There’s a certain dissonance inherent in the notion of the American Dream—it promotes a unified ideal for a nation that feels increasingly divided. Yet there remains a fundamental hopefulness in the face of this discord; a belief that we really are all working toward the same promise of freedom and prosperity.

The paradoxical nature of this national ethos in our current socio-economic era inspired Bearthoven’s new album American Dream. The trio—comprised of pianist Karl Larson, bassist Pat Swoboda, and percussionist Matt Evans—performs three works by Scott Wollschleger that explore different aspects of the American experience: moments of true beauty and lofty idealism balanced against moments of impending crisis and despair.

We’re thrilled to premiere this brand new video for an excerpt from the album’s title track, a trio scored for piano, double bass, pitch pipes, and percussion instruments ranging from vibraphone to water crotales and vibrators. Weaving together broken melodies, competing grooves, and the pervasive white noise of everyday life, Wollschleger reflects on the modern day role of the American Dream—in all its beautiful dissonance.

Bearthoven’s American Dream is out Feb. 8 on Cantaloupe Music. Click here to learn more.

by Maggie Molloy

Anna Thorvaldsdottir finds inspiration in nature—her music is its own ecosystem, the nuanced textures shared, traded, and transformed among individual instruments over the course of her works.

You won’t hear any birds chirping or water splashing in this sonic ecosystem, but you will hear the full subtleties of timbre, the complex interplay of voices, the way the music expands and contracts, breathing and humming and vibrating like the earth.

That notion of seismic balance is at the heart of Thorvaldsdottir’s newest album AEQUA, a constellation of chamber works (plus one solo piano piece) that explore shimmering nuances of sound. Her delicately textured compositions are brought to life by the International Contemporary Ensemble with conductor Steven Schick.

We are thrilled to premiere the video for the album’s closing track Fields, featuring a mixture of footage taken by Sono Luminus CEO Collin Rae and Thorvaldsdottir’s husband Hrafn Asgeirsson, woven together and edited by Allison Noah.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s AEQUA is out now on Sono Luminus. Click here to learn more and purchase the album.

by Maggie Molloy

R.D. King is interested in exploring big questions through music. Questions of psychology, philosophy—even questions of our own existence.

These are just a few of the themes explored in the guitarist’s debut album vs. Self, a collection of introspective acoustic guitar works. Inspired by art, literature, and cinema, King’s compositions typically begin with narrative and expand outward into abstraction.

The album’s first track explores the philosophical underpinnings of Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being: a rumination on the ephemeral nature of life, with both the freedoms and limitations it brings. Just as the novel explores the paradox of lightness and weight, King’s composition merges elements of classical technique with steel-string guitar, balancing buoyant melodies against driving rhythms and shifting textures.

We’re thrilled to premiere a brand new video of R.D. King performing his original composition “Lightness of Being.”

This video was produced by Lightning Bulb Productions and Nico Rivers and shot at the Gallery at Villageworks with artwork by Linda Hoffman.

Click here to listen to R.D.’s debut album, vs. Self. His second self-titled album is set for release in January 2019.