A collaborative mix by Muttley (Subversion Weblog) and myself.
The mix is divided in ‘sets’ getting shorter each round.
In minutes: 20-20-10-10-5-5.
Every ‘set’ (except the first, of course) is created as an associative reaction to the the preceding one.
If this album had been presented to me ‘blind’, without knowing anything about it, I doubt that I would have guessed that I was listening to the new Rafael Anton Irisarri album “The North Bend“.
I would probably have mistaken these rather dark repeating loops for a new William Basinski recording.
Though the title of Arve Henriksen’s opening track (Stille Veg, Quiet Road) was the working title for this mix, I finally decided to call it “Invisible Ink” – referring to the quote from Laurie Anderson’s track from “Homeland”, which may describe the confused global state (and – if you wish – the political state of Holland in particular):
Was the Constitution written in visible ink?
Has everybody here forgotten how to think?
Is this great big boat starting to … sink?”
But apart from this, this journey along the ‘Stille Veg’ may present some interesting encounters – some dark and mysterious, others enchanting and optimistic…
Well here’s for something completely different!
Usually, ambientblog is not the platform to promote portuguese electronic pop music – however adventurous it may be. But after releasing Lylac – adventurous electronic cut-up pop music featuring Melissa Veras on vocals, :papercutz main performer Bruno Miguel grew fond of the ambient genre (“much because of my love for movie soundtracks”) – and somehow managed to an impressive list of ambient music artists to rework the music on Lylac.
To get you interested: “Do Outro Lado De Espelho – Lylac Ambient Reworks” contains remixes by folks like Helios, Emanuele Errante, Simon Scott, Taylor Deupree, Autistici, Christopher Bisonnette, Jasper TX – and that’s not even everybody on the list!
The very first release on the brand new Tench label comes in a digipack with beautiful landscape photography by James Luckett.
These sober, black & white, pictures perfectly fit the music of Marc Ostermeier on his new album: “Chance Reconstruction”.
Though it’s the first release on Tench, it’s not the first work of Ostermeier, who has released earlier work (also in 2010) on Parvo Art (Percolate) and on Hibernate (Lakefront).
It’s not really a shame when you missed these albums when they were originally released in 1990/92/93.
Even though the original label (Barooni) was located in my hometown, I did not notice these releases until they were re-released on Mille Plateaux a few years later.
With following album releases, Thomas Köner’s immersive drones found wider attention, and gained more and more recognistion. Albums like Kaamos, Daikan, Unerforschtes Gebiet, Nuuk and, more recently, La Barca) firmly established Köner’s reputation as the absolute master of immersive deep dronescapes.
And thus the interest in his back catalogue also grew.
Recently, Type Records have re-released Köner’s first three albums on vinyl. For those that prefer the CD format, a 3-CD version of these remastered albums is now also available.
So don’t let them pass you by this time: these albums are definitely classics of electronic and drone music!
Next to Johann Johannsson and Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter is one of the pioneers of the ‘post-classical’ genre, a mixture of classical music, electronic sounds and rock music influences.
Mostly the compositions in this genre are suble and not too complex, often slightly (ore not so slightly) melancholic – the kind of music that feels and sounds like it’s written to be a (movie) soundtrack.
So it should not be a surprise that Richter’s Infra was originally written as a score for Wayne McGregor’s ballet as performed by the Royal Ballet.
Shortly after his magnificient double album “A Young Person’s Guide to KBD“, Kyle Bobby Dunn delivers another two intricate drone tracks. This time on a limited edition 3″ CD-R (including immediate downloads).
Compared to the double album, the two tracks on “Rural Route No. 2“ are sounding more ‘industrial’ and dark. Not exactly what you might expect thinking of nostalgic childhood memories…!
Robert Rich originally released Somnium in 2001 on DVD-Audio. The DVD format was dictated by the length of the three-part piece: it clocks in over 7 (SEVEN!) hours.
Apart from his vast catalogue of ambient music, Rich also is known for his unique Sleep Concerts in the 1980’s. Somnium was a logical follow up to these concerts: it was designed to guide you through a good night’s sleep.
Starting relatively ‘active’, then dozing off slowly into undisturbed deep sleep, before slowly becoming more lighter and ‘active’ again, Somnia could be the best medicine for anyone suffering insomnia.
(And that’s a big compliment in this context!).
But even when you’re not sleeping to it, it’s a pleasurable listen – although probably only few would sit out the entire album listening actively.
Somnium has become a landmark monument of ambient drone music. Not only conceptually, but also because of the endless calm and beauty of the musical environment.
Almost 10 years after its initial release, this project return in the (revolutionary?) form of an App Album. Designed to run endlessly on your iPhone/iPod, it can play uninterrupted for much longer than the original seven hours. It will simply run until you stop it, or until your iPhone/iPod batteries run out.
