Dekmantel Podcast 294 - Grand River

Italian-Dutch composer Aimée Portioli (@grandriver) is part of a new breed of artist who is meticulous in the way she sculpts and designs her sounds. Along with the likes of Donato Dozzy and Neel - who run the Spazio Disponibile label she debuted on in 2017, and returned to in 2018 with first album Pineapple - she imbues her deep rhythms with ambient beauty, classical minimalism and a real sense of symphony. She is a poly-instrumentalist who mixes tradition and formality with contemporary experimentalism, and also runs her own label One Instrument, releases on Ghostly and Longform Editions, and is an occasional A/V performer who is at home at the world's most avant garde clubs and festivals. This week, Grand River takes us on an ambient journey as meandering and meditative as her alias suggests. It's a study in absorbing sparsity, where beautiful drones are layered up next to rippling chords. Found sounds drift in and out of ear shot and delicate keys turn into vast walls of ominous sound. The whole mix is like a melting glacier, in constant but subtle motion that leaves you in an utterly different place from where you started.