release date: 14.10.2022 on Crammed Dics, Made to Measure series
KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH , CHRISTINA VANTZOU, STUBBLEMAN, LUCRECIA DALT, CAMILLE MANDOKI, MATIAS AGUAYO, MARY LATTIMORE, INNE EYSERMANS, FÉLICIA ATKINSON, BENJAMIN LEW, STEVEN BROWN: Eight distinguished artists wrote and recorded original pieces for this album which joins the dots between vintage, experimental and neo-classical ambient, and pays tribute to the relaunched Made To Measure composers’ series.
All tracks were made to measure for this album, and revolve around the loose idea of wordless fiction.
Aside from being such a seductive, fascinating collection of tracks and moods, the album is also modestly aiming at joining dots between certain classic ambient composers (represented here by Benjamin Lew & Steven Brown and Stubbleman, whose work has previously appeared in the Made To Measure series), artists who approach experimental ambient from their pop or club background (Lucrecia Dalt, Inne Eysermans, Matias Aguayo), and eminent exponents of the great new generation of ambient music composers (Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Christina Vantzou, Mary Lattimore, Félicia Atkinson).
The cover of Fictions is a reproduction of a painting by renowned Belgian artist Angel Vergara Santiago (two of his paintings were already featured on covers of early Made To Measure volumes, back in the 1980s).
Fictions was curated by Marc Hollander.
MADE TO MEASURE VOL. 47 – F I C T I O N S
LP / CD / DL – 14th October 2022
Crammed Discs – MTM47
Tracks featuring, by order of appearance:
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith,
the American modular synth wizard (US)
Christina Vantzou,
the Greek-American orchestral composer (US/GR)
Stubbleman
aka maverick ambient composer Pascal Gabriel (UK/BE), with Norwegian trumpet player Nils Petter Molvær (NO)
Lucrecia Dalt (COL) + Camille Mandoki (MX) + Matias Aguayo (CL/DE),
in a special collaboration
Mary Lattimore,
the celestial experimental ambient harpist (US)
Inne Eysermans,
the front person from Belgian indie band Amatorski (BE)
Félicia Atkinson,
the French experimental musician & visual artist (FR)
Benjamin Lew & Steven Brown (BE/US),
with their first collab in over three decades
Track listing
1. KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH WATERWAYS
2. CHRISTINA VANTZOU MUSEUM CRITIC
3. STUBBLEMAN FEAT. NILS PETTER MOLVÆR NE PAS SE PENCHER AU DEHORS
4. LUCRECIA DALT, CAMILLE MANDOKI & MATIAS AGUAYO SUMAMONE (THE FREE FLYERS)
5. MARY LATTIMORE BLUE
6. INNE EYSERMANS BIRD
7. FELICIA ATKINSON THE SUN, PERHAPS THREE OF THEM
8. BENJAMIN LEW & STEVEN BROWN A.D. SUR LA CARTE
*** miniBIOs ***
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: the West Coast composer, artist, and producer has chartered a pioneering career with multiple critically-acclaimed albums since 2015. After studying composition and sound engineering, and focusing her earlier work on her voice, she became enamoured with a Buchla synthesizer lent to her by a neighbour, and fully devoted herself to creating sonic worlds with modular synths. She received acclaim for her albums Ears (2016) and The Kid (2017). She has collaborated with Suzanne Ciani and Emile Mosseri, and has a new album out this autumn.
Christina Vantzou: deals with time expansion, atmospheres and harmonies through electronics and acoustic instruments. Her releases include four numbered solo albums of ambient-classical music on the American label Kranky, 2020’s Multi-Natural; a foray into abstract electronics and field recording released by the Belgian label Edições CN, two full-length albums with John Also Bennett as CV & JAB, and many other solo and collaborative works. In her most recent work, Vantzou focuses on shaping ceremonial and affective spaces where synthesizers, voice, piano and electronics envelop the listener, at turns glowing disorienting or mutating.
Stubbleman: after a successful and prolific career as a producer & songwriter (for artists ranging from S’Express to Dido), Pascal Gabriel has re-embraced his adventurous electronic ambient past with a project combining a lo-fi, cinematic mixture of found sounds, field recordings and modular synthesisers, often accompanied by live piano. He’s been performing music from his acclaimed Mountains and Plains album (2019, Made To Measure) backed by an orchestra of computer-controlled automatons of his own design. The track he’s recorded for Fictions is a collaboration with distinguished Norwegian trumpet player Nils Petter Molvær.
Lucrecia Dalt + Camille Mandoki + Matias Aguayo: this unique collaboration took place during an extended stay in the Mexican jungle. Highly-respected, Berlin-based Colombian experimental musician, composer & sound artist Lucrecia Dalt has traversed a myriad of musical portals to create a universe of her own. Mexican singer and sound artist Camille Mandoki explores the wildest shores of catharsis. In her performances – which have reached a legendary status in Mexicós noise / avant-garde underground – she works with complex synthesiser madness and captivates the audience with her stage presence and her intense singing. Genre-defying Chilean/German electronic music composer & DJ Matias Aguayo has been crossing countless musical borders since he emerged from the heart of Berlin’s techno scene a couple of decades ago.
Mary Lattimore: the Los Angeles-based harpist and composer is one of the foremost exponents of the current neo-ambient wave. She experiments with her concert grand harp and various effects. She’s released four acclaimed solo albums, her latest one was produced with SLowidve’s Neil Halstead. Mary also enjoys working on film soundtracks. She’s composed a score for Philippe Garrel’s 1968 experimental silent film Le Révélateur. She has collaborated with the likes of Harold Budd, Thurston Moore, Kurt Vile and Steve Gunn. Mary’s work is mostly inspired by the natural world.
Inne Eysermans: since putting her experimental ambient pop band Amatorski on hiatus (after a couple of very successful albums), Inne Eysermans has been spending time making sound and music in performance, installation, theater and radio/podcast contexts. She’s recently started exploring the sonic within the World Wide Web. Her works encompass listening, sound ecology and experimental approaches towards text/storytelling. This is one of the very few solo compositions she’s released so far.
Félicia Atkinson: the French musician, sound sculptor and visual artist has been charting a personal course with her abstract compositions (which often make use of field recordings, whispered voices) and the books she publishes -just like her albums- on Shelter Press, the label and book publishing house she co-founded. Félicia draws as much inspiration from novelists (including 80s sci-fi), poets and filmmakers as she does from musicians. She’s regularly performing in digital arts and experimental music festival around the globe.
Benjamin Lew & Steven Brown: the Belgian analog synth poet and Tuxedomoon’s co-frontman joined forces in the early ’80s to record two incomparable albums, which resonate today as they did back then (Mesmerising strangeness, elusive and fascinating, wrote the New Musical Express in 1983 while, in 2019, Pitchfork spoke about a stunning surreal debut, dreamlike, both earthy and ethereal). The track featured in Fictions was spawned by the pair’s first collaboration since the 1980s, which occurred on the occasion of a Made To Measure night in Brussels.
MADE TO MEASURE VOL.47 — FICTIONS (LP, CD & digital)
out on Crammed Discs October 14th, 2022