Giorgio Gigli – The Right Place Where Not To Be [EDLX045LP]

October 24, 2015December 8, 2021 hipodromealbum, ambient techno, drone, electric deluxe, experimental, giorgio gigliLeave a comment

GIGLI, Giorgio - The Right Place Where Not To Be

“The Right Place Where Not to Be” is the title of Giorgio Gigli’s first full-length “sonic movie”, a work emerging from the depth of his soul and which properly filters every musical input he’s developed over the years. The album takes its outset in a scenario where all human and animal life-forms have perished and only plants and minerals have survived. Giorgio performs that concept writing an ultra-detailed soundtrack to an imaginary movie, using rich textures that reveal new acoustics, enhanced by alienating atmospheres that captivate the listener. The album is focused on obsessive rhythmics cut on low frequencies, a persistent motion, and a stable tremor. The world is justifying its life-forms in detail. The sky is darkened by laden clouds and stratified sonics that electrify the sound of space. Blooming sensations that cover a wide spectrum, alternate from a feverish tension to the lightness of faith. Confines are rejected, techno meets ambient, purging our body of consciousness. A sonic bubble from a faraway era, a timeless atmosphere that describes a vision that seems to answer to the most important question: why? The task of creating an album is brilliantly managed in a manner that cinematically depicts a surreal concept without the loss tension. The experience of the music is enhanced by the intricate artwork with an evocative artwork that expresses Giorgio’s concept: The sequence of mountains dominated by clouds on a clear sky and the depths of flowers are tinged with the memory of a wonderful past.

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Abdulla Rashim – A Shell of Speed [NE024]

October 24, 2015June 8, 2023 hipodromeabdulla rashim, album, ambient techno, industrial, northern electronicsLeave a comment

Last year, Abdulla Rashim took time out to develop his alternative Lundin Oil project, delivering two EPs of in-your-face noise and industrial techno textures for Northern Electrics. Here, he switches back to his main creative name for a second Abdulla Rashim set that joins the dots between intense, beatless ambience and modular techno box jams. Despite the general bleakness of his sounds and method, A Shell of Speed is surprisingly picturesque and melodious in parts, with the brilliant “Crossing Qalandiya” delivering the kind of trippy, delay-laden electronic soundscapes that recall the halcyon days of IDM and ambient. Even so, it’s his more surging, rhythmically intense compositions – see “Red Pool” and “Ador Tracers” – that arguably stand out.

ADMX-71 – Coherent Abstractions [LIES067]

October 18, 2015July 31, 2019 hipodromeadam mitchell, adam x, admx-71, album, ambient, ambient techno, experimental, industrial, l.i.e.s., long island electrical systemsLeave a comment

Adam X is back with his third album release under his industrial guise, ADMX-71. Adam returns to the L.I.E.S. front with Coherent Abstractions, a brand new album of singular experiments that pull from every corner of electronic music’s landscape into a comprehensive and propulsive full-length. Coherent Abstractions pulsates with fractured rhythms, vacillating melodies and mesmerizing compositions that showcase Adam’s impressive history working in all aspects of the underbelly of electronic music. Noise and industrial elements seep into the album’s 11 songs, churning the cold and abrasive into feverish new territory. Though Coherent Abstractions operates primarily in sounds of solitude, guest vocalist Janina joins Bound and Broken for a rare vocal collaboration on an ADMX-71 track.

Refracted – Through The Spirit Realm [SSV008]

October 18, 2015February 16, 2022 hipodromealbum, ambient, ambient techno, refracted, silent seasonLeave a comment

REFRACTED - Through The Spirit Realm

Through The Spirit Realm is Refracted’s first LP to date, and it comes Canada’s excellent Silent Season. “Enter The Jungle” quickly gives a picture of what’s to come thanks to the track’s abstract blend of animal sounds, a myriad of noises which is swallowed up the warm and dubby swings of “The Jungle Is Thick”. The whole LP follows a similar string of thought, one that binds stripped back techno together with deep ambience and slow-moving plates of drone; “The Ritual Begins” is simply hypnotic and we could keep it on for hours on loop. It’s tribalism at its most cutting-edge, and an altogether fantastic debut performance from this growing techno personality.

ASC – Beneath The Surface [SSV009]

October 18, 2015December 15, 2017 hipodromeambient techno, asc, james clements, silent seasonLeave a comment

Long-serving Brit in San Diego James Clements dons his familiar ASC guise once more, for a typically atmospheric trip into deep, ambient-influenced abstract techno for Canada’s Silent Season imprint. As usual, there’s much to admire, from the sparse percussion, glacial electronics and icy melodies of “Deep Freeze”, to the minimalist, modular-sounding hum of closer “Raging Seas”. Arguably best of all, though, is “Immersion”, which sees Clements expertly combine early ’90s style dreamy ambient chords, textures and melodies – think Pete Namlook or early Irresistible Force – with scraped metal textures and impeccable IDM beats.

Imre Kiss – Midnight Wave [LT013]

October 10, 2015March 28, 2024 hipodromealbum, ambient, ambient techno, drone, experimental, imre kiss, lobster theremin, re-release, reissueLeave a comment

Imre Kiss finally lands back on the Lobster Theremin mothership, this time with a reissue of his seminal tape album Midnight Wave. A seminal, bold and instantly nostalgic LP, Midnight Wave showcases Imre’s immense ability to craft vivid landscapes of ethereal sound, infused with layers and years of emotional content. Culled from live-to-tape synth sessions in his once London abode, these tracks are the result of melancholic and restricted surroundings and trappings. What has emerged is a body of crackling, warm ambient and techno with a vast, cinematic scope. A sonic portrait of an alienated moment in London, told using industrial visceral tools and visualised through the cutting figure of a lonely individual boarding the 5am night bus home.

Voices from the Lake – Live at MAXXI [EMEGO209LP]

October 10, 2015April 24, 2024 hipodromealbum, ambient, ambient techno, donato dozzy, drone, editions mego, giuseppe tillieci, neel, voices from the lakeLeave a comment

‘Italian techno masterminds Donato Dozzy and Neel are returning as the duo Voices From The Lake with a release on the mother label Editions Mego: Live @ MAXXI is a marvellous organic live-set of hypnotic ambient techno, proofing the outstanding and elegant craftsmanship of their sonic sculpturing, that they both are famous for. As was to be expected they stay true to their polyphonic topography of liquid scapes: aquatic sceneries are embedded in soaking dense atmospheres, gently gyrating us into trance. Sometimes soft echoes of sirenic voices are heard – the only remnants of human traces in these spaces that have suspended time, where smooth silky textures are being channeled into fractal structures that induce a state of transcendence. The haptic quality of their sound is adding up to a sonic matrix of metaphysic imaginary that is provoked by gentle glides and dynamic beat patterns of almost tribalistic quality. Dunked in a bath of dark fluid, sometimes washed away at the shores of Kosmische – VFTL’s tunes are not scared to seduce us into a condition of haziness, culminating in a cover of Paolo Conte’s ,Max’ which is turned into a dazzling sample of sweet, dreamy melancholia.

Lituus – 19805. -_ 19905, [AVN021]

October 10, 2015July 9, 2020 hipodromeambient techno, avian music, connor camburn, drone, experimental, lituusLeave a comment

Chicago based musician Connor Camburn under the alias Lituus, with an entirely beatless collection that well establishes Avian as the home for the kind of searching electronic experimentation that would have been found on the ten-inch focused imprint that Shifted recently announced would merge with its parent label. Shorn of percussive elements yet not without their own rhythmic structures, Camburn’s six compositions are free of immediate electronic genre influences and instead draw primarily on non-musical inspiration in addition to various other contextual reference points, as he sought to express ideas of the unraveling or ”de-composition” of musical or architectural spaces through musical forms imagined as inverted contours and negative spaces.

Chevel – Blurse [SALP003]

September 27, 2015April 23, 2018 hipodromealbum, ambient techno, chevel, dario tronchin, experimental, stroboscopic artefacts, technoLeave a comment

Chevel (a.k.a. Dario Tronchin) now makes his LP debut for Stroboscopic Artefacts. Over the course of his young career, Chevel has gained a mastery over several compositional elements: Polaroid-like slow melodic fades, sharp ricocheting beats, and simply making one’s headphones feel like a viable means of physical transportation. Despite Chevel’s keeping the sonic toolkit and overall atmosphere consistent from track to track, there is a rich variety in the emotional affectivity on display here. The net effect is like a dream state that leaves strong impressions even though one can’t pinpoint exactly why they are doing so.

Moodcut – Heart Beat Takeaway [MORK006]

September 27, 2015December 25, 2017 hipodromeambient techno, deep techno, lobster theremin, moodcut, morkLeave a comment

Dust-soaked and fizzing with effervescent residue, these five tracks swerve and dive between subtle synth texturisations and deep-sleeping sullen house. The boundaries between ambient and house often merging in the depths of the warm, throbbing, analogue fuzz.

Eduardo De La Calle – Nanoscopic Scales [HVN031]

September 20, 2015October 12, 2023 hipodromeambient techno, deep techno, eduardo de la calle, experimental, hivern discsLeave a comment

The bold Eduardo de La Calle of Analog Solutions infamy drops his second 12″ for Hivern, following up from his take on U’R’s “Transition” for the 2014 HVN release. Here Eduardo gives us some us his finest examples of the lush Techno soundscapes he’s become known for.

Sa Pa – Fuubutsushi [FORUMIV]

August 23, 2015December 14, 2022 hipodromealbum, ambient techno, experimental, forum, giegling, sa pa1 Comment

There’s something decidedly mysterious and otherworldly about this fourth release on Giegling’s Forum sub-label. As usual, they’re not giving much away, and to make matters worse the artist at the controls – the previously unheard of Sa Pa – is a debutant. Happily, the music – a mix of crackly, fizzing, minimal-influenced experimental techno, ambient and weirder, dub-flecked explorations – speaks for itself. Fuubutsushi is an impressively atmospheric and off-kilter affair, with Sa Pa paying much attention to the tiniest of details (see the intricate sound collage that forms the rhythm track on the bleak “Tagularius”). If this is indeed Sa Pa’s first outing (and there’s a suspicon it’s an alter-ego, given the quality of the production), it’s rather impressive. A poet’s reminder of a specific season.

Cio D’or – Yocta To Yotta EP [SEMANTICA073B]

August 23, 2015October 8, 2019 hipodromeambient techno, cio d'or, dub techno, experimental, semantica recordsLeave a comment

Semantica presents the third chapter of Cio D’or’s “All In All” album project.

Eduardo de la Calle – The Intellinet Prophecy [BAD006]

July 12, 2015July 16, 2025 hipodromealbum, ambient techno, badance, deep techno, detroit techno, eduardo de la calleLeave a comment

Eduardo De La Calle is back with his debut album and it comes through the young Badance label. The Intellinet Prophecy is a techno album with audible influences of jazz and the supremely scientific, where tracks like “Call From Beyond” or “Faith Necessary” go way beyond the dancefloor and land somewhere in outer space, a place on which genres don’t seem to exist and the passage of time is swamped in beats and melodies.

Conforce – Presentism [111DSRLP]

June 21, 2015November 8, 2022 hipodromealbum, ambient techno, boris bunnik, conforce, delsin records, dub technoLeave a comment

Boris Bunnik is back with a brand new album under his Conforce guise. Entitled Presentism, is his fourth under this alias and proves once that this most prolific talent is still very much an evolving producer. Presentism is more organic and less dystopian and mechanical than before, with a light hearted sense of joy and vivid musical patterns lingering long in the airwaves, and as such harks back to earlier full lengths like Machine Conspiracy, which leaned more on Detroit rooted techno. It is a collection of diverse musical compositions that leans more on musical structures than technical obsessions, and where his last effort Kinetic Image was a tightly programmed conceptual thing, this LP is a much warmer, more organic and aquatic bit of floating modern techno. As such, you get the sense Conforce is back and having fun with his music making once more, free from any rules and instead just crafting what he feels inside.

The expertly designed sounds of this album float and drift in subtly uplifting ways, right from the off. It is a diverse collection sounds with a fine sense of mood through, and that is what ensures it makes sense as a greater whole. At the same time it retains that signature Conforce sense of rhythm, underwater atmosphere and vivid seascaping that really takes you away from the world in which you live. Some tracks like ‘Realtime’ are slow and moody, others like ‘Erased Connections With The Past’ are more propulsive and physical and those such as ‘Monomorphic’ are heady, hypnotic affairs that make for beautiful electronic soundtracks

Acronym – June [NE021]

June 21, 2015June 8, 2023 hipodromeacronym, album, ambient techno, northern electronicsLeave a comment

Since his emergence onto the scene in 2012, Acronym has carved a bold name for himself within the burgeoning sphere of techno championed by his Northern Electronics compatriots, with releases on Semantica as well as his own Dimensional Explorations imprint. ‘June’ continues to affirm the young producer’s reputation as a skilled craftsman of densely woven, atmospheric electronic music, whilst serving as a substantial contribution to the Northern Electronics catalogue.

Polar Inertia – Kinematic Optics EP [DM3D011]

June 17, 2015March 28, 2024 hipodromeambient techno, dement3d records, polar inertia, technoLeave a comment

French men-of-mystery Polar Inertia describe themselves as a “blurry techno entity”. They’re at their shape-shifting best on Kinematic Optics, a double vinyl excursion that contains their first original material since 2012. They set their stall out with the foreboding, cinematic ambience of the title track (built, incidentally, around an extensive spoken word vocal), before delivering an epic chunk of rolling industrial techno (“Floating Away Fire”). There’s a mournful, melancholic feel to the deep techno throbber “Vertical Ice”, while “Hell Frozen Over” is fittingly dark and murky. The second 12″ contains a recording of previous live performance “Can We See Well Enough To Move On?” in its entirety, with droning textures and glacial electronics guaranteeing a spine-chilling mood.

Cio D’or – All In All [SEMANTICA073]

May 23, 2015November 20, 2024 hipodromealbum, ambient techno, cio d'or, semantica recordsLeave a comment

While music in its definitive nature fills both space and time, creating environments in which we live and breathe, these miniature dramaturgies string together to become the screenplay to ones existence. Sometimes chosen, and often times forced, these sounds influence the subconscious and designate emotions. Purposely flowing fluently through a spectrum ranging from theatrical to rapturous tensions that mingle through the night. Cio D’Or’s cinematic compilation for Semantica explores another side of techno, a niche home to Cio where each intricate sound takes a risk for the sake of progression.

S Olbricht – Trancess [PS004]

May 23, 2015March 26, 2018 hipodromeambient techno, imre kiss, martin mikolai, proto sites, s olbrichtLeave a comment

The second 12inch from the burgeoning Proto Sites imprint comes from Hungarian deconstructivist S Olbricht. ‘Trancess’ plunges into hazy ambient techno and distorted house depths, exploring the gritty themes present in his recent cut for Lobster Theremin and the consistent body of work for the likes of Opal Tapes, Gang of Ducks, SicSic or his own Farbwechsel imprint.

Vester Koza – PRISN [PRISN001]

May 3, 2015May 2, 2015 hipodromeambient techno, experimental, maslo, prisn, vester kozaLeave a comment

Vester Koza returns with a new project – PRISN. The titles of the tracks are in reference to/or adaptations of permissions/commands used by the apple and google android operating systems. Smoked out ambient techno.