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SMALLFISHThis debut release from Sem is a delicious charmer of an album from Michael Cottone (previously to be found on the Post Piano Remix Project on 12k's Term offshoot - one of the highlights, in fact). Sounding something like a cross between 12k's more organic releases and a label like Plop, for example, the sound is delicate, yet robust, beautiful and atmospheric and packed full of lovely textural sounds. Elements of folkiness creep into the gentle guitar plucking, but it remains resolutely an electronic based work throughout and the way it builds on sounds and themes is warm, friendly and very, very listenable indeed. Scratchy background samples and layers of static, click and really interesting samples combine with the more musical aspects to give it a dense, yet still spacious feel. Fans of the aforementioned labels will find a huge amount to enjoy with this album and it comes highly recommended.IGLOOMAGHailing from the unfolding disaster that is Detroit, Michael Cottone ignores the post-industrial malaise of his hometown and indulges in some airy laptop ambience on his debut album. Crossing field recordings with electro-acoustic touchstones and heavily manipulated guitar, Cottoneblahblahblah- there's any number of ways to describe this album, but all of them sound like hoary old cliches, ubiquitous enough to now be virtually meaningless. But they all apply here: "soundtrack to nonexistent movie," "movie for your ears," etc., etc. But where I'm unsuccessful in finding apt words to describe this piece of art, Cottone succeeds in making an eminently listenable album of, for lack of a better genre-mashup, pastoral-glitch, maybe. But that's not entirely an accurate assessment. Here's four associations I made when listening to this album for three continuous hours: Imagine BOC signed to Kranky. Tortoise abandoning stringed instruments. Harold Budd with only a guitar and Nobukazu Takemura producing. Fennesz without the puritanical rigidity. There are a thousand more (not literally) of these, and Green Kingdom is both all and none of them. Labeling a piece of art reduces it, makes it more identifiable, and therefore less mysterious. As such, I'll refrain from making a definitive name for the sounds of Green Kingdom, because that's not fair to you. I received this with virtually no leading information as to what it would sound like, and it is a pleasant surprise that first time. I wouldn't want to ruin it.TEXTURAPastoral electroacoustic soundscaping of the most evocative and enveloping kind, The Green Kingdom's (Detroit-based graphic designer and sound artist Mike Cottone) self-titled album inaugurates the SEM label in fine style. Sampled textures and field recordings, melting organ chords, tinkling melodies, and cascades of acoustic and electric guitars establish becalmed ambiance throughout the album's nine settings. Electronic ‘noise' is present but not abrasively so; instead, it functions as atmospheric texture, like the rippling static that courses through “Broken Moonbeam” like the crackle of a dying campfire, and the lapping pitter-patter that suggests raindrops in “Cherry Sunrise.” Soft insect noises in “Amniopod” suggest a forest setting while the song's sparkling melodies glisten like sunlight reflecting off a pond's surface. The longest piece, the penultimate “Nocturne2,” pushes beyond the ten-minute mark but Cottone deftly sculpts a beautifully modulated flow throughout. The spirited “Cherry Sunrise” sometimes rises to a near-gallop but the album otherwise opts for meditative ambiance. That The Green Kingdom remains captivating throughout its near hour-long duration despite rarely straying from its bucolic style testifies to the material's superior quality.LOOPMike Cottone is a Detroit graphic designer and sound artist. His first released was in 2005 with a compilation appearances on 'Skamcats' of English electronic dance pioneer Skam label. In the same year he did another track for the ‘Open Remix Project’ compilation release on 12k/Term. In addition in 2006 he released two albums, ‘Lucky Bamboo’, [EKO netlabel] and ‘Meadowview’ [Heldernacht]. The music blends field recordings, glitch and soundscapes. Ambient textures, shimmering tone bells and stasis, gentle guitar chords and as a whole quite harmonic album.ONDEFIXEDéjà entendu avec Lucky Bamboo sur eko, le garçon propose un album sur lequel on trouve des morceaux ambient, très paisibles où dominent des notes de guitares dans diverses tonalités qui entrent en résonance avec des drones, des nappes, des sonorités abstraites, des crépitements, des samples de divers instruments (xylophone, boites à musique, piano, glockenspiel…) retravaillés au laptop… tout ça dans un ensemble très cohérent où la mélodie se fait toujours très présente dans des harmonies très douces, ouvertes sur les grands espaces. Au final, une belle palette musicales constituée de sons lumineux et chatoyants pour un album sans à-coup et qui devrait ravir ceux qui se délectent des productions du label Plop (Sora, RF, Lullatone…) ou de celle des anglais de City centre offices (Dictaphone, Donato Wharton, The Remote Viewer, Swod...)NO COMMENTDo you have someone with, you can just seat on a chair, talk (or not) about this pretty girl you just have crossed in the street, someone with whom you can just say that life is boring these days, without any consequence, someone with whom you can just listen to this small clickety-clack coming from a tiny string alternatively rubbing a shutter or the old gutter and then have a conversation on the deep interest of recording field sounds in the post-contemporary european culture for finally just come back to the initial nice girl of the street. Since the last year and the perfect ::lucky bamboo for eko, i now know that a musical creation can (easily) become a sort of immaterial (“broken moonbeam”) vector for friendship. The music of Michael Cottone is very far from the historical sound of motor city, far from any regulation and standard output activities, free and without particular fasteners, if it is not of a deep sincerity, of this sincerity of harmless gestures, these harmless gestures exchanged between friends – You have a friend.

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videoclip by Markus Schaefer website: TH.INK