Review:
The name Werner Durand might not be very well-known, which is a great pity. His claim to fame has nothing to do with his real music: he played flute on Muslimgauze' 'Mort Aux Vaches' release. But Durand's background is with improvisation and wind instruments. As far as I can remember there is only solo release by him, 'The Art Of Buzzing' on X-TRact/Edition RZ (see Vital Weekly 305), where he plays PVC pipes with saxophone mouthpieces or flower pots and tin foil plates as resonators.

His great power lies in multi-tracking his playing, obscuring the original sounds through very simple means of layering many on top of each other. After all these years it's still his favorite method of composing music. The cover lists the instruments such as bamboo and metal mouthharps, tanpura, sliding pvc-ney and sliding pvc clarinets with prepared resonators, electronics and delays. The end result is a highly minimalist pattern which he gently waves together, going to small changes all the time, thus avoiding leaping into pure minimal music. One could say that this is drone music, but like before I like to draw a parallel to the work of Phill Niblock, even when Durand's music is a bit more clouded and less detailed. Overall however it's a highly atmospheric set of sounds Durand is playing here. Hopefully more music will be made available and not in another seven years, as this is really nice stuff.
Frans de Waard - Vital Weekly

1. Remnants From Paradise
2. Drowning
3. Floating

Listen to: the entire album.

Release date: 2/6/2009
Werner Durand lives in Berlin Germany

Tagged as: World, New Age

1. Music of Fernando Sor by Daniel Estrem: colorful classical guitar
2. Cantica by La Reverie: Recreating traditional music from a modern perspective
3. Sparkling - The Complete Preludes by Claude Debussy by Ivan Ilic: dazzling classical pianist
4. Romantic - Powerful Miniatures by Schumann and Brahms by Ivan Ilic: dazzling classical pianist
5. Lenten is come by Briddes Roune: 13th century medieval English songs
6. Passion, Pestilence and Polyphony by Misericordia: sickeningly good Medieval
7. Worlds Bliss - Medieval Songs of Love and Death by John Fleagle: austere and beautiful medieval songs.
8. Aurora of the Northern Harp by Aryeh Frankfurter: Timeless and enchanting folk music for the soul
9. The Beauty of the Earth by Lydia McCauley: intriguing piano compositions with dynamic accompaniment
10. Vol 1 - Well Tempered Clavier Book 2 'Flat Keys' by Katherine Roberts Perl: Bach on the harpsichord - poetic and expressive
11. Piano Colors by Joachim Heimbaecher: Mysterious, smooth and elegant piano
12. The Swing of Things by Paolo Pavan: Urban funky jazz piano, in a sober and straightforward style
13. Dayazell by Dayazell: ancient and traditional world music
14. The Lost Mode by The Lost Mode: medieval music meets living modal music traditions
15. Underground by Crystal Kovach: moody blend of electronica and rock
16. Summer Suite, Vol One by Chad Lawson: Multi-award winning pianist and composer who is not afraid to put his hat in anything
17. Fear and Curiosity by DP Kaufman: ambient, melodic electronica meets neo-classical
18. Tau Ceti by Robert Otto: Ambient Electronic and Neoclassical Soundscapes
19. Beautiful Earth by Bella Gaia: an iridescent landscape of gossamer melodies and labyrinthine rhythms, with a sense of celestial wonder
20. Ecosystems by Rildrim: electronic music becomes poetry

• MP3: High quality MP3 variable-bit-rate files. Most people download these: they are audiophile files that play everywhere.
• ALAC: Perfect quality Apple Lossless format files. If you use iTunes or an iPod, get these. They're an exact audio copy of the original CD, and include the CD artwork and artist info. This is the same format as High Definition audio provided by the iTunes store.
• AAC: High quality Apple Audio Codec files. If you use iTunes or an iPod, these files sound great and include CD art and artist info. This is the standard format provided by the iTunes music store.
• WAV: Perfect quality WAV files. This format works everywhere, and is an exact audio copy of the original CD. It sounds fantastic. Album art and artist info is unfortunately not possible with this format.
• FLAC Perfect quality open source FLAC files. This is an open source audio format. It is an exact copy of the original CD, and includes CD artwork and artist info. Works great on Linux, VLC and many audio players based on open source.
• OGG: High quality open source OGG files. This is an open source audio format. It is a compressed (smaller file size) version of the original CD, and includes CD artwork and artist info. Works great on Linux, VLC and many audio players based on open source.
• 128k: Medium quality 128K MP3 files. These are medium audio quality MP3 files that will work on every device. The audio quality is good enough for most uses. These files are intended for cases where you want to conserve disk space.