This is a mix on the jazzier side of things, except for the last song, which is more in the ambient sphere.
As always, to purchase or listen to the albums heard here in full, click on any of the links in the notes below. To hear this playlist on BNDCMPR where you can purchase the individual songs, head to Harp Mix Tape IX.
When looking for interesting harp music on bandcamp, I search by the tag "harp" and then choose "surprise me". Usually, I can tell by the album cover if the artist has used the tag "harp" to instead mean harmonica, and usually with a blues band. I thought that would be the case with this album, but it is actually some really cool Swedish jazz with harp from Stina Hellberg Agback. There's some electronic manipulation of the sounds on some of the other tracks. This is a really neat album and it's called Winning Isn't Everything, It's the Only Thing.
There are chromatic harps where there are two sets of strings running parallel down the soundboard and neck, or even where the two sets of strings cross in the middle. The advantage of this is you don''t have to change a pedal or lever to change keys. (A harp is diatonic, meaning once you set the key (by levers or pedals), that is the key you are in, until, of course, you change said pedals or levers. That can lead to complications.) This jazz group called Colunia has a player, Émilie Chevillard, who uses a newer chromatic harp (of just 15 years, and of a celtic or folk design) that has a single line of strings, like a typical harp, but it has 12 strings in an octave. So I imagine you'd have to stretch your hands a bit to play. The harp has a nice sound and you can find more on their album Colunia • "Live @ Soleils Bleus"
This album, Tributes & Diatribes by Jesse Sparhawk and Eric Carbonara, has a lot of different sounds and textures on it: Eric is a multi-instrumentalist. This track starts with the harp doubling guitar and continues to switch between that and improv.
The fourth track changes the melody with a lot of pedal slides, that create almost a percussive element when the discs hit the strings. Lou Fait Du Son create a lovely, haunting atmosphere with strings, a drone, and nature sounds on the album Retrograde.
The last track is a wonderfully meditative repetition of simple bendy harp notes, drones, and tapping (which for some reason, I find suuuper relaxing). It's by Marysia Osu and can be found on the album Loop Collection I. It was hard to pick just one track; they're all so good.
