Tag: Instrumental

  • M-PeX – [2017] Carianae

    M-PeX – [2017] Carianae

    Portuguese electro ambient guitar. Excellent mostly instrumental guitar and contrabass, just with a tiny bit of electronic ambience in the background. The release for me has an incredibly intense cinematic touch. Highly recommended for headphones to capture the subtle effects. Already a modern classic, I would say.

  • Frenic – [2011] Lessons From The Past

    Frenic – [2011] Lessons From The Past

    Melodic instrumental hip hop. Soft beats and beautifully aranged samples make this album a very special and very seductive entry into the instrumental hip hop genre. The tracks are not completely free of repetitive arrangements, but they have less repetetive arrangements than this sentence contains repetitive arrangements… 😉

  • Stephan Siebert – [2012] 10 Songs of 28 Years

    Stephan Siebert – [2012] 10 Songs of 28 Years

    Beautiful, easy listening Jazz. While there is no single smashing hit among the 10 songs, this release offers a consistent listening experience for almost an hour. Instrumental pieces, ranging from piano solo to a richly orchestrated saxophone jam. Only occasional hums are the only vocal parts. Recording and mixing are excellent, and is for my…

  • JT Bruce – [2005] Anomalous Material

    JT Bruce – [2005] Anomalous Material

    Instrumental progressive rock at its best. This over 10 year old album by JT Bruce contains just over one hour of meticulously produced music. No lyrics, but attention to detail throughout the 16 tracks. If you like this classic, you might also enjoy his 2015 release Vandal of Fortune (Jamendo).

  • Frenic – [2012] Present And Correct

    Frenic – [2012] Present And Correct

    A lesson in Funk remixes. This classic release by from Bulgarian netlabel Dusted Wax Kingdom showcases UK artist Frenic. His trademark is blending together vintage voice samples and funk music, served with some big beats.

  • Crepusculum – [2009] Sing on in Silhouettes

    Crepusculum – [2009] Sing on in Silhouettes

    Ambient guitars. Many of them. Strange, uncommon harmonies that sound uncannily familiar. Multiple acoustic guitars, all recorded by Fred Baty (aka Crepusculum), create a rich soundscape. Rhythmic chords and melody patterns render percussion unnecessary.

  • Just Plain Ant – [2009] Dig Deep

    Just Plain Ant – [2009] Dig Deep

    Fresh hip hop. I don’t listen to a lot of rap music. In fact, this is the first review to populate the tags hip hop and rap here. This album has it all: opulent instrumental tracks, multiple vocalists, detailed music backdrops. It shows what hip hop can be like: fresh, so fresh…

  • Skaj Da Waidah – [2013] The Most Epic Chillout Album Ever! (EP)

    Skaj Da Waidah – [2013] The Most Epic Chillout Album Ever! (EP)

    Loopy funk grooves. If you ever wished during a rap song for the rapper to stop talking over the lovely background music, the Bulgarian netlabel Dusted Wax Kingdom is just for you. It specialises in that groovy sound sometimes called instrumental or abstract hip hop. This short 5 track release is an especially funky example…

  • The Sleeping Tree – [2008] Leaves And Roots

    The Sleeping Tree – [2008] Leaves And Roots

    Dreamy acoustic guitar folk pop. While writing this review, I realised that I already have reviewed praised a track by The Sleeping Tree back in my review on the 50th release compilation by 12rec. and compared him to Bright Eyes. Like then, melancholic voice and acoustic guitar are enough to create mellow impressions. My two…

  • XOC – [2005] Super Mario World

    XOC – [2005] Super Mario World

    Analogue reinterpretation of a legendary console game soundtrack. With almost 400,000 downloads from the Internet Archive servers), this release is of the classic gems of free music. Multi-instrumentalist XOC took the effort of precisely reproducing the original score for the SNES game Super Mario World, instrument by instrument, track by track. By using real instruments…

  • Alexandre Bateiras – [2012] Canções da Lua Nova

    Alexandre Bateiras – [2012] Canções da Lua Nova

    This is Portuguese folk. Acoustic guitars, singing of past times. Speaking of past times, the album was originally released in 2007 on the now inactive Merzbau netlabel. Fortunately for us, the Free Music Archive took over the task of archiving its releases. Only because of that, I was able to stumble upon this jewel of…

  • Emanuel Salvador – [2007] Selected Performances

    Emanuel Salvador – [2007] Selected Performances

    Classic music it is. Violin and piano or orchestra, playing Debussy, Elgar, and Fiorini. Purely instrumental, the live recordings have much dynamic range, i.e. there are both quiet and LOUD moments. This release contains both traditional and contemporary music, as long as it’s violin.

  • Nine Inch Nails – [2008] Ghosts I – IV

    Nine Inch Nails – [2008] Ghosts I – IV

    Nine Inch Nails is a industrial rock band with experimental touch. Experimental not only in the musical sense, but also in that they try out new forms of music distribution like giving it away for free. Ghosts I-IV is an improvised 36 track album with anonymous tracks, only grouped in “Ghosts I” to “Ghosts IV”.…

  • Cam Butler – [2004] Dreamland EP

    Cam Butler – [2004] Dreamland EP

    Cam Butler would easily win any “Be the next Ennio Morricone” contest, the composer of well known italo-western movie soundtracks like Once Upon a Time in the West. Cam Butler’s music sounds just like one of those soundtracks, but much happier. Guitars and violins ride into the sunset, riding on a chivalry of classic march…

  • EugeneKha – [2010] River Songs

    EugeneKha – [2010] River Songs

    This week’s review is about a great piece of Ambient “World” music released at the magnificent Clinical Archives netlabel, a steady source of “eclectic and illogical music”. Its self-proclaimed aim is to broaden the definition of music. EugeneKha’s River Songs are not attempt in this direction, but they are a dozen well-crafted ambient songs with…

  • Various Artists – [2008] So Much Achieved. So Much Left To Do.

    Various Artists – [2008] So Much Achieved. So Much Left To Do.

    This album is the 50th release of the netlabel 12rec. from Germany. It covers the range of the label which mainly publishes experimental guitar music with a touch of folk. 17 different tracks wait to be discovered. I present my three favourites in the following.