Ishq
Timelapse In Mercury
Virtual Musical Reality
July 2008
Ambient
Tracklist
1 Departure (13:54)
2 Nebula Phase (9:20)
3 Hyperdrive (3:32)
4 Photosphere (2:42)
5 Cathedrals In Space (3:30)
6 Timelapse In Mercury (9:43)
7 Dark Clouds (1:44)
8 Fluroscopia (5:28)
9 Seraphim (7:30)
Timelapse in Mercury is the first release on Matt Hillier's space ambient sub label Virtual Space and carries with it the name Ishq. Whether this was deliberate is questionable for me as I'm sure that his site said that the name Ishq was going to be used only for his more natural and musical releases. This album is neither so maybe he meant it to be an untitled artist than everyone just labeled Ishq in the absence of a proper artist name.
1. Departure
It takes a while to get going, in fact it's about 15 seconds before I hear anything at all. What I do get straight away is some sci-fi sounds. Clicks and bleeps from computer consoles over an ever present roar of what sounds like solar wind or spaceship engines. The computer noises go haywire in a confusing yet contemplative way. The constant roar creates a really spacey atmosphere and the melodic sounds give a slight feeling of panic. When there subside we are left with equally combative elements that make this feel like a slow motion space battle. It's a long track and as it goes on it gets spacier and a touch on the boring side. Nothing really happens with the sounds or the atmosphere and it just kind of drags. It is saved in the final quarter by the dropping of the atmosphere as if from orbit down through the sky into the planet's oceans. A strange track, maybe not deserving of it's length, falling down mainly in the middle but having a solid ambient base with a strong beginning and end.
2. Nebula Phase
It seems like deep sea spacious ambient. I get the feeling at once of deep space and deep sea. I can feel the fish float all around me in a way that defies gravity in the way both environments can. My feeling is tipped more towards the oceanic as the track is teeming with life I'd imagine deep space is devoid of. The number of small glitchy sounds remind me of metallic fish gleaming in a submarine's headlight. The roar at the end though sounds like a solar flare has penetrated the depths of the ocean burned the world away and left us in an isolated cosmos.
3. Hyperdrive
Totally not was I was expecting from the title. I was expecting the sounds of music pushing through hyperspace but what we have here sounds like the engines struggling to sustain warp flight. Strong harsh metallic screeches slice through the air over the distant roar of the solar wind.
4. Photoshere
Bringing a little more light to the engagement like flying under the atmosphere of a beautiful planet with wide blue seas. The sounds of engines can be heard plummeting, struggling, rising and roaring as well as failing and exploding very quietly.
5. Cathedrals in Space.
I sense an attemptat grandness that never quite materialises. The big sounds go on a pitch that is too high for the scale and it all feels like something big happening just beyond my scope of senses.
6. Timelapse In Mercury
The title track is quite a brilliant piece of space ambient. It has atmosphere, hints of melody, strange noises that seem to originate either from distant nebulae or from our inner self. The clicks the beeps and bright drones add more of a solar feeling to it like closely orbiting a star. The wet sounds remind me of melting metal under extreme heat and the track to me seems to be an escape from such fiery destruction. Nice track.
7. Dark Clouds
Dark Clouds sounds like a dark version of a bright nebula. The contrast in this short track between light and dark is very interesting.
8. Fluroscopia
Rather a melodious track with light sounds powering through the dark spaciness of the underlying drones. Not the most interesting or descriptive work but pleasant enough after a bland start.
9. Seraphim
This certainly has an angelic feel to it as it's sounds soar above what we have previously witnessed in this journey. Still we are in space but it seems like the sounds are entering a higher dimension. A dimension of light and sound unlike anything we are used to. Much higher pitched and not all together pleasant. The light sounds for me are too light and the pitch is too high in a way that verges on annoying. It's not that annoying for long though and gets better towards the end but still it's not one for high volume on good speakers or headphones. Especially not headphones.
To be honest I would have preferred it if Matt Hillier had used a different name for this album. It sounds nothing like what he promised from the the Ishq name which was supposed to remain natural ambient whereas this is spacey in the extreme. For me it's a little to high pitched in places to be a comfortable listening experience. I find some tracks great, some okay and some not so good. There is better space ambient about than this and this then begs the question "Should Matt Hillier release everything he worked on in the past?" On the strength of this I'd say yes. This, while worth getting is not up to the standards of his other works and, in this reviewers humble opinion have a lower price tag.
Saluki Regicide & Mystified
A Foreign Installation
Webbed Hand Records
19 Sep 2008
Ambient
Tracklist
1 Out Demons Out (6:00)
2 Not A Dream (6:04)
3 Deluge (6:32)
4 Paperback (5:20)
5 Consensus Of Reality (6:00)
6 Some Kind Of Pulsation (6:08)
7 Message From Mars (6:00)
8 Mother Nature (7:24
After exploring Webbed Hand records free ambient internet label, click one of the pictures above to see what I mean. I have been impressed with a lot of the releases but this one is out there. It's glitchy, has atmosphere but also uses a lot of samples so is treading a fine line.
So how did they do?
1. Out Demons Out
A very odd start to the album. It's basically a variety of glitchy samples over a long drone and distant bells. Starting with a short burst of Indian singing repeated over again and ending with some religious fire and brimstone stuff. All very strange.
2. Not A Dream
Another sample heavy track. Clapping and singing gives Yay to someone on a typewriter with some high pitch ether sounds like the spewing of ideas. There too a cycled through the track creating a contrast of glitchy weirdness.
3. Deluge
This track starts with the longest sample yet. It's mysterious in its complacency, slightly dark or at least melancholic. Slight percussion follows which gives some cried rhythm but fades into another long sample which sounds like some cold war sci fi communication. Some Asian melody puts me in mind of Vietnam but the return of the beat and the original sample with a cold wind drone gives me the feeling of mixed up dreams of tribal Africa and grey urban servitude.
4. Paperback
More of a steady IDMish beat starts with some simple guitar and a slight bassline. A twisted set of samples sound like a broken record in a recently vacated apartment. The feeling of being in a place that someone has just left leaves a hole like I've just missed something important. The chaotic samples later on feel like something has been left behind for me to encounter but it is neither benign or friendly. Creepy malignity.
5. Consensus Of Reality
If we could learn to code reality or stimuli. I like this phrase in the opening sample it describes the music perfectly. This sounds like some kind of digital code. Like someone has taken a real life environment and put it through a decoder. The twisted illegible samples later on add to the feeling of mixed up encoded reality. Chaotic bits of melody hint to me of an attempted code breaker trying to push the sound into a more real place but succeeding only in making it sound more jumbled and mixed up. I like this track a lot.
6. Some Kind Of Pulsation
Starting with a sci fi human sample over the sound of rough static and a cold drone blowing in the background sets quite a dark mood of fear of the unknown. The beat that comes in is steady but manages to feel broken and disjointed. A very alien feeling to it that sounds menacing once the cold wind drone becomes more prominent.
7. Message From Mars
This is my favourite track on the album. It starts with a communication from Mars to Earth making first contact saying that they come in piece. When it finishes we are left with a strong windy drone and a really small melodic sound. The drone is so strong that it puts me in mind of huge engines like that on a spaceship. The sample We come in peace is repeated like a mantra but the slight melody sounds almost menacing. I really get the feeling of traveling through the void between the two planets, focused on a mission. In the end the sample shows the Martians true nature and verifies the menace in music as the message is unclear as to if it's a warning or a threat.
8. Mother Nature
We end on a more rhythmical track. Beats that can almost make you move. A sample talking of a global climate catastrophe keeps it dark even as the tribal beats later on try to inject so brightness and the misplayed sitar and light glitch adds a chaotic element helping the catastrophic feel. End of the world as we know it, end of the album.
So if you like glitchy ambient with a lot of samples you should check this out. It's not your regular soft ambient or even drone ambient so it fills a space in my collection. There's a good chance a lot of people wont like this, it can be rough at times and it has a lot of samples which some people might not like. But you know it's free so just give it a try.
Click the bottom picture for download.
Kino Oko
Alphabetically Divided Highway
Tribal Vision
26 Aug 2008
Trippy Psychedelic Funk
Tracklist
1 Any Kind Of Structure (6:41)
2 Made In Satisfaction (6:30)
3 Body And Mind (6:43)
4 Mother Mature (6:26)
5 Sympathetic Magic Death (7:06)
6 Story Of Forgotten Notes (6:55)
7 Stand By Me (6:19)
8 Pure Irony (7:20)
9 Remedy Express (6:52)
10 Messiah Formula (8:43)
11 Through The Round Window (7:46)
Forget the trippy as hell cover, forget the fact that this has been released on Tribal Vision, a much more clubby label than you'd expect to be releasing Kino Oko after the great first album Lost Entertainment which was to be honest a trippy masterpiece of sound. Dripping with acidic beats & melodies. Vocals added to the psychedelic feeling rather than detracted. Alphabetically Divided Highway picks up where the first album left off but also takes it much much further. Definitely one of the picks of the year.
1, Any Kind Of Structure
This track sounds broken, and a bit dirty. The opening is like a cracked open chill track with sporadic beats & melodic sounds. The beat kicks in as a slow driving one which gets more breaky. All the samples, sounds & melodies are trippy weird "non sci fi" sci fi. Like driving down a countryside road on a clear night, a perfect night for UFOs without any of it happening. An odd track that makes me wonder why I like it but like it I do, very funky.
2. Made In Satisfaction
A scratchy metallic intro leads into a nice relaxed beat & some cool melodies. The lead melody goes up and then sounds like it's falling down the stairs. The sub melodies are light & spacey adding a kind of ambience heightened after the breakdown & kick back in. Like the first track it's very funky and though it's definitely a modern track it has a kick back retro feeling like the 1980's. This retro feeling is completed with the vocal that sounds right out of some 80's synth pop. Cool.
3. Body & Mind
Feeling a little quicker now, a track more dancefloor worthy but no less interesting for home listening. Carrying on the mood of the last track with it's 1980's synth pop feel accentuated by the vocals. They sound similar to Made In Satisfaction but darker and more gravely. Even though both sets of vocals are put through effects it still has that feel. The melodies are more in the back of this track & it has more rhythm & glitch. I like.
4. Mother Nature
I feel the album really gets going with this track. It just manages to get so much energy out of the melodic elements. The synths are very tuneful and the on different levels play 3 different melodies conjoining each other. The feeling of modern retro synth funk is great. What I really love is that there is this slight higher pitch melody playing underneath everything that threatens to materialise into something big & after listening to the album many times I always think it's about to but never does. What a tease.
5. Sympathetic Magic Death
This track has a lush ambient intro & then just kicks into the main track with a really disjointed feeling. But it does it in a way that manges to sound well done and not a mistake. Adding to the trippiness not ruining the flow. All through the track it feels disjointed like it's broken as in Any Kind Of Structure. When the piano comes in it really gets an urgent feel, like the music is running from something always looking back over it's shoulder making it stumble but not fall. The beats are bouncy, it makes you move your body. It has great melody & rhythm, overall it's a great track.
6. Story Of Forgotten Notes
This for me is more reminiscent of the first album, it has that kind of sharp metallic tang to it that I loved in Lost Entertainment. More relaxed than the preceding track with more spacey ambience in the background. Very trippy, sounds like ambient with a beat and a bassline in the first half. It gets a bit glitchier as it goes on and more melodic with some very simple light melodies & squelchy sounds on the edge of the beats. The end of the track flips between funky & sci fi. It's all pretty odd but it's all pretty good too.
7. Stand By Me
Wow, wow, WOW!!! This is one of the melodic tracks of the year for sure. The main melodic line runs up & down, left & right and is accompanied by what sounds like a mix between crowd cheering & rain. I thought that would get tired pretty soon but it didn't at all. Each time it comes in I still smile. The melody moves around very pleasantly and it really is a feel good track in Kino Oko's weird trippy style. Love it!
8. Pure Irony
An ambient intro followed by some twisted laughter like a drugged up hyena! The laughter continues as the beat kicks in & through the rest of the track it is twisted & warped in really trippy ways. The long synth drones in the background gives us a nice spacey atmosphere again whereas the laugh bring me right down under the earth. I imagine a desert at night, cold and barren with threats in the darkness but also the beauty of the clear night sky filled with stars.
9 Remedy Express
This starts of glitchy but out of that glitch comes a clear crisp melody & bassline that really drives this emotionally. There is lots going on in the track on the sidelines, little blips of melody forming almost into a side tune, a lush natural melody that seems like it's trying to hide & scrathy bits of retro acid gleam in rusty glitter. Very cool.
10. Messiah Formula
This is one of those tracks that builds itself up from the bare bones to something truly wonderful. We go from just the beats to the synths to some clacks to a rushing sounds that seems to be powering up before it winds down & down until it disappears & the melody kicks in. The melody is accompanied by some long soft majestic synths & eventually some 80's synth pop sounding vocals. The rushing powering up sounds comes back in, build & builds as if it's all going to kick off & then it just lightly floats along on it's high notes. When the music finally does kick off it does so in a pretty relaxed way. It's all just very emotional, almost unexpected but very welcome. Great track, best on this great album.
11. Through The Round Window
A nice funky end to the album, relaxed with quite a slow beat. The melody & rhythm are quite a contrast to the dark creepy vocal that if it was put in some darker soundscapes could be quite scary. It almost sounds like someone is in pain, like the short stabs of melody are slicing through this poor soul's body & ripping him apart slowly. Resigned to a slow death surrounded by cool funky music.
So Kino Oko has made another essential album. It's fresh & retro at the same time. He has taken sounds from 20 odd years ago and blended them with a whole heap of other styles to create something that sounds pretty different to just about everything else out there. If you like really trippy cool funky music then you'll probably want to check this out.
Various Artists
Freshly Cut Tomato
Cronomi Records
11 Jul 2008
Goa/Psy trance
Tracklist
1 Pandemonium! - A Mad Scientist's Night (Subra Vs Felis Remix) (8:10)
2 Anakoluth - Orbiting The Earth (9:36)
3 Jikkenteki With 11 - Super Power Mustard (7:35)
4 Alt Anesis and 5Meo-Geo - Ficus (8:10)
5 Subra and Har-El Prusky - Freakagnux (7:48)
6 K.O.B. - Pitch & Chips (A Fairytale About A Chip) (7:31)
7 Merr0w - Pixelized Sight (8:45)
8 Radical Distortion - Unchristened (6:49)
9 Astrancer - Ashram (11:21)
Shit cover, shit name, great artists on the back. The final criteria is the most important I think when choosing a comp and of the 4 artists I knew before buying this I like tremendously so I felt it to be a safe buy. What we have here is a collection of tracks from artists that have not gone the fullon route, the minimal route or the dark psy route but kept the old spirit of psychedelic trance alive with a new buzz. So how do the tracks chosen for this comp sound?
1. Pandemonium! - A Mad Scientists Night (Subra Vs Felis Remix)
Straight in then with an energetic, melodic track with funk & glitch. The melody is sharp & builds through the track in quite a nice way. The background ambience is slightly orchestral with the hint of string synths played under the beat & melody. Halfway in there appear more wet sounding synths the music breaks down & then a vague enough sample not to grate after repeated listens & then it kicks back in again. Must admit that I love the slowness of the track. It has energy for sure but it's created with breathing space. Very nice I think.
2. Anakoluth - Orbiting The Earth
I first heard Ankalouth on Mainspring Motion . I loved his track on that great comp & I was eager to hear more. I feel this is in the same vein, driving not speeding. Not so melodic but full of crazy psychedelic noises. Spacey samples, blips and a light bassline do give a spacey feeling. The tiny bits of melody that creep in after 3 or 4 minutes are brief & sound like they are falling, fleeting but utterly enjoyable in their brevity. By the end it feels darkly oldschool. Anakoluth, how music used to be  Great track.
3. Jikkenteki With 11 - Super Power Mustard
This doesn't float my boat as much as other Jikkenteki tracks. It starts off promisingly dark but about two minutes in we get these squeaky synths that I don't really like and despite, nice layers underneath with music I'm sure I'd love, the squeakiness of the melodic synths doesn't sit well with me. The trance roll is a wee bit short & it kicks back in strangely and all in all there is no wow factor in it. Saying that, the last 2 minutes of the track are great. Weird! Not Jikkenteki's best effort.
4. Alt Anesis and 5Meo-Geo - Ficus
Atmospheric undertones to a high energy track. Like the rest of the music here, it's not full throttle but has a lot of synth work driving it forward. Similar yet different to the Anakoluth track. It's not melodic in the first part yet it has a lot of psychedelic glitch shoved into. The samples are fairly numerous but they are kept short so feel like part of the music rather than a vocal sample. As it goes on it's more melodic with a old school feeling with a modern sheen 
5. Subra and Har-El Prusky - Freakagnux
This has a more tribal beat, lots of atmosphere created by moving synth drones in the background & a quick synth line melody which shifts & moves quite nicely. There is energy & breathing space, nice sounds & synths just how I like but there is something missing. I can't put my finger on it but there is no wow factor when I think there should be. It's just good when I feel like it should be great Maybe I'm missing something, maybe I haven't heard it in the right context or mood or under the right conditions but I feel like this track is great but I can't hear it. Weird.
6. K.O.B. - Pitch & Chips (A Fairytale About A Chip)
Dripping wet space (outer) is what the intro to this track feels like & that feeling is kept after the beat kicks in yet it is pushed to the back which is a shame. The rest of the music while fine is not as good as the brief intro. The beats are kind of "to be expected" and the synth work while very involved is too high pitched and gets on my nerves a bit. I usually like chaotic music but I feel like the random parts of this track are random just for the sake of it. I feel like it is trying too hard, like a kid a school that does too much to be noticed but just ends up as the class clown & nobody's real friend. This track, I don't really like.
7. Merr0w - Pixelized Sight
This is much more to my liking. It starts off sounding like it's going to be a kick ass goambient track but the beat kicks in with sharp yet with synths slipping & stabbing all over the place, odd choice of breakdown then a kick back in with a much more crazy beat. The energy levels just go through the roof with just as many sounds as the previous track but all of them fitting together naturally, nothing forced, nothing ruined. The melody while a little high pitched is in no way grating & moves around nicely in the second half of the track to keep me interested. Good stuff.
8. Radical Distortion - Unchristened
This is a weird track for me. I really like it despite not really knowing why. The melody is pitched too high, the beat is pedestrian, there is not much in the way of crazy psychedelic ramblings and no background ambience yet somehow it works. I find myself enjoying the simple formulaic structure and ill timed or misused beats. Not going to win track of the year but oddly enjoyable.
9. Astrancer - Ashram
We finish on a high note. Most of what I've liked about the previous tracks are included in this one. The ambience, the involved melodies, the arrangement & the crispness of it all just fits in well. Sure it doesn't have the crazy psychedelic edge that Anakoluth and Alt Anesis and 5Meo-Geo - Ficus have but it manages to sound just as psychedelic with it's melodies and ambience.
At the end there is 13 seconds of babababababababaaaababababababaaaaababababababa which I personally find pointless & a bit annoying. Why bother?
All in all then it's quite a mixed compilation. Some really great tracks, Anakoluth, Alt Anesis and 5Meo-Geo, Merr0w and Astrancer. The rest are decent enough & nothing is horrible. The K.O.B. track is probably the weakest and a surprising miss from Jikkenteki in my book. Overall it's a worthwhile purchase but not essential.
Vadim Bondarenko
Smoking Music
Faria Records
17 March 2008
Ambient
Tracklist
1 Smoking Zone I (6:05)
2 Smoking Zone II (4:50)
3 Smoking Zone III (5:11)
4 Smoking Zone IV (12:58)
5 Smoking Zone V (13:30)
6 Smoking Zone VI (5:06)
7 Smoking Zone VII (9:45)
8 Smoking Zone VIII (3:47)
9 Smoking Zone IX (3:16)
Now I had never heard of Vadim Bondarenko before and had very few expectations of this album. All I had to go on was the smoky cover and the title Smoking Zone. I expected from that something jazzy but as I bought it in an ambient shop I didn't know what that would be like.
What Smoking Music is, is a chilled out ambient lounge music from a dark urban thriller into a warm countryside that gets darker & more desolate by the end. The use of piano lends it a very terrestrial human quality but many of the other sounds hint at the ethereal.
Smoking Zone I has wind blowing through it quite spookily. The piano is dark and menacing at it conjures up images of dark moors as well as basement bars.
Smoking Zone II has string like drones and drones that sound like tribal pipes, light buzzing sounds like a swarm of insects. Less of the dark lounge feeling than the first zone as if that reality has dropped away but is still hiding behind the cover of this dark dream.
Smoking Zone III has a movie feel to it. A lonely story accented by the minimalism here. An oscillating drone under a sparse and unchanging melody is just about it apart from the odd rustle every 30 seconds or so. A very haunting track nicely made out of so few elements.
Smoking Zone IV starts with trickling water. Dark stabs of dull bass and a mournful piano melody lend this a dark horror feeling, but the water and birdsong oppose it with a fresh outdoor feel. It all feels like a bad trip while lying in a green field on a warm summer's day. Very conflicting.
Smoking Zone V also has an outdoor feeling. The sound of crickets chirping and frogs fill the air. A late summer evening with short warm synths over long comfortable drones. These drones become more melodic like the air itself is chiming an immaterial bell. The melody wavers like sound caught on a breeze and always the insects chirp in the background. Very nice piece of warm natural ambient, like smoking DMT in a forest on a hot summer's day.
Smoking Zone VI is much colder with nothing for the first few minutes but a cold windy sound. The piano that comes in is random and pretty tuneless, think crappy jazz piano but played at the right time in a movie to add an eerie feeling. Feels like sneaking around an old abandoned warehouse as a kid, the thrill of our tiny wrongdoing heady for such a young age.
Smoking Zone VII starts with long string like synths giving it a more classical feel. Wet glitchy noises underneath and the sound of waves put me in mind of walking down a beach in the late evening. Not so cold but definitely a chill in the air, romantic yet lonely. It continues in this way like are steady walk up the beach and back down again, no surprises just comfortable and strangely emotional.
Smoking Zone VIII gives us more piano. This piano is more the post on a suspense or horror movie, short bursts of melody then the tune quietens down the suddenly a lot of quick notes in succession. Feels like it's trying to build tension, as if something is soon to happen. Very minimal, just the piano and some quiet static and at the end just a high pitched sound, nice track terrible ending.
Smoking Zone IX finishes with a very slow track, I swear the first 50 seconds are silence, then some eerie atmosphere and what sounds like the audible representation of mirrors wobbling. There is almost nothing, just this desolate sound and That's the image it gives me, a grew desolate rock.
All nine pieces sound like places you could smoke from old abandoned buildings of childhood exploration to open fields ripe for a psychedelic experience to sophisticated urban lounges. All are very descriptive of the place they represent, I prefer the comfort of the lounge and the field but I quite like the desolate ending too.
All in all it's a nice ambient album it's not blowing me away but it is unique enough that I find myself coming back to it i fair bit.
Opium
Watercolors
Practicing Nature
2007
Drone Ambient
Tracklist
1 Sunset Nova (8:25)
2 Heavy Dark Blue (8:34)
3 Greenfield Campfire (11:13)
4 Office Paintings (7:01)
5 The Layer Down (18:19)
In Watercolors Opium has crafted a very soft dream like soundscape. Long drones, glitchy static sounds and sharp, light metallic sounds with occasional light percussion. Beatless it will probably be called and it's apt description as the beats are few and far between and when there is any percussion it's of the style that could easily be missed.
Sunset Nova feels to me like a grey English day, warm yet chilly in the evening with something lurking just beyond my perception. The dark feeling grows as the track goes on with the tension becoming quite palpable by the end.
Heavy Dark Blue has more of a floating over civilisation feel to it. The drones are uplifting and the glitchy sounds are a combination of natural forest noises and urban drawl. It continues the flying sensation by changing feeling throughout as if we are passing over different scenes. At times it feels like tribal drums in the distance, other times it feels like we're skimming over a lake or along a river leading into a somewhat altogether darker place. Always though, the feeling of flying.
Greenfield Campfire starts of with a dark menacing feeling. Slight percussion pounds like the footsteps of titan of old many miles distant. The air feels close like you could cut it with a knife and long ethereal cries can be heard very softly as if they are just out of range. This all gives a tense feeling of waiting for something big to happen. The percussion while still distant picks up energy as if the wait will soon be over. The energy increases as do the layers of sounds until as much of a climax as you're going to get in drone ambient takes it all away.
Office Paintings is a much denser track to start with. Thick drones fill the air but they seem to over between tense and relaxed as the beautiful water sounds come and go like the trickling of as stream that disappears underground only to resurface a little further down. It's like the title suggests, a stressful day in the office can be made more relaxing if you have proper art to lose yourself in.
The Layer Down is much more open and much more free. A lot of freestyle glitchy sounds over a lush dripping water sound. For all its openness though there is definitely a cohesion and clocking in at over 18 minutes it takes up on quite a journey. A journey over and through a magical forest filled with Shakespearean imps and pixies. It's as if I can hear them moving around as little light blips and clicks. These pass and become more distant as we are faced with the slow, sparse melancholic sounds of the end of the journey.
This is definitely one for hardened ambient fans. People just getting in to chilled or ambient music will pass this off as boring rubbish but there is a lot of subtle complexity here that will be more than enough to satisfy the patient listener.
The Circular Ruins
Conjunction
DataObscura
Jun 2003
Ambient
Conjunction, the dark side of the ruins. So is this The Circular Ruins putting his hand to dark scary ambient? Well yes & no really, while the atmospheres here are dark and brooding with the feeling of nighttime they don't quite have the horror movie feeling of a lot of my favourite dark ambient albums. I have found this album though getting a lot of listening time from me as the music is deep and hypnotic. Melancholic and tinged with ethereal. Softly muttered samples throughout give the feeling of being privy to secrets not meant for you. Call this suspense ambient more than dark ambient because it builds atmospheres of tension rather than horror. The second CD being the darker of the 2 journeys with a dark tense atmosphere dark without the cliches.
The vocal sample in the opening track Evening Of Innocence is about nothing and nothing and helps me reflect on my nihilistic tendencies as does the rest of the music which is reflective of very little yet powerful and inviting like death.
Whereas the strings Throughout Description Without Place make me feel alone in a cold wet world. Description Without Place is a long track exploring a lonely man's psyche. The sounds flit from hope to despair, ambition to rot, violence to serene pleasure.
From Everlasting Image I get a feeling of looming conflict. The subtle background tension you get when your country is at war but when life must go on as usual. Very cold, back of the mind fear.
In contrast Oblique Structures has a calm underground feeling, like sleeping in a cave. The percussion near the end gives it energy as if climbing through the layers of Earth up to the sunlit fields above.
Chasing Shadows is aptly named as his has not only energy reminiscent of running animals but also in that it is very bright and dark at the same time. The synth drones are the shadows we are chasing but surrounding them are natural sounds like that of the sea, the air and the clouds moving on the breeze.
The music in Subtle Instructions is subtle indeed, very minimal but with a lot going on. Good drone work, brief flurries of beats and light melodic sounds floating upwards. It all sounds simple but it's very effective.
There is some tribal beats in All These Things which give it an almost ritualistic feel at the start. The mood shifts as quickly as the music in a sideways classical direction where there are wide open spaces filled with melancholic melody.
Thus ends the first CD, Penumbra, a contrast of dark and light styles. Softly muttered samples mix with acoustic strings and long atmospheric drones. Very skillfully blended together in a very descriptive journey.
We resume our journey with Embers, a deeply moving track. The vocal sample is so close to understandable, the words register yet the meaning is lost. Like advice from an elderly uncle. It's reflective and the hypnotic pulse pulls you down into it's brooding self pity.
Given the title Haunted one would expect an eerie track filled with subtly dark presences just out of perceptive reach and that is exactly what we get at first, shadows palpable with sentients malice. The darkest track here with soft pulsating rhythm and subtle ghostly moans making it hypnotically intriguing.
The Space Between is creepy in a strange way. The light melodic clicking sounds right out of an uncomfortable dream where someone is lurking for you in the shadows. The synth drone oscillates in a way that plays with your brain and your aural senses. The strings at the end sound like the slow closing of a trap.
The Last Time is more chaotic in that ambient way of relaxed chaos. Everything seems to be happening at once but nothing seems leading the way but the wet bubbling sound falling down manages to but right through the rest of the noise ready for the last time voice that never returns.
A Forgotten Divinity, 17 minutes of stalker like paranoia. The lack of substance adds to its eeriness with just a wind like drone, subtle clicks sporadically changing and all to real sounds mixed with surreal ones. Vultures screaming and dimensions bleeding in unison.
Hunger leaves us with a more techy feel, the similar lurking atmosphere with a technological buzz around it. When the steady beat kicks in it sounds almost martial with the tech sounds like a skulking super power ready to unleash technological terror on the world. The tension of the album culminates here it's as if everything might explode even as it fades.
So Umbra ends, it was a darker tale than the first CD much more eerie and foreboding opposed to brooding and melancholic. This journey reminds me more of Robert Rich and B.Lustmord - Stalker in its dark subtle tones. Perfect if you have time to listen to both CDs back to back possibly preceded by The Circular Ruins lighter works and followed by the afore mentioned Stalker.Da
The Nature Of Light
Shores Of Jupiter
Webbed Hand Records
March 2008
Ambient
Web Release
Tracklist
01 Alien Windstorm
02 Reacquainting with an Old Soul
03 Time Stands Still
04 Ocean Deep Eyes
05 Swimming with the Stars Part III
06 Swimming with the Stars Part VIII
07 Between the Blue
08 Sounds that Echo on the Shoreline
This free web release is one of the ambient gems of the year. The spacey atmospheres describe the most stunning astrological pictures. Imagine the photos you've seen of Jupiter with it's storm bigger than the Earth like an eye staring out at the universe of the nebulae of purples and blues or the star nurseries. That is what these tracks conjure in my head.
From the short intro Alien Windstorm we are injected into space, the track managing to sound oxymoronic, strong wind in the vacuum of space.
The soft percussion and piano in Reacquainting With An Old Soul play soulful music over barren spacey landscapes. Like a philharmonic orchestra playing thinly on an alien sphere in the heavens.
The amount of emotion packed into Time Stands Still is impressive for a drone work track. The soft percussion and the movement of the drones pave the way for metallic showers of sonic rain to fall and cut through the atmosphere. But overall it's the drone which manages to make this track sound like acoustic classical. Brilliant.
This classical feeling continues in Ocean Deep Eyes but it is softer and deeper like floating through the ocean of inter planetary space having our movement aided forward by solar flares and crashing seamlessly through cosmic dust. Deep emotional electronica.
The piano comes back in in Swimming With The Stars Part III and it really does have a floating feel. The soft strings make me feel like I'm flying higher than high and the piano gives me the emotion of transcending dimensions joyously yet with a melancholy of leaving behind all that I love.
The beautiful strings carry us over to Swimming With The Stars Part VIII the seamless connection not feeling like 4 parts have been skipped. This part feels like the floating is now falling through the atmosphere, making planet fall with the alien surface slowly growing while the stars remain exactly the same.
Between The Blue returns to the electronic classical feel from earlier this time along with the acoustic sounds of the strings bringing a more melancholic atmosphere. The soft percussion calming and the deep drones all embracing. The fantastic little glitches slither in and out and sound the head.
We finish with Sounds That Echo On The Shore, the soft drones sounding distant and cold. This is a cold lonely shore far away from home. Far away from civilisation and surrounded by an eerie serenity. It's the longest track on the album and works slowly and so creates a more sorrowful atmosphere. The glitchy sounds from previous tracks emerge here also but sound more meaningful despite being softer. Like a soul trying to escape the painful sorrow of our material universe into one of pure energy and light.
The only problem with this album is that it is too short but don't worry the music is so good that if you play it 3 times in a row it still sounds fresh and interesting. For a free release the quality here is excellent, this deserves to be a physical product, the emotion captured is fantastic and it really feels like deep electronic classical.
Click the here for the download page.
Atrium Carceri
Seishinbyouin (精神病院)
Cold Meat Industry
Sep 2004
Dark Ambient
Tracklist
1 In Chaos Eternal (4:13)
2 Illusion Breaks (4:23)
3 Hidden Crimes (5:22)
4 Incubation (2:58)
5 Twisted Foetus (5:36)
6 Warden (2:42)
7 Dark Water (4:09)
8 Atmosfear (4:58)
9 Isolation (4:36)
10 Victim (3:16)
11 Librarian (4:20)
12 The Call (5:17)
13 Escape (4:23)
14 Frosted Snowflakes (4:31)
Atrium Carceri's second album is even better than the first. The theme this time is in an Insane Asylum (Seishinbyouin literally means mental hospital) and it is the sort of music than could send you there. The horror this time is a whole different brand. Whereas the first album created a feeling of fear based on your loneliness amongst the hellish ghosts in the abandoned prison, this album clearly focuses on the recesses of your mind. The voices that whisper to you & the demons that lurk with your soul. There are Japanese voices throughout that must feel like a schizophrenic part of your own personality that you can't quite understand.
The dark voice in In Chaos Eternal starts us on that journey as it feels like a dark voice from within telling me evil things beyond my comprehension. That feeling is continued in Illusion Breaks which also has a creepy dripping sound like a dank dark cell. The Piano in Hidden Crimes adds a really human touch, the melody is in itself quite pleasant but when mixed with the cold wind & the dark voices it just sounds spooky. The harshness of Incubation is right from the sample to the groaning sounds of a machine brain to the orchestral strings that while smooth really cut a harsh picture in my mind. Twisted Foetus just makes me want to scream out, the slight melody on some slight string permeates through harsh groaning drones, whispers of evil power & the dark underlying pain of self awareness. The power of Warden is huge. It's the most driven and rhythmical track has harsh synths that seem to cut through the brain like a scythe chopping the dead wood off. The low piano keys in Dark Water are as ominous as the scuttling sounds are creepy. The choir pick up after those are banished but it only adds to the feeling of unease. Atmosfear I guess tries to create a scary atmosphere but ends up a little too cluttered & while still very atmospheric, it doesn't sound as scary as the rest until the latter half where the orchestral strings come in creepy as hell. The feeling of isolation in Isolation is overpowered by the feeling that something unknown & unseen is lurking beneath the surface of your thoughts while Victim has a conversation in Japanese between the first meeting between a psychiatric nurse & a patient in the hospital, due to the conversation I'm left unsure as to who is or who will be the victim. Librarian has the first English in it Don't Be Scared which of course has the opposite effect than what you assume is the desired result from the words especially as the screaming starts, not as someone in pain but as someone in complete turmoil & mental anguish. After that brief hope we descend into more despair with The Call a female patient cries out to a male patient unbelieving of her fate and needing reassurance. What she gets though are cold hard truths of what is happening, apologetically. Escape has the dark feeling of underground sewers but still with creepy inner voices & Frosted Snowflakes saves the best for last, the trippiest conversation promising that things are alright when they are quite obviously not. The pulsating bass rhythm & the chimes sounding exciting my own personal fear that I will die among the sound of silent bells.
What this has over Cellblock is flow, there is much more between each track creating a more hypnotic feeling & you feel more immersed in the nightmare. This is definitely top notch 10/10 dark ambient. If you want to have nightmares then play this before you go to bed. I did & I had the most amazingly dark twisted dreams. Try it!
Atrium Carceri
Cellblock
Cold Meat Industry
Aug 2003
Dark Ambient
Tracklist
1 Entrance (2:04)
2 Black Lace (4:00)
3 Machine Elves (4:17)
4 Corridor (2:28)
5 Blue Moon (3:16)
6 Stir Of Thoughts (3:19)
7 Depth (3:41)
8 Crusted Neon (4:11)
9 Halls Of Steam (4:57)
10 Reborn (3:39)
11 Red Stain (2:55)
12 Inner Carceri (4:10)
This is one creepy ambient album. The theme is a prison and it must be some kind of hellish prison out of the best kind of horror movies. The whole album feels like it has been made for a horror movie & I'm sure that if they made the movie with this as the sound track it would be one scary film. Throughout the album there are dark voices, some sound human some do not. There are creaking doors, dripping walls and piano that sounds so creepy in that it is both out of place and the most in place thing. Of course as you'd expect there are a lot of drones, all dark, all horror, but not drawn out like a lot of drone work is.
The sound of a gun being cocked in Black Lace as a sense of danger from a regular source while the static rushes in Machine Elves add a sense of danger from something much more paranormal & malign. The chaos of Blue Moon subsides halfway through leading into an unexpected pulsating rhythm and descending back into chaos really sounds like this story is set in cellblock Hell. The deep throbbing bass on Depth rattles the inside of my brain. The Japanese sample in Crusted Neon is creepy in that it is so human yet so alien. The beat that comes in is so throbbing that it vibrates my living room floor. Halls of Steam is very descriptive in that it sounds like a corridor with pipes rattling & venting more than just steam. The creaking in this track sounds at times like a demonic laugh. Reborn has footsteps slowly edging forwards and what sounds like hellish cries in extreme pain. The machine like sounds in Red Stains is like some dark underground forge in some dark land and finally Inner Carceri feels like the culmination it should be, more relaxed than most of the other tracks but just as scary. The choir like voices mixed with scratching sounds like small hellish creatures make a "the horror's passed but only because you're dead" feeling.
Scary, hellish, horror, demonic, human, suffering, pain, dark, creepy, all of these are great adjectives to describe Cellblock. It is a fine dark ambient album but it could have been better. It could have been a nine or ten out of ten album but falls short only on it's lack of flow. Each track is very separate from the preceding & following track. The atmosphere stops before it comes back in & this slightly disjointed feeling spoils the flow for me. Still that is a small gripe & I'd highly recommend this album to any dark ambient lover, it avoids cliches & just concentrates on being dark, therefore it becomes scarier than if he was trying to be scary. | Get updates via email:
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