‘Essays in Idleness’, my third full length solo release, will be available April 7 on Kranky.

By Gregory Adams
Six years on from ambient electronic artist Christopher Bissonnette’s last solo set for Kranky Records, In Between Words, he’s announced the follow-up. Titled Essays in Idleness, it hits retailers April 7.

A press release explains that the Canadian composer had worked on this latest set for two years, using but a self-built analogue synthesizer to plot out his soundscapes.

“The album is a series of experiments subsequent to a period of deep reflection on my working process,” Bissonnette outlined in a statement. “This sequence of tracks is the culmination of two years of intense exploration with the intention of allowing the medium to have a more profound effect on the outcome, the methodology allowing chance, risk and error to play a greater role.”

The eight-song set is said to feature a tapestry of “complex textures and compositional fragments” that play out as a series of “long held tones and sweeping drones.”

While samples from the set have yet to be unveiled, you can check out the artwork up above and peep the tracklisting down below.

While Bissonnette’s last solo long-player was 2008’s In Between Words, he issued the collaborative LP The Meridians of Longitude and Parallels of Latitude with David Wenngren in 2011.

exclaim.ca

“Canadian electronic musician Christopher Bissonnette followed, perched at one corner of the stage behind two laptops, a tablet, and a large mixer, letting an enormous projection screen dominate the center. Though he apparently keeps his live performances rare, the cinematic experience that unfolded showed no signs of rust. Bissonnette seemed to be controlling the video and audio simultaneously, impressionistic squares (occasionally blurred faces, other times rippling water, yet others drifting through nighttime traffic) paired with aching layers of electronic expanse. Though he stood behind a table of Apple electronics, the ping of an iPhone message alert in the audience felt exceedingly jarring amid Bissonnette’s organic, propulsive set.”

Full article at: http://consequenceofsound.net

I have some misgivings about publishing year end lists. But I do find that I gather great suggestions from other peoples lists. There is simply too much great music being made and never enough time to research it all. So with that, I hope that I may introduce some new work to others from my past years collection. 

I think I have finally narrowed my “Best Of” to 15. 
Strangely there was no stand out release this year. Plenty of incredible work, but nothing that seemed to deserve a special place at the top apart from the others. So the following are in no particular order.

Novaya Zemlya
Thomas Köner

The Expanding Universe
Laurie Spiegel

The Oram Tapes: Volume One

Daphne Oram

Contrail
Kane Ikin

The Decline Effect
Jim Haynes

Selected Ambient Works Vol. II Vinyl Reissue
Aphex Twin

Above All and Beyond
Helm

Flux
Robert Turman

Particle Language
Matt Carlson

12 Stationer VI
Akos Rozmann

Merciless
Mike Shiflet

Modern Jester
Aaron Dilloway

FE₃O₄ – Magnetite
Mika Vainio

DTI
Lee Gamble

Persuasive Barrier
Three Legged Race

I realized recently that I hadn’t posted on my own site in near to six months. I’ve been in hiding attempting to finish some new material that I have been working on the better part of two years. Experimentation with new recording processes and techniques takes time. At least that is what I’m telling myself to justify the large gap between releases. As you may have read if you checked out the Trash Audio article I posted several months ago, I’ve been exploring the world of synthesis after many years working mostly with an electroacoustic process. While the results may resemble my other work in some respects, I believe this work to be rather different. In tandem with this body of work I’ve been finalizing another album of tracks that are more akin to my last two releases on Kranky. I have made an effort at times to merge these two techniques but as of yet they are still two disparate projects. With that, I am hoping to have both these releases out into the wild sometime in the coming year depending on were they might be released. That is if anyone decides they want to release them.