drone

All posts tagged drone

Rhythmic Theory – Mechanised Dreaming [CRLP14]

Posted by hipodrome on June 2, 2019
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Bristol based Rhythmic Theory, known for working the dark and mysterious edges of bass heavy techno and drum & bass, returns to Creme Organization. After his first work for the label in 2017 he now brings a fulsome nine track mini-LP ‘Mechanised Dreaming’, exploring the dark corners of ambient and synth based intrigue. Atmospheric sound design is at the fore here, with cinematic soundscapes crafted from broad synth smears and plenty of subtle little motifs. The music paints pictures of a metropolis during the dead of night, or a former industrial factory reduced to a hall of echoes and shadows. There is subtle tension built from sustained chords and plenty of suggestion of weird lifeforms in the icy ticks and scuttling footsteps of thew a-side. Side b is less dark and dank, with slightly brighter synths and wider horizons all explored. This is a truly immersive and emotive listen that always keeps you absorbed.

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Kassel Jaeger – Le Lisse Et Le Strié [LTNC017]

Posted by hipodrome on June 2, 2019
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Le Lisse et le Strié is a new work by french composer François J. Bonnet, released under his project name Kassel Jaeger. Based in Paris, Bonnet is the Director of INA GRM. He is also a writer and theoretician. Le Lisse et le Strié has been conceived as an exploration of the two antagonist concepts of “smooth” and “striated”, applied to the realm of electroacoustic sounds. If the “smooth” is linked to “nomos” as an open space of organic distribution, the “striated”, on the contrary, is associated to “logos”, as an enclosed space defined by a grid. Elaborating a dialogue between these aspects, Kassel Jaeger draws here an intermediary space where pulsations become textures and layers, and where rhythmic elements are found in the qualities and bodies of sounds instead of being functionnalised, pre-determined sound objects, abstracted and frozen onto a temporal grid. The concept of “striated” is made audible only through the sonic landscape it inhabits, like the stripes of the camouflage fur of wild animals only exist as such in the woods and long grass, disappearing into a potentially uselessness in a desert plain.

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Psyk – A Moment Before [TRESOR308]

Posted by hipodrome on March 30, 2019
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Tresor Records celebrates the return of Spanish Manuel Anós aka Psyk on its catalogue, with his new album “A Moment Before”. This is Psyk’s first long player since his debut “Time Foundation”. The album is undoubtedly Psyk’s most advanced piece of work to date. It dialogs with practices in reduced forms of techno, as originated by artists like Robert Hood, through the recently re-released “Internal Empire” on Tresor.

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Ryen March – Pale Desert [SPZ007]

Posted by hipodrome on March 21, 2019
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‘Pale Desert’ is the first release of the Australian born, Berlin based producer Ryen March. The name resonates not only the dry outback of his hometown, but it also mirrors the soundscape of the tracks – being completely raw and sweaty at the same time. The five track strong EP has it’s core in the techno swamp but with the aesthetics of punk and EBM.

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Nocturnal Emissions – Spiritflesh [MNQ103]

Posted by hipodrome on January 19, 2019
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Mannequin Records starts a series of re-presses dedicated to the legendary Nocturnal Emissions, one of the best kept secrets of the industrial genre since the 1970s. Led by Nigel Ayers and Caroline K, the band was one of the first to use tape cutting, avant-garde art, and underground video works to create a stage experience that was being cultivated by like-minded artists like Throbbing Gristle, SPK and Cabaret Voltaire. Originally self released in 1988 on Earthly Delights, ‘Spiritflesh’ is a masterpiece and a major reference for the early drone/dark ambient minds.

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Octavian Nemescu – Gradeatia / Natural (1973-83) [SR467]

Posted by hipodrome on January 13, 2019
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Originally issued in 1984 by Electrecord, the only record label in communist-era Romania. Sub Rosa brings these two fantastic avant-garde electronic compositions back on vinyl in their Early Electronic Series. Octavian Nemescu was born in Pascani (Romania) in 1940. He studied composition with Mihail Jora at University of Music in Bucharest. As he was still a student, he imposed himself as part of avant-garde movement in Romanian compositional music. After 1965 he achieves works of the “open creation” type, of conceptual and environmental music. He involves himself after 1967 into the Romanian spectral trend. Starting with the work Concentric (1969), his creation has got archetypal vocation by cultivating an aesthetic of the essentializing. Gradeatia was composed in 1982. This piece was commissioned by the Electroacoustic Music Studio in Gent (Belgium) where it was elaborated. It was conceived as ambient music for Voronet Monastery (Moldavia), as an electronic-audio fresco paralleling the existing one, of mural-visual consistency. It happened in a historic moment when the communist regime in Romania demolished many churches. And this piece was conceived as a protest to these actions. Natural was composed in 1973 but finalzied in 1983. This music has a spectral aesthetic orientation and at the same time, processual and archetypal orientations.

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