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“When art trumpets that it does not have an emotional or spiritual facet—that is an aberrant or marginal phenomenon.”

Henry Flynt, from On Spirituality & Art
“I was thinking about the freedom that comes with feeling that one has finished a project—a recording, a tour, a piece of writing—to one’s satisfaction and that the road ahead is clear to embark upon something that feels different, and that you’re not tackling the same ideas over and over again.  That’s one reason why I’ve always liked toggling between different working situations—solo, duo, group and largely composed versus largely improvised methods.  To start again, differently, afresh—that’s always the dream.”

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Recorded in 1981 in the studios at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, this beautifully rendered track by Cheri Knight unfurls with the kind of shimmering undulations that artists like Yasuaki Shimizu were capturing around the same time. The music bristles with the raw spirit of DIY experimentation of that period of music-making. The other single from this work, Prime Numbers, is similarly wonderful. 


From Dublin-based artist Hilary Woods’ upcoming Acts of Light. The video is, in Woods’ words, “from old newsreels of archive footage on film, (it) muses on the beauty of community and resilience. This music video is a visual love letter to the Dublin City I grew up in, to the spirit of familial roots and the extraordinary moments in ordinary life that leave their lasting impression."
“a nature-focused aesthetic became appealing precisely because it promised a break from cultural pressure, from the pressure to constantly navigate complex human-built environments. It wasn’t so much that the natural world was actually simple, but that it offered an experiential simplicity for human observers. Nature wasn’t saying anything in particular and didn’t demand anything in return. By offering compelling forms in isolation from human contexts, natural imagery tended to support the kind of attention Brian Eno had earlier highlighted as central to ambient music, the experience of perceiving something “as ignorable as it is interesting”

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Artist & Designer Ben DuVall invited Eric Hurtgen of New Rural to contribute to the 19th episode of his excellent monthly radio show, The Condition of Music on Seyðisfjörður Community Radio. The theme is ‘avant banjo’ and it’s an exploration of the banjo and beyond.

If you missed the live broadcast, you can catch the archived episode here. 
"I feel a kinetic and messy honesty that doesn't exist in any of the other music I've ever made. There is also a sense of being settled, of calm. There is no faking it here.”

Brian Allen Simon, Anenon
“Rather than finding beauty in a purely aesthetic sense, I tend to find beauty in certain moments and places, and certain living beings. It can be as simple as walking in Barcelona and all of a sudden noticing a building I already know from a different angle, or just noticing how amazing the color contrast is between the blue sky and a painted façade. Or seeing the first Alpine swifts that arrived two weeks ago. Or watching the sky at night with the backdrop of the Roman wall and medieval buildings of my neighbourhood from my window.” - Colleen



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“The music Nondi_ makes is informed by footwork, breakcore and Detroit techno. However, as she's only experienced them via the internet, she has filled the gaps with her imagination and consequently the music is rendered from a dreamlike solitude that feels adjacent to other internet genres such as vaporwave. Her tracks are gauzy and abstract, smeared with gentle melody, rusty tones and occasional shafts of sunlight, sometimes set to a distant pulse, sometimes collapsing as if the music itself is falling apart.” 



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Some of my favorite images come from inspired amateurs. Not because of the lack of pretense or because the work is somehow more pure than that of professionals, I think the ground is pretty level for most of us in that area, but the kind of care that amateurism often affords. In this case, I’m thinking specifically of the rare illustration work of Ray Topping, a British connoisseur of American roots music. And even more specifically, I’m thinking of this watercolor he did for a compilation of the music of Rakotozafy.

Eric Hurtgen

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