Talent Bazaar: József Iszlai

Let's visit Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), a city we never really mentioned before. Here, in the heart of Transylvania, lives József Iszlai, a young man who's been working with sound design for more than 9 years. One of his latest projects entitled ‘Our Environment Remixed’ was born from a really exciting concept. He created different types of electronic music from field recordings he's captured in Cluj-Napoca. We figured this was the perfect timing for a chat with him, to catch a glimpse of how things are done in this fairly unknown corner of Europe.

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Talent Bazaar: Abnormal Projection

Born on Halloween in Transylvania, currently based in Oxford, UK, Hungarian producer Máthé Szabolcs, the man behind Abnormal Projection records a mixture of atmospheric, ambient, laidback tunes that he fine-tuned throughout the past few years from playing acoustic guitar to laying down some seriously mellow, sometimes dark beats.

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INTERVIEW + PREMIERE: Future Twin

Future Twin are a San Francisco-based creative, fresh and energetic shoegaze duo. They are just about to release their new single entitled 'Are You Rested (Enough Yet)?' on WWNBB (We Were Never Being Boring), so we thought it was time for you to meet them. We chatted to Jeanie to find out more about how they started out, what they do, life in San Francisco and their future plans! We can ensure you, it's a highly interesting read. Also, we are happy to premiere 'Are You Rested (Enough Yet)?' on Sounds Of A Tired City, make sure you check it out while you're putting on your reading glasses.

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Ambient-pop-drone from Canada: Lying Light in the Quiet

It's always fascinating to follow someone's musical adventures throughout the years and see what direction they take, what paths they follow or what kind of detours they make and where do they end up. We got in touch with Alex Stooshinoff a while back when he was pursuing his aural dreams straight out of Saskatoon, Canada with his solo project Living Room. Quite some time has passed since then. Alex moved to Montreal, started studying electroacoustics and joined forces with his friend Zac Knuttila which resulted in the birth of their new project called Lying Light in the Quiet.

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The Innernettes: Lounge music for bankrupt video stores

The Innernettes are a music duo from Brazil, formed by two old friends and musical partners, Vinicius Cabral and Christian Bravo. They would describe their own sound as lounge music for bankrupt video stores... or as they’re moving forward, it’s becoming more and more like a cassette mixtape of spoiled and defective house music. We spoke to Vinicius to find out more about their obscure yet intriguing concept that nowadays is widely (un)known as vaporwave. Also, you can familiarize yourselves with some haunting commercials and ridiculous gym aesthetics from the 80s Brazil. Inspiration strikes where/when you least expect it!

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Roger Sellers: People see me perform with a table of electronic equipment with headphones and immediately think that I’m a DJ

Imagine folk-dance-americana-electric-symphonic fusion, where Philip Glass, Sufjan Stevens, and Joanna Newsom all groove to late night ambient house music in George Martin’s livingroom – that's where you find Roger Sellers. We spoke to the ambitious, Texas-based musician about his career and the perks of being an independent artist these days.

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Bird Traps: I just came into the studio with this minimalist concept, a guitar and badly written scores

Bird Traps hails from Australia and takes the listener on a trip of sonic meditations and hazy minimalism. Quiet sprawls and repetitive, hazy harmonies. Blurs genres of ambient, neo-classical and experimental. Marcus Skinner's music is ethereal and ephemeral, slow shimmering soundscapes, cinematic and warm, lush and emotional, long slowly unfurling melancholic melodies, sun dappled and soft focus. Exploring unfolding abstraction and minimalist arrangements.

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BIINDS: Most of the time, the people around me told me to be quiet, so I just stayed quiet.

BIINDS is an audiovisual collaborative project founded by Nicolo Sommer and Christy Taylor based in Germany, the United States, Peru and the United Kingdom. Their self-titled debut album was released last year and involves various guest musicians with instruments such as the violin, percussion, cello, viola and drums. Their atmospheric world is based on soothing vocals soaked in a luxurious trip-hop and light orchestral ambient mixture. We talked to Nicolo and Christy to find out more about the genesis of their exciting project, their influences, and obviously you can check out their music as well.

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Benjamin Finger: I’m trying to combine hip-hop, techno and pop elements in a very conservative genre that I think many tend to think ambient music is

Norway's Benjamin Finger was educated at Oslo Photo Art School before he started to study fiction film to become a director at the Film and TV Academy (NISS) in Oslo. Since then he has done several short films, music videos and participated at various photo exhibitions, besides working for television, NRK. He is now a freelancer director and photographer and have by accident been composing music 'with a healthy disregard for genres'.

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Talent Bazaar: Dragon Turtle

When you listen to a certain band for the very first time – especially when they are practically unknown to the ears around the world – you have no expectations. Once you start listening to Dragon Turtle, you feel it immediately that you're going to be surprised, instantly getting all your hopes and expectations extremely high. And that is how it should be, because they continuously deliver immense quality, post-rock, shoegaze and ambient never went so perfectly hand in hand.

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Talent Bazaar: KLØP

Among the 1.4 million releases on Bandcamp there is a modest but mighty fine self-released ambient drone debut album, which you most probably have never listened to. Until now. 'To Mould The Deceiver’s Song' by KLØP was released last winter, and it’s time to discover who is hiding behind this rather funny sounding name, producing some seriously heavy psychedelic drones, which resonate like a perfect mixture between Tim Hecker and Windy & Carl.

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Tekla Mrozowicka: My music has to be a reflection of my emotions, otherwise it would be an empty shell, no matter how technically impeccable

'My experiments bashfully began in 2011 and it all started out with ambient. However, the technical aspects of recording quickly put me off, I didn’t understand a thing from all these programs. I took part in production workshops where I was surrounded by advanced users, so I learned a thing or two by looking at my colleagues’ work, but what I really realized back then, is that I simply have to be really persistent.'

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