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. Evil Must Die by My Woshin Mashin: Crossover-Electronic, Chaos-Pop
2. The In Between by Anton Cosmo: rock superstar to be
3. Sounds Of Chakras by Satori: healing, meditative ambient new age
4. Santa Take the Night Off by Emma Wallace: angst-free modern ragtime
5. Journey Into Subconscious by Satori: healing, meditative ambient new age
6. Relaxation Spa by Magnatune Compilation: the best music from Magnatune
7. Ambiencellist Part II by Claire Fitch: ambient cellist
8. Traces by Jesus in Japan: a reflective voice in a noisy world
9. Second Sight by Jami Sieber: enchanting cello compositions
10. Eric 2 by Eric Kamen: Urban Flamenco
11. Public Service Announcement (Instrumental) by The Proper Authorities: pulse-pounding, booty-shaking rock
12. Opium by Sherefe: Balkan and Middle Eastern Music
13. JS Bach Trios on Guitar by Daniel Estrem: colorful classical guitar
14. Submission by Jay Kishor: Music without preservatives
15. Collectors of Souls by Chiwawa: He who sings thinks no evil
16. Only a Tronic Selection by Ambient Teknology: upbeat underground with shades of new wave
17. The Reformation Sessions by Jay Kishor: Music without preservatives
18. We Live Lies by macabro: mechanical flowers under the electric sunset
19. CD2 The Sowebo Concert by Jay Kishor: Music without preservatives
20. Guitar Music by Nigel Martin: quality guitar driven instrumental music

• 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.