Maria Papadomanolaki has been a part of the ASIP library for a few years now. One of the first artists that caught my ear on the n5MD label, I remember seeing Maria perform many-years ago in London alongside Winterlight and port-royal. Dalot's shoegaze-inspired ambient drones kicked off a brilliant night of relatively unheard artists from the n5MD roster that left me chasing down many back-catalogs as a newbie to n5MD.
After providing a remix on Uncharted Places, Maria was a part of our second vinyl compilation, Europe, finding harmony as she looked back at her home of Kalathas beach in Greece, and setting a warm and gracious tone as the opening track. Her music is often varied as far as ambient goes, from delicate micro-textures, to guitar-laden soundscapes, or as heard on her most recent outing for n5MD in Mutogibito; a moment of rebirth and celebration embracing her post-rock-side, whilst also toying with the more organic elements of experimental electronica.
Just as you think you've got her down, Maria goes and partners with Vietnam's, Sound Awakener, on a new project called 'Little Things', further venturing into microscopic details and varied textures; something the two of them have clearly enjoyed partnering on. Guitars, analog synthesizers and of course a multitude of field recordings create a truly rich and varied palette of ambient and experimental recordings on this release for Fluid Audio. It's music that's evidently filled with heart, obsessed over, and then completed with the tiniest of finishes in mind - a sentiment echoed in Fluid Audio's beautiful packaging for the release.
When I asked for a Dalot isolatedmix, I didn't know which way Maria would take it, but the end result works in harmony with how I began to describe her work alongside Sound Awakener in Little Things.
Titled 'Un-time', it's a mix of music that bleeds emotion, texture and escapism - all similar traits found in her latest production. A connoisseur of instrumental and organic based ambient music, Maria includes masters of the practice such as Marsen Jules, Taylor Deupree and Harold Budd, to create a blanket of warmth, as microscopic sounds of an abstract nature surround you.
In Maria's own words, “Un-time offers an open space, a space for undoing and reflection and un-timing, of stepping out of time and the awareness of its passage; like a mayfly or a dewdrop with shades, and light and colours of many shapes and makings, mostly untimed.”
Tracklist:
01. Eliane Radigue – L’ile Re-sonante (un-time edit)
02. Philip Jeck - The All of Water
03. Marsen Jules – Beatyfear VIII
04. Josh Mason – Infinite Crown of Shells
05. Taylor Deupree – Shoals
06. Christina Kubisch - Night Shift
07. Dalot & Sound Awakener – Sailing
08. Sawako – Wind Shower Particle
09. Deaf Center – Fiction Dawn
10. Harold Budd – Children on the Hill
Artwork/image credit:: sonalidalal
