Monday, February 28, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Strom Noir - Kueyen
Text taken from Resting Bell
strom noir is a project of Emil Matko, born in 1979 and now living in Bratislava, Slovakia. He is wellknown from his releases on u-cover (ylomejja, kruhyNAvode), ambsine (luvyoo) and format noise (lorawa).
"kueyen" brings you six athmospheric ambient-experimental tracks, built mainly with electric and acoustic guitar loops, synth-layers and some well-arranged field-recording elements. Deep, sometimes really dark droning elements, repetitive melodic structures and more abstract electronic sounds were composed to six works with a big ambience and a little melancholic touch. Especially the combination between the rougher guitar loops and the cleaner synth-parts opens up a new and wide soundworld to the listener.
A great release to enjoy the last summer evenings here in Europe.
Please lay back, watch the stars above you and enjoy "kueyen".
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Friday, February 25, 2011
Spheruleus – Forgotten Outland
Text taken from Resting Bell
The sound-art of Spheruleus is produced by British artist Harry Towell with a previous discography including releases on the likes of Under The Spire, Earth Mantra and Test Tube as well as his own label Audio Gourmet. Intrigued by all things old and rustic, his music is often inspired by the rural Lincolnshire surroundings in which he lives and his first outing of 2011, here on Resting Bell, is intended to really captured this.
A short collection of deliberately loose and degraded instrument samples and field recordings, 'Forgotten Outland' is presented as if it were an old record found discarded inside a derelict farm building on disused land.
It comprises of blurred melodic passages and offers a faded insight into times gone by when the farmland thrived. Just like the physical state of the farm itself, the record sounds timeworn, warped and a shadow of its former self.
The instrument leads and various sounds climb over one another as if fighting for a voice. Nothing seems structured or in order, although amidst the deluge of disjointed melody, subtle detail can be focused upon to reveal parts of this purposefully concealed soundtrack.
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Thursday, February 24, 2011
Finglebone - 23
Text taken from finglebone
Different states of mind, hazy, melancholy reverie. Originally released on Rural Colours label as an EP, this release is the full album.
"23" is a collection of experimental layering of field recordings and ambient sounds is interwoven with light and sparkling acoustic guitar melodies. All in all, this results in a very organic sound structure. This is a great one for headphone listening, as many of Pan, EQ and other effects details are buried deep in the mix. Contemplative, meditative, sunny and peaceful - like a walk in the woods". - Klangverhaltnisse Ambient blog.
released 30 November 2010
All tracks Mastered by Wil Bolton except 'twenty-three.
Janes scenic drive - now to then
Text taken from Amorphos Music
Here is the first of many long-form ambient drones by Janes scenic drive. This is the 68 minute version; an abbreviated, 30 minute version, is also available. "Now to then" is the longest single piece of ambient music I have ever created. But the content is more important than the length, and this drone has an atmosphere best enjoyed at about 1/4 volume.
Phillip Willkerson
www.janesscenicdrive.net
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Luke Bacon - Equivalence #3
Text taken from Luke Bacon
Recorded on a rainy night in December 2010, this is an improvised piece, the first thing that happened when I sat down at the piano.
released 19 January 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier - Tropical Malady
Text taken from ihadanaccident
From France, living in Belgium, Tropical Malady was recorded during a residency in the United States - Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier brings out sounds from Portland Oregon and (oddly enough) Upstate New York. Tropical Malady is a haunting auditorial interpretation of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady; a sound experiment - a ghostly ambience with chant like vocals and echos. Mysterious drone soundscapes and tones set against a television frequency, the motion of the ocean the ebb and flow of emotions. Limited to 50 c36 with download code.
released 21 September 2010
Coldstream - Drown/Lights
Text taken from Rural Colours
Coldstream is a London-based musician and sound artist Dan Mumford who creates his music using guitars, melodica, piano, old tape recordings, synths, percussion and field recordings. To date Dan has releases out on Under the Spire, Audio Gourmet, Aether Everywhere & Vikomt.
Drown/Lights ep contains two tracks both recorded from the same session which are based around treated guitar and bass guitar, but also incorporate some old synths, piano and organ. What makes these tracks interesting is the field recordings that are woven into them; these were recorded during a trip through the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific North West of America and are recordings of forests, wildlife and AM radio broadcasts from the area.
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Downloade: Coldstream - The Asleep
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The Omega Core - Massive Black
Text taken from Earth Mantra Netlabel
We have oft mentioned how much we enjoy meeting new folks and bringing their music to our listening audience. Today, we have the pleasure of welcoming Matt Shepherd of The Omega Core to our family of artists, with his fascinating release "Massive Black".
We find it difficult to categorize this captivating album. Certainly much of the music could be labeled dark ambient, replete with foreboding abstract sound sculpture and baleful waves of texture crashing all around. But much more lurks in this album than darkness, including movements of beautiful melody and radiant light. Somehow Matt found a way to blend all of these disparate elements into a cohesive whole that hangs together in a truly hypnotic fashion.
For this reason, we think that "Massive Black" will speak to lovers of many schools of ambient thought. Those who seek epic scope and haunting vistas will find much to love here. But likewise, those who eschew the darkness and instead crave concrete musical elements, even melody, will find parts of this album deeply satisfying. For our part, we find this fusion of ambient styles to be a novel and holistic form unto itself, a clever combination of pieces that yields a unity that stands firmly on its own, a whole whose value exceeds the sum of its parts. Truly well done.
Matt himself describes the album thus: "Being a fan of drone, and huge, dreamy soundscapes, I thought I'd have a bash at creating my own. I wanted to make something that would make my spine tingle, even after listening to it countless times during the 'inspiration' sessions. "Massive Black" isn't exactly that, as it's rather more abstract than I would have ultimately wanted, but an entire album full of ear-bending symphonic ambient might get a bit tiring after a while. You need to have intervals of peace and WHAM, into the climax."
If this album weren't enough, Matt has released a great deal of other music directly through The Omega Core's web site, and we encourage our audience to not only grab "Massive Black" for your collections, but to investigate his other work as well. Earth Mantra is very happy to bring "Massive Black" to our listeners, and we certainly look forward to Matt's future releases, both via Earth Mantra and beyond. Highly recommended.
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Listening Mirror - Wet Roads
Text taken from audiogourmet
In just a year of operation, Listening Mirror's Jeff Stonehouse and Kate Tustain have managed to put together a solid foundation to their discography with EPs out on Rural Colours and Heat Death Records. Their debut album then followed on Somehow Recordings later in 2010.
Sadly for the duo, Kate has decided to call it a day as part of Listening Mirror for personal reasons, leaving Jeff to carry forward the project. For one last excursion as the Listening Mirror duo, Jeff and Kate have assembled a two track EP called 'Wet Roads' to commemorate their work. The pieces act as bookends, with 'Wet Roads' being the very first piece of music they recorded together and 'The Organist' being the last.
To some of you, 'The Organist' in particular may feel quite familiar; this could be because a one minute edit was featured on the Audio Gourmet Coffee Break Ambient EP released last year.
Whilst this EP will always serve as space to reflect on how their sound first started out, we can thankfully anticipate a bright future for Listening Mirror as Jeff fully intends to carry forward the project.
The first solo excursion penned for release is to be a 3" cdr EP in an A3 folded poster, recorded as a tribute to the late Throbbing Gristle legend Peter Christopherson.This will be out very soon on Heat Death Records:
www.heatdeathrecords.co.uk
A final word from Jeff on this EP: "I'll miss Kate's input, the beauty and talent of which is evident in both of these tracks. We remain good friends, and I wish her the very best in her new adventures."
(Jeff Stonehouse, January 2011)
released 22 February 2011
All music by Jeff Stonehouse and Kate Tustain
Photograph taken by Jeff Stonehouse
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Downloade: Listening Mirror - Falling Under
Downloade: Listening Mirror - After The Briefest Of Pauses
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Nasienie - Haunting Last Spring EP
Text taken from Webbed Hand
A third EP for Webbed Hand by Nasienie, of chilled ambient soundscapes.
Understated, subtle, but rich in detail, these ambient works by Nasienie have quickly been attracting an appreciative audience.
Produced in 2011
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Saturday, February 19, 2011
Simon Whetham - Cold Shoulder
Text taken from audiogourmet
Simon Whetham has been capturing and composing almost primarily with field recordings since taking part in a research trip to Iceland in 2005.
Since then he has been gaining a steadily increasing profile: exhibiting in Iceland; recording in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil; performing at a large number of festivals and events, both nationally and internationally, notably the recent Madeiradig 2010; having work accepted for release by labels such as Cronica, And/OAR, Dragon's Eye, Con-V, Trente Oiseaux, 1000fussler, Mystery Sea, Entr’acte, Install, Lens and Gruenrekorder; commissioned by Creative Labs to build a surround sound installation to demonstrate their equipment and software; commissioned by painter Kathryn Thomas to compose a surround soundtrack to accompany her ‘Lightyears’ series of exhibitions; producing radio works for Resonance FM, Overlap.org and Kunst Radio Austria; and invited to participate in two residencies at the Art Container in Tallinn, Estonia, the second to compose new work, collaborate with other artists using sound and run deep listening, field recording and compostion workshops.
This residency has resulted in ‘Active Crossover’, a touring exhibition and exchange project which continues to tour through 2011 in four further exhibition spaces across the UK.
Future events and projects also include a performance at Experimental Intermedia in New York, and running field recording workshops in Bogota, Columbia.
Simon is based in Bristol, UK, where he has lived on and off for 14 years. Whilst much of his work is based around his travels, Simon took time out to record some sounds within his locality to make up an Audio Gourmet EP called 'Cold Shoulder'...
For four months Simon lived facing an industrial area of Bristol called St. Philips, where on quiet evenings he would wander around the buildings, listening to the city, but from somewhere very still and lifeless compared to it's daytime activity. Of course, as we all know, these areas are never silent. These nocturnal sounds of an area, normally crashingly loud, are the raw materials of 'Cold Shoulder (Parts 1 and 2)'
Simon has also put together a bonus track continuing from where he left off with this EP and it will be available to download as part of a forthcoming compilation album here on Audio Gourmet
released 18 February 2011
Recorded and produced by Simon Whetham
Photography by Simon Whetham
Friday, February 18, 2011
Orphax - Live at NetstockFest, March 19th, 2005
Text taken from Orphax
This live set is played from my house and broadcasted through
streaming radio into the wide world as part of the NetStock
Festival, 2005. The piece is on long ambient drones set of
processed guitar, samples and fieldrecordings.
Free download (or pay what you want).
released 19 March 2005
Spaceship Graveyard - Surfing Solar Winds
Text taken from spaceshipgraveyard
After receiving a report of a wreck spotted adrift near the Wolf 359 system, two crew members were dispatched to investigate and engage in salvage operations. Upon arrival, the crew picked up a failing distress signal, likely triggered when the wreck came within range of the solar winds from Wolf 359. Investigation revealed no survivors, but did identify significant remaining fuel supplies and several other precious elemental substances which were extracted and contained for delivery back to earth base processing stations.
There was a time when we could all imagine the future and think of a whole landscape of possibilities. Strange and fantastic machines and voyages to far away places were just a small part of the pallet of imagination with which we painted stories that swept us up in our hopes and dreams. Yet, today, that imagination is being smothered in global crude oil spill floating continents of garbage. Economic vampires suck us dry, leaving us in crumbling homes repossessed and abandoned to ghosts who themselves are filing for bankruptcy. And con man debt Frankenstein monsters stumble across the face of the world, smashing social structures and cultures into relic pottery shards for future archeologists to scratch their heads over. The future has been damaged, but it has not yet been destroyed. We still have a chance to make changes and salvage something from the wreckage. Use your imagination. Use your creativity. These are the tools which can bring us new hope and optimism.
This artifact is the result of a live, improvised performance. It was recorded directly to stereo digital output with no additional overdubs, mixing or editing. The sounds you hear are exactly as they were heard at the time they were created
released 11 February 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Souns - Lights
Text taken from Kikapu
Souns is an ambient project from vancouver-based DJ/producer/promoter michael red. 'lights' came out of the source material created exclusively for an event michael put together for newformsfestival 04. the event, simply titled 'a sound event', was successful in creating a fusion between modern electronic music and ancient healing sound. happening in four movements, the most intensive healing work happened in the second and third movement. 'lights' are the drones used in these two movements and have not been altered. tracks one through eight were used in conjunction with crystal bowls sounded by christine paton, with additional sound from anomalous disturbances, and follow the chakra system from root to crown. track one represents chakra one, track two is chakra two, and so on. track eight represents the first harmonic of the root chakra and doubles as the possible eighth chakra as well. each track contains the elements, sounds and the artist's interpretation of the essence of the corresponding chakra. track nine was used as the transition sound between movements, made from the sounds of a rainstick, to clear the energies brought about from healing. the sound of rain, and moving water in general, is quite cleansing. track ten and eleven were the drones used as a backdrop for vocalist little woo sounding ancient sanskrit mantras for the purpose of healing, peace, and general well being.
in addition to 'regular' relaxed listening, 'lights', at varying volumes, could be experimented with as a tool for meditation, self-exploration or discovery. however you choose to experience it.... please enjoy.
'lights' appears in it's raw and stripped form with the intention to be remixed and reworked by souns himself as well as other artists. breath in. breath out. the first remix project, 'coloured lights', will be available through kikapu in the new year.
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Downloade: Souns - Scenarios for the real self
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Osakan - Music For Astronauts
Text taken from Community Audio
This is the debut album from ambient musician Osakan. Influences and points of comparison include: Stars of the Lid, Brian McBride, Tim Hecker, Aidan Baker, and Loscil
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Hessien - Hessien ep
Text taken from handstitched
This self-titled Hessien ep was originally released for free download from Hessiens' web site in December 09 as a prelude to the 'Skurjn' ep on Handstitched* Recordings. After much demand for these songs to be released in flac/lossless formats they have been remastered and now appear at Bandcamp for easy, accessible downloading.
Hessien info:
Hessien usually occurs somewhere between the UK and Australia, somewhere between the hours of 11pm and 6am (Southern Hemisphere) & 9am and 8pm (Northern Hemisphere) Hessien is made up of acoustic noise artist Charles Sage (Australia) and Tim Diagram (UK). They collided through a coincidence and were pleased to note that the collision has produced an EP – ‘Skurjn’, which was released on 29th January. ‘Skurjn’ is the first EP from Hessien, and is limited to 100 copies (worldwide) and housed in hand-stitched cork sleeves (from a sustainable source)
The musical content is acoustically-challenged, inverted and lo-fi, an amalgamation of tangible styles, pedal-work and mangled, modern conversions that combine the audible landscapes into one bigger image. Each song has been constructed from live workings and sketches of sound and field recordings, stitched together with fine acoustic thread and broken down into less accessible fragments to be built up again into mutual timings and compositions.
Hessien appeared on Fluid Radio (19 March) for a live mix installment, to listen to the mix visit Fluid Radio on Mixcloud: www.mixcloud.com/FluidRadio/hessien-descending-out-of-the-grey/
Hessien also have a digital single via the French label Beko, which has received 'song of the day' in France's cool, Indie Pop website 'MagicRPM' www.magicrpm.com/son-du-jour
www.hessien.net
www.handstitched.net
The Inventors Of Aircraft - Lull
Text taken from audiogourmet
The Inventors of Aircraft is a London based music project helmed by Phil Tomsett and here with 'Lull' we are proud to present three tracks of fine ambient music, themed around the sea.
With 2008 debut 'Unknown Language' out on the old Serein netlabel and then last year's follow up 'As It Is' on Resting Bell, the Inventors Of Aircfraft project is slowly gathering momentum. It is inching along further still with the inclusion of the three-track EP 'Lull', here on Audio Gourmet.
'Lull' was recorded during what turned out to be some fairly intense sessions in Phil's studio between December 2010 and January 2011. Through these sessions, around 15 pieces of music were collated at various states of completion and it then became an issue as to which he would choose to fit the bill for a fifteen minute Audio Gourmet EP.
Throughout the recording process, Phil became unintentionally aware of some kind of sea voyage theme, with flickering imagery of giant ships hauling themselves away from the quayside and powering through the water running through his imagination.
When the sessions were complete and the time came to chose the final three tracks for the EP, the sea voyage theme had remained. This prompted the overiding nautical theme to be written into the track titles and the cover artwork too.
Phil would like to extend his gratitude to Ian Hawgood who showed amazing speed and dexterity with the mastering on 'Lull'.
As with the Resting Bell album 'As It Is', Ian's mastering job really brings the EP alive...
released 10 February 2011
Mastered by Ian Hawgood (www.homenormal.com)
Cover Artwork by Phil Tomsett
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Thursday, February 10, 2011
djozr - Sad Songs
Text taken from Petcord
The dynamics of constantly shifting sound fragments. Pulsating repetition as a means of diving into the essence of an idea. On Sad Songs, hist first album for the Petcord netlabel, Glenn Bryce incorporates Microsound aesthetics, Minimalist music, reverberating drones and cut off clicks in his musical approach. Development takes place as addition and subtraction of acoustic, layers rather than through variations of a musical theme. One might suspect an approach like Djozr's may result in something unlistenable, however Sad Songs appears warm and harmonic with a melancholic touch, much like the dampened light of a drizzly summer day.
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djozr - Stasis
Text taken from high linear music
Stasis is an album compose during october, november 2009 by the guitarist and sound artist Glenn Alan Brice as "djozr" from Florida.The sound on stasis is defenitevly cycling, with a meaning for inertie of time, light and spaces.The sound cleverly shape, fairly depht and blur use tone from electric guitar, micro sample and an amount of audio filters.
The process of djozr, more than create drones and stromb of sound, do play with frequencies level to make each track convulsive, mecanic and alife.
Don't mind the beat per minute here every second is the resolve of sound, just let it go into the progressive, thick and awsome loops of Stasis.
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