Audiophile, compiled, definitive reissue of mid 1990s Ambient Techno trips.
ambient techno
Second Woman – Instant / Apart [TRESOR301]
Second Woman is the collaborative project featuring Turk Dietrich of Belong and Joshua Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv. The concept of Second Woman began with the idea of taking tropes from footwork, dub, house, and techno, and twisting these ideas into something kaleidoscopically liberated from the grid. With Apart / Instant, Second Woman present their signature sound as well as a new, more measured dimension to their work.
Cosmin Nicolae – Semnal [OPAL116]
Over the last decade the work of Cosmin Nicolae has been a cresting force of forward thinking electronic music. His TRG alias formed the inaugurate release on the peerless Hessle Audio. In essence he forms an important part of the story of the cross pollination of UK bass’ music with techno and his hard work and craft has seen him maintain his fixture as a sought after talent, both producing and as a DJ. One element which always amplified his work beyond that of many other peers is Cosmin’s dedication to crafting interesting sound from scratch, a process which precedes his production and has it roots in home-brewed experimentation with instruments, electro-acoustic process and improvisation. With this debut release under his actual name, Opal Tapes has provided a space for Cosmin to have free reign to display another, looser and more experimental side of his repertoire. In many ways, an impossible album to classify, it feels as if it’s creating itself a points. The ideas therein are the genesis of so many fully functional’ songs but hearing them like this brings us so much closer to someone else’s mind and fingertips.
Vakulism – Edelweiss Reflection [BANDURA007]
Vakulism – here’s Vakula in the continuation of his metaphorical ideas embodied in a new alter ego and unifying combination of different genres which makes Vakula as always unique.
Oscar Mulero – Perfect Peace [SEM070LP]
Oscar Mulero presents: ‘Perfect Peace’. Don’t expect dancefloor burners here, this time the spanish techno master goes deep and low, exploring sonic textures, low BPM grooves and the intelligent side of electronic music. Melodies, pads, drones and grooves collide in this soulful collection, conceived to be listened as a soundtrack. Oscar is not new to this sounds, in his Grey Fades To Green or Muscle and Mind albums he showcased his abilities in this field as well as with his Av projects Biolive and Monochrome. A new step in Oscar Mulero’s ever growing career, showing his studio skills and music taste, far beyond his role as a fundamental techno dj.
Answer Code Request – Gems [OSTGUTLP28]
Answer Code Request returns with his sophomore album Gens on Ostgut Ton, entering darker but equally bass-heavy territory. Today the musical vision offered by Berghain resident Answer Code Request, real name Patrick Gräser, has proved far-sighted. While at first glance electronic music in 2018 seems increasingly balkanized, borders between genres have once again become fuzzier. Now, on his follow up LP Gens, Gräser looks beyond the bass euphoria of Code toward darker horizons and a desolate atmosphere befitting of current global circumstances. It’s electronic music free from genre constraints – one where a broad palette of broken rhythms, varying speeds, different colors and sound design draws listeners into a synthesized world of its own.
Initial Programs – What Tomorrow Brings EP [FIRSTCUT003]
Initial Programs is a new project by respected ambient producer Mick Chillage. It is also Mick’s first ever vinyl release and sees the Irish artist focus on deep, acid-tinged techno and melodic electro.
Tuomo Vaananen – A Small Flood [LJ009]
Typically outstanding, cultured, listenable techno by the co-founder of this excellent Finnish label, adroitly traversing dub and ambient. Nothing lunky or domineering, dystopian or Gothic, this debut LP generates senses of immediate, natural being out of field recordings (Waiting Halls, Winners, Temple) and the foibles and hiccups of the music-making process itself (New to the System, Sloth, A Small Flood).
Oscar Mulero – Acceptance [SEM070.3]
Advance 12″ of the upcoming Oscar Mulero album ‘Perfect Peace’, SEMANTICA 70 with some deep electronix.
Antenes – Shifting Zones [SSX09]
Silent Season tap up Antenes for a rare 12″, building on the sizable impact her last and only release on L.I.E.S. had back in 2015. Here we get three trips into dark, evocative techno territory as you would expect to find on Silent Season, leading in with the doom-laden march of “Dream Uncreates The Land”. “Take Me To The Birds (For A)” ditches the drums and heads straight into the most delicate and stirring of ambient pieces, while “Metra Train Chicago 1000x” makes use of field recordings and processed static to make for an even more immersive listening experience. This is a daring release that eschews the need for functionality to take the listener somewhere else entirely.
Winter In June – Eternal Lovers [SSX06]
The Silent Season 10 Year Anniversary collection celebrates a decade of deeper electronic music. The vinyl series features artists whose music continues to inspire the Silent Season journey. Having only made spotted appearances in the past, icy ambient techno artist Winter In June makes a fine first outing on vinyl with a press of his formerly digi-only EP Eternal Lovers. It’s prime Silent Season material, using massive slabs of reverb and a foreboding sense of space as his main weapons while rolling out bleak machine matter that sounds as though it were blown across the tundra. “About Life & Death” is particularly moving with its heart monitor bleeps and forlorn strings, while “The Party Is Elsewhere” is a telling trip into the coldest of coldwave.
VA – Displaced Soundtracks [LAD030]
Seven years into its celebrated journey, Life and Death assembles its third and most adventurous compilation to date – Displaced Soundtracks. For the first instalment in a new series, DJ Tennis has given free rein to some of his most trusted contemporaries, enabling many of today’s most respected dance music producers to display their hidden talents as composers. Gathering music from a long-aborted film, the collection stands as another bastion of Life and Death’s perpetual evolution. Duncan Gray embraces dissonance, Black Merlin, Appleblim and Artefakt go interstellar and Fango channels post-punk squat music. Hades Rocket showcases the expertly-sequenced synth work that has graced Simian Mobile Disco’s illustrious career, while Redshape revisits all the right sides of 80’s Wave and Library music. Danny Daze and synth-savant KINK embrace non-standard tempi with great success, while Axel Boman delivers sitar-laced gospelhouse without a bass drum. Elsewhere, your favourite producer’s favourite producer, Stimming, team’s up with pianist Lambert and the pair learn to fly. Inspired and challenging, Life and Death ventures into their eighth year confidently, constantly evolving without compromise.
Mohlao – Landforms [SSV012]
Samuel van Dijk is an electronic music producer, sound designer and media artist from the Netherlands releasing deep electronic music as VC-118A, Mohlao, and Multicast Dynamics. Drawing inspiration from technology, nature, film, and fiction, his productions and live sets embody a dynamic musical framework. Since the Dutchman surfaced as Mohlao for labels like Meanwhile, Field and Other Heights at the turn of the decade, van Dijks music has found a firm position; the ethereal electro VC-118A project, deep ambient techno as Mohlao, and subterranean ambient as Multicast Dynamics.
Peter Van Hoesen – Nine At The Beginning [T2X030]
Time To Express marks its 30th release, presented by label founder Peter Van Hoesen. The Belgian producer takes up the opportunity to expand upon his previous work on the Coast To Coast EP. No longer exclusively restricted to straight 4/4 rhythms, Van Hoesen’s music investigates hybrid, broken grooves infused with a clear sense of spatial sonic awareness. This is made clear with the first two tracks, Towards Manifestation and Shapeshifting. On the second half of the EP Van Hoesen launches two solid techno cuts, shifting from dense bassline work (Concrete Variation) to percussive, shuffling grooves (Fox Tactics).
Modern Heads – Elementi Compatibili EP [SL004]
Introducing the fourth release from Southern Lights, dedicated to releasing high-end modern techno. Our fourth release is a journey into magnetic realms and cosmic orbits from Modern Heads with the ‘Elementi Comptabili’ EP. Modern Heads is the production brainchild of Dino Sabatini and Gianluca Meloni, who together have pioneered their version of timeless techno, always capturing their vision of the future in the present. Elementi Compatibili comprises of four elements. Elemento A and C are both beautifully crafted ambient excursions, both softly navigating their way along celestial paths. Elemento B and D move from ambient bliss to more sharper, moving sequences.The hypnotism is more pronounced and a signature style of Modern Heads.
VA – Arquitectura del Sueño [SEM01]
For the 101 release Semantica comes with a special triple album packed with talented techno producers dropping some deep trippy techno knowledge right here.
J.C. & Kastil – No Spiritual Surrender [CBR010]
J.C aka Jose Cabrera and Kastil collaborate and come with the exciting results. A fresh blend of fierce techno, ambience, industrial, noise and found sounds recordings. A full length captivating album that pushes and pulls you through an edgy and engaging world of sound. Part 1 mixes up trance-inducing deep techno with punishing drum programming. Synths have a life of their own as they whip and snap about and bring a post apocalyptic sense of foreboding. Some tracks are abstract modular gurgles and others are lo-fi, heavily textured affairs that are beguiling beautiful. The use of modular synths lends the whole thing an unpredictable and analogue feel that makes is bristle and brim with life throughout. Part 2 focuses on more suspensory ambient sounds. It means tracks zone you out and get you thinking, with distant melodies drifting next to warm solar winds. When drums do appear they are deep down below and dubbed out affairs that unfold slowly.
Deepchord – Auratones [SOMALP117]
A foray into deep, organic, cinematic dance music. Subterranean bass, intercepted alien transmissions, and stripped down dance-beats meld with sheets of sounds that roll over the listener like waves lapping up on the shore. Shimmering, watery, brain hemisphere synchronization tones caress and melt stress away. Dance floor friendly tracks that work equally well in one s private listening space. Immersive music with a distinctive aquatic quality. Inspired by Detroit & Berlin s dance genres, but tempered by more ambience / atmosphere than one would expect from those genres. Music without harshness or rough edges. Fuzzy, out-of-focus, soft-sounds that slip in and out of the listener’s consciousness. Uniquely melds current dance rhythms with lushness and spirituality. Synesthetic sounds that trigger sensory experiences in cognitive pathways other than hearing smells of perfumes, thoughts of colours, and altered perception of time and space. Psychoacoustic, cerebral, electronic listening music for those wanting a different experience than the current harsher, darker dance trends are offering. Responsibly made gentle music designed from the ground-up to have a positive effect on the nervous system and leave the listener invigorated and recharged. Chi-building sonic balm. Timeless, exotic dance tracks for a new school of electronic music enthusiasts who are searching for beautiful sounds, crafted with a higher purpose in mind.
Conforce – Autonomous [124DSR]
Dutch producer and live act Conforce is back with ‘Autonomous’, a fifth artist album and the latest in his long relationship with Delsin Records. Conforce is Boris Bunnik, a producer who explores the deepest realms of dub, house, techno and electro under many different names. His Conforce alias is where his most club orientated material comes from and this new nine track album finds the Transcendent label boss producing dark syntheses inspired by his hometown and harbour city, Rotterdam, and its automated industries. A masterfully conceptual album that really paints a vivid picture of a harbour as heard from deep down in the depths.
Radius – Obsolete Machines [ECHOSPACEDETROITRDSLP1]
This marks the first vinyl release from Echospace [Detroit] this year. An unreleased classic from the vaults emerges with beautiful reshapes by CV313 (recorded and reshaped from 2007-2016). This is where the sound of CV313 was realized, culled from cassette tapes recorded live (1995-2000).
