Gimmik * Waveform Transmission * Vision Reels

GIMMIK – ENTRE LES CHAMBRES   

Entre Les Chambres (‘between the rooms’) was originally released on his own micro-label Hidden Reality label as a limited cassette release in October 2019. Fortunately, it’s picked up by n5MD and released as a (silver with black & white splattered) vinyl edition. Including a download code, which means there is also a digital edition available!

Gimmik is Martin Haidinger, operating under numerous aliases and also in different musical styles. But you’ll find no beats on Entre Les Chambres: Haidinger presents two long tracks (each around 19 minutes long: excellent vinyl album length): La Peau De La Femme (‘women’s skin’) and Mort D’une Ombre (‘death of a shadow’). Two tracks of cinematic ambient soundscapes, dynamic in scene changes but also as soft as .. let’s say .. ‘a women’s skin’.

From the title alone you know that Mort D’Une Ombre will be darker than La Peau D’Une Femme – its mood immediately set with the strangely familiar ‘number station‘ samples. But you can safely surrender yourself to the path Haidinger set out.

With this album, he proves he is a great sonic storyteller: the ambient soundscapes feel like they almost have a song-like structure.

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WAVEFORM TRANSMISSION – V 3.0-3.9   

V 1.0 – 1.9, the first album by Waveform Transmission (Chris Troy and Rod ‘Deepchord’ Modell) was released on the Silent label in 1996. It took 21 years (!) until V 2.0 – 20.9 came out, this time on Astral Industries. But from there, it took only three years for Waveform Transmission’s third release to appear on the same label: unsurprisingly titled V 3.0 – 3.9.

Also unsurprisingly, V 3.0-3.9 has the same structure as its predecessor: nine ‘parts’ presented in four long (15-19 minutes) tracks: V 3.0-3.1, V 3.2-3.4, V 3.5-3.6 and V 3.7-3.9. Deep, spacey, dubby ambient, filled with field recordings, meandering through subtle and engaging sound fields.

Astral Industries proves to be a perfect home for the music of Troy and Modell and their Waveform Transmission.
Rod Modell‘s Deepchord albums can sometimes be filled to the brim with dub sound effects, up to the point when there is almost no space left. But in this collaboration with Chris Troy, the sound is much more restrained, leaving much more space to breathe.

For those of you that like puzzles, the Bandcamp info for this release is “657274656e207465682077646c726f206f662077666d6172656f7620746e61736d7369736e69726f20”. I have no idea what it means but I guess it is the equivalent of a waveform transmission.

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VISION REELS – EYES OPEN   

The Vision Reels is Adam O’Hara. Eyes Open is released on Kizen Records. And that’s about all I know about this release and this artist…. there isn’t even any info on Discogs so I must assume this is O’Hara‘s debut album.

But not every album needs background info – we can simply let the music provide the info we need.

Adam describes the album as “a personal journey, written over a really unpredictable part of my life… a reminder of how beautiful the world can be when you look at it through a different lens.”

At the same time, he wants to leave it open to the interpretation of others. Whatever your personal interpretation may be, I’m sure you’ll agree that the world can indeed be a beautiful place.