Who are my listeners?

 It's so fascinating to see the countries where my music is listened to, through Spotify's globalized streams... It's not so much the number of streams as the worldwide distribution of listeners, who through algorithms and playlist crossings, listen to this or that track, from one time zone to another, from one continent to another...

Who are these listeners? When and how do they listen to my music? What do they think about it, what images cross their minds? Why do some of them save my tracks, include them in their playlists, and decide to follow my musical adventure?

I'm thinking of those unknown people, in Japan, Brazil, Australia, Canada, India or Africa, who devote a little of their time and attention to my music...

Thanks to all the Spotify playlist curators who make my music travel the world!

Visit my Spotify page!

Works in Progress: What is coming next?

 

In my musical workflow, I divide my recordings between different parallel projects, which take shape as I go along. I like the way my music develops intuitively and almost organically, like a tree with multiple branches stemming from the same roots.

Certain branches grow, branch out and become stronger: they outline album projects that gradually take shape... I take the time to let them mature and rest. I like this idea: you have to let the music you compose rest, let it grow and mature, until it's ready to live its own life, like a person, and go out to meet possible listeners, along the paths of the vast world.

Other branches won't grow, too fragile, unfinished, with no real flowering... They will remain in my musical nursery, waiting for additions, inflections, new ideas that will perhaps enable them to resume their growth...

My albums thus take time to mature, as I listen to them and make corrections, and the moment comes when a concept, a title, an artwork naturally emerge...

 

Ambient Music Today...

Global audience of an independant musician: map of my Spotify listeners (April 2024)

Today, ambient music creation is more active than ever... Dozens of musicians are creating new soundscapes, often demanding and experimental, and sometimes achieving international fame (Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Nils Frahm...),

Film and series productions are multiplying the opportunities for trailers and soundtracks, and often the accompaniment of the image allows a certain experimentation in the music...

Numerous independent labels are springing up, offering visibility to emerging, confidential or already-recognized artists, with no concern for immediate commercial profitability. In addition to musical quality and innovation, these labels often add a high standard of design and packaging, giving a new life to the discographic object, in the form of a CD or e-record.

A platform like Bandcamp is a veritable marketplace for independent creation, forging lasting and equitable links between musicians and their audiences...

A whole ecosystem of enthusiasts and activists circulate this independent creation in the form of blog reviews, podcasts, radio shows and playlists.

Despite the opacity of their algorithms and their often derisory remuneration, streaming platforms are bringing independent creation to the four corners of the globe, from New Zealand to Canada, from Argentina to Japan....

LIGHTWAVE - CITES ANALOGUES - BANDCAMP EXCLUSIVE RELEASE !

 

 

"Cités Analogues" is the first opus by Lightwave, reformed as a duo by Christoph Harbonnier and Christian Wittman. Recorded between April and May 1988, then edited and produced in July 1988, "Cités Analogues" was distributed as an audio cassette via various alternative circuits.

After the experiments and improvisations of their first cassette, "Modular Experiments", recorded with Serge Leroy, Lightwave chose the form of a concept album, built and thought out from different climates and compositions assembled to form two long cross-fading tracks.

All compositions were recorded live on a Revox B77, using an Allen & Heath 12/2 mixer.

The mixing is therefore live, and the different parts of this album bear witness to Lightwave's live performance, where instrumental interplay takes place in mutual listening.

The instrumentation consists mainly of analog synthesizers, including several modular ones (RSF, ARP, Roland, Oberheim), while the sequences and rhythms are driven by two Roland sequencers.

The first digital effects contribute greatly to the spatialization and depth of the sound.

Recordings of urban atmosphere and tape processing enrich the overall framework with experimental punctuations.

"Cités Analogues" is thus a seminal album for the Harbonnier - Wittman duo, laying the foundations for a musical collaboration that continues thirty-five years on, based on the complementarity of their skills and sonic universes.

Long overdue, this remastered reissue of “Cités Analogues”, produced by Christoph Harbonnier, documents an important stage in Lightwave's trajectory and reflects the kaleidoscope of its influences at the end of the 80s, between the Berlin School, Brian Eno's ambient, and a certain French-style electro-acoustic experimentation.

"Expanding Galaxies" — Feedback from Spotify playlists curators

 

AMBIENT PLAYLISTS FOR MUSIC LOVERS...

 

ATMOSPHERIC CLASSICAL

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3N2LWhyPp3lQbGeYY6z7H2

 

IMMERSIVE AMBIENT

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6avkMF8k6498gAGHyGrKk0

 

AMBIENT ESCAPES

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4qLDHECTZt694qI6WzT9ok

 

"The Story of the Sun, Moon and Stars"

 "The Story of the Sun, Moon and Stars": between space music and atmospheric classical, a flight through the dreams of speculative astronomy...



HD Tracks : https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/the-story-of-the-sun-moon-and-stars



 Streaming: Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Deezer, Tidal..

New album: "The Story of the Sun, Moon and Stars"

Dear friends,

It gives me great pleasure to inform you of the release today of my new album, "The Story of the Sun, Moon and Stars", in the eRecords series from the renowned British label Whitelabrecs.

Founded in 2015 by Harry Towell and bringing together over a hundred artists from all over the world, Whitelabrecs offers a rich panorama of today's ambient, electro-acoustic and modern classical music, with particular attention to the design of the albums, divided into series that make them unique collector's items, in digital or physical form.

Inspired by a speculative astronomy book by Agnes Giberne (1898), "The Story of the Sun, Moon and Stars" marks a new stage in my musical journey, at the crossroads of ambient and atmospheric classical music genres.

As a new release in the digital-only eRecord series of Whitelabrecs, my album on Bandcamp includes a special PDF booklet containing liner notes and photos.

.... while in deep, deep thought....

" Absolutely great music to surround yourself in while in deep, deep thought. Clearing your mind of the day's events, and just drift away... "

Thomas, Bandcamp fan

 Bandcamp

Spotify

 

 

First Glimpse

 Whitelabrecs Announcement!

Here's a first glimpse of an album we have on the way from Christian Wittman, one half of the legendary ambient duo Lightwave:

 

More news soon, to be announced on our website:  

 

https://whitelabrecs.com/

 

 

Whitelabrecs · eR026 christian wittman - expanding galaxies

Minimum Waves

 

While much of the new digital ecosystem of online music is governed by opaque algorithms, there is fortunately an archipelago of individual initiatives and creative platforms - blogs, podcasts, radio shows, playlists - driven by passionate and often expert listeners with curious and adventurous ears, enabling different, non-commercial music to circulate and reach its audience...

It's impossible to overstate the importance of these independent, multiple, decentralized media, spreading new webs of sociability between musicians and listeners eager to explore different sonic universes, with the freedom to choose and discover, rather than endure algorithmic recommendations and the anonymization of cross-faded playlists...

Thanks to all those who relay my music in multiple forms to listeners I could never have reached without them... and today, a little spotlight on the "Minimum Waves" podcast, which included my track "Tension vs Extension" in its latest episode!

Link
 

Review of "Sphaera Armillaris" (Audion 77)

 

Many thanks to Andy Garibaldi for this great review!

 

Impressionism: New album on Disco Gecko Recordings!

 

         

Impressionism draws its inspiration from nineteenth-century French paintings by Manet, Monet and Van Gogh, and the particular sensory and visual universe that accompanies them: steamy landscapes, the interplay of colours, reflections on water and moving lights that created evanescent visions in a landscape.

The resulting album is minimalist and sensitive, evolving soundscapes with an aesthetic close to classical chamber music, enhanced by electronic colours and textures.

Impressionism deepens the aural universe found on Christian Wittman's first album for Disco Gecko Recordings, Shadows of Fading Time, unwinding the threads of an intimate, introspective sonic journey to lose oneself in a labyrinth of images and atmospheres imbued with a gentle, contemplative melancholy.

Spotify https://spoti.fi/3wD9wCl
Apple https://apple.co/3IfxQg9
Bandcamp https://bit.ly/4bXUWFr