Rainbow Monolith by Reid Karris

Fragile Canvas - Matija Mikovic

Cut A Lonely Figure - In Sea, In Circles, In Concrete

NO2 by Glice

It's Christmas Time! by Pepper Mill Rondo

GRAM by Boiz With Diaries

The Failed step in the origin of Dragon ships (Pablo Picco, 2020)

To Stop And Stare And Start Again by Katadreuffe

R. STEVIE MOORE + PERIOD BOMB "HONESTY PROBLEM"

Bleak House - Outwardly

wondering o . fire under the ashes by wondering o

Alcolismo Cronico by Lo.Obnot

Pepper Mill Rondo - Elf By Myself

s​/​t by Capelo

Murmurs and Things by Earth Child Nine

Pulse Emitter - Fairy Tree

S​/​T by MOONOVERSUN

Born in a Bag by Rosé Perez + Period Bomb

Yasuyuki Uesugi - Maditation

Neither Here Nor There by Tim Walters

Circumzenithal Arc by J Hamilton Isaacs

Presence by Michael Peters & Fabio Anile

Fuc's by Fuc Lerrari

DC33.33 - Ibis Color Millet

Retroactive Rock Record - Output 1:1:1

Splinter by Caustic Reverie

Floréal EP by Sontag Shogun

Cares - Lucid

Horror Music You Can Sleep To by Chase Coley & Pascal Colman

Moth Cock - I'd Wear One By My Side

The Original Instigator by Muep Etmo

Oscillating Forests by BUILDING CASTLES OUT OF MATCHSTICKS

Gor West by J. G. Sparkes

.​.​.​for some reason that escapes us by Vilhelm Bromander & Fredrik Rasten

MMXVI by Connor Creegan

super bells lemon slice by butter city poster boys

Pour Alto Seul by Johan Arrias

Farewell, Doomed Planet! by Elizabeth Joan Kelly

Tetrahedron [Overlay] from Platonic Solids by matt barbier

Self Assembly by Dexter Dine

I am Hitting My Head Against the Walls by Greg Nahabedian

First Offence by C_FA.PP

Sub by Hypnodial

Beauty of Unkempt Places by nomazii

Amphigouri by Dominic Jasmin

Issue at Track Level - Output 1:1:1

Conjunto Teledirigido Anfibio - Limbo

Geiger von Müller - Toys In Ghettos (Part 1)

Le ciel d’hiver by L'ÉLECTRIQUE BRÛLANT

isPlorica by nephew lagoon

🎶 4 HSP ć ASMR vol. 2 by Magic From Space

Wobbly - Medieval Refrigerator

SOTM w Tetuzi Akiyama & Toshimaru Nakamura: amplified clarinet and trumpet, guitars, nimb

SOFT THOUGHTS

reprise by krzyzis

HADRON by bella

INTERSTAT by Donoval & Fiala

Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - Bright Light City

Ruined by Luxury by Nathan McLaughlin

Unmoved, Unspoken by Dean Leininger

Heavy Lifting - Thanks For Watching

Auditory Resignation Vibrations by The Underachieving School

Zachary Zena Giberson - Tryhard's Lament

Electric Herbs by J.A.R.

Bonnie Baxter - SPIRIT ENEMA

Broken Telephone by THE SIDE EYE

Battement Développé by Snek Trio

Soundholism One by Dan Johnson

Music from Hinterland by Louis Palfrey

Whettman Chelmets - The Devil DoubleCrossed You

Machine Listener - Lychguard

Agroforest by Austyn Wohlers

Home Windows by storyinsoil

Two Skeletons Having a Scrap (James Ensor) from Sweeping Tendrils by Superintendent Idle Tiger

Accidents by Rïga

Songs​/​Signs by Flos

leedian - Breathe

Music From the Brute by C.L.

The edges are all wrong. by Neuro... No Neuro

Hyperborea by Hiemis

Live In Oakland by Dax Pierson

Shopland - Various Artists

Sontag Shogun - "Cages"

Thule by HIEMIS

The Greg Olsen Experience - Bermuda Joyride

I Am An Italian Souvenir by Quimper

Black Sand by Jumpel

Ruined by Luxury by Nathan McLaughlin

Slim Spin from Duo Duo by Operator Music Band

RXM Reality - I'm a Switch

odd person ||| the gardens of illuminated passage

The Tip of My Spirit Cuts Through Everything by Jo Bled

Veronica Moser presents: neurodiversity fight back! by Veronica Moser

Northwest - Pyramid

Tatlo by Imelda Marcos

Carol Anne McGowan & Richard Bolhuis - Eve

Suculenta by Palm Era

The Black Isle by Manja Ristić

I'm Going to Miss You by Fey

Eartheater - Put a Head in a Head

Manitoulin Tapes by Playdate

Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - The Mad Hatter's Ball (feat. Martin Newell)

Christopher Hill & the Stardust Crush - Thoughts And Prayers For The NRA-MAABA-EP

Musical Insect Digital Insect by Larry Wish & His Guys

Sreym Hctim - Fairweather Friendship Bracelet

M.A.K.T. Sono - Tinnitus Flowers - 3

Recollections Suite from Doesn't Remember​.​.​. by Whettman Chelmets

Y Côd Da Vinci by Gwasg Gelert

Ascendant Abyss by Strangerous

IFTB by Information For The Blind

Distinction (a Ballet in Six Parts) by a Light Sleeper

Holey Wholly Holy by Old Murders

SCAT vol​.​1 by Van Klokan Band

Sontag Shogun - It Billows Up

Rutger Hauser - 4 The Swim | Av Brunni Við Streymin

Dry grass by Juan Antonio Nieto

Alien Lizard - Tangerine Cloud

Uivo Zebra

Guitar Improv Summit Vol​.​1 by Lotus Lungs

may HD - sonho dobrado

SPINAL FLUID by Acts and Acts

Tempest from DREAM by 4:44

ultra extra by shamane

40 Hours by Tristan Welch

Simulation - Everyone Goes Down the Spiral Staircase

Nature Has Forever by Anthony Weis (Interview)

Long time Chicago composer Anthony Weis has a new experimental folk album out entitled Nature Has Forever. It’s a unique, accessible exploration of organic sounds and techniques in music making. From the title, you can gather there is an attempt to return to some unadulterated, back-to-basics, or “natural” aesthetic. Janky sounding stringed instruments (often home made) together with acoustic “found” percussion and the occasional field recording are used to create ever-evolving, instrumental funk-folk compositions. It (usually) doesn’t rely on some repetitive theme or riff, opting to evoke a sense of unpredictability while (usually) carefully staying on beat and in key. It’s easy on the ears except for some moments here and there of chaotic improvisation. However, the use of many of these aesthetic choices and compositional techniques is somewhat bumpy, uneven. Words like “usually” and “mostly,” as you’ve noticed, are useful in description. It’s eclectic and sort of evasive in a sense, which is most likely a product of Weis’s years of exploring different genres, as the man himself will tell you...

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Caliper (C): There's obviously elements of a lot of different styles/genres going on here, folk, jazz, rock, progressive, musique concrete. If you had to give the style of music on this album a name what would it be?

Anthony (A): I was initially calling it “Experimental Acoustic Rock”, but I also saw one website classify it as “Experimental Folk” and “Music Collage”. I think all of them work. I’ve always tried to be a student of music and explore as many genres as I can. After absorbing the style to some degree, it usually pops up into my future writing. I really don’t try to force these disparate elements together, they just sort of bubble up and expand my working palate. Recently, I’ve been learning Flamenco guitar as well as Gypsy Jazz, just for the enjoyment of it. I don’t plan on incorporating those styles anytime soon, but they may well bleed into my next project.

The hard thing when distributing my music is trying to classify it and I think this album is more eclectic than my last. There is a solo piano piece, an extended guitar solo track, slide guitar riffs, break beats, etc., so it can be challenging to tell people quickly what it is about. I seem to swing back and forth between an album narrowly defined in scope, and one that is more varied and messy. “Nature Has Forever” is the latter.



C: The title “Nature has Forever,” what does it mean to you and how does it relate to the overall aesthetic, the music, and the methods used on the album?

A: The main theme of the album was “nature”, as many of the track titles suggest, and some ancillary ideas stemming from that were “organic”, “acoustic”, “homemade”, and “handcrafted”. These words all created an atmosphere of where I wanted to take the album, which would be a departure from my last record, “Smashed Against Infinity” (2017), which was electric, aggressive, heavy, etc.

This overall aesthetic was to inform the instrument selection, which would feature acoustic instruments, such as acoustic guitar, banjo, ukulele, and harmonica, instead of loud distorted electric guitars, and hand played percussion instead of a full drum kit in many places. The “handmade” element came into play from the various homemade instruments I created for the project.

C: What are some examples of these homemade instruments? Which was your favorite to play with?

A: I’m not an experienced instrument builder by any stretch of that definition, but through playing with manipulated audio and field recordings in the past, I realized that I could pretty easily and cheaply make instruments on my own. My goal was to create different timbers and tones than you get with most of the traditional instruments.

I was able to create 2 main types, homemade percussion and handmade string instruments. The percussion elements pop up in beats on songs like “Slide Slide Harmonica” and “Back To The Primitive”, the latter of which I was especially pleased with the results. That beat was created using the wood scraps from the building of my stringed instruments. The percussion parts also included the closing of doors/drawers and miscellaneous junk and household items banged against each other, just to name some of the things that I can remember.

The string instruments were all primitive, consisting of 1-3 guitar strings attached to cigar boxes and 2x4 pieces of wood. The lead instrument on “Up, Glorious Soil!” is one of these (I made three), and I recorded it into my sampler and played it with a keyboard instead of playing it live. It had a surprisingly nice resonance and it was so sensitive, if you moved your hand at all on it, the notes would wobble in and out of tune, which you can hear on the track.

C: You say your goal with this record was to “to create unique sounds all (your) own.” Which track(s) do you feel most lived up to this? Why?

A: The lead track “Four Strings” is a great example of this. I was in the process of recording another song with my acoustic guitar, when I broke a string. I started to restring the entire guitar and while detuning one, I started to play riffs on it. It was tuned so low, that I could get some great bends and tremolo effects. At that point I had four strings still on, so I tuned it to a very low open chord, and wrote the song “Four Strings”.

On “Banjo, Banjo”, I had 2 melody lines going at once in one section of the song, a ukulele and a banjo. I liked both, but didn’t love it. Since both instruments are in similar parts of the frequency spectrum, I ended up splicing the two together to make one melody.

C: You mentioned using some field recordings to create soundscapes. What are some of the recordings you used? How were they manipulated? What do think they added to the music?

A: The two main themes I had going throughout the album were nature and building my own instruments, and I have soundscapes around both. Uncharacteristically, I ended up with a lot of extra tracks, maybe an additional 15-20, and it just so happened that all of the nature soundscapes were on those. I’ll probably rework/release those for another album down the road.

The field recordings of my instrument building are most prominent on “Up, Glorious Soil!” where the lead instrument is the one I was creating. Adding elements like that always interested me, and I think great examples of it would be the early Books albums.

The other way I like to use field recordings/soundscapes is to give additional textures and layers to tracks. I’ll add ambient noise recordings, buried low in the mix, to give tracks a warmer, less digital feel. Also, I’ll slow down/lower the pitch 50%, 25% of the original, and layer them together to create deep, bassy, slow moving beds for different parts of songs.

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Download of Nature Has Forever is available via Weis's Bandcamp.


Matt Ackerman, Anthony Weis

DIAGRAM 1 (THETA WAVES + SOMATIC DIALOG) Singles from the album 2012—2018

Kissing Infinity by Mira Martin-Gray

surface clouds by crushed, elated.

Somewhere Legacy by Moon Dream

METAL JOKER 2020 V​-​Edit + iMAD Musik /​/​/ ORGULLO LOCO! by Dr. Meme Vivaldi

Icer by TæT Music

hidden selves by Janna Lee and Corey Lyons

martin rach - dog and the city 2

Naked Sweatshop - "Miracle"

West Side Story Winner Of Ten Academy Awards by Spoelstra

shiver by gestura

BWV 1032 / BWV 1020 (trois espaces) by Simon Labbé

The Unlonely Raindancer by Keith Tippett

left by crushed, elated.

thouechocaves by ???

Skychief by JWPaton

ZONING: Kowloon Bay Suite by ERIC WONG + NATURALISMO + SHERMAN + SIN:NED

Injection by Sigh Of Relief

Seine & Mauvais - Nothing Special Bongo Tucker

I by Aloes

Zle Oko - Cycuta

Afternoons In The Valley by Peter Kris

*Todas Las Anteriores - Mis ojos arden en el espacio ciego

Melquíades - Immapancy

Mosaismic by IKARUS

Icer by TæT Music

Adrift by Hypnagogue

fine gnaw by SHAMIN

Le Rex "Escape Of The Fire Ants" from "Escape Of The Fire Ants" (Cuneiform Records)

Nothing Stays Buried (la la la la) by Karris Adams Duo

LUNAKIN

Tiger Village - Modern Drummer

Wooden Mirrors by Daniel Barbiero & Cristiano Bocci

Best of The Worst by Quainex

Passed by Surrenderer

martin rach live - densities, distances, differences

Wszystko Jeszcze Jest by Nac/Hut Report

Wilhelm Matthies and Reid Karris - roots and ripples

Bop Shoo Bop (Edit) by Duck The Piano Wire

Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - The Monosaccharide Inducer (feat. Norwood Grimes)

Flowers: Shrieking Sounds Under Morning Sun by Van Klokan Band

Mr. Lazy

monologue by Tomotsugu Nakamura

ARTIFICIAL BLOOD - SK8R VS. THE MAN

Seven Different Places by Mike Weis & Matt Christensen

Dear Body by Glice | Coen Oscar Polack

CLOUD DIAMETER

Mourning Cofee by Aequor

Enthousiasme viscéral by Sergio Castrillón + Émilie Girard-Charest

Everlasting by Matthew Bailey

Fleisch III by Glice

Greatest Hits by LIPGLO$$

Markus Reineke - Was soll schon passieren

The Origin Of My Depression by Uboa

Commonfate EP by Phineas Brady

an ark in my flesh by Mascara Snake

Back to the Salt Mines by Monumental Folly

Ashland Hills by Ryan Huber

Malam Malam by Wu Cloud

Rungs & Firstfruits by Stereo No Aware

All My Friends Live in Uncanny Valley—The Remixes by Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin

Corporate Coitus - David Hahn and Andreas Karaoulanis

Corporate Coitus from bestbefore on Vimeo.

Right after the forest by Saenïnvey

Liminal Humanwish by Verufycim

Alexithymia​/​Attachment Panic by fri(G)id

Starchild by Elizabeth Joan Kelly x Xqui

For A Ride by HAWN

andrew voigt & ed herrmann - assault of the palindromes

Edo & Arnold: 'Faversham' LP by chemical imbalance.

Nikola, Was Right ! by Giuseppe Pascucci, Vito Pesce

Anti​-​Litterbugs by Ray Kosmische

Project Vainiolla Ensemble Live @ Magnusborg Studios

Project Vainiolla Ensemble Live @ Magnusborg Studios from Project Vainiolla on Vimeo.

Withoutside - Balat

Girls Four And Eighty by Maedchen84

Caustic Reverie - Horizons Ablaze

DE​|​CON​|​STRUCT by Static Void Records

From Static Void Records: "DE|CON|STRUCT is made up of 4 tracks that have been split across two transparent square 5" records housed in a mini handmade gatefold jacket. The listener is encouraged to rip the tracks from the records and combine them into one in order to hear the project as intended."

Collection by Dexter Dine

Yamachan - Rose Gold Blue

eliana rosales - trazar líneas rectas, curvas

Live: Concentration Club by Drekka / Lather

The Thick Un's - Greasy Gambit

MOISTBVRP OSEDAX LP

ABRACASMOGMA by SMOGMA

Sarmen Candiego Tokyo et cetera EP

OCEANOGRAPHY by Craig Aalders

ROUGH & WOJTYLA featuring RICHARD PINHAS by ROUGH & WOJTYLA feat RICHARD PINHAS

The Noisy Whispers Compilation by Billy Yfantis

Cold Fire by Nick Maxwell

Resting As Worlds Collide by Kevin Griffin

Looking at Animals by Regular Expression

Post​-​Biological Wildlife by Juhani Silvola

tash by koby.

orlando - time zero

Talking For 40 Minutes by Zhivko Bozdanski

(split) by moduS ponY & VLK

ANXIOUS_BOT - Interview 12.12.18

Regular Expression - Zoo (Bert Haanstra, 1961)

Lerin/Hystad - Only Kindness

Pansy by The Wooden Brain

Luminous Fluid / Luminous Fields by GORPLORD

The Basement Room by SOLAR MAXIMUM

I Killed Myself, Ate Myself, Sold My Children, Prostituted My Wife, Amputated My Cock And Voted For Donald Trump 8xs Before The Bright Bruises On My Body Opened Into Gaping Portals Of Infinite (Ab​)​Solvency by Derivitive

Alan Courtis- Buchla Gtr (Excerpt)

Abstract Healing by ь ρ ட г x x ו ו ו .

Lonely Psalms by Aisuru

(chef kiss​)​° i told my cartographer "no map is right​!​" (thank you​)​° by shamane