Elsewhereness revisited is an occasional feature documenting the drift at the margins: ambient gasbagging and blurb blather, ’tube-d, ’cloud-ed ’n’ ’camp-ed up, with accompanying mix, Elsewhereness revisited #19.
Documenting the (ambient) drift at the margins
Ol’ Bill is back with 40+ years of shudders and sighs dating back to 1979 dusted off from his archives. Shaped by the inexorable passage of time and ineffable decay, collective resonance infinite and eternal, crafted by main man of meditation on mortality, William Basinski, Lamentations feels steeped in grief more than anything since The Disintegration Loops, a sense of loss like an emotional pall hanging over proceedings. Operatic tragedy looped into the abyssal and celestial.
Home Normal returned late-year with a full release slate. Chronovalve‘s Light appeared in August, following up HN debut, Trace of Light (2013), with blithe-spirited mood, fusing billowy ambience with orchestral synths, choral voicings and melodic uplift to evoke a kind of euphoric quietude. ‘Even in the most ordinary moments of life, one can get a feeling that there is an inspiration, a light trying to reach through to us. […] These songs are inspired by, and explore that experience… that hope… that possibility,’ says Mike Engebretson. Then came monthly deliveries: Silent Vigils‘ (Stijn Hüwels and James Murray) restive Wake, third of a trilogy, anthéne‘s spacious collide, James Murray and Mike Lazarev‘s exploratory Suññatā, Pleq + Hakobune‘s remastered remixed Adrift. Collide is a good successor to weightless (2019) with a time-worn feel that imbues it with a wistful tenor, as on “last in line,” whose grainy atmos and analog synth detail offer smooth but engagingly relieved transport for headphonauts. Suññata tends towards the more obviously pretty, a few tracks so song-y and melody-centric as to be less ambient than post-classical vignettes, doubtless down to classically-trained pianist, Lazarev, with previous on 1631 and Moderna, though Murray may waft enough around his sidekick’s motifs for a convergence of piano piece and soundscape. Wake sees Stijn Hüwels and James Murray set up the concluding episode of Silent Vigils’ trilogy, ‘an uplifting and timely salve for these troubled times,’ for harmonious uplift all the way, from the serenity of the titular opener, whose glassine tones swell into a shimmering engulfing mass, to “Unborn,” whose swooping steel guitar-like segue half-way initiates a slow build to see us out on a glorious wave. Anthéne, by the way, teams up with Jamie Jones of Fossil Hunting Collective under the Still Harbours alias to release a beguiling Armature via the Lᴏɴᴛᴀɴᴏ Series affiliate of Rohs!, whose master, Andrea Porcu, masters.
Past Inside the Present curates a magnificent seventh for Pausal, previously on Infraction, Dronarivm, Students of Decay, Barge and Own. Now a UK-Germany shuttle, the duo ideated Melatonia via long improvisations with various processed sources and instruments, sequencing the results into an hour-long album for deep listening in slow times. PiTP also has Tyresta’s All We Have, which treats love, grief, loss, and growth, most written just before the death of his Mum after a prolonged illness. Nick Turner dwells on lessons learnt about impermanence and what it means to turn to suffering to stay connected to the world. Gavin Millar and Thomas Ragsdale aka Worriedaboutsatan purvey a mix of detailed electronica on Europa, taking in hypnotic textured workouts (“Who Is A Hunter”‘s shoegaze techno, a neo-Balearic “Cloaking”) to more wistful ‘scapes (“Vex”) and widescreen ambient (“Sunk,” “Shift”). Grandbruit’s Ruptures is a lo-fi set neatly wrought from intertwining guitar layers, ‘a luminous journey of eloquent patterns and hypnotic textures,’ inspiration for which purports to stem from ‘written poetry and the intimate beauty, rhythm, technique, uniqueness, and expression it radiates.’ Blimey. And Lamasz’s Nature Morte, a concept album created from nostalgic tape loops with project curator, Pier-Luc Tremblay, sticking effectively to bare essentials as he ‘toyed with the imperfections of the hissing sounds to create beautiful overlapping textures, like a still life painting slowly taking form.’
The universe has long been inspiration for artists, Endless Melancholy, previously on Dronarivm, Thesis, Sound in Silence, Preserved Sound and his own Hidden Vibes the latest. Seamless, ‘a reflection on our admiration of the universe and its eternal beauty,’ from Kyiv Melancholiac, Oleksiy Sakevych, is two suitably nomenclaturally eponymous long-form mood-swings. A bit over-egged for our pudding preference, though undeniably well wrought from guitar, synth, piano and strings, nicely doused in analog noise and FX, and mastered by Stephan Mathieu. Carlos Ferreira’s Six Postcards & Other Stories soundtracks the Brazilian’s reflection on the notion of non-linear unmeasurable time, bringing with it a rethink of his individual existence and relationship with his surroundings. Crikey. Each guitar-based ambient dronescape is ideated to imagistically trigger listener experience—a postcard, as it were, representing a fragment, a memory of an indefinite time. With Life in a Northern Town just forsaken for study in London, Alexander Buckley aka Pallette finds time for Pathways, a set of four stately loop-based sound sketches that drift in fleetingly melodic ebb-flow recursion. Cautiously sanguine and equally melancholic, congruent with what the blurb calls ‘a universal desperation and yearning for hope in a dispirited civilization.’
And zakè needs space to himself for his many activities, two of which are covered here. He assembles seven previously unreleased orchestra pieces along with remastered variations on originals from Orchestral Tape Studies and Orchestral Tape Studies [Tyresta Reworks] for Orchestral Studies Collectanea, blending looped and layered fragments with faint field recordings and drone billows in arrangements that nod to minimalist orchestralists. Nigh on 50 mins of delicate recursion, reticent treatments and subtle tweaks with an emphasis on tone and recurrent murmurs plus added fairy dust from sidekick, Tyresta. And Geneva compiles a merry band of current ambienteers for nine exhibits of timbral prowess based on a simple zakè loop, left to the devices of PITP familiars (Benoît Pioulard, Hotel Neon, Warmth, Isaac Helsen, Tyresta, worriedaboutsatan) and chancers (The Sight Below, Poemme, Andrew J Klimek), and mastered by MasterMeister Irisarri in his Black Knoll.
PItP affiliate, Healing Sound Propagandist, is churning them out like there’s no tomorrow (n.b. there isn’t—it’s a construct), a selection of which follows. First, an introspective wander with Strasbourg sound artist Joachim-Titien Schildknecht aka Confessor, Hold is reductively self-described as a diary of the last months. Live on 9128 Radio: 03.21.2020 eponymously tells all about its content, featuring works from Isaac Helsen‘s Remnants series plus improvised and unreleased material, incl. variations on collabs with the ubiquitous zakè. Air, a first from Vancouver’s Sean Evans despite being a long-time supplier of evocative soundscapes to the ambient masses, is a quartet of wistful drifts that quietly hums at a glacial pace. The infelicitously named Virus, brings The Awakening of the Pine, a nature-inspired 3-tracker wherein Italian producer Federico Calandra imagines the lonely life of a pine, ‘which like each of us in the morning wakes up and faces always silent or noisy thoughts that nobody can listen to except for oneself.’ Chinese composer Yu Hein‘s music ‘is designed to empower listeners to connect with their surrounding lives,’ here via The Past Is Behind Us. Portland-dweller Kyle Landstra has built a formidable discog over the decade with a raft of releases recorded in real-time on hardware synths, evincing a mastery of synthesis and structure, evident on Regeneration‘s pair of lush long-form synth-based articulations.
NZ husband and wife duo, Winterwood, draw on diverse musical backgrounds in classical violin, opera, and sound experiment in a blend of atmospheric folk, ambient ‘scapes, and epic drone; deep listening practice and experience of sound baths is also apparent on The Silent and Beyond, whose minimalist moves are made with meditative swirls of organ, violin, and field sounds. Having been around ‘camp a while with Evergreen Avenue self-releases, Alec Critten washes up in HSP with Nocturne for Neon Lights, whose deep blue glints and shimmers do long-form justice to the title. Italy’s Demetrio Cecchitelli, intriguingly trailed as a ‘research musician,’ piques further with Shift described as a ‘reflection on existential exchanges, before and after the possibility of a permanent state.’ Suspended timbres commingle in a sound diary of tracks spanning electro-acoustic and ambient paradigms, couched in slow-mo drone, stretched guitar, digital synthesis and found sound. Last, secluded in his S. Urals homestead of Snezhinsk, Czech Vlas Presnetsov deploys digital instruments, various texturing methods and tape processing along with field recordings for Blear Moon’s Stay, which purports to be ‘the expression of the process of a mind shifting from the state of dreaming into the state of awakening, slowly crossing the fine border between realms, still reaching for emotional and sensual sceneries while returning to the plain reality of the bedroom in the early morning.’ Cripes.
Christopher Bissonnette’s Wayfinding, a sixth solo release and first for 12k, sees a move from synth-based to electronic-acoustic explorations, focus shifted from sweeping pastoral drones to ‘grandeur on a diminutive scale’ via passages of delicate melody and elusive harmony punctuated with studio and field recordings. The more lowercase scale is reflected in a series of photos that transform the quotidian banality of the domestic interior into expansive vistas paralleled in an intimate work executed with appealing restraint. 12k also hosts ambient ‘supergroup’ Monogoto, whose Partial Deletion Of Everything (Vol 1) marks the start to communion between Ian Hawgood, Porya Hatami and David Newman (familiar from labels like Home Normal, Audiobulb and Hibernate) which envisages a series of works based on the concept of creation, change and loss, focused on impermanent objects and their placement in time. Its single long-form track, “Iuxta Mare,” combines acoustic instrumentation, synths and modular chains with field recordings in a narrative sonification documenting the impact of beautiful moments in time and how they change, disintegrate and fade, each ‘deletion’ referencing an interplay between physical reality and subjective experience.
Whitelabrecs hosts Théo Martin aka thme for that’s what it will be like, eponymously suggestive of utopia exploration, conjuring bliss-scapes with swathes of drone, echo, crackle, and voice translated into glistening melodic future daze. No twee or fluffy stuff, rather an undercurrent of all not quite rosy in the garden. The first two tracks find ambient flowing in an undulant ocean of sound. Around halfway, melodies evaporate, cut through by sharper light and rainfall. Finally, “anchor” subsumes the unease with slow-evolving drones and worn-out timbres, piano fragments and micro-sound environments an oneiric backdrop. Virtual chronostasis captured by the Parisian, who saw his studio as a space for temporal arrest in an intense period. Mystery artist Glåsbird follows the scratchy folk-ambience of Norskfjǫrðr with further lonely arctic-island sounds on Novaya Zemlya. This notoriously inhospitable island has seen the death of explorers and been a sensitive military area as well as a nuclear testing site. It’s a soundtrack combining themes of tragic demise, isolation, climate change and polar bears, underpinned by radio broadcasts lending a vaguely unsettling undertone with their cold war harkback. The centrepiece, “Vanya,” named after a code name for the Tsar Bomba detonation project, is the most dramatic Glåsbird track yet. Brussels-based Italian-US duo, David Gutman and Giovanni La Placa, aka Tropic of Coldness, who have previous on Cathedral Transmissions, Shimmering Moods, Krysalisound, Glacial Movements and Organic Industries, bring Human Kindness. Inspired by current socio-political events, esp. the mainstreaming of far-right groups with their regressive racism, authoritarianism, intolerance, bigotry and science-denialism, it’s dedicated to those seeking peaceful resistance to societal deterioration by exercise of the eponymous virtue, Each track title is driven by reflection on one of the above issues or particular events, with sounds evolving slowly through extended guitar improv funneled into cathartic drones.
‘Exploratory electronic music’ label Audiobulb recently reached its 100th release since 2003 inception. It started with a comp, Exhibition #1 and #2, since when it’s become a label of note, not only for music releases but also for side-lines like in-house software and VST plugins, Lissajous and Ambient (v4). To celebrate its 100th release, Exhibition #100 collected 34 singles—one for every day between Sept 1-Oct 4—on various platforms. Completists needn’t fret as bandcamp has the entire set, with individual artwork for each track chosen by each individual artist. Familiar names abound (Darren McClure, Monty Adkins, Clem Leek, Autistici, Wil Bolton, Offthesky, Porya Hatami, and Mr Autistici himself), but there are plenty of newbies to discover in this veritable compendium of all things Audiobulb—electronic, ambient, microsound, electro-acoustic, idm/glitch and modern classical.
Two late-year ear-piquers: Tunnels to Float Through from Lincoln (UK)-based electro-acoustic artist Russ Young, who’s drawn to detailed textures, drones and simple melodies. His music, as heard on the previous Common Pond album and Pala EP, is a dynamic collage of assembled audio. Each track here seeks to create tunnel-like sound structures via undulating drones interspersed with intricate tones that loop and unfold to induce a floating sensation. Heady stuff. And a double album of some delicacy from Istanbul’s Yigit Demirel aka Causeyoufair, sighted in ER #11 with his previous In Blue On A Vaporous Sky (note also There I Lay & Time Imperfections). L’Sonnet Vol. I & Vol. II allows thematic exploration across 30+ tracks with a focus on space, reverberation and the resonance invoked by a fine-grained sonic palette; immersive textures bespeak dreams and desires, love and loss. Reference is made in the blurb to Basinski and SotL. Close, but no cigar. Nice nonetheless.
Reawakening from a bit of a lie-down, Francis M. Gri summons Pawel Pruski to reanimate his KrysaliSound with Between, which is concerned, as the title suggests, with ‘what lies between the words, between the moments, between the first and the next particle of sound.’ This gives a different picture of music, structure no longer linear, chronostatic—‘[…] only a single moment levitating “in between”.’ This is a set of just such moments, at once dreamlike and upfront, real and earthy, each track capturing a moment in time, while part of a bigger picture. Capo Gri also introduces a pair of differently styled Italian kin, whose works move with emotive flow through long meditative evolutions. He sees in them reminders of the diverse forms of water, one with a waterfall’s energy, the other a lake’s stillness. So, like Yang to Yin he joined them up. Grotta Veterano, who has previous form with Midira and La Petit Chambre, is the quiet one, Luung‘s gentle piano notes surrounded by ambient micro-sounds suspended in a digital solution. Nāda Mushin with his second for KS (he self-releases on bc too) is the loudmouth—wall of sound, guitar drone and Tao—with Tenue pursuing a path started with Mono No Aware.
Summer (catch-up) batch: after a 7-month hiatus, Shimmering Moods brought new goodies from Halftribe, Fatih Tuter, Bålsam and Milam Wisp. Ryan Bissett aka Halftribe’s Cloud Dreaming and Shadows was inspired by the scenery while escaping to the countryside during lockdown, either on his own, or in his family bubble. Mastered by Porya Hatami. Fatih Tuter’s Beehive can be seen as personal notes from his last 4 years after moving to a new country, a record of changes of inspiration that came via nature and new people in his life. Mastered by Andrea Porcu. Anthony Asher-Yates aka Bålsam’s Midnight Visions maps the realms of our reality and transforms it into something beyond. When light and energy meet… painting images of landscapes and animals from this world and the worlds of our dreams. David Newnes aka Milam Wisp’s Butterfly Tokens is a set of oneiric soundscapes with minimal modulation.
Autumn (big) batch: Fayerabend’s Diagnosis of Our Time, Giuseppe Falivene‘s Echoes, diffusions, F. M. GRI’s Little Drops, Túrion‘s low spirits and ZONA’s Silent City. Mykola Yosypenko and Toni Dimitrov’s Diagnosis… comes with a swathe of old-school liberationist verbiage (with no obvious linkage) from philosophizing namesake, Paul (Feyerabend), with whom they seek association, however spurious. Rome-based sound artist Giuseppe Falivene‘s Echoes, diffusions is a satisfying slab of power ambient featuring deep warm sounds limned with layers of noise. Fellow-Italian, KryaliSound boss Francis M. Gri, essayed an experimental detox, eschewing large-scale releases in favor of single tracks, most extemporaneous. It worked like a return to source, enabling him to play by instinct untethered by concept, with the resulting pieces, as heard on Little Drops, turning out to have an overall coherence. Jaap van Hamond’s Túrion project began with a few aimless production sessions, then bloomed into low spirits ‘encompassing 4 years of personal growth, hardship, and joy,’ apparently about ‘having the courage to take risks, the process of embracing queer identity, and struggling to fall asleep.’ With no silences between, it forms a unified piece featuring varied sound palettes—some meditative, some oppressive, some other. ZONA’s Silent City is dedicated by Cavit Ergün to the ancient city of Hasankeyf on the shores of the Tigris, an area of S.E. Turkey he travelled to 20 years ago. Recorded in Moda, Istanbul, it comes with pics of (till lately) a remarkable archaeological site, now lamentably flooded by the Ilısu Dam mega-project, putting 12,000 years of unexplored archaeological treasures, nature and local heritage underwater. Trembling decaying soundscapes maintain warmth with a small but triumphant fire kept burning deep within this all but forgotten land.
Britain’s Tim Diagram and Quebec’s Mathieu Lamontagne collude as Emba on a first, Paragraphs, both with years of previous form, the former running Handstitched* and involved in other collaborations and solo works since year dot, the latter as Arbee on such as Unknown Tone, dataObscura and Ondes Carrées. Emba worked via conversation, audio manipulation and processing alongside sound design and live recording, output from which was translated into sound sketches. Modular/Eurorack and 0-Coast and Moog Mother-32 for sound design and sound sculpture were used early on, with audio files then sent back and forth over the course of a year, the results moulded and processed into ten pieces, each reflecting a sense of the uncertainty of our present situation.
Andrew Klimek updates his growing Stereoscenic catalog with Ground . The Gentle from Germany’s Jeannine Schulz, a diverse set of lo-fi minimal, abstract crisp textures, drawn from piano and guitar sources. And Soledad from Spain’s Pepo Galán, made for his critically ill aunt, who passed away just after completion, is imbued with a nostalgic air that captures childhood memories perhaps spent on Spanish sea-side sands. Remixes from label-mates—anthéne, Black Brunswicker, Hilyard, zarr., awakened souls, and furnish (Klimek’s new drone project). Norway’s Christian Berg offers Skogsro (Norwegian = the calm of a forest), perhaps the most Stereoscenic, despite beats roaming here and there over its hi-fi neo-new age ambience. Previously on Stereoscenic, Toronto’s Bradley Sean Alexander Deschamps aka Polar Seas curator, anthéne, re-issues Protection and Infinity Lines off his own bc-shaped bat. G. Strizzolo brings Yggdrasil, ‘which represents me who I am and where I am going […]. In which it faithfully reflect my feelings, my emotions and my way of interpreting what life is.’ One of those squirmy blurbs with no suggestive spark that leave ears to do their own piquing, compounded by guest, Ludvig Cimbrelius, coming on all awestruck about the (‘incredible’) album—that ‘it seems to carry a magical ability to induce a state of profound presence as I give myself over to it,’ recounting the creative act with Strizzolo, ‘feeling that all that was in my heart had been flowing through my hands.’ All a bit rich for your scribe’s blood, who’d forego over-precious sincerity signifiers for more artful promo patter. Rahikka tries a bit harder for Abstract Elegies, with ‘helpful’ definitions (‘poems written for the deceased that encapsulate lamentation and remembrance through precise words and prose.’) given (cheers, Carson Rennekamp), before essaying: ‘The tracks were written as a response to what I view as a changing world. Death of an antiquated society and values. Sonic elegies written to evoke solidarity, nostalgia, and hope. A soundtrack for a beautiful new beginning.’ Label Capo, Andrew J Klimek, masters. Those blurbs, And?
Moscow’s Dronarivm hosts David Cordero for Honne (本 音) (= a person’s true feelings and desires), musical result of a first trip to Japan—a mix of pleasure trip and live tour. It seeks musicization of the landscape, sounds, culture and people, all recorded in his home studio using new recording processes and instruments under influence of the journey and experience with Japanese musicians, plus friends’ contributions—Miguel Otero, Carles Guajardo, Shuta Yasukochi and Kenji Kihara. The Muscovite imprint also enlists veteran Todd Gauthreaux to administer Inoculations in Tapes and Topographies guise. At his most veiled, he offers ‘contemplative melodies of sorrow and light. Comforting gifts of hope.’
Jake Muir brings The hum of your veiled voice, following Space Afrika, Perila, Echium and Roméo Poirier and his own Lady’s Mantle, to Manc sferic label. It moves away from the surf pop derivations of his debut to journey through a nocturnal cityscape, wandering low-lit streets via back rooms and boudoirs. Written in transition from LA to Berlin, it sees Muir transpose field recordings from his former home into a blurry mid-ground, diffracting the difference with a Berlin summer; it’s turned to a remotely engaged sound primed to alter head states under heavy influence from the etiolated timbres and spatial drift of Jeck and Chartier. In its portrayal of an ‘endless night’ the devil lies in its evocative details, with Akira Rabelais’ Argeïphontes Lyre software deployed to ruffle locked grooves and dusty jazz loops into ASMR-triggering texture-rhythms and slow dissolves.
Ulla and Perila don alias, LOG, following solo entries to boomkat’s Documenting Sound catalog by fluffing up pillows for ambient relief to lockdown wobbles on a debut for Experiences Ltd., LOG ET3RNAL. The pair build on a bourgeoning bond formed over lockdown that brought a pair of low-key trips on Portugal’s silence box to create a fuller set that’s like Wolfgang Voigt with his Gas bag more febrilely frayed and autumnally decayed. Synthetic micro-fibres and pads into gauzy visions with an iridescent melodic palette, oneiric vox and crackling rhythms are crafted into scenes suggestive of a sort of (sleep)walk in the Black Forest, or some such simulacrum.
The artist known as utem kaure is rivaling the one known as oliviaway, or rather second authorial signifier exceeding prime—in quantity and quality—with a sextet of high altitude herbs, mountain road, smell of flowers, cube, holiday and wings since October’s end. The utem kaure code (cracked—educated guess—by your scribe in ER 17#) continues, advancing its coder’s ‘no gender, no specific location and no attachment to mainstream sound’ anonymity spiel in pursuit of ‘an overwhelming desire […] to experiment with atmospheres and textures’ and ‘music that is free from stereotypes and different kinds of judgments that form wrong impressions and associations.’
US trio Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea releases Liberamente via Azure Vista. Marc Ertel and Damien Duque team up with zakè to create slowly unfolding textured pieces somewhere between guitar-based drone and modern classical. Taking in several decades of American soundscape and drone music, DCatIS weaves threads from Windy & Carl, Stars of the Lid and Auburn Lull into a sonically adventurous whole of deceptive surface simplicity that on deeper sounding reveals subtle compositional prowess.
Last laptops: China-based synth/dream-punk Kagami Smile—previously on Dream Catalogue, BLCR Laboratories and Søvn—nips over to London’s Cellar Tapes for a post-vaporwave wig-out, Transitory Heart furthering his gruzzy ambient articulation of ‘crowded isolation, urban decay, and technology-induced loneliness.’ Lowlight Dane, Rime Trails, presents The Light of Setting Suns, his usual blend of serene yet mildly uneasy ambient drone evocations shyly unfolding to draw you in when you need and let you out likewise. An internal or external framework of bones, cartilage, or other rigid materials, supporting the body of an animal or plant; its signifier is borne by Marco Marzuoli’s third album, Scheletro, denoting a group of primitive elements composed in an essential structure, MM’s mandolin, violin, bass, tapes, and FX made into a long-form organic drone recorded live from two walkmans between his own Città Sant’Angelo (Pescara, 2017) and Firenze (2019).
