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ambient
VA – The Second Annual Fundraiser: War Child [CKNOW2]
Craigie Knowes returns with ‘The Second Annual Fundraiser: War Child’ this December. Similar to its predecessor ‘The Second Annual Fundraiser: War Child’ will donate all profits to War Child International and has recruited another all-star cast to treat us to a sublime collection of cuts. Featuring the likes of Legowelt, Shanti Celeste, Neville Watson and Andy Hart this compilation is set to be another sell-out success. Rather than drown you in copy we’ll let the tracks do the rest of the talking.
Eva Geist – Dniheb [MMX909]
Eva Geist is an italian electronic musician and composer based in Berlin. Her early musical experiences in electronic music were largely self-directed, beginning with use of synthesizers and sequencers to different audiovisual computer and mobile technologies. Geist’s music builds up a cinematic musical journey around rarefied melodies, arpeggiators, soft beats and space disco. Under the Eva moniker hides the underground polyedric artist Andrea Noce, who previously released a mini-LP last year with David Kristian on Macadam mambo. This EP includes a wonderfull remix of «Tanz Im Morgenmantel » by Salon des Amateurs head’s Tolouse Low Trax, transposing it in a very subaquatic version.
Marie Davidson – Adieux Au Dancefloor [CITI021]
Cititrax presents a full length LP entitled Adieux Au Dancefloor by Montreal based recording artist, Marie Davidson. Marie Davidson has emerged as one of the foremost electronic artists working in contemporary pop today. As a long-time member of Essaie Pas (DFA Records), Davidson has had the opportunity to hone her many talents. She has been participating in the city’s vibrant experimental community for much of her adult life. However, in 2012 she began to unveil compositions under her own name, revealing a solo artist who possessed the combined confidence and vulnerability required to write, produce and perform unaccompanied. Davidson’s intimate solo work is embodied through a host of synthesizers, sequencers and drum machines which coalesce in synchronized harmony, punctuated by vocals, half sung, half spoken in both French and English. She masterfully shapes the overall mood, themes, emotion, expression and intensity of her work, which gives the final result a distinctive, cinematic quality. With Adieux Au Dancefloor, Marie makes a slight departure from her last two releases, via Holodeck (2015) and Weyrd Son (2014), by creating her first fully dancefloor oriented piece of work. Through the 45 minutes of music that comprises the album, she experiments with pop structures, defines her voice, and layers rhythms to make complex and beautiful techno tracks. She closes the album with the title track in classic Chanson style.
Kane Ikin – Sensory Memory [EVR022]
Sensory Memory’ marks the second installment on Echovolt’s brand new series of mini-albums that has opened them up to more experimental fare. Kane Ikin is an experimental musician from Melbourne. Drawing from an isolated upbringing on the south coast of Western Australia, he creates music influenced by science fiction, broken synthesizers and endless horizons. Equal parts narcotic and kinetic, “Sensory Memory’ is built as an exploration in the genres and sounds formative to Kane’s sound.
mgch – 87 [L2M004]
mgch comes through with a dexterous debut 12” for listen2me. This 4-track EP explores lush pulses and shadowy rhythms, balancing both introspection and evocation. Label mate and long time collaborator Serb flips the title track on its head, delivering an ever evolving and explosive remix.
Kassem Mosse – Disclosure [HJRLP073]
Subtle music, radically strange and unafraid of the deep, but with a killer understanding of rhythm. Lush drum-machine nocturnes, gnarly electronica and glorious flowerings of zoned-out dubspace: an evolutionary music, continuously engaged with experimentation both in the studio and the club.
VA – Plafond 1 [BAKKPLAFOND001]
BAKK kicks off a new series of records with Plafond 1 made for drowning in the deep end of the pool. Legowelt, SFV Acid and Haron provide you with an eery collection of ambient harmonies and melodic rhythms best served when lying on the floor, gazing in to the abyss.
The Order – Underground Rythmic Project [ML003LP]
The third release of Male Records features “The Order” a studio and live group that shares with “The True Underground Sound Of Rome” the same city and sound. A powerful mix of electronic detroit sounds together with melodic and balearic ambient atmospheres. Still comes as collector’s Album edition of 475 copies only containing the original songs from the rare “The Order EP” from 92 plus two unreleased strong songs: “Quasar” and “Way Back” recorded in the same year and performed only live during the big house event “Night Of Male 92” back in the days. This LP features also Stefano Di Carlo for additional percussions on Long Waves and Leo Young on the mix.
Black Deer – Nowhere Man [RHD028DEER3]
The return of the returner. 6 track Mini LP. Esoteric electronix produced By William Burnett, New York
Flaty – New Suggestions [NII001]
Breaklab – Reet [ZCKR013]
Noisy & drone-ish debut 12inch by Bremen based artist Breaklab. Electronic organ dkb-44 sound studies.
The Smoke Clears – S/T [ACTSCLPX1]
The Smoke Clears is the abstract ambient project of producer John Daly. He debuted this alias with an eponymous LP in 2013 on Further Records and this is a part 2. Following up his 2013 LP of the same name, this record builds upon it’s predecessor’s ambient abstractions while adding another layer of nuanced melodic contemplation. Kicking off with “Fathoms” a deceptively calm track but with a paced sense of urgency which is evident throughout the LP, belying it’s calm undertones. Continuing at this pace for the rest of the first side the LP takes a side turn with the lush “Slipstream” melting into the only vocal track of the LP – the dubbed out bliss of “Oh My Days” featuring Cian Finn. Showcasing a side that might not be so familiar, this is lush downtempo machine music equally as at home cranked up one louder soundsystem style, or for late night home listening.
Monadh – Muara [FUR103]
Everyone’s looking for inner peace of some kind even warmongers. As most intelligent people know, music is one of the most effective ways to achieve that blessed, blissed state. The debut album by Seattle producer Monadh (Jake Muir) offers yet more crucial aid in the war on stress. Muara is an ambient album in the purest, chillest meaning of the term. Its seven tracks are awash in aquatic signifiers and textures; each one is a rejuvenating dip in healing, icy waters. (Muara is Javanese for “estuary.”) Which isn’t to say that Muara should be filed in New Age sections of record shops (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Rather, what the album most resembles is the ambient output of artists like Biosphere. Loscil, and The Sight Below—musicians who uncannily make you warm to cold tones. “The way I make music is really stream of consciousness,” Muir says. “My friend calls it ‘slow improv.’ I happened to be watching a lot of older Japanese cinema, especially samurai stuff, from the ’50s to the ’70s while making the album.” Natural habitats also played a significant role, Muir notes. “My favorite music is informed by mood and place.” This deep into the 21st century, it’s not easy to create ambient music that sounds vital and untainted by hackneyed tropes. Monadh succeeds in this difficult task, through a combination of his field recordings from the Pacific Northwest and meticulously chosen samples mostly lifted and pitchshifted from library records of a pastoral and romantic bent. He also cites Andrew Pekler’s Sentimental Favourites and Biosphere’s Shenzhou as inspirations.
Ryo Murakami – Esto [BDNLP002]
Eleven, deft, darkly-lit, sometimes despairing soundscapes by the Osaka-based producer, for his third album. ‘The thoughts of a rebellious spirit are always accompanied by music,’ he says. Esto, existence.
Not Wawing – Redacted [ELP023]
Forever a label willing to revisit previous tape-only wares if the demand is there, Sam Willis and Ale Natalizia’s Ecstatic turn their gaze to one of the latter’s earliest Not Waving documents. Originally issued on highly limited, gold cassette way back in 2012, Redacted was produced during Walls downtime by Natalizia and expanded on the “classified” themes of his Remote Viewing-inspired debut LP Umwelt. Fans of the most recent Diagonal-released Not Waving LP, Animals, should be thrilled to see how far Natalizia’s project has developed in just four years with the prevailing mood on Redacted a sort of murky and brutish EBM that is wholly satisfying.
Ian Martin – Clairvoyant [27DIAM]
Known for his diverse releases on labels such as Bunker, Panzerkreuz, Further or Shimmering Moods Ian Martin has developed his very unique own brand of electronic music. To categorize his music is difficult which adds an immense appeal to his approch on his releases. Clairvoyant is no exception to this. It is an uplifting and beautiful album based around three of Ian’s favourite synthesizers: Waldorf Microwave I, Ensoniq ESQ-1 and Korg M1. Ian describes this album as an emotional collection of tracks with a lot of fantasy.
Zandvoort & Uilenbal – Geruis Uit Somberdorp [NW010]
Geruis Uit Somberdorp’ (Rustlings from Somberville) is a concert for Harmonium, Mixtur Trautonium & Synthesizer, originally commissioned for the dutch classical Concertzender broadcast corporation in early 2016. Zandvoort & Uilenbal are Danny Wolfers and Jimi Hellinga.
Crotaphytus – Acanthosaura [FUR104]
Robert Witschakowski takes a break from rewiring the rules of electro with his prolific The Exaltics project to deliver the eerie soundtrack album, ‘Acanthosaura’. Working with Nico Jagiella – with whom he co-runs the Solar One label – the pair have created the soundtrack for a world of flickering shadows, dark ambient textures and ominous bass tones. It’s the first Crotaphytus release in six years and according to Witschakowski, a project stemming from his love of reptiles and movie soundtracks. Like previous Crotaphytus releases on Solar One, ‘Acanthosaura’ is a deeply atmospheric affair. With each track title a reference to different types of lizards, from the death-paced drums of Cyclura Cornuta” to the slow-motion ebm-disco groove of Xenosaurus Platyceps” and the murderous subs of Caiman Latirostris”. In between, the dark ambient passages of Conolophus Subcristatus” and Amblyrhynchus Cristatus” as well as nods to The Exaltics’ spaced out electro in Iguana Delicatissima”. However, Robert insists that the album remains true to the project’s ethos. Crotaphytus is always dark and haunting. The project has no rules and that gives us the total freedom to make everything with it. I make also different styles with The Exaltics, but I have a concrete vision every time. With Crotaphytus, we let it flow and see were we land at the end. For this album, we tried to create an atmosphere like you are in a deep jungle, chased by giant lizards. Ambient has really the power to transport feelings. I guess this is subliminal in us from watching films.”
VC-118A – Shift Register [TABR036]
Over the last few years, Dutch electronic misfit VC-118A has delivered a number of killer EPs and 12″ singles, each packed with sharp-edged electro, spacey techno, and industrial-strength analogue house. Shift Regsiter is his second full-length excursion and offers an expansive and hugely atmospheric journey through his trademark sound. Naturally, there’s much to admire across the 14 tracks, from the woozy, spaced-out electro-dub of “Input Mode” and the sparkling IDM of “Serial Data Transmission”, to the ultra-deep throb of “Radiation Curve”, and the hard-wired dancefloor bounce of the Drexciya-like “Apex”.
The Hipodrome Of Music 