“[Enig’matik Records] explores rich soundscapes that often have deep emotional content, bringing music that really shines in a personal environment and invokes past memories with interesting and abstract visions.” Jake (aka Sun In Aquarius and Enig’matik director) connects with igloomag.com’s Five questions. Igloo Magazine :: When did Enig’matik Records start up and what was your [...]
Post Tagged with: "Experimental"
Derek Piotr :: Airing (Bitsquare)
Carefully processed, minimal and manipulated layers of various instruments, beats, clicks, field recordings and his own vocals are lowered down from above and slotted together with the delicate precision but contradictory force of an industrial crane, placing steel girders into concrete foundations and often leaving you in the centre his own musical construction site. The [...]
Zygote :: 00/10 (Architects + Heroes)
What’s been excavated on 00/10 are microscopic fractures of armchair electronics—sprinkles of chimes, pulses, acid, bass, clunks and textured synth noise falls from every edge. [Bandcamp] A collection of untitled tracks has been packaged up from Southern California’s busy Architects + Heroes‘ main detailer Stephen Ruiz (aka Zygote). After having combed through several hours of [...]
Nimh :: This Crying Era (Synästhesie Schallplatten)
This Crying Era is a gorgeously cinematic and ominously bewitching album that will ravish fans of the most uncompromising facet of the dark ambient genre (masterful works from Lustmord, Raison d’être, Never Known…). Absolutely recommended for beginners in Nimh’s dark ambient and mystical droning minimalism. Nimh is an avant-garde deep ambient industrial electronic project formed [...]
Seetyca :: Bleakscapes (Essentia Mundi)
The pieces Seetyca calls Bleakscapes are not grey and barren, they are near impenetrably inky black and evoke scary amounts of space far away from where we are. The only ripples in the fabric are radio signals heading even further off and some static circling the drain of a black hole. German dark ambient artist [...]
Stephen Hummel :: Meld (Self-Released)
With a handful of genres lapped over each other, Meld is an adventurous foray of raw electronics melded to lyrical lava flows that trickle into the subconscious with ease, simplicity and style. A well-oiled release that will surely agree with fans of Bitcrush, Tobias Lilja, Syntax and even mid-80s Depeche Mode for that matter. [Release [...]
wAgAwAgA :: Midnight Sampler (Record Label Records)
wAgAwAgA has an unusual take on music, with deep basses, really interesting beats and odd field recordings in abundance. He instantly stands out as having a unique style—not aggressive but not altogether passive. Innovative but not leaving the familiar completely in the shadows. I’ve been a fan of wAgAwAgA for a while now, ever since [...]
Demdike Stare :: Elemental (Modern Love)
Doubtless the duo would blanch if pigeonholed with labels like “dark,” “hauntological,” “drone” or “witch house” but there’s no denying their penchant for the arcane and unsettling, whether through bleak soundscapes Andy Votel’s supernatural and apothecary artwork or the archival, low budget exploitation movie images that accompany their live performances. What is it about Demdike [...]
Qebrus :: Exophobia (Bedroom Research)
As loyalists wait for Booth’n Brown to assimilate their frequency interrupts, now would be the time to digest Exophobia‘s gelatinous beat crunching rhythms as they consistently scrape against the grain. [Release page] On the outside Exophobia appears as foreign electronic mayhem—a deluge of sonic architecture gone awry. And with this hypothesis perhaps Qebrus’ intent was [...]
Jeff Pils :: Useless (Digital Gadget)
Useless dives headfirst into subtle fusions of electro, ambient and light melodies without being overtly in your face. Slithering around loosely crafted bells, pops, cracks, plunks and shades of emotion, each piece doesn’t rely solely on twisting itself around tangled data bursts. Jeff Pils’ self-released Useless sheds light on the uncompacted soil of electro, its [...]
4Play :: The microsound of Line
The four latest updates come from an impressively august roster led by post-industrial pioneer, Asmus Tietchens, and Lord of lowercase, Steve Roden, with luminaries Stephan Mathieu (+ Caro Mikalef), and France Jobin in strong support. Over the last decade Line has become synonymous with leading edge inquiry at the interface between digital minimalism and microsound. [...]
hosmOz :: Vulva EP (Bedroom Research / Detroit Underground)
As this EP sheds its plethora of mechanical eruptions, rest assured that hosmOz exhibits finesse and controlled chaos from start to end. The challenging art of technical electronics bleeds rhythmic flows that may or may not hit the sweet spot for its audience. It’s unfortunate but sometimes sound design remains sound design unless the human [...]
Ignatius :: Strays (Buried In Time)
A strong collection of lightly dusted stray tracks of heavy bass, beats and astute sound design. Fans waiting for Gescom to get back together for their infrequent ventures in the studio will be comforted by Ignatius‘ knack for creating parallel distortions of submerged exp-electro—a strong collection of lightly dusted stray tracks of heavy bass, beats [...]
aMadoo :: Matsunoo Grand Shrine – Roumon LIVE (Somehow)
Playing at an eighth-century Shinto shrine in Kyoto, the musicians, led by Yuuji Hiromoto, first eye each other inquisitively, violin, muted trumpet, electronics, tabla, as kids with restless legs run up and down a path through the audience. A genuinely startling performance which grows from ambient meditation into electrifying jazz-funk. Playing at an eighth-century Shinto [...]
Christina Vantzou :: No. 1 DVD & Remixes (The Numbered Series)
Subjecting such a frugal piece to deconstruction by remixers is unexpected, though Vantzou certainly has enlisted an impressive roster. All show the original great respect by exercising vivid imagination under the same tight leash of restraint. Artist and musician Christina Vantzou released No. 1 on Kranky in October of 2011 and shortly thereafter, released this [...]
Superlauncher :: Catalysm (UNOIKI)
As these mutating pulses of bass, noise and hypnotizing dub cycle through the ears, one can’t help but become entranced by these unusual sounds—both stripped and engulfing. [Release page] A mixture of granulated digital rhythms reminiscent of the aura left behind by the Clicks’n Cuts movement is ever present here—crisped blips, snips and snaps from [...]
Five questions for Lagunamuch
Described as “…an experimental music label, based in Moscow, Russia and was formed in 2004. We are not interested in boxed music made to fit into IDM, post-rock, techno, ambient frames. Our interest is music with a deep trip outside the reality.” Willy Winky responds to our Five questions profile to give a glimpse into [...]
Ian Boddy and Erik Wøllo :: Frontiers (DiN)
Frontiers is a deeply moving , cerebral and constantly charming spacey musical adventure largely made of majestic floating synthesized waves, sinuous drone textures, hypno-ish rhythmical punctuations, programmed drums and frantic synth-like guitar tones. Part of the collaborative projects directed by Ian Boddy for his musical laboratory and independent label DiN, Frontiers features the presence and [...]
Fabrics :: Refabricated (From A Tree)
Shards of twisted bass, left field tape recordings, broken synthesizers, blistered techno wrangling and an affinity for surreal auditory manipulation keeps Refabricated on its edge as it leans on mysterious iterations of past and future. Skimming our review from July 2011 of Fabrics and the same duo (Greek purveyors of music technology, Vasilis Kesalidis and [...]
O’Leary – Louhivuori – Hauta-aho :: Astral Fishing (TIBProd. Italy )
In its unassuming way, however, this ambient darkhorse recorded with relative unknowns stands out due to its majestic demeanor and excellence of execution. Outwardly the dourest land in Western Europe, Finland happens to have one of the liveliest “out” music scenes anywhere, with its singular spin on neo-folk psychedelia, a taste for sophisticated jazz and [...]
Clark :: Iradelphic (Warp)
Three years of traveling around the world, learning new instruments and his first real collaborations with more conventional vocalists have all gone into the rich tapestry of Iradelphic, and have truly bought Clark’s sound back down to earth with a rich self awareness and an audible hunger to really explore new things. It’s always a [...]
Kid606 :: Ejaculazer Tag EP (Tigerbeat6)
Tigerbeat6, the label that has continued to crank out audio gems for the past 13 years, continues its tradition of giving you more than you could have predicted that you wanted. In what seems to be a resurgence in output from the label, and the artist, Kid606 dropped the precursor an upcoming full-length, called Ejaculazer [...]
FURS :: Anti-Node EP (Detroit Underground / eBoy)
Overall an enjoyable EP that segues from quaint electronics to well-oiled rhythm blocks while retaining its bright lit canvass of melodic shuffles. The smothered 8-bit audio bubbles of the early 00′s rings in the air on FURS‘ extended player with dBoy (a collaborative effort between Detroit Underground and the German graphic design group eBoy). The [...]
Five questions with Acre
“Acre is an Edinburgh-based label that laments the hole left in the electronic genre by Warp. Acre are audiophiles and vinyl junkies, putting out well-mastered and well-pressed dynamic records for the love of it.” Igloo Magazine :: When did Acre start up and what was your inspiration? Acre :: There are two of us behind [...]
Coppe’ + Nikakoi :: Rays (Mango + Sweetrice)
It’s basically all here and out in the open—an album that passes through just about every genre without losing its stimulating vision. Drum’n bass mingles with atmospheric glitch, vocal snippets frolic among crisp electrons and what’s left is an album that simply defies categorization. [Release page] Press releases usually offer decent media tools to navigate [...]
Tomoroh Hidari :: The Black Star Variations (Laridae)
Energized minimalism balanced across a heady mix of bass-thumps and tribal transformation keeps this veritable dose of electrons en route. Variations are the spice of life. The endless pursuit of re-creating, adjusting, mutating, altering and fine tuning form the basis for this extended (remix) player, a fractured yet beautiful foray into exp-electronics. Rather than remixing [...]