New LP from Gigi Masin, Jonny Nash and Young Marco. Although their methodology remained the same, the inspirations were different. Whereas Clouds was intimate by design, The Distance reflects more on spaciousness, distance and time. It is instantly recognizable as a Gaussian Curve record, but feels different in scope and tone.
Mono No Aware is the first compilation to be released on PAN, collating unreleased ambient tracks from both new and existing PAN artists. Featuring Jeff Witscher, Helm, TCF, Yves Tumor, M.E.S.H., Pan Daijing, HVAD, Kareem Lotfy, ADR, Mya Gomez, Sky H1, James K, Oli XL, Bill Kouligas, Flora Yin-Wong, Malibu, and AYYA, the compilation moves through more traditional notions of what is called ‘ambient’, to incorporating wider variations that fall under the term. ‘Mono No Aware’, ‘the pathos of things’, also translates as ‘an empathy toward things’, or ‘a sensitivity to ephemera’. A term for the awareness of impermanence, or the transience of things. A meditation on mortality and life’s transience, ephemerality heightens the appreciation of beauty and sensitivity to their passing. In investigating the passing of time, the boundaries between memory and hallucination become blurred; between fiction and reality. The movement of time transforms into an eternal present..
Black Mesa is the first single from Biosphere´s forthcoming album The Petrified Forest. Biosphere is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen (born 30 May 1962), a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalogue of ambient electronic music. He is well known for his works on ambient techno and arctic themed pieces, his use of music loops, and peculiar samples from sci-fi sources. His 1997 album Substrata was voted by the users of the Hyperreal website in 2001 as the best all-time classic ambient album.
‘Tone To Voice’ is John Heckle’s fourth long player, and second on Tabernacle. Science fiction tracks of the highest order demonstrating a subtle development of John’s already widely recognised sound.
The year is 2051. The human race has split into two groups. One maintained their basic human state, while the other transformed by tapping into their psychospiritual lifeforce potential. The second group created a higher dimensional civilization. They called it Xymeria.
“Cellular Automata” is the new album from Dopplereffekt (Gerald Donald and Michaela To-Nhan Bertel), their first in ten years since 2007. Cellular Automata approaches mathematical growth and decay as an iterative process, with each data input considered individually relative to the overall model. The result represents one of the group’s boldest creative endeavors, defying expectations while remaining unmistakably Dopplereffekt. Cellular Automata is the third Dopplereffekt release to come via Berlin’s Leisure System label, following 2013’s “Tetrahymena” and 2014’s “Hypnagogia”.
Mystica Tribe is the musical alias of Tokyo-based producer, Taka Noda. Drawing on a wide range of influences from dub, soul, bass music, rhythm and blues Mystica Tribe has quickly been developing a very distinctive sound that exists in a weird, freaked out zone between dub and techno. Noda is especially interested in deep, psychedelic music, and this is reflected in his productions, which are equally suited for late night listening sessions or bent, broken in dancefloors. Now he heads over to Canadian label Silent Season for his debut album, capitalising on his emergent career in the field of dub-influenced downtempo with his most complete artistic statement to date. From the spacious stalk of ”On The Lookout” to the edgy piano delay of ”Peek-a-Boo”, this is the work of a man who has immersed himself in the tradition of classic dub music, but not at the expense of bringing things up to date. The loose, live and natural feel of the album is testament to Noda’s skills in the production department, not to mention his instinct for a killer sub-heavy rhythm.
Petre Inspirescu delivers ‘Vîntul Prin Salcii’ – another longplayer enlarged with seven, up to epic twelve minutes long arrangements. They all listen to the name ‘Miroslav’ and only differ numerically in their title. You can call them ambient. You can call them minimal music in the sense of classic compositions by Steve Reich or Terry Riley. They groove – sometimes more, sometimes less. and they spread the sounds of flutes or saxophones, delicate piano figures, organic jazz drumming, arpeggiated analogue synth-lines, mesmerizing strings, choral singing, alienated looped vocals and spaced out new aged spheres. What unites them all is the way, the melodies dance upon and in each single tune. Their beautiful tex-tures ensnare and they are continuously engaged with experimentation. A mystical album full of evolutionary music to which each listener is able to paint his very own emotional picture. Moody, dark and at the same time light-flooded shape-shifting compositions – made for those who love to surrender them-selves to a gentle dance between experimentation and attractiveness.
Field Records welcomes a new name into the fold with its next EP. That name is Kiyoko, and it pertains to the UK duo of Jack Lever and Joe McBride. They offer up four more ambient electronic cuts that again suspend you in a blissful sonic world.
Far out trip as collaborative effort from Beatrice Dillon and Kassem Mosse. Dillon Wendel is a place for the two respected artists to explore soundscapes, aesthetics and synthesis in pastures aeons away from the dancefloors they’re most familiar with. Both compositions weighing in over 15 minutes, they’re experiences which challenge form and convention; “Pulse” ripples with its namesake, a texture that buzzes and drones in endless waves while “High” mutates a warmer, grainer tone with dizzying effect.
The material collated on this third release from Heavenly Music Corporation was composed specifically for St. Giga in Japan, a satellite broadcast radio station transmitting ethereal audio harmony 24 hours a day. What made this station otherworldly was its programming; motivated by tidal movements, the aquatic ebbs and flows of each day synchronised to the activity and intensity of the music broadcast.
Italian producer Lamusa II is a master of atmospheric, synthesized concoctions that often sound like they’re being transmitted straight from a time machine out of the 1980s. The RBMA alumni’s latest release, ‘Club Mondo 2000’ on the Gravity Graffiti label runs the gamut from sleazy, break-infused house jams to hazy boogie and weightless flute meditations. “Agua Planet”, closes out the 5-track EP with a New Age feel.
Emotional Response starts 2017 with a mini-album of ambient-equatorial enlightenment by Australia’s mysterious Tropical Hi-Fi. The final record from an artist appearing on the label’s first SchleiBen series, this also points to the future. Based somewhere in the far flung Northern Territories, the music of Hi-Fi’s pre-incarnation Electric Egypt was first discovered via the note-worthy airwaves of L.A’s outstanding Dublab radio station. As the wonderfully diverse internet shows and project’s dense, hip-hop inspired collages came to fruition with 2012’s Exotica release, a dual awareness and sporadic contact was maintained whenever a signal could be established with Hi-Fi base camp. As the SchleiBen series was formed, the studio-DJ-cut-up-mix of Oceanic Mythology was warmly received as an inspired counterpoint to the dense offering from Don’t DJ. These first real solo recordings from the Hi-Fi crew – whoever he/she/they maybe – moves on from the cut’n’paste of Electric Egypt to seek a meditative vision. Ambient, drone and field recordings are all part of a drifting tropical flavour that encompasses the listener. Music truly inspired by it’s surroundings, this is not some music journal, flying in to sample a life and it’s sounds, but the real, living entity and it can be heard deep across the 8 short pieces. None is more typified than Tahiti Blue, where fellow traveler Mike Cooper layers his ubiquitous steel blues over simple, lilting drums. Mixed by Leaving Record’s Matthewdavid (with whom more to come on the label in 2017), photography by Native Finger and the ever-present encouragement of friend and neighbour, Ariel Kalma, this is conceptual album to lay back, drift off on undulating swells and simply, let go to.
Welcome to a science fiction nightmare helmed by the legend that is DJ Overdose. Alien prey, DNA in test tubes. Who is being regrown? Will the town survive? Who has been replaced? In these present times of truth vs fiction it’s easy to become paranoid. We have the soundtrack HAEX-HRLL’s Further From The Truth: An abductee saga by replicons from beyond the moon. Chiming in between hot electro, Vangelis dream scapes, XTRO drone. This is one of OD’s most fascinating records to date. Art by a mysterious figure.
Late night phone-calls, lonely connections & aviating trance. straight from our isle to your alley.
Seven years after his last release as Smackos, music making machine Legowelt surprises us all with ‘A Vampire Goes West,’ a brand new and ever-experimental ambient album. It comes on his own Nightwind label and was made in total isolation on the North Sea coast last Christmas. As for the music, it is smudgy and cosmic; an “all out amateur spacejazz spiritual ambient eruption on smudgey cassettetape” that will take you far away from reality across 14 absorbing and atmospheric cuts. It includes some extra fun treats too: a fridge magnet and microzine with a map in ASCII art that has a quest attached to it which, if decoded, reveals a password that unlocks some secret and special prizes.
Epic Synthi 100 action by Ukraine’s most notable film composer. Music for the soviet drama film Flights In Dreams And Reality. Both tracks recorded and performed on EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer in Moscow on 15-16th of April, 1982. Source files from original tapes were kindly provided by the author himself.
Composed and recorded in 2014.
The Hipodrome Of Music 