Jamendo – betterwithmusic

New Release: Onus

Onus is a bad day. A slump.

Surely the most gray and sad work that I ever made for this library. A step beyond melancholy, Onus tries to collect most of feelings and motivations that we can live in those times in which one is not quite right: from gloom to hope, anger, moments of simple contemplation.

When one collapses and at the same time want to get up and initiate change. When the head is going a mile a minute and yet one does not think of anything. This moments when you are blank and get great lucidity both.

Onus is melodic lines of strings and winds supported in electronic beds. With synths in the background and saturated drum machines. Guitars that appear suddenly, distant. There are broken rhythms and kicks that hit you. The result of mixing dark electronica with dramatic orchestral arrangements.
Influences… Actress, snowy beaches, silence, Arca, Haxam Cloak, Andy Stott, Ben Frost, Björk, Clark, wrong expectations, homesickness, cold snap, Theo Parrish, Herbert, violins and cellos, broken instruments, Hans Zimmer, Debussy, Britten, Shostakovich, Brian Eno, Johann Johannsson, Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto, hugs…

Free download through Jamendo or FMA

CC BY-SA

New release: Kuddelmuddel

Influences… Lykke Li, CHVRCHES, Crystal Castles, Electric Youth, Zola Jesus, Hundred Waters, Jessie Ware, Chairlift, The Chromatics, Metronomy… A little bit of Dum Dum Girls, Todd Terje, Liars, Wild Nothing, Beach House or Daft Punk’s “Discovery”. It may contain traces of OMD, New Order and Grauzone.

I cannot add much in this description that can not be seen from influences.

Ethereal pads working as sound bed, motives and melodies on synth, reverb guitars, drum machines that seem suspended in time, arpeggiated basses, side chaining to highlight the bass drum… Soft rhythms, but not much. Dance Music, but without excess.

Free download (FMA)

Free download and commercial licenses (Jamendo)

New Release: Viikinsaari

Viikinsaari is an island located in the lake Pyhäjärvi belonging to the City of Tampere, Finland. The island is a popular nature resort and an outdoor recreation area, attracting visitors all year round. In the summertime there is a boat connection to the island from the Laukontori harbour. In winter, the island can be reached by walking or skiing. The western part is a nature reserve, but there are also swimming shores, playgrounds, a small chapel, a fireplace for roasting sausages, a restaurant, a footpath through the nature reserve and a dance pavilion on the island. (Wikipedia)

Viikinsaari is the name of a movie that does not exist. A love story, a drama in which water plays a key role: the lake, the sound of the rain, a flood … An encounter in a extreme situation. But a situation that the players don’t know. To watch how something can be born while all around disappears. And viceversa (Spoiler?)

It’s a music poem and an imagination exercise for me and the listener.
The realization of an idea that I’ve been going around: create a soundtrack from three or four ideas, from an imagined story. There are no “real” images; it’s the listener who must to put it with a little help of the sound. So intimate, so universal.
Viikinsaari is small pieces for piano. And it’s water. It’s the piano that calls the shots through melodies and rhythms inspired by the sounds of water, their ways, their reflections … With string and wind arrangements that sound like whispers at times and other times explode in the ears leaving the piano in the background, like waves. A space for melancholy and contemplation.

Influences: Nyman & Sakamoto, a weekend in Tampere, leaky faucets, the first cold days of fall, lakes, images with cold colours, Chopin preludes, wet clothes near the fireplace, broken umbrellas in a dustbin, Satie & Debussy, Tom Wait’s Asylum Years…