THE GREEN KINGDOM – ETHER HYMNS 
Michael ‘The Green Kingdom’ Cottone has released his music on various labels, but Ether Hymns is his fourth album on Dronarivm. Cottone is a musician (and also graphic designer) from Detroit, Michigan, who works under various monikers. As Dustcraft, he presents ambient dub techno, Pineson is for his solo acoustic guitar music – but The Green Kingdom is his most important and best-known alias for his ‘minimal ambient music using a variety of digitally manipulated sounds sourced from a variety of acoustic and electronic instruments’.
‘Ether’ can refer to different things: ‘the clear sky; the upper regions of air beyond the clouds’, ‘air regarded as a medium for radio’, (as well as to the chemical substances such as diethyl ether, but this is not the ether Michael Cottone is referring to). He defines his music as ‘ephemeral in nature’: [the music is] ‘brought in to existence from nothingness. They drift into the listener’s space, evolve over time, and drift off like clouds on the wind’.
While this is a great description of the music itself, which floats and drifts like breaths of fresh air, it also feels like an understatement: this music will not ‘drift off like clouds on the wind’. It will linger with you and you will return to it in the future. Which, after all, is not possible with clouds.
Ether Hymns is physically released in an edition of 100 LPs. The first batch of CDs were quickly sold out, but there’s an additional batch of 50 still available.
(A note about shipping: in the past, Dronarivm releases were shipped from Russia, which sometimes resulted in legal problems with the orders. Currently, orders are shipped from Amsterdam so that problem is solved now.)
SPACECRAFT – ABOVE THE CLOUDS
Like Green Kingdom, Spacecraft (Rishi Bhatia, from Mumbai, India) also dwells above the clouds, helping to ‘transport listeners to a serene and contemplative realm’.
Above The Clouds differs from Ether Hymns in the use of instruments: Bhatia‘s immersive sonic landscapes are strictly electronic – there are no (audible) acoustic instruments.
With just over 26 minutes, and each of the 6 tracks under 3-5 minutes, the album is relatively short. It’s a short but satisfying drone ambient journey – not into outer space, but just above the clouds. Enough to return to earth refreshed.
SNUFMUMRIKO – HAVSTRAKT
Gothenburg-based producer Ingmar Wennerberg, known as the man with the uncomprehensible alias Snufmumriko, presents a double album called Havstrakt (‘Marine Area’), inspired by ‘the liminal border realm between land and sea.’
The 2CD set features 8 original tracks, 6 of which are remixed in another 8 tracks featured on the second CD. Remixers include Moss Covered Technology, Gallery Six, Purl, Innesti, Warmth (among others) … which should give you some idea of what kind of music to expect.
Snufmumriko‘s music is described on Discogs like this: ‘sculpting his sound from field recordings and old records, he aims to create sonic environments which both work as background music and reward active listening’. While the latter part is true, the ‘solo’-CD feels as if he is using much more than just ‘field recordings and old records’.
Snufmumriko‘s solo tracks are worth listening to in their own right, but apparently Wennerberg is a modest man: he claims that ‘the real standouts on the release, however, are the remixes on CD 2’.
Yes, the remixes are great too, certainly – but please don’t underestimate your own work!