Velf
In A Sense

ORANGE MILK RECORDS: ...Japan’s Nobuyuki Sakuma is a prolific artist; formerly of the Jesse Ruins duo on the Captured Tracks label, he now shifts time between his electronic music project CVN, curating the mix series Grey Matter Archives, and chief editor duties at Avyss Magazine. “I.C.” will be his second album for Orange Milk as CVN, and it is an eclectic hybrid of beat music and abstract electronics. There is a searching quality in his music, with leaps in variation from track to track that are meant to elicit the mutating feelings of walking through Tokyo.The first track 成分 Seibun is a calm pop song featuring Japanese vocalist NTsKi, and feels like an initial encounter with nocturnal cityscapes. As the album progresses a stranger Japanese electronic music culture begins to emerge, referencing artists like good friend Foodman and label partner Koeosaeme with irreverent assertions of anti-genre music making. Tracks like “Snippets of Heaven” are reminiscent of music on the labels PAN or Halcyon Veil, cryptic and sparse with random industrial beats and scraping metal. “舌下 (Karaoke)” is a more forlorn piece with straightforward rhythm and deeply effecting use of repetition. Sakuma states that he lets mood dominate his track making and does not care if this transitioning emotion fits into a cohesive style. The skill of harnessing the random nature of each tracks aesthetic is impressive, resulting in an exciting record that faithfully documents its creators place and time.

ORANGE MILK RECORDS: ... Annulus is Ryu Yoshizawa’s third release on Orange Milk as Koeosaeme. His 2019 LP Obanikeshi was a barrage of high resolution abstract compositions, and Annulus picks up from there, refining the style and adding an extra layer of inspiration from the Southeast Asian folk music of Burma, Thailand, China, etc. He inserts music concrete with silky repetition, making you feel as if you are walking through parts of Asia, contemplating experimental music. Annulus is peaceful, melodic, atonal, and flows together as one big piece. Part 1 of the record is concrete music, and Part 2 is described as abstract music. It is distinctly Japanese despite other western influences like Steve Reich and Jon Hassell; music meant for a documentary that will be made in the distant future. Annulus features collaborations with Hidekazu Sakamoto, Seth Graham, and LXV.Koeosaeme is Ryu Yoshizawa. From 2004, he has been a member of the sound artists group “OFFICE INTENZIO” under Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Yukihiro Takahashi. In addition, he is in charge of live event backup support and recordings for Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yukihiro Takahashi, Kyoka and many others. He also produces music commercially for Lotte and Square Enix.

ORANGE MILK RECORDS: ...Review from 'a closer listen' ~"Luis Pestana‘s debut is unlike anything else on Orange Milk Records; in fact, it’s like little else on the market. The set unfolds like a radio play, embracing multiple genres and instruments: choirs and church bells, woodwinds and hurdy-gurdy. The Portuguese artist calls Rosa Pano “his own folklore, inspired by his mother’s lullabies,” although the timbres are more likely to wake a listener up than to lull one to sleep. There are no track breaks, providing a seamless experience; one is drawn into the dream. We would not be surprised to see a troupe adopt the extended piece for an exercise in creative choreography.“Oneia” begins as a slow march with church bells, a female voice and a sense of procession. At the end of the track, a clock is wound and allowed to tick; a baby begins to cry. Then chimes ring out and the tape enters a new phase, a fairy-tale world populated by buzzing sprites and synthesized surges that seem more Subtext than Orange Milk. Is the baby sleeping yet? As of Track 3, she is not. Multiple voices converge, keeping her awake and agitated. A short, solid drone leads to the busiest piece, “Au Romper Da Bela Aurora” (“A Break from the Beautiful Dawn”), where zither lays the foundation for an architecture of operatic voices.The electronic tones return for the end run, percussive in nature, implying a flight through the forest back to safer ground. At the end of “Asa Machina,” the machines break down with a stutter, revealing a persistent choir. A lone flute, possibly from Pan, leads to the nine-minute title track, in which a siren’s cry is answered by a chorus of wolves. As a final drone approaches, the fairy tales crash together on a single shore. Once again, church bells ring, the mysterious story returning to the beginning: cycling, although changed, like a dreamer nourished by fantastic visions. Are we dancing or are we dreaming? Either way, we’ve grown enchanted by Pestana’s folkloric world."(Richard Allen)acloserlisten.com/2020/11/22/luis-pestana-rosa-pano/ Celeste (vocals) Elizabete Francisca (vocals)Alibori H. (woodwinds) Bruno Pereira (zither)Janita Salomé (arrangement and vocals on 5)Vitorino (vocals on 5) Carlos Guerreiro (hurdy-gurdy on 5)Contains samples from Julia Wolfe, Warner Jepson,José Pinhal and Krzysztof KomedaWritten and produced by Luis PestanaMastered by James PlotkinArtwork by Mariusz LewandowskiLayout by Keith Rankin and Adrienn Császár

boomkat: ...Smiling C have us beaming again with ambient house treasure from a lesser-hailed node of the early ’90s UK house and rave sceneDancing between the lines of jacking Chi-house, psychedelic bleep techno and ambient house, the ‘Mad Vibe’ EP is the sole output by DJ Mad & Dr. Stevie The Ambient Guru, who, if we’re not mistaken, hail from the raving outpost of Middlesbrough on England’s North East coast - a sorely overlooked bastion of the original northern UK rave circuit. This level of detachment from the UK rave scene perhaps explains the offbeat formulation of the ‘Mad Vibe’ EP, which clearly echoes the styles of Yorkshire bleep ’n bass an hour south, but with a rawer, radgy, playful edge.A-side sports ‘Northern Echo’ with its properly charming mix of palm wine or Hawaiian guitar and simmering, latinate machine rhythms in deliciously woozy style, while ‘Communication’ hops around on a sparky jack attack with tumbling toms, nagging bleeps and catty psych guitar licks in the last third. B-side only gets ruder with ’System Shock’ working on the cusp of New Beat and some other strain of quintessentially UK rave nuttiness, and ‘Levitating Pharaohs (Full Frontal Spacehead Ambient Mix)’ wraps up in the barminess in balmy ambient guitar, sweet synth chords and rustling NYC deep house rhythms.

ORANGE MILK RECORDS:...Nick Storring's eighth album (and third release for Orange Milk Records) takes the one-person-orchestra approach for which he is acclaimed and translates it to a single instrument: the piano. Recorded on everything from the innards of an old upright piano to a Disklavier (a computer-controlled acoustic piano) housed at Yamaha's Toronto offices, and using playing techniques that span conventional to idiosyncratic, Storring conjures a vast and vivid colour palette. Music from 'Wéi 成为' was composed for the choreography of his frequent collaborator, Yvonne Ng and began its life in a residency at the Banff Centre in December 2017. Just like the unique movement vocabulary found in Ng's quintet dance Wéi 成为, Storring's copiously layered score moves fluidly between tender lyrical phrases and driving interlocking figures, and from thick textural swarms to supple transparency.