Invisible Ink (Mix)

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…

:Papercutz – Do Outro Lado De Espelho

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!

M. Ostermeier – Chance Reconstruction


Chance reconstruction

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).

Thomas Koener – Nunatak – Teimo – Permafrost


Koener

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!

Max Richter – Infra

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.

Kyle Bobby Dunn – Rural Route #2


Rural Route

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 – Somnium (App)


Somnium App

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.

Off Key – 2nd Edition


Off Key

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).

Marow – Lysar

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.