Recording: Alex Raja Ven & Heart Map Ambient Ensemble

Artist: Alex Raja Ven & Heart Map Ambient Ensemble

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Sankofa Square (Intersection 2025: Day 2: All Day Music Marathon, August 30, 2025.

Alex Raja Ven & Heart Map Ambient Ensemble - unknown^*

Back from a year's hiatus, the Intersection Festival was once again bringing some unconventional sounds to the unsuspecting public. The now formally-retitled Sankofa Square sports a decolonized name, but a slightly more carceral vibe — surrounded by metal fencing and closed off by gates right up 'til showtime, there was less of a random just-wander-through sense of invitation than there used to be.

There was also a slightly different curatorial vibe in effect. In the absence of Burn Down the Capital's Tad Michalak, Andrew Noseworthy stepped up as the main programmer, giving the day a flavour that'd be familiar to those following people | places | records, the "DIY genre-fluid 'zero profit' artists-first" label he is involved with.

Coming straight from the "heart" of the people | places sound, I had previously seen this modular ensemble in a more nascent formation — and though their numbers have grown, this was working in the same space of intracately-arranged compositions delicately swelling outwards and upwards.

You can check out some more from this set over on youtube:

^* I'm not sure if this piece is an arrangement of Eno's "Discreet Music", or whether it just has some of its DNA grafted to its core. Please leave a comment if you know!