my newest acquisition...
Janussi - Demo MMXBI
A very fine set of blast-pulse industrial ambient, instrumental doom metal undertones and pure sine wave cracks-ploitation, recommended by the artists "for fans of Ben Frost, Tim Hecker, Prurient". Impressive stuff that shreds the boundaries of the meaty riff clarion call. Like asking for chicken pie at a Thai restaurant, the tones are originally out of place but soon congeal together as an alien unculture, a vibe all its own. I did not know the Janussi name before this and I'll surely be looking out for more CDs or tapes or even digital by the artist. He's a local Witney musician who works at the Rapture record emporium, and all profits of this £8 45-minute tape go to mental health charity Oxfordshire MIND.
What's particularly impressive about those riffs is how changeably sinewy and tender they are when mixed with guitar that disguises itself as synthesiser pulse, and this is done enigmatically through downplaying the mood to a minor chord shift. At times resembling stoner titans Swans and Jesu (the latter also very much a one-man band of Godflesh's Justin Broadrick) this music is like a miniature apocalypse sowed, slowed down and then played in reverse to an elliptical utopia ending.
by Mick Buckingham - www.fluid-radio.co.uk
*edit* this release is strictly an Oxford first-come, first served affair - there's even absolutely zilch about Janussi on the web in Google. Rare stuff.
To echo what DIB has noted, Silent Season but also Low Point label have 40 per cent and 25 per cent off Bandcamp releases on their pages until 3 days time.
Applies multiple times if wished, so dig in.
To obtain label codes though is newsletter subbies.
Palancar - Diminishing Light LP on Earth Mantra netlabel is special business. If the label archive.org is still online it should be available.
Links section to ambient netlabels - www.ambientblog.net
A sub-thread about Penguin Café Orchestra - "Cantorum", and Geotic - "Billionth Remnant".
http://subvertcentral.com/showthread.php?tid=62138
Ellen Arkbro – For Organ And Brass
Some say time is money. Some say time is the result of money. Which would figuratively mean time plus more time equals more time. And there is, on the evidence of this sterling use of "organ and brass" instruments by Ellen Arkbro, a case to be made for standing yourself in experiential riches. The instruments aren't cheap, but as presented here, the resulting sounds are grandiose arcs.
The album starts well. Some type of C chord, sounding like suspended minor in style, folds to an A minor 9th. This pattern is repeated for over 5 minutes, but tedium never sets in. Most likely this is due to the complex, intriguing middle eigth note pattern; but to me its's also due to how rich the sounds come across on record. In the hustle and interim, different notes supplement the chords that function as building blocks. And overall, track one takes the shape of a solid drone slab made with organ and brass instruments. Nicely done.
What's up next? Well, with the stage set for some grand droner's morning wakeup party (the first time I listened to this, I did so on repeat – for FIVE HOURS!), one is expecting some nuanced production, and nuances are what we get more of next, in the shape of the wonderfully titled "Mountain Of Air". When you see a name like that, you immediately connect the wind instrument family used with the metaphor of a mountain, full of air, airs and graces so it may be. So it all is.
The music is never less than intriguing, heavily muscled and durable like a British Bulldog. For reasons of space and contortion, the drones remind me of Catherine Christine Hennix's recent experiments and Harry Bertoia's wind instrument pioneering, both on the big shot Important label. Ellen Arkbro is more "listenable", in a straight-ahead sense, shall we say, than those, though. Nevertheless, the music might be simple, but underneath the surface, lies not just mountains of air, but oceans full of magisterial depth. Classic sounds – essential stuff!!
normal hum, enacting the idea of a drone, is no "real" idea of ambient music. it is soulless. it is gravity. down or up?
like a drone, a drone has no brain. it has no idea what it said previously. because it just is. because it has no...memory?
yes, that's it. thankfully, music has less ability to harm us than virulent destruction does. music can be torture.
as much as human monitoring behaviour and split personality opportunism can act as manipulation, what all this "human", is a
lack of profit in exercises that sidestep the norm, that treat humans. because good humans do not want lucrative proliferation.
what i am talking about and setting up is the idea of musical beauracracy being untarnished by idiocy. ambient hums, drones and
sibilance should not be shot through with soullessness. the lust/infatuation/love triumvirate is never answered by fake tries.
neither is mediocrity to be applauded when roboticness is something humans want to do the furthest to get away from altogether.
so, having said all that potentially negative stuff, how does the overall content of this record weigh up in line with decency?
luckily this is one of the more memorable, for the right reasons, and stoic releases of the last six months thus far. while
endless sound cloud streams can confuse, and spotify and band camp can irritate for their fiddly-ness, this is a diamond.
the most "solid" thing about the tracks are their overlapping construction, their use of layering, and their timekeeping. the
weakest tracks even do not plummet anywhere near kitsch structures and droidian blandness. this is peaceful, ennui, oasis.
my favourite track is track five, "part-time romantic". it is quite subdued yet exudes a furry-coated love and meticulous feel.
there is a nice shimmer about the opening notes of this album. harmonies drift into crevices eschewed by normative hum. this is
the lie of ambient. on the other side of the tracks...confuse. on the other side of the coin...noise. on the different turn of
the ear...annoyance. circumventing parochial structures as to become anti-religion, multi-faith, and just like buddha, "awake".
this is a nice piece of art to wake up to. it's also great for sleepy times when we all need some comfort from the real world.
this is compliance in music to me. a sense of weightlessness without dread, tittering without unease...the terminator, broken.
we live in a cosmopolitan era full of confusing atrocities. these plague the media, the bias media becomes strong, the lens is
drugged, the drug of the unconscious mind and being a yes-man, rather than being a quiet, wise man or woman, is blurred beyond
recognition. care is trodden into the ground, lives get ruined...with this release, i found time, to put structure, working
against chaos.
isn't that what we always wanted out of departures, after all?
by mick buckingham
North Atlantic Drift - Departures LP.
New show by low light mixes
Pale Blue Dot - Earth Day 2017
By low light mixes
Ambient, Chillout, Chill, Electronic, Space
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives." - Carl Sagan
A mix for Earth Day 2017 & the coinciding March for Science. Track titles reveal the obvious theme. I'm such a dork I cry when I hear Sagan read Pale Blue Dot.
00:00 Carl Sagan & Max Richter - Pale Blue Dot & On the Nature of Daylight
05:05 Jim Cole & Spectral Voices - Hear Earth
08:00 Steve Roach - On This Planet
15:20 Map & Diagrams - Particles of Earth
18:10 A Small Good Thing - Scorched Earth
23:15 Adam Pacione - Warming Trend
25:27 Shuttle358 - Melt
30:10 Jeff Greinke - Changing Skies
32:50 Brian Eno - Climate Study
35:30 J. Ralph - The Glaciers Are Telling
37:20 Michael Brook - Earth Alone
39:20 Mathias Grassow - Planetary Consciousness
43:45 Lav & Purl - Earthship
49:50 Robert Scott Thompson - Pale Blue Dot
https://www.mixcloud.com/pigeon/ctrz/F5W...26NZCYNAQW===
Dear Mick,
we're glad to announce the s/t debut album of Notilus and a Denovali showcase at this year's edition of Ritournelle (Ruhrtriennale Festival) in Bochum.
- NEW ALBUM: Notilus is the new project of five established French musicians combining cinematic soundscapes, energetic jazz and atmospheric live electronics. With a decent amount of performances at several French festivals the quintet presents its s/t debut album via Denovali in spring 2017.
- Denovali Showcase: We're glad to be part of this year's edition of Ritournelle (Ruhrtriennale Festival) which will take place in Bochum on August 19th. We will have a Denovali showcase with label artists Orson Hentschel, Ricardo Donoso and Moon Zero plus Actress and Demdike Stare as special guests. Also performing: Nicolas Jaar, SOHN, Mykki Blanco.
Good ambience in reggae: Hollie Cook - Superstar/Superdub. The Carpenters cover.
Good ambience in country: Molly Burch - Please Be Mine LP.
Both on www.bandcamp.com
Krysalisound are back with a fantastic lp out Friday April 28th by Francis M. Gri and Giulio Aldinucci, called "Segmente". You can listen here:
https://soundcloud.com/krysalisound
Blue Tapes have limited edition Tashi Dorji T-shirts in a segmented lacksaidaisical design.
https://bluetapes.bandcamp.com/merch/t-s...lue-twelve
http://bluetapes.co.uk/product/x-ray-fiv...sparrow-ep
Jute Gyte - The Sparrow
...has a massivrely long press release, but people in The Wire magazine team seem to like it.
Ok i got the news of this start of April and it should be released Friday - Bvdub - Epilogues For The End Of The Sky (GM029)
Grab that from www.glacialmovements.com on CD or digitally via www.emusic.com.
Ambient techno from Max Jacob via the Benwaa moderated www.idmforums.com netlabel collective - pretty decent, and got a deserved ranking in Beatport.
https://www.beatport.com/release/night-dive/1982871
This should be a good one - his Offkey sessions liveset was epic!
Www.astrangelyisolatedplace.com Mix 68 - Christoph Berg
Add yourself to their newsletter if you want more goodness this morning. I am bedridden on my phone typing the last six entries and i'm almost asleep. 
How To Disappear Completely release a Bandcamp sleep music album, "Mer De Revs".
https://htdc.bandcamp.com/album/mer-de-revs
New Uk and EU avails for A-Sun Amissa on tour in October 2017 - listen to their new Amenra collab...
http://sleepsoundagency.us11.list-manage...170dec3201
Anthene, Moshimoss & Stabilo (Sound In Silence Records)
http://facebook.us3.list-manage1.com/tra...2fc320a064
Andrew Wasylyk - Themes For Buildings And Spaces
I got a ton of promo shit to sift through - that is the art now, "the sift", not "the review". Overcomplicating things is unnecessary always anyway. Quality content lasts, and flights of fancy perish.
Purl - Emptiness Is Form
The follow up of the last Purl album 'Form Is Emptiness', released last year on Archives.
A collection of remixes by Logic Moon, Powlos, Moshimoss, Darren McClure, SVLBRD and new versions by the own Purl.
Pre-orders are available now on Bandcamp (CD and Digital).
CD comes in a 6-Panel CDr with pictures by Alexander Kopatz.
. . .
You can also download for free the original version of the track 'Form Is Emptiness' here.
Link is up just for a week.
http://bandcamp.us15.list-manage1.com/tr...7da90cd999
Robert Farrugia - Slow Morning
'Slow Morning' is the new work by maltese artist Robert Farrugia. The album comes in a 6-Panel CD with pictures by Brian Young.
Buy CD/Digital
http://bandcamp.us15.list-manage.com/tra...7da90cd999
Yoyu - Ordinary Moon
'Ordinary Moon' is a collection of inspired heart songs and field recordings from the forests of Manitoba, Canada. This is the first album by Yoyu, the new pseudonym of Ali Khan.
http://bandcamp.us15.list-manage1.com/tr...7da90cd999
1st May 2017, 1st CD on the stereo is the beautiful Brigid Mae Power, and her debut album on Tompkins Square. The last piece "How Do You Feel About It All" is wonderfully realised. Fans of Grouper, Jonsi and Sharon Van Etten, snap that up.
https://anjou.bandcamp.com/album/epithym-a
Just played "Epithymia" by Anjou this morning waking, a very fine listen. Unpredictable noir for the most part, whirring drones and distracting noises, good fun and interestingly rendered.
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