VA - In the rhetoric of rupture and re​-​appropriation

Text taken from capillarywaves

"...many field records covered with deep drone, digital cracking sounds and special effects are especially close to each other as if you can touch the sounding object with your hand. It's the main distinctive feature of this music, together with it you fall hundreds of meters under the earth surface, there is no sun ray, no wide spaces and each new rustle makes your heart sink..."
pi micron | SOUND PROECTOR

released 01 July 2009

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Palancar - Elysium Planitia

Text taken from Earth Mantra Netlabe

We have another Palancar release in store for you today, this time a re-release of a title originally from 2003. Called "Elysium Planitia", this is a collection of ambient space music that was described by one fan as "the quintessential Mars album". Originally released commercially on Blue Water Records, this album is now re-released and available freely under Creative Commons via Earth Mantra.

The 'prequel' in many ways to Darrell Burgan's 2010 Palancar release "Serenitatis", "Elysium Planitia" is intended to be a sound track to accompany an imaginary visit to the red planet. Each piece is named after a particular location on Mars, and each attempts to evoke the sights and sounds that one might experience if one could visit such an exotic locale. Unlike "Serenitatis", the music of this release is more tightly focused on pure space music, with more emphasis on ambience and sound design, and correspondingly less rhythm and traditional melody.

Though the album is primarily solo pieces, Palancar was joined by Gwydi on "Aureum Chaos", and by FootFall on "Olympus Mons".

Darrell is proud of the music in this album, and hopes listeners find the music both enjoyable and inspiring.

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Download: Palancar - Yuri's Night

Download: Palancar - Singularity

Download: Palancar - Momerath

Download: Palancar - Ambient Train Wreck Back Catalog Collection Ten

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Offthesky and Pillow Garden - A Dream In A Dream

Text taken from audiogourmet

The Audio Gourmet first birthday festivities continue and we're the ones offering the presents...and what a treat it is too! 

Ever since the birth of the label last year, we've been talking to Jason Corder about the possibility of releasing an Offthesky EP on Audio Gourmet. Now a year on, it is a reality - he has teamed up again with Pillow Garden for this short excursion ahead of a stunning solo debut for Hibernate, due out this summer.

"A Dream In A Dream" is the debut EP from Offthesky and Pillow Garden. For many Offthesky will need little introduction, having graced several of the finest labels and netlabels such as Home Normal, Resting Bell and Zymogen. This prolific artist has been operating in this field for about a decade and has become a firm favourite with many. His project alongside Pillow Garden began with several live performances and first surfaced as the opening track to Audio Gourmet's Hidden Landscapes compilation album released in January 2011.

Pillow Garden is experimental new media artist and educator Sarah Chung. She uses a variety of field recordings, orphaned instruments and curious objects to create collages of layered compositions. Sarah especially enjoys the process of revealing hidden sounds that are secretly embedded in any ordinary or extraordinary object; pine cones, books, bird cages, chairs, forks and glasses are just some of the items that may be found/heard. Pillow garden invites the listener to lie back and contemplate the various sounds that have been stretched, cultivated and sown like seeds to grow in the lush multifarious garden of your imagination.

A Dream In A Dream carefully fuses the artists' respective backgrounds together in a dense wash of detail that never quite reaches a crescendo. Heavily treated recordings of instruments, gently mutated vocals, field recordings, subtle chimes and snippets of tape-deck effects make for an otherworldly listening experience that gives off a warm glow from start to finish.
Conceptually, the EP maps out dreams within dreams; several unconscious experiences that are half thought and collapsing in on one another. Always encouraging the wandering of thoughts and offering a gentle push into the daydream, this two piece set will have you spinning out into the fantastical in no time.

released 24 May 2011
Pillow Garden is the audio collaboration of Sarah Chung and Jason Corder.
www.offthesky.com | www.pillowgarden.com

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Adam A Williams - On Recovery (demo)

An incomplete and unmastered selection of tracks from an upcoming album by Adam A Williams.

Released 18 May 2011

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Nils Quak - On Sinking

Text taken from ruralcolours

Nils Quak has been around for quite a while releasing music under his own name and the NQ moniker somewhere between abstract rhythms and droning ambient for labels such as Progressive Form, Distance Recordings or Ripples Recordings.

Compared to older releases “On Sinking” is a lot lighter and etheral. Warm and soothing textures float beneath delicate crackles and melancholic reverberations of distant melodies.

Released 23/05/11

Photography by Nils Quak

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Antonymes - Lost In Waves Of Light

Text taken from hiddenshoal

[Includes a stunning 12 page photographic pdf booklet.]

Created from elements lifted off Antonyme’s critically acclaimed album The Licence To Interpret Dreams, ‘Lost In Waves Of Light’ is a deftly crafted sonic and melodic patchwork. The track sits as a wonderful companion piece to the album, as recognised melodies unfurl, cloaked in new guises. As a work unto itself it once again places Antonymes at the height of his game, producing some of the most emotionally and sonically engaging work being released today.

Antonymes new album The Licence To Interpret Dreams has been met with universal acclaim since its release in April. It is an album of resonant beauty, as expansive as the wilds of North Wales from which it came, yet as delicate and intimate as a loved one’s breath upon your skin. Each song deploys a modest array of instruments and textures, giving them ample space to breathe and glow. It is available now through Hidden Shoal Recordings - agora.hiddenshoal.com

released 05 May 2011

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Oathless - Zephyr

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Micah Wolfe - Rain (Ambient Mix)

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Alan Morse Davies - Svalbard

This is not a double post of Svalbard. Blogger bug!

Text taken from At Sea

A collection of pieces based on the landscape of the Svalbard archipelago.

Source materials include the Welsh pibgyrn (bagpipe), Italian zampogna (bagpipe) and ciamarella (shawm), hardanger fiddle plus some 78 records from the 1920s. All have been stretched, processed, re-tuned and edited into soundscapes ranging from the relatively static to the dramatic.



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This is the 45 minute edited version!
Download: Alan Morse Davies - Svalbard "B"


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Alonefold - Last Roadpost and Alone

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Szymon Kaliski - For Isolated Recollections

Text taken from treesmovethemost

In the time spent since Out Of Forgetting was released to favourable reviews, Kaliski seems to have matured further with a sound more his own, more nuanced and intelligent. For Isolated Recollections consists of four delicate piano-led pieces which are peppered with glitches, static and found sounds. Opening with Without Breaking, Kaliski delivers beautiful and measured piano notes, repetitive but not overly so. This is complemented by a recording of what sounds like the composer taking a meandering walk through rural countryside. The track is spartan even for those used to the genre and Kaliski seems to take joy in studying the beauty in each individual sound; the results speak for themselves.
-- Fluid Radio

released 20 May 2011
Mastered by Clem Leek
Photography by Jan Hoffmann

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Blues for spacegirl - Arezzo

Text taken from blues4spacegirl

An extended treatment of the Fibroma split EP's closing track, this time granted a life-span of half an hour. Arezzo's soundscape is dense, demanding and restless: an almost static loop that's constantly shifting in place, flangered and phaser-treated as it turns inward. Closer to Yellow Swans than William Basinski. Mastered while suffering excessive sleep deprivation. Record & play it on cassette for enhanced romanticism. Tell a friend (or an enemy).
released 26 April 2011
Music by T De Bauw

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Vozrozhdeniya - Atmosphere

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Hiroki Sasajima – Quadro

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Follow this link and search for release number 18

Download: Hiroki Sasajima – Focus
Download: Hiroki Sasajima – Moment And Silence (release number 23)

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James Mcdougall - Double Tilde

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Follow this link and search for release number 19

Download: James Mcdougall - Kin Kin
Download: James Mcdougall - An Opening in the Canopy
Download: James Mcdougall - Mountain Upon A Phosphorescent Sky


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Fescal – Into The Atmosphere

Text taken from test tube

«From South Korea we welcome a new artist to our ever growing test tube family, his nom de guerre: Fescal. He has previously released through a couple of labels, with his most notable work being 'Beautiful Neurotic' published by the reborned Camomille Music label.

Fescal's signature sound is a marvellous and seducing combination of hiss and low frequency drones with some sort of 'lowercase' dark ambient cleverly stitched to the mix with much subtlety, and then he uses those ingredients to build massive walls of sound that leave the listener simultaneously numb and amazed, and even euphoric sometimes, just like a good psychdrug should.
This little gem of an EP will easily be featured in my top 2011 releases.»
- test tube

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Fescal - Yesterdays News from DS1984 on Vimeo.


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uncertain - part i: denial

 uncertain - part i: denial by blackantlers


The first piece to 'grief: silence in five movements'
an upcoming EP release by uncertain

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!The entire album is now available free to download!

Downloade: uncertain - Seahorse (Abyssopelagic)


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Osakan - Antarctica EP

Text taken from osakan

The second album from Osakan, Antarctica EP is a bridge between the guitar-based ambient music of his debut album, Music For Astronauts, and the synthesizer-heavy drone of the forthcoming follow-up album. Musical influences and points of vague similarity include: Aidan Baker, Stars of the Lid, Hammock, Loscil, and Casino vs. Japan.

Released 07 April 2011
Cover artwork contains a photograph taken by Eli Duke and released under a CC-Attribution-ShareAlike License

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Nobuto Suda - Ecotone

Text taken from nobutosuda

Based in Kyoto, Japan, Nobuto Suda blends field recordings with ambient drones to produce a glacial slide through almost an hour. Even in such stark soundscapes as these, it’s easy for field recordings to clutter the work but Suda succeeds in keeping his unobtrusive and they never once feel disruptive to the flow of the sound. Graceful and spacious, Ecotone is a must for anyone who likes to immerse themselves in miminalism
by suit case orchestra

Nobuto Suda’s “Ecotone”, released on Somehow Recordings, starts with transparent and sparkling sound of ”Ecotone”, which entitled the whole album. You hear some water babble, and spreading, sweet drone; the next track “Connected Place”, as if continuing to create the fresh and light atmosphere, contains the damped version of the water sounds. “Fluidity” is too, a nice, radiant piece of Nobuto’s music, presumably made of some wind section instruments, may be processed flutes or something else – it is difficult to make it clear, what was the initial and base source of that sound. “Abundant” is serene and unobtrusive. Pulsating “Fragment Of The Sun” is so radiant, as if some part of the day star was processed and transformed into the sound. “Somewhere” with its semantic feeling of indefiniteness of location, favours the listener with the terminal brushstroke of the artist, with its tender brids’ tweet and airy ambient melody. In the whole, this album represents a specimen of natural music, which is closely connected with trees, the sky, animals, elements, by accurate addition of music components into the field recordings. So, make a drift to Somewhere with Nobuto Suda’s “Ecotone”.
By agniworld

Release from Somehow Recordings,2010.
Format : CDR
Ltd : 50

released 01 January 2010
music by Nobuto Suda

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Download: Nobuto Suda – Bottom Of Pocket

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Wil Bolton - Melt

Text taken from Rural Colours

Wil Bolton is an artist and composer based in Liverpool, UK. His debut CD release ‘Time Lapse’ (Hibernate, 2010) uses guitars, chime bars and vintage keyboards to create warm and emotive melodies, fragmented and submerged among beds of droning ambient textures and environmental sounds.

‘Melt’ is a single long-form track of warm, overlapping tones created with a toy keyboard, a synthesizer, analogue delay and looper pedals, and some minimal laptop processing. Glitches and signal problems were welcomed into the process, shrouding the fragmented yet lyrical keyboard melodies in a gentle mist of fuzz, clicks and hiss.



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Lefolk – Weather To Shore

Tex taken from Resting Bell

lefolk is audio/video artist Leif Folkvord of Grand Rapids, Michigan USA. The material he creates is influenced by a formal education in media arts filtered through the juxtaposition of experiences at his day(night) job as a pilot.

After two full-length albums and the EP “blankscape”, lefolk releases his new work “weather to shore“ on Resting Bell. Consisting of 13 tracks and a complete duration of one hour, “weather to shore“ is a wonderful microsonic sound adventure. The concept of “weather to shore” was based off of stories of shipwrecks in the great lakes region, many of which occured in bad weather. The track titles are names of ships that sank in the various lakes. With that concept in mind you can basically feel the dense and crackling atmosphere on this release. Droning basements layering through the structures like a constant fog. Trickling glitchy sounds reminding me of hail showers. And little melody fractures peeking around like sunlight through a cloud cover after a heavy storm.

Nevertheless “weather to shore” sounds to me like the perfect soundtrack for a lukewarm spring night. And I can see me standing in the outside and holding my face into the cooling evening breeze.



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EUS - Tras El Horizonte

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Gimu - "E​.​K​.​"

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Paul Bradley - re​:​collection

Bringing together four tracks from a number of compilation discs and a split release.

Released 28 August 2010 

All music Paul Bradley

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One Day We Will Grow Old - Lost In Useless Territory

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Cinchel - friday​.​deconstrucion

Text taken from cinchel

I live in Chicago and play out very rarely, this recording uses samples recorded during a live performance in early 2009. The first track is the closest to the way the performance sounded. The next 4 tracks use all the same samples but in each I have picked new looping points, stretched/slowed down a loop, or affected various loops in a number of ways using Abelton Live. I did this as both a challenge to use such a small template as well as to explore each sample fully and deeply.

Released 18 February 2011

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Arafúra - The Gardens of Endless Blossoming

Text taken from arafura

The Gardens of Endless Blossoming' will feature minimalistic soundscapes that are purely meant to dull the senses and are to be considered as 'sleep music'. The entire concept revolves around layers of sound subtly revolving around each other to create a blissful effect through a sense of a hypnotic induced trance. This record is gonna stand apart from all the other material I'm making and isn't to be considered an album per sé.

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Susperia-Electrica - A World Beyond Our Own

Text taken from Earth Mantra Netlabel

Earth Mantra listeners know that we are big fans of the work of Nick Fortune, aka Susperia-Electrica, having released two of his albums, both in 2010. Consequently, we are very honored to announce his triumphant return, as well as his first release of 2011 on our humble netlabel: a luxurious collection of dazzling space music called "A World Beyond Our Own".

Space music is one of those genres that, when done right, can elevate the spirit and expand the mind, opening up possibilities and vistas that transcend the ordinary world. Measured against this scale, "A World Beyond Our Own" both satisfies and delights, providing all the expansiveness a lover of space music craves while also delivering a delicious subtlety and sophistication that any music lover will appreciate.

As typical of Nick's work, the sound design leaves a deep impression, both lush and refined, making full use of the sound stage and somehow conveying an impression of three-dimensional depth. Immaculate.

But sound sculpture alone is not enough. The best space music marries the sounds themselves with inspired compositions, yielding results that are as musically satisfying as aurally stimulating. The ambient subgenre of space music is particularly challenging, if only because ambient composition itself is so difficult to do well. Here is where Susperia-Electrica truly shines. One certainly can imagine listening to this remarkable album while laying back in a planetarium seat, or as the soundtrack to a space voyage film; but one can just as easily imagine listening to the album actively in a darkened room with headphones as a standalone work of music unto itself. One can also even imagine the music as providing a sonic backdrop to an art installation, or simply as background music for the work day.

This is why we are so impressed by Nick Fortune, and particularly by "A World Beyond Our Own". His music succeeds both as space music, ambient composition, and as passive mood music, a very difficult trifecta to hit -- but Nick makes it look easy. We think that there is something for nearly everyone to love in this release, and encourage all of our audience to give it a listen. Simply magnificent work.

So with great pleasure, Earth Mantra unveils "A World Beyond Our Own", the latest release by Susperia-Electrica. Highly, highly recommended.

Released in May 2011



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Downloade: Susperia-Electrica - Turmoil
Downloade: Susperia-Electrica - Nebula
Downloade: Susperia-Electrica - Thirty Minutes In Space
Downloade: Susperia-Electrica - Intrinsic
Downloade: Susperia Electrica - Light Years Away


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Cordell Klier - I believe (draft 2)

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Karl Verkade - Soundtracks & Stories I: She Ran

Text taken from karlverkade

Put on a good pair of headphones, play the mp3, open the pdf, and let the soundtrack bring the story to life.

This song was specifically written as a soundtrack for this story, not as a standalone piece. Same with the story. They need each other like Rutger Hauer needs Pris. You know what I mean.

Released 02 May 2011
Strymon Brigadier, Damage Control Timeline, Arion SPH-1, Strymon Blue Sky, Arion SAD-1, Godin SD, Matchless HC30, Hartman Vintage Germanium Fuzz, etc.

Guitars only, and no post-effects. As with most of my recordings, you'll need good headphones or good external speakers to get the full effect.

Composed, written, performed, and produced by Karl Verkade.

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Bing Satellites - Twilight Sessions volume 6

Text taken from BFW Recordings

The sixth album in the Twilight Sessions series.
Like the first five volumes, this is an album of completely improvised, live ambient music.
Each piece starts as a blank canvas.
The music is built around a long, slowly decaying loop. Notes are added from synths, guitar, voice and clarinet and over time, they built into grand, atmospheric soundscapes.
Sometimes, however, I forget to press record when something wonderful is created. On these occasions, I can only capture the loop that has already been created. This is the reason that three of the tracks on this album are unusually short.



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Downloade: Bing Satellites - Twilight Sessions volume 1
Downloade: Bing Satellites - Twilight Sessions volume 2
Downloade: Bing Satellites - Twilight Sessions volume 3
Downloade: Bing Satellites - Twilight Sessions volume 4
Downloade: Bing Satellites - Twilight Sessions volume 5


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Arcticology - Athena

Text taken from Earth Mantra Netlabel

Earth Mantra is very happy to welcome back ambient maestro Dale Humphries and his Arcticology project, with his wondrous new release "Athena".

Our listeners and artists alike will know that Earth Mantra has a strong preference for full-length albums, and that in particular we do not like to release EP-length titles. This is primarily because we think ambient music requires time to fully establish itself in the mind of the listener, and there just isn't enough to go around in an EP. Like all aspects of our format, however, we sometimes make exceptions when the circumstances dictate and the quality of the music justifies the exception. This is one of those times.

"Athena" is indeed a shorter album, clocking in at close to 24 minutes, but we are very proud and happy nonetheless to be bringing it to our listeners. As it turns out, Dale was not intending to create a shorter album, but ran into some technical difficulties that prevented him from working further on it. He asked us if we were interested in releasing what he had finished in abridged form, and after listening to it, our answer was of course an enthusiastic 'yes'.

As is always the case with Arcticology, the music can only be described as sublime. Dale certainly is one of the premier pure ambient artists active today. He creates blissful moodscapes that draw heavily on the Eno school of ambience, but with the characteristic lush sound design and loving compositional approach that are hallmarks of Arcticology. In "Athena", we are particularly struck by Dale's use of subtlety, by how deceptively simple the music is, hollowing out a space from the silence and filling it in with just the right amount of music and active sound sculpture to delight the listener. Truly masterful work.

Sometimes we have to take a step back to realize how privileged we are. Somehow, Earth Mantra has been fortunate enough to release every single title Arcticology has ever released, and "Athena" is certainly a delightful addition to this collection. We are very proud to be bringing the music of Dale Humphries to our listeners, and we hope we have the continuing opportunity in the months and years to come. In our opinion, this is nothing less than music for the ages.



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