For The Ambient Lovers...review and mixtape archive 001

Hi folks

As far as perceived, there hasn't been a thread on SC devoted to Ambient in concentration, that gives reviews, mixes and purchase/download links all in one. So I thought I'd start one. If you don't know me: I maintain the SC weblog with several Ambient reviews in content, and I originally set up DE, an agency hybrid with a webzine dedicated to Subvert Central support. The zine had thousands of readers, the mix series' many thousands more. Any recommendations for past and future material you want, holler at me via muttley_subversion at hotmail dot co dot uk or by PM here.

This thread will be updated periodically personally, but any further natter and recommendations from readers would be awesome. I'll start as meaning to go on...

Grouper - A.I.A - Alien Observer / Dream Loss
Yellow Electric 12' / download

Proceeding a headline tour: a sold out, spellbinding Cafe Oto gig last November, Liz Harris returned to her Portland home. Noteworthily reclusive, a partial "homebody" as she once described herself in one of several online interviews, "A.I.A" is a double volume of recordings partly showcased at All Tomorrow's Parties, and unheard material from those veiled archives. Criticism Grouper's lyrics are too muffled preceded the "Way Their Crept" period, her seminal debut for lauded Type Records, and climaxed in boos during Animal Collective support across the states. Well fuck the hipsters - she's gone and proved the elitism unworthy by bleaching her vocal delivery, but maintaining echo and reverb chalice followers had grown to adore. "Gonna take a spaceship, right back to the stars" - chin high Liz.

Grouper website:

http://www.yellowelectric.com

Grouper eMusic:

http://www.emusic.com/search.html?mode=x&QT=grouper

Grouper Tinymixtapes interview:

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/grouper

Jacob Newman & Devin Harris - The Vivid Unmapped
Data Obscura CD / download

A bird sings from rooftop field recording; not as a rooster, but a light coo - starts the landmark 50th instalment of Data Obscura, CD/digital stalwarts for the refined beatless exploratory. Jacob Newman and Devin Harris pull you into a vortex where you can foresee future dreams; full of vim and with the space to shape your own destiny. Its very pure ambient techno synths evoke rights of passage: don't pussyfoot to pussyfooting generation sources - let the algorythms lead you where you're thinking, and the patches for which you assemble will listen to you. Jacob and Devin are masters in this regard; they subvert Orbital breakdown orgy throughout - Oliver Lieb's more soothing work close comparative. In "Tracing Memory", you're left with nothing; it's music for future fractal. Embrace the tracks, and jacuzzi yourself.

Listen and order:

http://www.dataobscura.com/proddetail.php?prod=DO-050

Jacob Newman website:

http://capturedspace.org/

Devin Underwood & Marcus Fischer collaboration:

http://disquiet.com/2011/02/16/devin-und...s-fischer/

ASC & bvdub - Symbol 1.2
Auxilliary 002 12' vinyl / download

bvdub (Brock Van Wey) and ASC (James Clements) are two hugely prolific enforcers of depth in their respective fields; Brock is ambient dub maestro; Clements Ambient Drum & Bass exponent. However their dual strength is they produce so analytically and deeply, that their style base ranges a broadminded goldmine of ressurected renaissance archaeology. The second Symbol vinyl collects four genre-transgressive fusions of ambient dub, apple/beer barrel haze, pumped drums & bass, moving ambient/female vocal stormscapes. What raises them in particular from clonal Eluvium and Burial crossover, is mystic freedom aesthetic that triggers elation sensations mentally, and I'm certain, like bvdub and ASC's back catalogue, that they'll be worth revisiting. Acoustic other: "The Truth Hurts" by bvdub and Ian Hawgood.

Listen and order at ASC's blog:

http://www.theasc.blogspot.com

Check bvdub & Ian Hawgood's collab at Home Normal:

http://www.homenormal.co.uk

bvdub's 2010 'Waiting For The World...' Mixtape:

http://soundcloud.com/freshgoodminimal02...d-to-go-by

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PvC - Discouraging Intruders

The main theme for this mix (as well as the title "Discouraging Intruders" ) came from the spoken word track by the Dwindlers: "What the Wolves Said":

No two of us on the same note, we sound bigger...our harmony discouraging intruders..."

Although generally not sounding like a pack of howling wolves, sometimes the purpose of 'ambient' music also is also is to 'discourage intruders' (such as unwanted sounds) to invade your environment..

From the opening, this mix slowly dwells into long drone soundscapes - some discouraging, others comforting - only to be interrupted by a climactic eruption from Siddhartha Barnhoorn's cinematic 'Artifacts' directly following the enchanting vocals of Fovea Hex, a choir arrangement that seems to be coming directly from heaven by Franz Liszt (from 'Via Crucis', 1879!), followed by a Sibil'La Catalana string theme from the 15th century - and finally to be concluded by the acquiescent vocals from the Terje Isungset track.

Whether you prefer to be on the inside or the outside is up to your imagination...

http://www.vancooten.com/blog/?e=395#body-anchor

Foci's Left - Clearing The Air, Or Writing Letters To Ourselves



Keep calling vultures, and we conspire to drag dead corpses up hills. Or we could be alien observers, in worlds that aren't ours. A mix of two halves: one built on rustling music communications; the other poignancy fractures at the blend. All tracks were chosen by title, and soundtrack a personal survey. Is collated mood too obtuse, in comparison to what runs oblique?

01 - 00:00 The Winterhouse - Clearing
02 - 01:34 Shivering In Static - Yearnings
03 - 04:28 Belong - Late Night
04 - 04:42 Michael Trommer - Pushing Through Gray
05 - 06:03 Sawako - It's Not On Purpose
06 - 06:54 Olaf Tonstein - Snow
07 - 07:20 Jasper TX - Stillness
08 - 07:55 Danny Saul - (harsh)
09 - 09:09 Rhys Chatham - My Lady Of The Loire
10 - 09:46 EUS - Transparencia
11 - 11:35 Clem Leek - Light Passage II [Grief]
12 - 13:08 Antonymes - A Light From The Heavens
13 - 13:09 Quosp - Blue
14 - 14:06 Foci's Left - Cradling [excerpt]
15 - 14:34 New York Philharmonic - Requiem For String Orchestra
16 - 15:02 Mono - Halcyon (Beautiful Days)
17 - 16:19 Beth Nielsen Chapman - Panis Angelicus [stretched reverb edit]
18 - 17:35 Grouper - Alien Observer [down-pitched loop edit]
19 - 17:40 ASC & bvdub - Symbol 02 #4
20 - 18:05 Arkhonia - GDLadyburn
21 - 21:21 Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - Turn On The Moon
22 - 24:20 Claro De Luna - Quedarse
23 - 26:22 Christopher Willits - Colours Shifting
24 - 27:07 Bark Psychosis - Rose

http://www.mixcloud.com/futuresequence/f...e-air-mix/

Any feedback much appreciated.
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Low Light - The Stars Above Us

"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another."
-- Plato (427-347 B.C.)

I realized that I hadn't done a stargazing mix in quite awhile and with the weather getting warmer & spending more time outside, I figured a new star mix was in order.

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00 Sonmi451 - Cumulonimbus
05:30 Manual - As the moon Spins Around
09:35 Cyber Zen Sound Engine & Matt Borghi - Mars Infers
15:40 Robert Davies - Beneath Strange Stars
24:55 sgnl fltr - kwon
25:30 Frederico Durand - Mi Pequeno Mundo De Papel
26:25 Frederico Durand - El Mundo Secreto De La Montana
29:30 Staffan Wessman - Unison
34:50 The Winterhouse - Lost
42:50 Jonathan Hughes - Monoline
45:15 Kyle Bobby Dunn - Statuit
50:05 Loscil - Cheekye
55:50 Matt Thomas Wilson - Aviation Jargon
58:00 Jonn Serrie - Continuum
63:15 end

http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2011/0...ve-us.html

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Futuresequence's last SC related contributor was Zvuku (Slug of http://www.weareie.com), who I am discussing collaboration with for the debut Foci's Left album.

Ta all, and looking forward to getting this stone rolling.

Mick