archive and field recordings, Chris Watson recreates a passenger ride across the country on a line that no longer exists. It’s been more than a decade since the last service operated by the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM). Watson spent a month on board one of the trains as a sound recordist working with a film crew documenting a BBC TV series on Great Railways Journeys. The atmospheres captured with sensitive microphones in the country reveal the environment at its most open, intimate and natural setting. An additional post-production of looping train samples, turns this mere field recording into a mesmerizing trip. This is more than just a sound portrait lifted off a television show. Watson composes a cinematic narrative bringing the listener (and the observer) into a setting unattainable alone.

“Take the ghost train from Los Mochis to Veracruz and travel cross country, coast to coast, Pacific to Atlantic. Ride the rhythm of the rails on board the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM) and the music of a journey that has now passed into history.”

El Tren Fantasma is a fourth solo album for Touch by one of the world’s leading sonic archivists of wildlife and natural history. Watson’s 2003 album for the label, titled Weather Report, was named as “one of the albums you should hear before you die” by The Guardian. Watson is a seasoned veteran of sonic architecture. In 1971 he was a founding member of Cabaret Voltaire as well as The Hafler Trio (this is before he left Andrew McKenzie to release his collaborations with Autechre, like æo³ & ³hæ). In 2011 Watson also collaborated with Marcus Davidson on Cross-Pollination (see Headphone Commute review in Sound Bytes : Touch Label Special). And there’s also a 2-track 12″ pressing of El Tren Fantasma: The Signal Man’s Mix. My childlike fascination with trains and the sounds evoked by El Tren Fantasma invite me to listen to the album over and over again. And when you hear this magnificent recording, you will surely agree…

Listening to Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto is an experience of itself. Personally, I like to prepare for this two-hour sonic trip by opening up my windows, lighting up some mild incense, and brewing up some genmaicha (Japanese green tea with roasted brown rice). As the sunlight enters my room and gets trapped by the slowly rising smoke, the hot tea and the soft music gently flow through my body, warming up my extremities, essence and soul. The ambient textures lightly swirl in the air, as the tender piano keys sparsely land on the strings. The seemingly abstract atmosphere is delicate, soothing and a bit somber, perfectly balancing all other senses for curating a relaxing state of mind. At the end, the music is neither subjectively demanding nor is it boring – exactly as Brian Eno preferred it, when he defined his description of ambient music. If ambient music is intended to “induce calm and a space to think,” then Flumina delivers just that, with every flawless detail. The twenty four tracks on this double disc album are titled after twenty four days, from March 18 to April 29th, during which Ryuichi Sakamoto recorded his piano compositions while touring in Japan. Prior to the performance, Sakamoto would semi-improvise a new piece in a different key, eventually covering all twenty four tonal steps of the scale. The pieces were then delivered to Christian Fennesz, who has layered additional synth pads, tiny electronic elements, and of course, his guitar. Sakamoto’s piano takes on the foreground and lead on each recording, while Fennesz’s buzzing hums fill in the spaces in between – something that the duo has perfect for this third collaboration together recorded for Touch. Sakamoto’s melodies remain somewhat abstract, wondering and subtle, abandoning cohesive song structure while clearing the mind. Flumina happens to be a two-hour head cleaner prescribed by a doctor when one submits to complaints of overabundance. Definitely different from the duo’s recording at the Auditorium Parco della Music in Rome, Sala Santa Cecilia (Touch, 2005), and a further exploration in minimal sound than their celebrated Cendre (Touch, 2007), but nevertheless incredibly welcome collection of miniature vignettes. Over burdened with a torrent of new sounds and fatigued with over compressed post production? You must find the time for Flumina! For fans of Harold Budd, Steve Roach and Brian Eno. Doctor recommended. – HC, MD

Listening to Marcus Fischer always puts me into a tranquil state. Even as I am walking the infested streets of New York City, my mind slows to a crawl, and only the clouds move with the rhythm as the pedestrians rush towards their demise. In the office, the sounds of Collected Dust are especially delightful when reconstructed with a pair of nice open back headphones – right now my Grados 125 are doing the trick. Gentle ambiance, delicate guitar strums, and reserved reverb are all at the center of this subdued recording. But the pieces on the album have actually been collected from numerous sessions, and compiled by Marc Ostermeier for this release on his very own Tench imprint. “From January 2009 through January 2010, Marcus kept a blog called Dust Breeding to document the results of his goal to complete one creative project a day for 365 days. These projects included photographs, field recordings, design, illustration, sewing, videos, DIY electronics experiments and music. He reached his goal of one full year of daily entries and has continued to add entries over the last few years, though less frequently.” Each vignette on the album originally appeared as part of this project, and after being selected by Ostermeier refined further by Fischer for the album. This is a perfect prelude to my deeper listening to Portland (Oregon, USA) based Fischer’s collaboartion with Taylor Deupree on In A Place Of Such Graceful Shapes released only a few days ago on the always wonderful 12k. Minimal ambiance at its best. Highly recommended for fans of Pillowdiver, Celer, Ian Hawgood, and of course Deupree himself.

Good luck keeping up with Aidan Baker – the man releases a dozen albums a year. In the past I managed to get my hands on his Liminoid / Lifeforms (Alien8, 2010) and in 2012 alone Baker has already put out three full lengths – one of them documents his tour with Thisquietarmy, the other is a double CD with a handful of collaborators on The Spectrum Of Distraction (Robotic Empire, 2012). But nevermind that for a moment, and let’s pretend that Baker only manages to put only one great record a year. So could that one record be Still Life? Upon the very first listening the most striking element of this experimental jazz record is the versatility of its players. Or rather, a single player – it seems that Baker managed to compose, play and record all parts of piano, upright bass, and (most impressively) drums, all by himself. I was also unprepared for the laid back cool rhythms, atmospheric riffs and smokey chords – my previous exposure has set an expectation of guitar driven noise and drones. Recorded during the winter of 2010 in his hometown of Toronto (Canada), the pieces are looped and layered over each other to create a potpourri of many musicians playing at once. The epic fourteen minute conclusion of this release, titled “Complex Iconographical Symbiology” is almost hypnotic in its minimalism, tending to fall a bit on a moodier side, while keeping the ticking rhythm upbeat. Throughout the four pieces on Still Life, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist demonstrates his comfort level with the genre, fitting closer to the output of Bohren, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Blue Note and perhaps a hint of The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation.

In December of 2010, Belgian label Sub Rosa introduced a new Framework series (an extension of Concrete Electronics Noise) with a release by Tresor Records superstar, Cristian Vogel. Further releases in the series followed with appearances by Ulrich Krieger, Francisco Lopez, and Rogelio Sosa. The 11th entry in the series comes from Bérangère Maximin, a French electroacoustic composer fusing laptop, voice, and guitar with various objects. No One Is An Island is only her second full length release, but it already attracted attention of appearances by Christian Fennesz, Richard Pinhas, Frédéric Oberland, and Rhys Chatham. “I eagerly seized the opportunity to work with these amazing four men,” says Maximim, “Their wits and energies were just what I needed: a sonic journey that simultaneously develops intuition and teaches understanding, this among many other subtle effects.” The sounds on this experimental release jitter, twist, and swirl in a hazy atmosphere of chirping electronics, processed guitars and mysterious field recordings. Maximin’s voice appears on the third track, “Knitting In The Air”, transposed a few octaves lower, yet still retaining its eclectic European accent. The six pieces on No One Is An Island are a bit challenging, bubbling through circuitry of oscillating waves, distorted riffs, and clipping tremolos. At times the music approaches noise territory, filtered through analog effects and musique concrète. This is expected – Maximin studied with one of the pioneers of the ‘morphological’ approach to sonic writing, Denis Dufour.

Gramercy begins in the darkness. At 2am to be precise. Gareth Davis lacerates on the brooding clarinet as Frances-Marie Uitti anguishes over the distressed cello. Both instruments cry and wail in agony, scratching over strings, escaping the tone valves, and stirring the vibrations in the still of the night. Even when the morning comes, I have to open the blinds to let some light into the suffocating climate. On the album, virtuoso cellist Uitti’s “sweeps and drones are matched perfectly with Davis’s patented haunted drones and breathy chokes, resulting in a deftly academic yet unnervingly involving narrative.” At times the clarinet barely whispers, like a gasping ghost trapped between the twin bow and the strings. This haunting organic ambiance stirs the emotions, raises the hairs, and crawls down the spine, landing on the roster of Miasmah‘s catalog among the label-mates like Kreng, Kaboom Karavan, and Gultskra Artikler. Gareth Davis has previously appeared on my rotations after I discovered his collaboration with Machinefabriek on Drape (Home Normal, 2010), and his work with Steven R. Smith on The Line Across (Altvinyl, 2010). His most recent release includes another partnership with Rutger Zuydervelt, titled Grower (Sonic Pieces, 2011) and has been featured on Headphone Commute’s Best of 2011 list, Music For Sonic Installations In The Cavern Of Your Skull. Meanwhile, Frances-Marie Uitti has been collaborating on music since 1990s, releasing on contemporary classical, avant-garde and jazz labels such as Cryptogramophone, hat ART, and ECM New Series.

The only other greatest collaboration between Ryuichi Sakamoto and his contemporary electronic musicians besides Christian Fennesz (and as I have recently witnessed live, Taylor Deupree), is his ongoing critically acclaimed work with Alva Noto. The duo first got together in 2002 for their worldwide lauded Vrioon release. Three years later Insen fluttered the modern classical and minimal glitch scenes alike, only to be followed up with Ensemble Modern collaboration on _utp in 2008. This Virus series concludes with a final installment of Summvs, in which Noto and Sakamoto continue to explore the sparse electronic micro rhythms layered with abstract glitchy piano notes. I only say “final” because Raster-Noton published a collector’s boxset that features all of the above four full-lengths, plus a Revep EP! Besides Noto and Sakamoto’s work showcased at its best, there are a few more surprises on the album. The “microon” tracks contain recordings of a 16th tone interval tuning piano – “piano metamorfoseador en dieciseisavos de tono”. The album also features two covers of the track “By This River” originally composed by Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius in 1977. “In their instrumental versions of the song Nicolai and Sakamoto create and investigate the song’s appeal in both normal speed and slow motion.” The title of the album derives from Latin “summa” (sum) and “versus” (towards) hinting at an overall wrap up of a collaborative project. And although I refuse to accept this release as their, I must admit that it is their very best!

You can’t talk about Raster-Noton and not mention Carsten Nicolai. The Chemnitz (Germany) based label boss (along with Olaf Bender and Frank Bretschneider), has a few ongoing series running for the last couple of years. In 2007, Nicolai kicked off the Xerrox series in which he examines the concept behind digital reproduction of sound. There’s also the Transall series, experimenting with rhythmically oriented sine tones and white noise. The work on Univrs develops the concepts originally explored on Unitxt (2008) – processing of single unit patterns and information stored in text. On this second installment in the series Nicolai expands his focus to broad source of data, universal language, if you will. French voice-artist Anne-James Chaton appears at the center of the album, on “Uni Acronym” reciting 208 three-letter acronyms in alphabetical order to tightly structured Notoesque signature rhythm0 The video for this amazing track can be seen here. It would be amazing to catch an audio-visual performance of Univrs, as it features real-time manipulation of software-generated test images by the audio signals, which are then fed through a custom hardware box that triggers the video signals according to the value of the audio signal. Never repetitive, but not necessarily random. As always, Nicolai manages to neatly fold zeros and ones into art, stripping away the binary, cold, and sterile fragments, until the digital signals transform into analog waveforms, that we, humans, seem to call ‘music’. This is a must for any serious collector of Raster-Noton’s catalog.

It is impractical for me to go over Uwe Schmidt‘s discography. You may attempt to cover the span of his output yourself, by starting with his 1993 releases as Atom Heart on Fax label, then covering his late 90s latin electro output as Señor Coconut, and finally arriving at his latest moniker, Atom™. Schmidt’s releases on his very own imprint, Rather Interesting, explore the abstract caverns of electronic music, finally landing the project on Raster-Noton, with 2009 Liedgut. The music unraveled in Liedgut yielded a series of photographs within the contextual framework of the album. The series was exhibited in Tokyo and Frankfurt in 2011 under the name Winterreise. The sonic accompaniment on the album is the audio soundtrack to these photographs. Although the glitchy and static noise on the album may at first appear purely digital and cold, there is a touch of classicism in the work, with a nod to Franz Schubert‘s same titled song cycle for voice and piano. “With a balance between the romantic and the scientific, this album evokes, not just accompanies the visual aspect of the Winterreise project in a perfect manner, by painting grainy sonic images that visualize the tradition and the future of the romantic subconscious.” The CD edition of the album comes with postcards depicting the exhibited images, so make sure to get a physical copy directly from the label. There’s also a limited edition of original art prints of the Winterreise photos, available at the r-n shop. Hauntingly beautiful. Music for the ghost in the machine…

The digital treats on Symeta, from Chemnitz (German) based Olaf Bender is a perfect way to start the trip. As a co-founder of the cutting edge German label, together with Frank Bretschneider and Carsten Nicolai, Bender’s Byetone project first appeared on the label in 1999, with an Untitled EP. In 2008 Byetone’s full length release, Death Of A Typographer turned more than a few heads, thanks in part to the hit single, Plastic Star. With this followup Bender continues the explorations the project for the label. The seven tracks on Symeta glitch, tweak and bounce through the atmosphere with a driving beat, repetitive patterns, and intricate layers of sound. The only organic matter present in the music is the approach with which it was composed – the album was produced within the context of a live performance. Edging close to a statically stenciled rhythm, the pieces on Symeta could easily be heard in clubs, mixed in with the hypnotic cuts of techno or electro genres. The saw-tooth industrial sounding bass drills push the boundaries of any sound system, and make a perfect demo disc for testing out a pair of speakers or headphones prior to the purchase in a store. Trust me, it’s fun!