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.
Anyone even remotely interested in ambient, electronic, contemporary experimental and modern classical music will problaby have come across the Fluid Radio website.
Fluid Radio is in fact a lot of online things…it’s a website reviewing essential releases, it’s an online radio channel (two channels, in fact: with a custom made iPhone/iPod App to play them).
It has it’s own musical label (Fluid Audio, the label that has released 5 titles until now, all sold out immediately and legendary hand-packed).
A host of well-known artists (let’s say the “giants” of the ambient-electronic niche) have submitted handcrafted mixes of their own work or compilations of their favourite tracks to be published on the Fluid-Radio mixcloud Channel.
In other words – Fluid Radio has rapidly become the legendary starting point to explore contemporary indie-electronic music.
Fluid Audio/Radio is mainly curated by Daniel Crossley, who must have an impressive network of musical relations. Also, the amount of hours in a single day is obviously not the same as mine, regarding the love and care that goes in the packaging of his releases.
For example: the recent Hummingbird release ‘Our Fearful Symmetry’ came packed in a beautiful cover also containing a pine cone, lots of cloves, a sealed envelope containing liner notes, and another sealed envelope containing a photographic polaroid slide pressed between to pieces of glass from the 1940’s…
The kind of release you don’t want to open to play it (that’s why I ordered two).
(By the way: I will not review the music, because it was sold out in one day and will not be released for digital download – so I guess there’s no need for any further attention since all releases have found their home).
The Berlin-based Klitorik website, hosting free audio releases as well as videos and a pdf-magazine, was unknown to me until recently.
I cannot understand why, since their first audio release was published way back in 2004!
After listening to their latest release – Marow‘s ‘Lysår’ , I’ll definitely work my way back through the entire catalogue.
The Slaapwel label, specialised in music to fall asleep to, is becoming more collectible with every release.
The previous (six) releases were all very beautiful (package ánd music-wise) and perfectly fitted the purpose they were created for: dozing away quietly, listening to music that is ‘interesting and boring at the same time’.
Among the previous performers were Peter Broderick, Greg Haines, Machinefabriek + Soccer Committee and Jasper TX. (check [here] for some Slaapwel-reviews on ambientblog.net).
This seventh release in this remarkable series is this one, called “Ruis” by Somni451.
Paul Sharma is a british painter and musician who was raised in India.
Regular Ambientblog.net visitors and podcast subscribers will probably remember the exclusive tracks he presented earlier this year: the electronic Raga tracks called “Embers” (vocal and instrumental version)
His new EP, called Safar (meaning ‘Journey’ in the Urdu language) is now presented on the Test Tube netlabel.
Ever since I heard Pink Floyd’s processed recording of a stadium singing (on ”Fearless”, from 1971’s “Meddle”), the sound of a mega-crowd organism fascinates me as well as the mass hysteria behind it frightens me.
In fact, I really HATE football, but the 2010 World Championship brought a new fascinating phenomena: the Vuvuzela.
The deafening sound (over 125dB, which is louder than a chain-saw) is dreaded by many for its annoying sound and danger of deafening.
Still, a stadium with thousands of these horns honking continuously is a fascinating sound, which I would love to hear properly recorded (in full surround, preferrably).
So, when someone posted a link to a short sample from the US-UK match, I simply could not resist….
The Samadhisound label, founded and curated by David Sylvian, simultaneously released three impressive titles. Together they present a landmark of the current experimental/electronic/ improv scene.
Be prepared: none of these albums are ‘easy listening’ music – in fact, a lot of this music wouldn’t even be considered ‘ambient’.
Jan Bang‘s album “…And Poppies from Kandahar” is a good start, because it contains the most ‘accessible’ music of these titles.
The Samadhisound label, founded and curated by David Sylvian, simultaneously released three impressive titles. Together they present a landmark of the current experimental/electronic/ improv scene.
Be prepared: none of these albums are ‘easy listening’ music – in fact, a lot of this music wouldn’t even be considered ‘ambient’.
Next to David Sylvian, it’s Arve Henriksen linking Toshimaru Nakamura‘s album to that of Jan Bang.
However, Henriksen’s trumpet handling is quite different here: it includes the sound of the instrument itself (like the clicking of the valves), as well as the breathing of the player.
This perfectly fits the music of Toshimaru Nakamura – who is a household name in the Japanese onkyo (noise) and improv scene.
