single

Joanna Brouk Sounds Of The Sea

Label / Numero Group
Category / New Age, Ambient, Minimal
Code / NUM815

Originally released in 1981, Joanna Brouk's early new age masterwork ‘Sounds of The Sea’ blurs the line between classical minimalism and contemporary ambient. A gooey mixture of Moog drones, flute and quietly soaring vocals, she weaves a mystical web that’s sensuous and evocative, reminding us once again of her place as a real under-sung pioneer of the New Age movement, but also mercifully shy of the “wellness” baggage that so often comes with that scene’s more cloying facets. Deep, physical music, consider it essential listening if you’re into work by Maggi Payne, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Iasos, Antonina Nowacka. Joanna Brouk was studying under poet Josephine Miles in California when she came across electronic music. Somewhere along the line, she became obsessed with the idea of sound and began to explore its history and usage in rituals and healing traditions, eventually deciding to major in electronic music at Mills, where she was able access a Moog modular system and a Buchla. Brouk didn't use the instruments quite like any of her contemporaries, not having any formal musical training meant she approached the process like poetry, driven by feeling rather than method, enhancing her tapestries with a generous use of recordings of the natural world. 'Sounds of the Sea' was released in 1981 on cassette, a private press release on Brouk's own Hummingbird Productions imprint. She'd taken her music to local radio station KPFA who were impressed enough to give her a regular slot, and when Brouk played her compositions they immediately struck a chord with listeners. The label followed as a necessity to get music to her fans, and she released a run of cassette-only albums, some of which were collected on Numero's excellent 2016 anthology 'Hearing Music'. Getting to experience 'Sounds of the Sea' in full is a real privilege; although Keith Fullerton Whitman's Mimaroglu store netted a job lot of the tapes a few years ago, it’s otherwise been pretty much impossible to find in this version. Long spoken about - and a favourite among new age/ambient know-alls, the album highlights not only Brouk's unique, soft-focus intermingling of 20th century minimal instrumentation and 1980s electronic experimentation, but also how quietly influential her work has been on the sound itself in the years since. By attempting to find poetic language via modern recording techniques, Brouk chanced on a style that’s still capturing the imagination four decades later. As the label put it… “A conch shell bookends this journey into the deep, going down and down and down further, never reaching bottom. Drawing inspiration from various legends of mermaids and sailors, Brouk weaves circling flutes, vocals, drones and whale songs to describe a sense of unfathomable longing more clearly than words could ever express. It’s a hypnotic and profound achievement by one of new age's greatest composers.”

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Joanna Brouk Sounds Of The Sea

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