Janek Schaefer – Asleep at the Wheel…

Janek Schaefer’s website presents an impressive list of site-location projects that are very interesting to investigate, because they demonstrate Schaefer’s perfect balance of concept, visual and sound.
(A few of them, Unfolding and Extended Play, were presented on Ambientblog earlier).

As the Artist in Residence for the 2010 Milton Keynes International Festival, Schaefer presented “Asleep at the Wheel…’: a location project for which he completely transformed the deserted Sainsbury’s supermarket into a three-lane highway at night, a ‘ghost road of cars’, where the audio is played from the in-car sound systems. From the car seats, visitors could listen to presentations and interviews thematically dealing with sustainability and the future of the earth, and how we can be able to improve that future. 

“The exhibition is a thought provoking and immersive sound installation for multiple car radios, that contemplates our future. Exhibited in a vast disused supermarket, three-lanes of cars dissect the darkened interior, as the multiple hazard lights illuminate the space, revealing the finite road of our consumer driven daydream.”

Antonymes – The Licence to Interpret Dreams

Although it is his debut for Hidden Shoal Recordings,  the new album by Antonymes – “The Licence to Interpret Dreams“ – is in fact his second full album following up “Beauty Becomes the Enemy of the Future” (or third, if you also count “31: Before the Light Fails”, which was a special project in a limited edition of one (!), and only partly available as a digital download after that).

“The Licence to Interpret Dreams“  fits in perfectly with the best of the recent ‘post-classical’ releases and will have immediate appeal to listeners that also enjoy releases by artists like Johann Johannsson, Max Richter, Peter Broderick and Dustin O’Halloran. 
But to leave it at that description would not do justice to the versatility of this album. It is not “just” a collection beautifully constructed post-classical chamber music.

Nigel Samways, Le Berger, Herzog, Ambient Fabric, Seconds Before Awakening

This is the first in a forthcoming series of  “Shortlist”-entries. In these Shortlists, I will mention some of the albums that I enjoyed listening to, but couldn’t find the time (or the right words) for a “full” review for.
Still, I think they deserve your attention: use the links to find more info and hear previews.


Nigel Samways - Nine Barrow Down

Nigel Samways – Nine Barrows Down
20 minute EP with a haunting soundscape referring to “a teenage experience of potentially baffling and unexplained origins whilst alone at night in the Dorset countryside.”


Le Berger - Expeditions

Le Berger – Expeditions on the Greyscale
Subtitled “One Tiny, Two Medium and a Grand One”, referring to the length of the four tracks: 00:11, 11:11, 11:11 and 33:33, respectively. 
Beautiful minimal drone/loop set by Le Berger (Samuel Landry  from Montreal, Qc), with obvious references to the work of ‘deteriorist’ William Basinski.

Arno Peeters – The Peeters Principle (Mix)


Arno Peeters

When I started working on this ‘single artist mix’ featuring music and sounds from Arno Peeters, I did not realise that creating a mix-collage based on soundscapes would be more difficult than one based on single tracks.

A soundscape is a collage in itself – and using fragments from soundscapes to build another soundscape is like ripping up a collage and presenting the fragmented details out of their original context, rearranging them to create a new caleidoscopic image.
The original context gets lost, and the result feels like an aural stream of consciousness that may not exactly be “easy on the ears” …. but may prove to be a fascinating exploration of imaginary territories..

Premonition Factory – The Sense of Time

Premonition Factory is the name of the ambient-electronic music project by Sjaak Overgaauw, a dutch musician currently living in Antwerp, Belgium.

‘The Sense of Time‘ is his second full CD, the follow up to 2010’s ’59 Airplanes waiting for New York’.

It contains eleven tracks of different length, presenting an impressive hour of well balanced immersive ambient sounds. Most are ‘classic’ ambient: slow washes of drones, sparsely interspersed with background electrics – a very peaceful sound overall. 

Various Artists – Sleep Mode

Relaxed Machinery: it’s a brilliant name for a netlabel presenting “organic ambient and techno music from scratch with only the purest of ingredients”.

John Koch-Northrup, label curator/coördinator, prefers to call it an ‘artist collective’, with a different business model: the artists ‘self-release’ their album, all profit is theirs, but the collective opens up distribution channels that are normally quite difficult to reach for a DIY-release: such as digital distribution via all major channels (by CD Baby), and CDR distribution by Hypnos.

Visionary Hours – The Road to Basho


The Road to Basho cover

From the first bars of the opening track “Everyday is a Journey“, one could get the impression that “The Road to Basho” might fit in perfectly with the post-romantic classical chamber music releases so popular nowadays. 

But after a while things start to sound a bit different: although the music sounds like it is created with acoustical instruments, the theme itself does not really seem to change..it gets looped over and over again – until it’s as hypnotizing as Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet” (or as a William Basinski recording without the tape deterioration).

In fact, the only way to know your player is not stuck on repeat, is by recognising the (slowly increasing) phasing effects in the background.

Steiner – Untitled


Steiner CD

I guess it must be something in the water in Belgium!?

This self-released CD-R from Steiner (Stijn Hüwels), does not only look like it could be a new release on the Slaapwel-label, it also sounds like one.
Which may not be very strange, considering that Stijn and Wim Maesschalk (Slaapwel records label owner) live in the same city and obviously know each other.