Category: RECOMMENDATIONS

Loscil – Plume

Loscil - Plume

Just mention the words ‘Kranky‘ (for the label), ‘Loscil’ (for the artist alias of Scott Morgan) and ‘Plume‘ (for the cd title), and the experienced ambient listener that will know what to expect.  
This is the fourth full cd release since 2001 (after Triple Point, Submers and First Narrows). Again, it’s very good, as were the ones before. Comfortable atmosphere, beautiful sounds, never boring. And extremely peaceful.
“I opted to choose the better improvised passes and merely mix them in and out rather than cut them up. I think this leaves a lot more natural space and balances the heavily structured and repetitive electronic elements with more organic performed layers.”

And if this wasn’t enough, the free net release Stases can still be downloaded here!

Anouar Brahem – Le Voyage De Sahar

Le Voyage de Sahar

Anyone that has experienced the magnificent ‘Le Pas Du Chat Noir’ (2002), will know what to expect from this follow-up. It’s the same line-up: Anouar Brahem (Oud), Francois Couturier (Piano) and Jean-Louis Matinier (Accordion). It’s also the same beauty. Stylish, introspective lyrical compositions that have their root in French melancholy as well as in Tunisian passion. This is not just for the jazz- or ethno-purist audience, it’s simply too beautiful for that. Try it.

Hector Zazou / Bernard Caillaud

Quadri+Chromies cover

The music on this disc is just incidentally something remotely ‘ambient’. Most of the time it’s experimental electronic music, vaguely remembering the avant-garde scene from the late 60’s and seventies. At first listen, that is. When you listen more closely, you’ll hear that this music perfectly fits the 2006 timeframe. It’s clicks, cuts, hums and bleeps, but there’s something most other recordings in this field mostly seem to lack: emotion. (It’s exactly that in which this music resembles Murcof’s ‘Remembranza‘)
It’s the perfect blending of Zazou’s electronics with strings (played by Archea Strings) that makes this music stand out compared to a lot other releases in the same field. That, ?nd the help of some of his friends: Brian Eno (performing onthree tracks), Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Sylvian and Peter Buck (!? Peter Buck of R.E.M. fame!?).
It’s not often that projects like this ‘touch’ me like this one does: most are too arty, or too pretentious, or just not interesting. This project proves that Zazou is a master in this field of experimental electronic and it must have been the work of Bernard Caillaud that inspired him to do this.

Apart from the audio cd, the package contains a DVD with the 5.1 surround remixes (!) of the music accompanying the digital artwork of Bernard Caillaud. There is no direct (intended) relation between the music and the computer art, but both perfectly fit each other. This really turns your living room into a modern art gallery!

Quadriz

Both discs are packaged respectfully, along with 10 reprints of Caillaud’s work (one for each track).
Commercially, this release may be a risky one when compared to Zazou’s earlier projects. Praise to Materiali Sonori (the label) for taking that risk.

Kelvin L. Smith – The Dreaming Mind

the dreaming mind

Kelvin L. Smith is a prolific English musician. He’s working as a singer/guitarist in the pubs and clubs of South Wales U.K. But he also has a firm passion for ambient music and that is what he creates at home. He has released quite a few (ambient) releases under his name, all released through various independent channels.

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops

Upon re-discovering his own archives, William Basinski found some old analog tape-recordings of some ‘pastoral pieces’ of his own work, recorded in the early 80’s. If you can remember this analog reel-to-reel tapes (or cassettes), and imagine them to be used as a real physical loop (end glued to beginning), you can almost see how they started to deteriorate when played endlessly. (Remember the brown dust on your cassette-recorder playback heads?).

Sonmi451 – Vladivostok

The Belgian U-cover label has shown a fine taste in their ambient releases.
Not all releases are ‘ambient’ in the strict, beatless sense: the U-cover label describes itself as an underground electronic label, and that’s what it is. Call it Ambient, call it Techno, U-cover releases are immediately recognisable by their specific sound.

Akira Rabelais – Spellewauerynsherde

Maybe it’s because of this unpronounceable title, but I have completely missed this (2004!) release. I never have heard about it until recently. Better late than never, because this is easily one of the strangest and the most compelling albums I ever heard!

Upon hearing only the first track of this haunting album I realised that this is a sound completely different from all I heard before.
It’s as if a voice coming from the middle ages haunts you in your deepest sleep. It’s beautiful, heavenlike. But at the same time it’s distorted and confusing, scary even.

“Spellewauerynsherde” is built up from found sounds, field recordings of traditional Icelandic accapella lament songs recorded in the late 1960s or early 1970s on Ampex tapes and then forgotten about. After discovering the neglected tapes, cleaning them up and digitizing them for a library, Rabelais became fascinated with the heartbreaking sadness of the voices and began to think of them as source material for a series of compositions.

As the title (Spelle, Wavering, Sharde) suggests, you will not understand a word of what is sung. But somehow the message will come through.

This incredible record is available through samadhisound (David Sylvian’s label)

A Boomkat (recommended online store specialised in recordings like this) quote: “Not many album’s will move you in quite the way that this album does. Believe. “
Believe, indeed!

Murcof – Remembranza

Fernando Corona’s alias Murcof is a ‘hot’ name in the ambient music scene. And with a reason.
With his earlier releases (Martes, Utopia and some other, all released on Leaf) he defined his own particular sound, quite unlike most other contemporary ambient music around.
It’s a warm, emotional sound, maybe because he is born (and lives) in Tijuana, Mexico. A Biosphere from warmer regions, you might say?

His latest release is called Remembranza, and the music is as beautiful as the title. It is as adventurous as it is quiet.

However, the glitchy clickin’ rhythms on some of the tracks may pinpoint this release to 2005: I’m afraid it’ll be these rhythm tracks that will make this album sound a bit dated ten years from now. In my opinion these tracks would have been ‘timeless’ without these rhythmic backgrounds…but I’m nitpicking now. Remembranza easily belongs to the very best recordings I have heard in many years!

the Buddha Machine

Recently I stumbled upon some news about the buddha machine: a small device that looks like a cheap fm-radio that endless loops 9 ambient samples. You can switch samples, connect a headphone, or listen to it using the built in speaker. The ambient sample-loops for this small device are created by Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian, known as FM3.

Brian Eno is said to have bought eight of these things, for obvious installation purposes.

Well th?t’s a gadget (*) I cannot refuse! So I immediately ordered one from Staalplaat.
It’s a conceptual thing: it’s the idea that counts more than the result. Due to the inexpensive hardware the samples don’t even nearly sound like they do on-line (click the speaker icon below to hear the online version).
But still – the Buddha Machine proves irrestistable. After the initial scorn for buying ‘crap’ like this (“it doesn’t even play decent radio!”) I found my family playing with the thing and enjoying this piece of obvious irrelevancy. Although I probably won’t buy the complete series, I certainly won’t regret this purchase….

(I’m very curious to hear about any other ‘ambient gadget’ you may have found, so please let me know if you did)

(*) there’s a matter of definition here: a gadget is defined as ‘a device that is very useful for a particular job’ – whereas ‘a device of clever design that has no practical purpose’ is called a novelty item. It’s up to you to decide which one the buddha machine is.