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

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Bengalfuel – Laudaten (14 tracks, 57 minutes) download here: http://www.lizardbreakfast.com/
DIB Wrote:Bengalfuel – Laudaten (14 tracks, 57 minutes) download here: http://www.lizardbreakfast.com/

Nabbed, nice one. I just reviewed "Edgemere" for Fluid.

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2011/06/ben...-edgemere/
FTAL Mix Series

FTAL Mixes are submitted every 5 batches of reviews, collating 15 works to mix, in 45 minutes maximum.

"Engaged Or Ejected", set one, has two themes: 1) two tracks playing at all times, eschewing construction's engagement or ejection; 2) pattern recognition prototype for investigating the brain's nervous system through physiological study, and how long it can be kept between the two gates before arousal disintegrates.

As the series builds with additional topic material, so will the concepts and narrative.

-FTAL 001 - Muttley - Engaged Or Ejected

01 - 00:00 / 44:31 Donato Wharton - Breath Held (A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark EP, Serein, 2011)
02 - 00:00 Igor Karaca - Deserts (Rituelle LP, Darkwinter, 2011)
03 - 00:06 bvdub & Ian Hawgood - Lie In Lone (The Truth Hurts LP, Nomadic Kids Republic, 2011)
04 - 00:54 Robert Carty - Shimmering (Photonic Movements LP, Earth Mantra, 2011)
05 - 06:37 Seconds Before Awakening - Seven 4 (Seven LP, 2011)
06 - 15:56 Mystified - Bone Drone 14 (Bone Drones 3 LP, Webbed Hand, 2011)
07 - 23:11 offthesky & Pillowgarden - Feather Anchor For A Tidal Yawn (A Dream In A Dream EP, Audio Gourmet, 2011)
08 - 24:54 Loscil - Cheekye (Only Light To Clear Away compilation, Distance Recordings, 2011)
09 - 24:55 Jacob Newman & Devin Underwood - Unconscious Movement (The Vivid Unmapped LP, Data Obscura, 2011)
10 - 31:08 Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - We Enter The Night (For Nihon compilation, Unseen, 2011)
11 - 32:08 Grouper - A Lie (A.I.A: Dream Loss LP, Yellowelectric, 2011)
12 - 34:32 Nawang Khechog - May All Be Kind To Each Other (Tibetan Dream Journey, Sounds True, 2011)
13 - 34:58 Tadzio - The End Of The Earth...A Flower With No Scent (The End Of The Earth...A Flower With No Scent EP, Blindsight Recordings, 2011)
14 - 40:09 Noveller - Glacial Wave (Glacial Glow LP, Weird Forest, 2011)
15 - 42:08 Jon Porras - Land's End (Undercurrent LP, Root Strata, 2011)

http://muttley.kapsil.net/FTAL/FTAL%20Mi...jected.mp3
Just spotted that Denovali have released the amazing Field Rotation album "Acoustic Tales" on a stunning double vinyl gatefold lp on black & white splatter limited to 100 copies. Looks absolutely amazing and im tempted but I already have it on cd when it was released on Fluid Audio but thought it may be of interest to someone.

http://denovali.com/shop/product_info.ph...ts_id=5045

There is also a limited edition of 100 copies of a Field Rotation 10" gold vinyl

http://denovali.com/shop/product_info.ph...ts_id=5047
Good Weather For An Airstrike - A Summer

The debut full length album by Good Weather For An Airstrike is here, following a handful of well received EPs over the last few years Tom Honey has expanded his sound to create something more substantial and arguably more bold than his previous outings. Going against the grain of ambient and drone conventions, GWFAA’s album compresses soundscapes into smaller time frames, speeding up the slow moving fluctuations into stirring ever evolving movements which aren’t frustratingly slow. The record swings with ease from louder more abrasive drone associated with artists like Tim Hecker to far more delicate kaleidoscopic swells akin to Stars of the Lid whilst always maintaining a character entirely of its own.

http://sonicreverie.bandcamp.com/album/a-summer
We're getting a strange, nice kinesis DIB - first Bengalfuel, now GWFAA Smile

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2011/07/goo...-a-summer/

Definitely worth bagging, that one.

Machinefabriek & Gareth Davis - Jazz Standards Vol.1

Muttley on Fluid Radio Wrote:Clarinet, fuzzy processing, stubbed out cigars in a back street pub are vehicle, passenger and idealised venue for Machinefabriek & Gareth Davis’ “Jazz Standards Vol.1″. Rutger Zuyderveldt once miked up a zither at a Nottingham club in 2009, and that experimental streak serves, like his huge catalog of recordings already present, to what the second collaboration between him and multi-instrumentalist Davis was going to turn out like…

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2011/07/mac...rds-vol-1/
Enjoyed this one, very minimal in places but with enough depth to keep you hooked.

ASC - Deep Space 20

[Image: supernova.jpg]

http://official.fm/tracks/263113

Also worth checking the "Zone Of Avoidance" post on ASC's blog:

http://theasc.blogspot.com/2011/07/zone-...dance.html
Marsen Jules - ASIP Mix 18

A Strangely Isolated Place is a great site for Ambient, Electronica and more. This concept set from Marsen Jules I had on repeat three times this morning. Also highly recommended: Kettel and Helios mixes.

Marsen on ASIP Wrote:Recorded live at the Toskana Therme Bad Schandau. It is a special place with a liquid sound soundsystem, which can play music under water. When mixing ambient music I try very much to create something new and and floating out of the material. Usually it´s four decks in Traktor playing at the same time also using loops and some effects. For this mix I tried to assemble the material around the trademark sound of Kompakts Pop Ambient series.

01. Steve Roach – A Deeper Silence (A Deeper Silence)
02. Deepchord Presents: Echospace – Ocean of Emptiness (The Coldest Season)
03. Steve Roach – Further Inside (Dynamic Stillness)
04. Steve Roach – A Darker Light (Dynamic Stillness)
05. Ulf Lohmanm – Java (Pop-Ambient 2002)
06. Gas – 5 (Pop)
07. Popnoname – Deutz Air (Pop Ambient 2010)
08. Ulf Lohmanm – Java (Pop-Ambient 2002)
09. Helios – First Dream Called Ocean (Eingya)
10. Stars of the Lid – Dungtitled (in A major) (And Their Refinement of the Decline)
11. Wolfgang Voigt – Ruckverzauberung (Pop Ambient 2011)
12. Causeyoufair – I Am No Longer Soul (There I Lay and Time Imperfections)
13. The Dead Texan – A Chronicle of Early Failures Pt Two (The Dead Texan)
14. Julien Neto – Sketch (Le Fumeur de Ciel)
15. Ulf Lohmann – 8 (Because Before)
16. Gas – 3 (Pop)

http://astrangelyisolatedplace.com/2011/...sen-jules/
Thanks Muttley Xyxthumbs
FTAL Reviewed 006 - July 2011

Karnak Temples - The Din Of Light
Debacle Records CD / download

[Image: 1857713203-1.jpg]

"Foul Nest": Glenn Branca sat down in decompression chamber, chipping away at melancholia flint with determined chord echo. Six minutes pass, distorted riffs set alight timbres, freeing 2D monotony, edging towards A Broken Consort's Richard Skelton, only guitar, and force, is electric. This is not a hugely complex record, despite it's six-string base straddling boundaries of electro-acoustic, drone and Dark Ambient, but where there's will for simplicity, there's ways of mangling all ingredients to textural hodge-podge of sufficiently unnerving, therefore keepsake-endowed grunginess. It's not self-centred to want to be a happier person, yet all around the societal negatives are programmed in to outweigh positive gradients. Small efforts like Karnak Temples', buffer the chasm admirably.

http://debaclerecords.bandcamp.com/album...n-of-light

Thanet - Receiving Calls
Mordant Music CD / download
[Image: 150.jpg]

Wistfully eerie always, sometimes plain gorgeous synth 'n' drum sorbet from lesser known library and tape music producer, taking his name from the Thanet district. Satisfaction takes time on Disc 1, preferring turgid melody reverting and percussive liposuction. Ante is upped on Disc 3's "Station Wave"; the 'scape grows fertile peacefulness from loose harmony magnetism. Global Communication's unfinished-business-epicness undercuts all rigid tension, commanding your foci throughout with a fleshed-out absinthe blur of psychedelic lethargy. In three hours you can plot a NOTW hack, but seldom spoil an invigorating artistic showcase, at least not "Receiving Calls". What's left from the wreckage is engrossing, if a tad lightweight in places, but with a release of this mass, square pegs and round holes do mix.

http://boomkat.com/downloads/422022-than...ving-calls

Darren Harper & Gimu - Field & Fern; Mountain & Sea
Rural Colours CD-R / download

[Image: RC040-400.jpg]

Rural Colours sprung onto the Ambient buyers' radar in 2010 with limited run CD-Rs. Later they adopted the full-weight subscription model, along with Mp3 downloads from their website and archive.org. Hibernate Records' alt. subsidiary, this their 40th catalog piece: four tracks of pristine collabo-drone, plus violins and field recs. Darren Harper's results with Gimu should solely be judged on the surface character, not the conceptual intent, since he's peppered his production arsenal with so many techniques to constitute an underground drone heavyweight. And, because Gimu's presence can be felt as an unknown quantity otherwise. "Dawn" is fit for an episode of The Blue Planet; shark-sprightly plunder-tropical, while "Rise" hints chronic overactivity breathes in small doses. Ambient takes no days off.

http://ruralcolours.co.uk/news/?page_id=489
Statto Wrote:How would you define ambient? Smile

it's a pretty difficult question.

music to "mingle with the sound of the knives and forks at dinner", or better yet, music "as ignorable as it is interesting".
Grin
http://semlabel.com/one-minute-for-the-stars/

36 one minute tracks
Fennesz - Seven Stars (Touch)

Fennesz's first solo release since "Black Sea" [Touch # TO:76, 2008] is a 4 track 10" vinyl, with a CD version due in September 2011. It will also be available as a digital download. Using acoustic and electric guitars, bass, synths, computers, Fennesz continues to engage and entrance us in equal measure.

http://www.touchmusic.org.uk/

10" vinyl - http://boomkat.com/vinyl/428262-fennesz-seven-stars
digital - http://boomkat.com/downloads/424537-fennesz-seven-stars (available monday 25th July)
http://adamawilliams.bandcamp.com/

Nice
Purl - Deep Ground (Silent Season)

http://shop.silentseason.com/album/purl-...ound-ssd03
http://music.audiogourmet.co.uk/album/just-a-moment
Hugs for DIB.

Hallock Hill - There He Unforeseen

[Image: Hallock-Hill.jpg]

Muttley on Fluid Wrote:Hallock Hill hasn’t so madly broken ground through macabre offset, as let any offsetting ingrain macabre wonder onto the platter, in a very rewarding criss-cross of lost purpose, regained purpose, half-full stopgap. And that’s always something worth a punt in the world of cyber-worship. – Highly recommended.

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2011/07/hal...unforseen/
I know my posts are basic compared to yours Muttley but i'm no good with words. I hope you don't mind me keep posting things.

This is really nice, a soundtrack to a videogame http://limbogame.bandcamp.com/
DIB Wrote:I hope you don't mind me keep posting things.

Be right back to confer with the wallet Wink

FTAL Reviewed 007 - July - August 2011

Carbon Based Lifeforms - Twentythree
Ultimae CD

[Image: 000000_rLpFKpXzYN.jpg]

Time stands still. The atmosphere is parched. It fills up, like a hot water bottle, primed for sleepy heads. All clinginess processed, grants lacksaidaisical plane; to rest, to gaze. Regardless of your familiarity with Ultimae, Carbon Based Lifeforms' "Twentythree" fits their high ambience benchmark, diametrically opposed to saccharine oils; "Somewhere In Russia" burning a fragrant incense, where their home of Sweden greets a Soviet expedition muskiness. Electronically modified vocal samples, precede trancey synth comedown; like a dirty rag squeezed over a sink, droplets housed in appropriate environment, no forced remnants of the past. Interestingly, "Endospore", CBL's previous outing was a giant's stride away energetically. Material within "Twentythree" is far more relaxing, and realised.

http://www.ultimae.com/en/releases/517/index.html

Various Artists - Looking Back
Auraltone Music download

[Image: 3762466981-1.jpg]

One reads books, picking out stimulus with belief that a friend could relate. Media transgressing in this form doesn't intrinsically apply to music - first you have to remove the constraints of context and break idiosyncracies' locks. Word decoded to note, chord morphed from sentence, text gravitated to files. Then the next step for is to prune, procreate, prolapse. Exactly how Auraltone Music's "Looking Back" shaped up, and sounds - a safe being cracked at twilight from a year's collation, rummaged into netherworld, Terry Pratchett novel springing a leak, from back catalogue of lesser knowns. Ten varied dronescapes, all with a unique character: Dentist's "Freezer" hovering in thin air, "Nu2" by Travel Trip even further afloat in gravity loss. What isn't at fault is an empty pocket.

http://auraltone.com/2011/07/01/auralton...-one-year/

Marta Mist - Ain't No Mountain
Heat Death Records CD-R

[Image: 4061142881-1.jpg]

Envy and jealousy's primitivity, in social cosmo-hierarchy, are destructive feedback loops, where back-scratching politics presides the workplace, aggrieves the artist, and pulverizes innocent credentials from taking a resolvable conclusion. We get to rebellious recycling that's eternal, no holds barred damage at worst, and is responsible for the degradation of the musician's platonic attributes - an upsurge of coy tactility as their zones' comfort blanket. I'm certainly not going to preach gospel of Marta Mist's "Ain't No Mountain", as it goes high enough on inspiration's scale, to avoid feelings of self-doubt, as one of many intercepters of modern sound collage. Classical tinged drone reps are blocked from awareness of the bleak; violin slices through the ribbons to uncover a traditional liqueur.

http://heatdeathrecords.bandcamp.com/alb...o-mountain
Muttley Wrote:Marsen Jules - ASIP Mix 18

A Strangely Isolated Place is a great site for Ambient, Electronica and more. This concept set from Marsen Jules I had on repeat three times this morning. Also highly recommended: Kettel and Helios mixes.

Marsen on ASIP Wrote:Recorded live at the Toskana Therme Bad Schandau. It is a special place with a liquid sound soundsystem, which can play music under water. When mixing ambient music I try very much to create something new and and floating out of the material. Usually it´s four decks in Traktor playing at the same time also using loops and some effects. For this mix I tried to assemble the material around the trademark sound of Kompakts Pop Ambient series.

01. Steve Roach – A Deeper Silence (A Deeper Silence)
02. Deepchord Presents: Echospace – Ocean of Emptiness (The Coldest Season)
03. Steve Roach – Further Inside (Dynamic Stillness)
04. Steve Roach – A Darker Light (Dynamic Stillness)
05. Ulf Lohmanm – Java (Pop-Ambient 2002)
06. Gas – 5 (Pop)
07. Popnoname – Deutz Air (Pop Ambient 2010)
08. Ulf Lohmanm – Java (Pop-Ambient 2002)
09. Helios – First Dream Called Ocean (Eingya)
10. Stars of the Lid – Dungtitled (in A major) (And Their Refinement of the Decline)
11. Wolfgang Voigt – Ruckverzauberung (Pop Ambient 2011)
12. Causeyoufair – I Am No Longer Soul (There I Lay and Time Imperfections)
13. The Dead Texan – A Chronicle of Early Failures Pt Two (The Dead Texan)
14. Julien Neto – Sketch (Le Fumeur de Ciel)
15. Ulf Lohmann – 8 (Because Before)
16. Gas – 3 (Pop)

http://astrangelyisolatedplace.com/2011/...sen-jules/

yeah checked this out last week, very nice indeed. Played a few times now. Smile
This is very lovely. Listening to for a second time. ( now on proper monitors). Grin

Muttley I made the post all big and stuff by copying the blog. hehe. Grin Still not as nice and organized with pics and stuff...

http://umber.bandcamp.com/album/mornings-pass-ep

Taken from here; http://astrangelyisolatedplace.com/2011/...ings-pass/

'It’s always humbling to know there are amazingly talented artists out there, which really have no-where close to the following they deserve. Umber is one of them.

‘Morning’s Pass’ is a collection of six songs which Alex Steward has recorded over the past year, making this, his first official release. The EP is a mixture of gentle guitars, distant pianos and beautiful ambient textures – a combination that often promises the earth, but in this instance, delivers the distant, gazing universe on a hot, Summers day.

The EP begins with two similarly brilliant tracks featuring patiently strummed guitars, wrapped in textures and warmth – a perfect interlude for the rather pretty ‘Tomorrow We’ll Throw Out Some Old Shoes’. This is where Alex’s acoustic guitar skills really come into play and an addictive melody pins a big grin on your face – the kind of track that TV advertisers crave for… you know the ones.

http://soundcloud.com/umbermusic/tomorro...out-some-1



‘The Day We Left for Earth’ is a more mellow affair, but still features Alex’s now signature close acoustics wrapped amongst an engaging ambient feel. The remaining tracks are just as special, each as patient and acknowledging as the next. Alex has a talent in creating amazing highs; with perfect timing, and an appreciation for the minimalist instruments he has selected across the EP.

If the likes of Winterlight and Helios had a power-cut, with nothing but a magnitude of acoustic guitars, pianos and their own musical talents to rely on, this is what they’d play – a beautiful post-rock/folk/ambient album which is warming, reflective and similarly genius.

Alex normally gives away ‘a song a week‘ via his Tumblr, which are just as great as the EP. And he has even been so kind as to produce one exclusively for ASIP. You can Download ‘I Wasn’t Aiming For The Ocean’, here.

http://astrangelyisolatedplace.files.wor...-ocean.mp3

Umber – Morning’s Pass is available to download on Bandcamp and the physical EP’s are also worth the investment (photo above is of the lovingly crafted Lilac edition I received)."
Dadavistic Orchestra (The Black Dog + Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia)

http://www.dadavisticorchestra.com/

[Image: Dokument02CDFront_273.jpg]

Quote:The second in a three-part series of a collaboration between The Black Dog and members of The Psychick Warriors of Gaia, Dokument.02 is about as gripping a release as they come. It's hard not to feel shaken after immersing yourself in it for an hour. Taking obvious inspiration from the Dada art movement—from the Man Ray-inspired cover art of the first to the ambient industrial anti-aesthetics of the second—02 holds a deep fury in its soundscapes.

It's not theoretical per se. It's physical: A sub bass rumbles ominously underneath a lot of the album. The deeply unsettling emotions carried by what's on top are more remarkable, though. Most of the time, it's bleak and desolate—"Teh Meh, Teh Me"—or else it's steeped in melancholy—the chords at the beginning of "Unconcerned" or the fractured ribbon of sound that glides over the second half of "De Neerstorting."

There are deep and warm textures that—while not exactly comforting—you'll still want to sink into. "De Kunst" is a masterful shifting miasma, with hints of joy, desperation and emptiness. A faint, indecipherable announcer is intermingled throughout, like a ticket conductor on a train to nowhere. At the end of "Unconcerned" unbearably searing knife-edge feedback suggests ferocious attack. Then sometimes, like in "Petrichore," the pads bliss out, as if we're being bathed in transcendental hyper-consciousness.

The group have adopted a sample editing style analagous to the Scotch Art process used by Gil J Wolman, where bands of printed matter were cut and repositioned in layers. Which means that, for an hour of "ambience," it's actually quite busy. Dokument.02 is not a passive album: It's a slow, dark torrent that wrenches you along with it.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=9403
[ last.fm ]
This track is fantastic from the forthcoming Lawrence English lp on Experimedia

http://alteredzones.com/posts/1705/lawre...tter-grip/
Don't forget to dissect English's "A Young Person's Guide To Hustling In Music And The Arts" if it's your thing:

http://subvertcentral.com/forum/showthre...ce+english

Low Light - Graceful Silence

I've worked on three mixes for Dave's renowned Low Light blog, latest being the "Multiples" collab (posted earlier in this topic). His site has 129 followers to date and for me is the best Ambient mix blog out there. Drop "Low Light - Autumn / String Theory Vol.2 / Piano Vol.2 / Still Falls The Rain / Suspended In Air / Undiscovered Soundtrack / Migrations into Google for just seven variants of one attribute: excellent mixes. "Graceful Silence" only adds to the trend.

[Image: light%2B%2526%2Bshadows.jpg]

Dave Low Light Wrote:The result is similar to the "breathing" mixes I've done before with the lulling ebb & flow that I like so much. This mix differs in it's use of piano & guitar tracks. There is a section in the middle where there really isn't a whole lot of "silence", more of an up and down of synth washes. But like happens so often with mixes, they just go places I didn't expect and then I've got to bring them back.

"Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence and silence is full of music."
- Marcel Marceau

00:00 Antonymes - 311210 (from Like Rumours of Hushed Thunder)
01:38 Wixel - Vaarwel (from Somewhere Between The Sun and The Moon)
03:50 Danny Saul - Kinison part 2 (from Kinison - Goldthwait)
05:30 Good Weather For An Airstrike - Broken (from Winter)
11:00 Wixel - 10 minutes (from The End)
13:42 World Standard & Moose Hill - Graceful Silence (from Futari - Graceful Silence)
17:50 Stuart Dempster - Standing waves 1976 (from In The Great Abbey of Clement VI)
21:40 Kyle Bobby Dunn - Tuohy's Theme (from Ways of Meaning)
26:00 Celer - untitled #10 (from Compositions for Cassette)
36:39 Listening Mirror - Glass Slopes (from Spires, Spirals and Stones)
37:15 Jasper Leyland - they carry (from Sediments)
41:24 Dakota Suite - One Day Without Harming You (Machinefabriek remix) (The Night Just Keeps Coming In)
42:33 Marsen Jules - Chanson du soir (from Herbstlaub)
47:00 Brian Eno - Neroli (from Neroli)
51:25 The Dead Texan - Beatrice part 2 (from The Dead Texan)
55:08 Antonymes - 291210 (from Like Rumours of Hushed Thunder)
57:16 end

http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2011/0...lence.html
36 - Tape Series: Green

http://3six.bandcamp.com/album/tape-series-green

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