The thirteen tracks of Monolog map a dark and introspective world, a pallid world of leaden atmospheres and weighted dawns. An excellent work of modern ambience—contemporaries living up the classics.
After a recent focus on Techno and Electro Glasgow’s diametric. returns with some environmental meanderings. Helge Tømmervåg aka Mind Over MIDI is a veteran of Arne Weinberg’s label. He revisits the grey of Scotland for Monolog.
The CD album opens with “Enable” where drone and noise circle. A waterfall of white sound descends before the embers of “Interface” catch to form grainy bars. Within the aural washes and machine clicks comes a primal darkness. “Remote” sees thick barriers dented by bass and thuds. “Circuitry” paints in ashen tones, black rain falling on barren plains. A nullifying wind blows through the album, leveling the landscape. “Modus” sends globules of sound skyward. What remains is an insulated and stripped shadow. Dense footfalls echo and quake the ear with “Counter.” Tømmervåg creates a bulwark of beatless sound, taking ideas from Dub Techno but forging his eclipsed music in the depths of Ambient. “Disable” closes the album with ghostly mechanized whispers and charcoal smeared noise.
There has been a new interest in past Ambient sounds. The likes of Conrad Schnitzler and Klaus Schulze have a growing audience. But modern Ambient has taken a backseat to the past masters. The thirteen tracks of Monolog map a dark and introspective world, a pallid world of leaden atmospheres and weighted dawns. An excellent work of modern ambience—contemporaries living up the classics.
Monolog is available on diametic..
