ambient
Undermedvetenheten – Undermedvetenheten [KR36]
UNDERMEDVETENHETEN is a simple, science fantasy game for 1-12 players, with a focus on atmosphere, storytelling and player cooperation – perfect for newcomers to live action role playing. It takes 2 minutes to set up, lasts around 30 minutes, and no two games are ever the same. Players take on the roles of humans aboard a vessel on an endless journey into the depths of space. They are not lost, but all hope is, as they hurtle stricken into the void. Your only access to the universe outside is through the ship’s altruistic artificial intelligence, Mima. As immersive chapter cards are revealed one by one, players must interact with Mima in order to shed light on the universe around them, indulge in fantasies of worlds past, or attempt to right the ship’s blighted trajectory. Can you make sense of the abyss? UNDERMEDVETENHETEN comes complete with a soundtrack composed by John B McKenna.
DYL+ DB1 – Ecou [RE25]
DYL+ DB1 successfully fuses experimental D&B, half-step and techno tropes. Here they re-establish their occasional studio partnership with a first collaborative full-length. It’s a pleasingly atmospheric and imaginative affair, with the pair offering up tracks that variously mix and match elements of unearthly ambient, off-kilter drum and bass, broken techno, murky post-dubstep rhythms, experimental electronica, the metallic clonk of industrial and the hazy hypnotism of dub techno. Musically it’s hard to pin down due to the wide variety of interestingly programmed rhythms, though the album’s uniformly paranoid sense of impending darkness, coupled with occasional glimpses of musical positivity, ensures a coherent aural vision.
Orpheu The Wizard – Driver’s Eye
Bill Anagnos – The Sizzler [PHXS07]
PHXS07 comes from the Athenian experimentalist Bill Anagnos. It is the final outcome of several projects and performances held in 2019. Throughout long periods of almost complete isolation and loneliness and with a basic amount of audio equipment those 11 tracks are mainly fragments of manually managed and arranged in house performances using two analog synthesisers, a turntable, a loop station and a cheap sampler. Obvious is the influence of Kraut rock and retro wave due to the severe use of synthesisers and locked grooves.
Boris Divider – Generative Operations [DCOM016]
After a long break of around seven years, Drivecom the Spanish label based on advanced electro conducted by Boris Divider is back again to the scene delivering a minimal concept (as stated on its first roots) but with avantgarde elements to keep a vibe on the contemporary edge. This is the first episode of a new project under the name of “Generative Operations”. A project born from a new vision and workflow at the B. Divider’s studio. From the technical side, the use of massive modular synthesis and generative sequencing make the tracks to be different each time are being played, so here you have a unique recording of a certain moment as if it was and imprint of an instant. Also the minimalistic percussion tries to be slowly developed in an electro rhythm structure. In the other hand all the tracks have a cinematic vibe, it seems as they were composed thinking about to fit in any hi-tec sci-fi thriller movie. Granular sythesis pads, background noises, experimental compression routines help to fullfill the vision. At the moment of this info three volumes are being planned to be released in this year 2020.
CPR – Cyber Punk Romance [MKV1/369.004]
Weird shapes emerge from the darkness, illuminated only by muted street lamps and neon signs. The CPR album sifts through the shadows of night life decadence, influenced dimly lit romantic and mysteries that lurk on the streets in the early hours of the morning. CPR is a collaboration of a mysterious Berlin duo of lovers, Alexandra Ismalone and Tobias Lisius. Together they conjure a sound that paradoxically traverses darkness and brightness – diving into the depht of the unconsciousness leading to a hypnotic, transportive and psychedelic state done within a dark, intriguing and mysterious way.
Zandvoort & Uilenbal – Folk Triumfator [NW024] FREE DOWNLOAD
“Folk Triumfator”is the second album by Zandvoort & Uilenbal, a ‘paramusical academic’ project of medieval music expert Jimi Hellinga and electronic musician Danny Wolfers. As Zandvoort & Uilenbal they appropriate historical instruments such as a 19th century Victorian harmonium, a medieval hurdy gurdy, an electro acoustic thumb harp and an mid 20th century German Mixtur Trautonium. These are cross bred with the usual arsenal of contemporary electronic instruments and seasoned with some sinister poetry in their North Sea coast temple of sensory sonic delights. We can write how conceptual and arty this all is but let’s just say this is hardcore dark ambient with lots of medieval drone space jazz influences to trip your mind out into a region where time and your opinions cease to exist.
Albert Kuningas – Musiikkia UFO-dokumenttiohjelmille [EFS002]
Take the best parts of 70’s ambient legends and stir it up with some flavour of paranoia, conspiracy, UFO cover up, occultism and new age. After 12 years hiatus X0X Records sublabel Escape From Synthesis is back with a new ambient/dark ambient release. Finally it’s time to get a physical vinyl copies of Albert Kuningas legendary Bandcamp-only release “Music for UFO document programs” with a never before heard bonus track called ‘Homo Galactica’.
Muslimgauze – Return Of Black September [ARCHIVEFIFTYONE]
The excellent Black September, a continuous, five-part, 68-minute epic, is as formidably competent as ever, although more for the brooding, surreal nature of its soundworld than for its grooves, which here sound almost subsidiary. The soul samples and restlessly evolving minor-chord kaleidoscopes that unfold throughout the work is prima facie evidence of a musician on a roll. Boldly named after one of the most notorious Palestinian terrorist organizations, the group which carried out the Israeli Olympic athlete massacre in 1972, September matches it’s dark black artwork and design with equally doom-laden music (mastered as one track, despite the five separate song titles listed on the back).
LF58 – Alterazione [AI-19]
Neel reveals debut collaborative album with Filippo Scorcucchi under their LF58 alias on Astral Industries. Alterazione presents a critical statement – distinguished by its technical execution and breathtaking artistry. The album itself is a cathedral of sound, each cavernous chamber an exploration of space and consciousness. Presented in four movements (one track per side), altogether they extend as a transportive experience of evolution for the listener. Iniziazione – a steady departure that unfurls like the opening of a portal; a process of molecular transfiguration commences. Panoramic landscapes begin to stretch wide, glistening with an exotic beauty, before the shamanic incantations of Rituale draws things deeper. Pulsating rotations push through the next phase of transformation, now drenched in hyperspace white-noise. The procedure continues through the quiet ethereal orbit of Metamorfosi, before finishing with the three-part Evocazione/Contatto/Risveglio; uplifting synth motifs drive forward with optimism, before fading back into the great expanse. Alterazione is both cerebral and meditative, and one cannot help but be pulled at the core by its potency.
Cucina Povera – Tyyni [LSSN067]
Tyyni is the third album by Finnish-born sound artist and musician Cucina Povera aka Maria Rossi. The second album recorded using a more studio-based scenario – as opposed to last year’s Zoom, a collection of in-situ, spontaneous recordings – Tyyni feels like a slowly unfurling mediation on the clash between nature and mechanical living, a rumination on the complexities of modern life that begin to unveil more about the inner landscape of the artist as it progresses. A Finnish word referring to still, serene weather, the title belies a new note of turmoil in Cucina Povera’s soundworld. Tyyni represents a more detailed focus on the sculpting of sounds that curl around Rossi’s hymnal vocal performances. It’s a more adventurous work than Rossi’s previous output that goes further into noise elements and vocal abstraction while maintaining the balance and ecclesiastical ecstasy of her debut Hilja.
Jonny 5 aka Blindsign – Session 004
VA – LSD 029 [LSD029]
D.K. – The Goddess Is Dancing [GMV05]
Pivotal Parisian producer Dang-Khoa Chau aka D.K. pays sublime tribute to ancient Vietnamese spirit possession ritual, Hau Dong, on a fresh first vinyl edition of his 2019 cassette for Good Morning Tapes. ‘Goddess Is Dancing’ is a 40 minute trip that revolves around a handful of pieces of lilting, thmelodic percussion and aqueous atmosphere expressing D.K.’s imaginary interpretation of music used in Vietnamese ritual music. It unfolds as a ceremony in five parts honouring the mystical goddesses of Forest, Water and Heaven, with music both relaxing and energising in a way that’s intended to aid dancers’ transmogrification from human vessels into spirited beings.
Interstellar Funk @ Rural Festival 2019
Ranishe Niyaak @ DT CAMP 2019
Raviv Gazit – Ze [FTNLP008]
Fortuna Records return with an exceptional reissue of a mid-80s early electronica LP by keyboardist Raviv Gazit. The album was composed entirely on the Synclavier synthesizer in the basement of the Tel-Aviv University in 1985. Gazit was ahead of his time composing cold yet blissful electronic music for film and theatre which he later released as an album. An unexpected yet extremely welcome addition to Fortuna’s killer catalog.
The Chi Factory – Travel in Peace [AI-18]
Following the death of his one-time Chi Factory partner J. Derwort in February 2019, Hanyo van Oosterom went back to Patmos, the magical island where they once recorded their most famous works, armed with some of the artefacts and hand-built instruments they’d collected together. While there, he made the field recordings and musical sketches that form the backbone of “Travel In Peace”, Oosterorm’s emotional final album as Chi Factory. Poignant, atmospheric, melancholic, dreamy and otherworldly with a genuine sense of time and place (you can almost smell the surrounding flora and fauna), the album’s two lengthy tracks – collages of interlinked sketches and recurring musical motifs – are fittingly fantastic. As curtain calls go, we can think of few better.
Annechoic – rw nw prt m hrw [BT37]
The 37th installment on brokntoys sees the return after a long hiatus of audiofugitive Annechoic. Having carved her sound over the years, rw nw prt m hrw sees the DJ and producer inhabiting a crossover land between electro and electronica. Taking inspiration from The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the EP alternates dreamlike atmospheres with adroit club numbers. Through 5 tracks Annechoic deftly manoeuvres between the introspective and stargazing, offering a glimpse into the tapestry of a unique player
The Hipodrome Of Music 