Documenting the drift at the margins, a look back at Past Inside The Present‘s showcase of the state of the art of ambient dronescaping, focusing on selected works from earlier in the year that may have gone under your radar.
A label & resource for the ambient listener
Black Swan :: Repetition Hymns — A double album from (insert de rigueur enigmatic epithet) Black Swan, cutely trailed as being well-suited to the temporal distortion of quarantine in which each day feels like an endless loop. Since debut, In 8 Movements (2010), the artist has carved a niche for a particular tape-based symphonic drone variant, though the early dark symphonic deconstructions have shifted to let in lighter textures and more tranquil meditations, expanding tonal palette while retaining discreet identity. Layers of handmade tape loops of varying lengths and pitches are manipulated on multi-track recorders, methodology imparting a raw quality with greater looseness and freedom than before. Repetition alters perception, high(low?)lighting subtle timbral modulation and events triggered by interplay with other loops. Sustained string crescendos sweep, recursions running through it, cycles within cycles, reprised motifs displacing temporal sense. A sense of narrative remains elusive, though Repetition Hymns offers itself (cutely again) as ‘slow music for slow times.’
Free Dust :: Woo’d Early — In 2015 Matthew Sage cataloged near-daily recordings made under narrow creative constraints—electric guitar, a few pedals, recorded and mixed directly to 4-track cassette. Eschewing the often complex studio gadgetry and computer editing of primary project M. Sage, Free Dust became a space for techn-ology/ique to cede to more direct expression. Having collected and issued hours of this material as quarterly d/ls, he re-issued it as a double-CD on his now-defunct Patient Sounds. A new set of Free Dust material, Woo’d Early is billed as ‘a succinct diurnal counter to the sprawling dusk-settling realms of Archive,’ its shivering auroral guitar pieces captured early a.m.s late Summer/early Fall 2019 using the project’s original defining constraints. Rather than the cerebral vespertine meditations of Archive, a diaristic account of acclimatizing to a new life in a new city, the post-adaptation of this, the project’s first LP proper, brings matinal musings in string-y billows, as Sage explores melody and timbre with ‘an inquisitive, sensitive, and casual curiosity.’ (Coincidentally, The Wind of Things, an ensemble work from M. Sage has come into view aswewrite thanks to boomer coverage.)
36 + awakened souls :: The Other Side of Darkness — On which Dennis Huddleston aka 36 communes with James Bernard and wife, Cynthia Field, aka awakened souls. Starting with JB sending DH a few bass loops, it soon evolved, their own individual interpretations added to the main album, collected on a single extended digital LP. 36’s “After Dark” versions re-envision TOSoD as rain-drenched neo-noir, reflecting the bleak backdrop to these challenging times (natch). Other awakened souls soundings reveal different facets of the husband/wife duo, from deep drone, dub and acid to more composed ambient and shoegaze, also reviving Bernard’s late 90s electronica moniker, Influx, for two dance-spun workouts, while his partner debuts solo project, marine eyes, for three lush emotive variants. Trailed as ‘a contemplation on how holding space for hard emotions is ultimately what leads us towards the light,’ amid a year of unease in an unprecedented climate, the feelings tapped ‘act as mantras reminding us of our common humanity.’ Masterful mastering from maestro Rafael Anton Irisarri.
More bite-sized now:
Pepo Galán and Sita Ostheimer :: Contact — These two have consorted off and on since 2015, prolific Malaga producer Galán (El Muelle) making music for Berlin-based choreographer Ostheimer‘s dance works, she in turn providing delicate vox for some of his albums. This first collab proper finds Ostheimer’s evocative vocal delivery well attuned to Galan’s mellow neo-classicism and subtle electronics, making for beguilingly poignant listening.
Ecovillage :: Clouds and Waves — ‘Inspired by nature and the inner journey,’ runs the accompanying legend to Swedes Emil Holmström and Peter Wikström’s album, recorded in Topanga and Umeå, and mastered by PITP’s Healing Sound Propagandist, zakè. A track like “I Remember You ft. Joe Frawley” delivers its emotive cache via plangent piano and sad distant violins colored with traces of wind and water—a place of retreat after the chaos. On “Letting Go Of All Things ft. Ludvig Cimbrelius” remote choirs share in the pathos with gentle guitar and piano, making real magic (and magic realism) from melodic motifs out of Eno via Basinski.
Tobias Karlehag :: Process — On his solo project’s debut this Gothenburg multi-instrumentalist and sound artist deploys algorithmic composition and improvisation to create spacious ambient drone. A still meditative state is wrought via modular synth, electric guitar and sundry electronics, underlying narrative product of a shift in inspirational provenance, equal parts field recs, chance and his own reflections on flow and break-up.
Celer :: Being Below — Prolific ambient sound artist Will Long’s Two Acorns colludes with PItP for a mini-album of shorter pieces wrought with digital and analog instruments composed with a structure reflecting shifting states, ‘overlooking the past and future as a split pathway with the present endlessly fluctuating between. The pangs of rumination…’ Intruigingly billed as an exercise in loop-less writing, it thus departs from Celer’s (seeming) signature compositional strategy, making for some of his most indulgent work from within an ascetic aesthetic with a nicely veiled ambi[val]ence.
Now to PITP bros, Healing Sound Propagandist: Home Learning :: The Case For Final —Documents a long-distance liaison of two friends constantly seeking to pleasantly surprise one other and their listeners. Tom Schmidlin (Pagination) in Bentonville AR crosses synth, guitar and FX with Edmund Osterman (Screener) in Covington KY, overlapping ebb-flow ambient tracts into a compellingly cohesive whole, textural-emotive tenor unified in winsome-sweet slides into sad-sour, all heart-tugs and wistful cadence; lowlight languor adds to a fragile allure.
Carlos Ferreira, Ely Janoville, Igor Imbu :: Pêndulo —Three Brazilians colluded remotely in an effort to cope with pandemic-bound isolation, seeking something sound in a world made unsound, the resultant “Pêndulo” sparking further ideas, conversations and recordings, five pieces complete and compiled in a month. Narrative, if one there be, for its four tracks is seen by them as a person’s lucid dreams, with the closer “Corpo,” feat. a Portuguese poem written/read by Francis Espíndola, being awakening.
Matteo Cantaluppi :: Frantic — This 23 minute long mini-album from Matteo Cantaluppi is a focused yet meditative work dominated by the eponymous track, on which the Italian producer unfurls a steepling expanse of a piece anchored by harmonious synth, with tones echoing into the far distance as new ones rise to take their place. David Eßer :: The Other Home Hamburg musician Eßer aka Ataxy started out in 2017 as an Ambient tyro with a Roland Juno 106 and a Korg Ms 20, from which he has evolved into the sound heard on here. TOH sets out to focus on ‘so-called emptiness,’ as heard esp. on “Vacuum I,” Eßer being inspired by the idea that music isn’t possible without oxygen to wonder how music might sound elsewhere in the universe, were it possible. Online exchange with Valèncian ambient producer Warmth led to other tracks being added later.
On PItP and HSP-related Zakè Drone: zakè + awakened souls :: Sounds & Samples Vol.I — Not an album but a set of phonic textures, field recordings, orchestral samples, short melodies, vocal textures and sound manipulations, to be pitched, manipulated, layered, chopped, looped—whatever means necessary to make them your own, free to use in any creation, commercial and non-commercial, no licensing and no need to credit.
zakè + City of Dawn :: An Eternal Moment Hidden Away — The eponymous 76-minute long-form track was created by Damien Duque of Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea and zakè in late winter 2020 and issued on cassette and CD variants. While the original versions remain subscriber-only long-forms, this digital album release comes with two subscriber-only variations on tracks “Eternal Resonance I” and “II,” “An Eternal Moment Hidden Away, Variation 1” being an edited down version for those who may blanch rather than drool at the prospect of a 76-minute loop-athon.
Last, news of a special live stream premiere of Keep the Orange Sun from awakened souls’ new project with From Overseas (Kévin Séry) on Sun. 19 Sept., 8:00 PM GMT+1; accompanied by visuals, it includes a remix album feat. guest remixers, with artists and label in chat. And, looking forward, keep tuned in to igloo reviews for when we renew efforts to keep the past inside the present, charting PITP’s mid-year movements. Mind the Gap!
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