Bing & Ruth is an American minimalist/ambient music [1] ensemble from Brooklyn, led by pianist David Moore.
In 2006, David Moore started Bing & Ruth to bring his music outside of academia. As a student at The New School for Jazz in New York City, Moore wanted to write "minimalist ensemble music with a certain filmic sensitivity, one that prioritized grace and texture over the style’s once-radical subtraction." [2] Moore named the band after two characters from the 1980 short story "Daylight Come" by Amy Hempel. [3]
Bing & Ruth's first album, City Lake, was self-released in 2010 in a run of 250 physical copies. The ensemble featured eleven members, making touring and rehearsals difficult to coordinate. [2]
While facing financial and logistical issues associated with selling self-released vinyl out of his basement, Moore was put in touch with experimental label RVNG Intl. In 2014, Bing & Ruth signed with the label RVNG Intl. and issued Tomorrow Was the Golden Age; [4] the following year, they reissued City Lake in a larger print run. [5]
Tomorrow Was The Golden Age saw the group pare down to a seven-person ensemble composed of a pianist, two clarinetists, two bassists, a cellist and a tape-delay operator. [6] The group sought to "revive[] interest in the meditative pop traditions of Philip Glass and Harold Budd." [2] Pitchfork called it, "one of the finest left-field releases of the year" [7] and included it on their list of the "Top 50 Ambient Albums of All Time" in 2016. [3]
In 2016, Bing & Ruth signed with 4AD and announced the release of their new album No Home of the Mind in February 2017. [8]
No Home of the Mind was written on seventeen pianos across North America and Europe over numerous sessions, tours, and travel and recorded in Hudson, NY in 2016. [9] The self-contained pieces were arranged for a five-person ensemble. The album was recorded in two days at a repurposed church in Hudson, NY in the fewest takes possible in order to "capture the immediacy of classic session-style musicianship, where one-take recordings were a standard to keep costs down." [2]
On July 17, 2020, Bing & Ruth released their new album Species with 4AD. [10]
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody. It uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.
Music for 18 Musicians is a work of minimalist music composed by Steve Reich during 1974–1976. Its world premiere was on April 24, 1976, at The Town Hall in New York City. Following this, a recording of the piece was released by ECM New Series in 1978.
Jóhann Gunnar Jóhannsson was an Icelandic composer who wrote music for a wide array of media including theatre, dance, television, and film. His work is stylised by its blending of traditional orchestration with contemporary electronic elements.
Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company, formed in 1969 by David Borden, was an early synthesizer ensemble, predating groups like Tonto's Expanding Head Band and Tangerine Dream. David Borden was in contact with Robert Moog and was one of the first musicians to use his Minimoog. After recruiting Steve Drews and Linda Fisher to operate additional synthesizers, the group began playing concerts of minimalist music by Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. They began recording their first self-titled album in 1970, but it would not be released until 1973 by Earthquack Records. Their second album, Like a Duck to Water, was released in 1976. Borden and Mother Mallard continue performing Borden's recent and older music.
Sensations' Fix is an Italian progressive rock/electronic musical ensemble led by Franco Falsini.
Laurel Anne Chartow, known professionally as Laurel Halo, is an American electronic musician currently based in Berlin, Germany. She released her debut album Quarantine on Hyperdub in 2012 to critical acclaim; it was named album of the year by The Wire. She followed with studio albums Chance of Rain (2013) and Dust (2017), as well as various EPs and the mini-album Raw Silk Uncut Wood (2018).
Holly Herndon is an American composer, musician, sound artist and sound designer based in Berlin, Germany. After studying composition at Stanford University and completing her Ph.D. at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, she pursued a music career internationally. Herndon's music often includes human singing voices, is primarily computer-based, and regularly uses the visual programming language Max/MSP to create custom instruments and vocal processes. She has released music on the labels RVNG Intl. and 4AD. Her most recent full-length album, Proto, was released on May 10, 2019.
RVNG Intl. is an independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 2003 by Matt Werth, the label is run by Werth and focuses on experimental dance and electronic music, often incorporating avant-garde genres. Release formats include vinyl, CDs, and digital downloads. In 2011, they were named one of the top 50 indie labels in America by Billboard.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is an American composer, performer and producer, originally from the Pacific Northwest and currently based in Los Angeles. Her work prominently employs Buchla modular synthesizers. She received acclaim for her albums Ears (2016) and The Kid (2017). She has collaborated with Suzanne Ciani and Emile Mosseri.
Pauline Anna Tuell Strom was an American electronic music composer and synthesist best known under the pseudonym Trans-Millenia Consort. Strom made seven recordings between 1982 and 1988 including three LPs and four cassette tapes. Her 1982 debut, Trans-Millenia Consort, was released on Ether Ship Records.
Reassemblage is the second studio album of Portland, Oregon duo Visible Cloaks, consisting of musicians Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile. The record is named after Trinh T. Minh-ha's 1982 documentary film of the same name, since both works observe its subject matter without showing meaning to it. Reassemblage departs from Doran's past hip-hop releases for a more high-quality style inspired by the works of Japanese synthesizer music acts such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Ryuichi Sakamoto, all of which were featured on Doran's 2010 mix Fairlights, Mallets & Bamboo.
The River is an extended play written and produced from 2009 to 2010 by Canadian electronic musician Michael Silver, known by his stage name as CFCF. It was inspired by Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo. Described by RVNG Intl.'s press release as a series of "lucid sound sequences from a lunatic mind," the experimental downtempo psychedelic new age EP was analyzed by music journalist Jonny Coleman as the story of a character who is stranded in a rural, tribal land. The River is a set of six original tracks by Silver with digital download versions of the record containing four remixes of songs from the EP by acts such as Jacques Renault, Coyote, and Games. The River was released by label RVNG Intl. on October 12, 2010 to generally positive reviews from critics, some reviewers calling its more modern-sounding cuts to be the best of the entire record.
Lex is a mini-album and partial soundtrack by Portland, Oregon duo Visible Cloaks, consisting of Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile. Continuing the experimental electronic music stylings and East and West relationship ideas of their previous work Reassemblage (2017), the album takes place in a future utopian world with aliens talking in a hybrid of several languages to the point of speaking a "non-language." The speech sounds on the album were made by Doran feeding dialects and accents to the language translation program Infovox Voice Manager.
The Gradual Progression is a studio album by American drummer Greg Fox, released on September 8, 2017 by the label RVNG Intl. It depicts his first use of Sensory Percussion, a set of sensors created by drummer Tlacael Esparza where drum hits send MIDI data to virtual instruments. Fox used Sensory Percussion as a way to become flexible with his drumming skills and combine his interests in electronic music with drumming. The album was recorded in Brooklyn in six days and also features instrumental performances from Curtis Santiago, Michael Beharie, Maria Kim Grand, and Justin Frye. The LP garnered favorable reviews from music journalists upon its release.
UkabazUmorezU, translated in English to "slow and steady wins the race," is the fifth studio album by Japanese musician Sugai Ken and his first LP for the New York-based independent label RVNG Intl. Continuing the ambient electroacoustic style of Ken's previous albums, UkabazUmorezU is a set of musical representations of Japanese folk traditions and "artificial" versions of passageways in the Kanagawa Prefecture during the nighttime. It was released on October 20, 2017 to favorable critical reviews.
Syndrome Syndrome is the debut studio album of Australian techno duo Gardland, consisting of Alex Murray and Mark Smith. It was released by the label RVNG Intl. on 29 October 2013. The album was produced by Gardland based on a deal RVNG Intl. leader Matt Werth made with the duo after he listened to a performance they did on the radio. Recorded in Marrickville over three weeks of improvisational sessions, Syndrome Syndrome is very harsh in tone and has an open-ended style that's unconventional to most electronic music genres. In critical reviews, Syndrome Syndrome was praised for its unique arrangement and sound methods while also being panned for its long length.
No Home of the Mind is the third studio album by American ensemble Bing & Ruth. It was released in February 2017 under 4AD.
Visible Cloaks are an American electronic musical duo based in Portland, Oregon, consisting of Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile. The duo originally emerged in 2010 as Doran's solo project, in which he explored rare groove new age music and ambient music from Japan. Carlile joined the project in 2014. Scott Wilson of Fact describes their music as "shattering the idea of “fourth world music.”
Alexis Georgopoulos, who often records under the name Arp, is an American electronic musician, composer, and music producer based in New York.
Lucrecia Dalt is a Colombian experimental musician who currently resides in Berlin. While her earlier releases were rooted in electronic dance music, her work has evolved over time to become more overtly abstract and experimental.