This week we are happy to welcome Tsembla to MailTape. She provides us with an artful juxtaposition of the eerily off kilter and a sense of weightlessness in her musical selections this morning. Based in Turku, Finland, Tsembla is the solo alias of musician Marja Ahti, a frequent collaborator of the Kemialliset Ystävät musical collective and one half of the electro-acoustic duo Ahti & Ahti.

As Tsembla, Marja creates vivid, imaginative compositions of sound and rhythm using electronics and treated samples of recorded acoustic instruments, objects, voices, feedback, and environmental sounds.

Woodwinds, strings, percussion and ancient sounds from all corners of the earth are electronically synthesized to create unpredictable textural twists and turns. A perfect episode for when you’re spending time outdoors, performing your daily rituals, cleaning or just pottering about.

Tsembla’s selection

Tomoko Sauvage – Clepsydra

Tsembla: ” Early morning or late night music. Rise at dawn, open a window. “

Anne Guthrie – Branching Low And Spreading

Tsembla: ” A conversation between loose acoustic instrumentation, beating tunings, processed field sounds and spaces. The track is from the album Codiaeum Variegatum, themed after a species of toxic plant. A truly brilliant album as a whole. “

Raul Lovisoni & Francesco Messina – Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo

Tsembla: ” This wonderful album from 1979 was reissued by Die Schachtel a few years ago and is one of the most played Sunday morning records in our household. “

MailTape’s selection

Tsembla – Gravitating Bones

Sanjay: ” Get lost in the oneiric circuits and transistors of Marja’s synthesizer in this track. The pace is not immediately recognisable, yet I feel there is a centre keeping it all together just slightly outside the field of hearing. “

Irene Buckley – October

Sanjay: ” The possibilities and opportunities of summer are gone, and the chill of winter is on the horizon. This is a soothing musical accompaniment from Irene Buckley to the shorter daylight hours, bountiful harvests, autumnal foilage and grey skies. “

Laurel Halo – Raw Silk Uncut Wood

Sanjay: ” A wonderfully tranquil mesh of woodwind, early electronic music gestures, and almost funeral organ from Laurel Halo’s latest LP of the same name. “

Nadia Struiwigh – Roeiweijk

Sanjay: ” Lovely downtempo and ambient vibes from Nadia Struiwigh to end this episode. Flirting with ambient techno, the drones and spaced out pads work well in slow, drawn out movements here. “

That’s it for this morning. Thanks so much for listening and lots of love and respect to Marja Ahti for her selection, and to Anthony Dujardin for this beautiful illustration!