Western Vinyl – Queen City Sounds and Art

Listen to Erik Hall’s Bold and Lively Interpretation of Steve Reich’s “Music For a Large Ensemble”

Erik Hall will release his new album Solo Three on January 23, 2026 via Western Vinyl. The composer and multi-instrumentalist interpreted pieces by Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Spiegel and perhaps most ambitious of the group, “Music For a Large Ensemble” by Steve Reich. The composition originally written in 1978 for at least 23 performers finds its bright, lively spirit in dazzling sonic detail with its component parts supporting, augmenting and complementing each other in short and then longer lines back to those shorter and alterations in accent and volume to bring to the experience of listening an organic feel and one that stimulates the mind with the simple joy of its arrangements. Hall uses a divergent sound palette with synths, organs, pianos, guitar, bass (all performed, recorded and mixed by himself—impressive on its own) to lend a modern almost electronic music aesthetic to one of Reich’s classics. Listen to “Music For a Large Ensemble” on YouTube and follow Erik Hall at the links below.

Erik Hall on Twitter

Erik Hall on Facebook

Erik Hall on Instagram

“Marina pt. 2” is an Ambient Jazz Fusion Portrait of Leisure Times in the Coastal Subtropics

Shrunken Elvis, photo courtesy the artists

“Marina pt. 2” has a steady clip of a beat with sunny, impressionistic guitar work sketching melodies over shimmering fades. The song by the curiously named Shrunken Elvis sounds like something written from the memories of being near a subtropical coast in latter half of spring between school breaks and summer vacation when the weather is nice and when the crowds are not as active. It’s a time when one can relax and let the days stretch out some while engaged in relaxing activity. The song builds so that the guitar is more distorted and playful. Like some of Brian Eno’s collaborations that include Robert Fripp cutting loose and then reigning it in. One imagines perhaps leisurely boat ride out of the marina into choppy waters and then into more tranquil parts of the bay and returning once again to dock with the sunset. Listen to “Marina pt. 2” on YouTube and follow Shrunken Elvis at the links provided. The trio’s self-titled album released September 5, 2025 on Western Vinyl.

Shrunken Elvis on Western Vinyl

Spencer Cullum on Instagram

Rindert Lammers Eases Us Into a State of Tranquil Restfulness on Ambient Jazz Track “Sleep Well Hiroshi Yoshimura”

Rindert Lammers, photo courtesy the artist

Peter Marcus’ video treatment for Rindert Lammers’ “Sleep Well Hiroshi Yoshimura perfectly captures the tone of a transitional time of day at dusk and the air of peace that can permeate the landscape. At the beginning we hear a recording of a woman talk about how she slept in the back of her car on the streets of Tokyo for two years and having the greatest time of her life. It sounds like what it is, a speaker reading the words of a comment on a YouTube video, in this case one for Japanese ambient legend Hiroshi Yoshimura. This narrative gives way to soothing soundscapes and rhythms joined by Joseph Shabason’s warm saxophone melody sitting well within the incandescent tones, spare and hushed percussion and sketches of guitar. Altogether it establishes a calming pattern like the mind transitioning from wakefulness into the realm of unconsciousness as you drift off into unknown vistas of restful dreams. The light in the video fades into darker night in the video and all we hear is the vestige of the aforementioned voice and the abstract remnants of music. The song is part of the debut Rindert Lammers album Thank You Kirin Kiki which became available April 18, 2025 on Western Vinyl. Watch the video for “Sleep Well Hiroshi Yoshimura” on YouTube and follow Rindert Lammers at the links provided.

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Rindert Lammers on Instagram

Cici Arthurt’s World Weary Jazz Pop Single “Way Through” is a Song About the Inspiration Deficit in a World Plagued With Marketing

Cici Arthur (L-R: Thom Gill, Joseph Shabason and Chris A. Cummings), photo courtesy the artists

The title track to Cici Arthur’s debut album Way Through (released via Western Vinyl on February 21, 2025) has an easy pace to it like some kind of lounge pop song from the 1960s. But the production and quality of sound is more modern even if the sensibilities of the song suggest something more resonant across time. It’s a song written from the perspective of someone who has had a lot of life experience and is used to finding inspiration and creative stimulation just going through life and stumbling into it. Which is a function of being new to all kinds of experiences. But the song’s lyrics suggest a more deep world weariness and one that hangs heavy on most people now as so many things that are shallow and hyper marketed compete for and in fact are pushed into our attention and thus consciousness. But we have an underlying sense of it being utter nonsense. At least if you’re a thoughtful person that craves deeper experiences at least once in awhile. But when so much pressure is put upon to create fluffy content that has no real depth of thought or feeling much less creativity behind it, the cultural creations to which we have access can be watered down and when we’re being manipulated to be distracted and unsatisfied and or satisfied with a temporary dopamine hit the world can seem flat and low key hopeless. The songwriters seem aware of this phenomenon of modern life on a profound level and yearn for a path through this period and this haze that is weighing down the ambient human energy level. The song also hints at a personal revelation that often what we expect can warp our perception of how things are and may blind us to something we’re actually looking for but our ways of seeking are outmoded and the way we’ve conditioned ourselves might be ditched in favor of newer ways of being and seeing. And yet it’s hard to start over and this song’s tone in its downtempo fashion in a classic pop mode honors the humanity of wanting to find something to stir the imagination without having to toss out what you’ve already built up in your mind. Watch the video for “Way Through” with its vintage landscapes, human and otherwise, on YouTube and follow the members of Cici Arthur on their social media accounts linked below as well as find ordering information for the record on Western Vinyl’s website also linked.

Cici Arthur on Western Vinyl

Chris A. Cummings on Twitter

Joseph Shabason on Instagram

Thom Gill on Bandcamp

Alice Hebborn’s Ambient Modern Classical Piece “Saisons – Mouvement 6” is an Imaginative Voyage From Effervescent Spirits Into Meditative Quiescence

Belgian composer Alice Hebborn’s debut album Saisons is due out December 6 via Western Vinyl. The single “Saisons – Mouvement 6” is an immersive example of Hebborn’s gift for fusing tone, texture and rhythm as though sculpting it all out of an act of pure imagination trying to manifest a concept where the experience of each isn’t separated out as it might be in a more conventional musical mode. In that way Hebborn’s seemingly intuitive performance of the music is reminiscent of the work of Philip Glass and how his own best work seems to wed classical notions of tone and a more organic structure with rhythms drifting where the atmospheric emotional resonance guides it. In the case of this piece the piano, the electronics, the percussive sounds flow like a river and a journey along that river at once with dense sonics and atmospheres until the end where a calm spaciousness takes the place of layers of motion as though the energy of the earlier part of the song is finding its evening out of excitement into quiescence. Listen to “Saisons – Mouvement 6” on YouTube and follow Alice Hebborn at the links below.

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Alice Hebborn on Facebook

Montañera Expresses the Richness and Vitality of the Immigrant Experience With a Gentle Spirit and Grace on Ambient Pop Single “Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista”

Montañera aka María Mónica Gutiérrez floats in the slow flutter of swells and flourishes of textured, rhythmic tone on her single “Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista.” The track from her new album A Flor de Piel (released November 17, 2023 on Western Vinyl) examines the immigrant experience. The name of the song translates loosely into “You – The Edge of My Edge” in English. But more poetically, perhaps, the line of intersection between people and cultures and the arbitrary lines and boundaries we draw between people and cultures even when there’s overlap geographically, culturally and historically. The song’s tones are soft, gentle and enveloping and Gutiérrez’s vocals inviting and warm. There is a circular flow to the rhythms like a hypnotic frequency that is layered throughout and about which the atmospherics drift and reiterate as though guided by the words. Musically it fuses an environmental ambient aesthetic with a New Age pop feel akin to some of the later cosmic jazz compositions of Alice Coltrane. Whatever its roots of inspiration and direct or indirect meanings the song conveys a sense that the immigrant experience is rich and offers much to the nations where immigrants land and expands the reach and influence of the cultures from which they come as part of the grand vista of the human experiment on earth. Listen to “Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista” on YouTube and follow Montañera at the links below.

Montañera on Facebook

Montañera on Bandcamp

Montañera on Instagram

Joseph Shabason Pairs His Cosmic IDM Jazz With Elegant and Graceful Skating Footage on the Video For “Jamie Thomas”

Joseph Shabason, photo courtesy the artist

Joseph Shabason’s new album Welcome to Hell (released on October 20 via Western Vinyl/Telephone Explosion Records) is a tribute to and reinterpretation of the 1996 skate video from Toy Machine that propelled skaterboarders Mike Maldonado, Elissa Steamer, Brian Anderson and others including Jamie Thomas. In the video for the song named after Thomas we hear the intricate rhythms and dusky atmospheric melodies, wordless voices and lush vibraphone setting a mood like a cosmic after hours jazz session in an IDM mode. It has a cool elegance that pairs well with Thomas’ own series of navigating stair rails, streets and other environs by day and night seemingly able to make those landings with relative ease but not without the element of danger inherent to the sport and the wide variety of landscapes we see Thomas make look like no big deal, no sweat. Many people got introduced to great, cutting edge music through skating culture and skating videos from the 1970s onward and this is an example of that tradition but with not the traditional forms of music often associated with the culture. Watch the video for “Jamie Thomas” on YouTube and follow Joseph Shabason at the links below.

Joseph Shabason on Facebook

Joseph Shabason on Twitter

Joseph Shabason on Bandcamp

Joseph Shabason on Instagram

Christopher Tignor Articulates the Anxiety and Concern of the Modern Era on “The Resonance Canons”

ChristopherTignor1_sm — Christopher Tignor, photo courtesy the artist

“The Resonance Canons” by Christopher Tignor sounds like something that might have come out on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label in the 90s. It is tightly composed but feels spontaneous. The track is over eleven minutes long but because its sounds and dynamics are organic driven by Tignor’s prepared piano and violin, and his tasteful use of electronics, it feels like you’re on a journey through a sacred space in your mind and plumbing psychological spaces you’ve neglected. The glittering melody halfway through the song is the sound of personal illumination after a passage through personal darkness. Music with similar emotional resonance can be brooding but this song sounds like some of the heaviness that weights on so many people right now with the state of culture, politics and the environment, a persistent concern mixed with hope. As the track progresses into its last chapter, spare textural melodies and low end swells accent a sense of uncertainty about the future even as chimes and the constant, beat loses its tonal quality into pure minimal percussion like a sense of acceptance of the pervasive sense of the pervasive tentative mood about our future potential as a species. Deeply emotional stuff from a guy who has been steeped in the worlds of avant-garde and modern classical music not to mention his job as a software engineer for Google but maybe that’s the background that helps in putting together a complex and moving piece such as this. The song is a part of the forthcoming album A Light Below due out on Western Vinyl on 10/11/19. You can listen to the track on Soundcloud and follow Christopher Tignor at the links below.

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