Ambient Sunday with: Trova x Dashii, La Claud, and Prospect Lux #Ambient #Drone #Chill #Lounge

•July 19, 2020 • Leave a Comment

Ambient Sunday runs the gamut of ambient drone, chill and lounge with artists Trova x Dashii, La Claud and Prospect Lux.

Trova x Dashii take on big themes of life and death. If you’re going to do that you’d better deliver. No point in life simply fizzling out. Trova is Emmanuel Hernandez from Carolina, Puerto Rico and Dashii from Southern California. The Life And Death EP is the result of their collaboration. The title track is a hazy, droney kind of thing. It sort of fuzzes into existence like a slowly breaking dawn. There’s a widescreen drama to its gently unfolding tones and the deep strings. But it also contains ominous undertones of decay making it a largely unsettling piece until it disappears into the unknown.

Life And Death (track)

Life And Death EP

Next. La Claud is a Neapolitan musician and producer. The track is Mandalay taken from her About Vega album. It’s a lovely mood piece. All dreamy IDM and jazz hop elements. Even adds a touch of exotica to things. An almost mythical quality. The piece has an almost lounge feel with the xylophones but without every quite disappearing into whimsy. It’s a complex subtle track despite its seeming simplicity. An utter delight to heart and head.

From the album About Vega

And so to Prospect Lux. He’s NYC native songwriter/producer Michael Spivack who is the composer for Amazon Prime web series “The Other F Word.” Sadly, means nothing to me. But this track does. Sharp Triangle is the tune from an EP of the same name. And it’s nothing of the sort. Its got a lovely sense of internal melody as the phases and phrases rise and fall. Never sharp or angular. It uses a clattery, almost IDM, set of beats that keeps it grounded. The synths try to fly off into the wild blue yonder but never quite manage it despite their iridescent colours.

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Techno triple with: Karolinski, D-Moniq, and Marcovits #Techno #MelodicTechno #AmbientTechno

•July 18, 2020 • Leave a Comment

A triple bill of melodic techno this morning from Karolinski, D-Moniq, and Marcovits.

Karolinski (Karoline Hegrenes) comes from a rural background just outside Bergen, Norway. But she’s moved to Oslo. Her first offering I’m a supergirl 01 in 2018 is now followed by I’m a supergirl 02. It’s all very tempting to reach into her background to say this is full of pristine snow and fir woods. But that is really what it sounds like. It’s a delicate set of ambient techno sounds with a soft dubbiness which simultaneously manages a lovely precision. It’s all organic as much as it is machine music. Beats are far off in the distance. And in among the machine sounds are filtered vocals giving it an otherworldly feel. Really rather delightful.

Bandcamp

Soundcloud

D-Moniq is from Minneapolis, Minnesota. But he explains, “I am originally from Russia, but came to the US to go to college. As the 4 years came to an end I felt that it was the right time to compile an LP of tracks that I have been working on.”

The LP is Last Ride and the track I’m featuring is Wish Fulfillment. It’s a melodic techno track but with a dark centre. The vocal is sampled from a podcast on eco-socialism. This adds to the music to give the whole thing a balance between dystopian despair and a tiny touch of optimism. The beats and bass are dark but every so often a synth appears in epic or hopeful mode to remind us that perhaps all is not lost. And that things are darkest before dawn.

Wish Fulfillment

Taken from the album Last Ride

Finally, Marcovits. The track is Eterno, taken from Tour De Traum XIX from which we featured Happy Medium the other day.

This is more leftfield melodic techno. There are beats and peaks and things but this is rather more a headphones or home listening experience. It’s a complex layered track. There are lots of things going on all of which vie for your attention. And if that makes it sound a chore it isn’t. They’re all assembled in such a way as to bring maximum joy. Beats batter away in awkward shapes but in the foreground synths rise and fall in pleasing peaks. And in the middle distance all the interesting shapes writhe for all eternity.

Tour De Traum XIX

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Keep watching the skies with: Sebastian G Clarke – Frequent #Electronic #NewMusic #Techno @sebclarkemusic

•July 17, 2020 • 2 Comments

Keep watching the skies. Keep listening. That was a sample from a film. I forget what. But it’s apt for the title track from Sebastian G Clarke’s new Frequent EP.

I often listen while looking at the sky and especially the clouds. Loved meteorology. And at this time of year the swallows wheeling around. This morning they’re moderately high. About 150-200ft. A humid sort of low pressure day. And this track is the perfect accompaniment.

I assumed Sebastian G Clarke was his real name. Wrong. Daniel Sampson, it appears. Not sure why you’d change it to that. But no mind. Frequent is part of a three track EP. And it’s delightful. It is four and a half minutes of meditative electronics that sits somewhere between melodic techno and deep house while being part of neither. It has a smooth, melodic and dreamy air. The beats are there but don’t rush to the front. That space is reserved for an almost parping synth that holds the melody as a constantly shifting set of emotional tones. Just lovely.

Buy here.

Soundcloud

Frequent EP

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Maximum moderation with: Happy Medium – Feel (Traum CDDig 46) #Techno #Melodic

•July 16, 2020 • 1 Comment

Here’s a rather lovely track from Happy Medium taken from the new Tour De Traum XIX album.

The track is Feel. And it sounds at times quintessentially German. But Happy Medium is Matt Downie, from Golden, BC, Canada. There’s an understated beauty at work here. Of the track it says, “a track that expresses remoteness and loneliness but has that kind of low key profile to make it more personal.”

And yet it doesn’t have to be that way. The start has a gentle but insistent tone. This tugs at your hem rather than forcing its intentions on you. That subtlety continues through the track which has an almost chiming melody and a bass blankness. It speaks of simple pleasures and open spaces. Let this lovely track into your life.

Soundcloud

Album on Spotify

 

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Deep (Western) House with: Uone x Western – Tale of the Seven Samurai #House #Electronic

•July 15, 2020 • Leave a Comment

Here’s an odd but brilliant one. Westerns and Japanese sounds fed through an Australian blender by Uone x Western.

The track is the title of the classic Tale of the Seven Samurai which famously was filmed by Kurosawa and then got converted into Western culture, not least via The Magnificent Seven.

Uone x Western are an Australian indie-electronic duo and the track is taken from their album The Lone Wranglers. It unselfconsciously mixes Japanese vocal samples with the minimal strings of Ennio Morricone and various cowboy Western shouts. It’s a lovely leftfield take on deep house that heads for lawless Western frontiers. It’s a track of heightened anticipation. Beats are prominent but never overwhelming. This is a vast, big sky sonic palette. A windswept tumbleweed vista of a track. Spark up a cheroot and become the man with no name riding into a one-horse town.

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Ambient Drum and Bass with: paradoxically – haxx0rz@!!! #Manga #Ambient #DnB

•July 14, 2020 • Leave a Comment

Paradoxically is from the USA and haxx0rz@!! is ambient drum and bass put though a Manga blender.

The track starts with fluctuating ambient synths which provide the backdrop to a bit of Manga vocal excitement. Eventually, beats come in which are a bit more jungle than they are anything. Slightly abstract. Synths carry on wowing away in a slow shimmer of sound. This is quite mesmeric and more than a bit trippy. No wonder the woman at the start of the track sounds so carried away.

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Trip hop with Tin Tunnel and Trophy Boyfriend #HipHop #TripHop #Chill

•July 13, 2020 • Leave a Comment

A couple of trip hop / hip hop tunes that just want to chill from Tin Tunnel and Trophy Boyfriend.

Tin Tunnel are a duo from South London. The track is Underwater Thoughts from their new Tin Tunnel 1 EP. It’s a blend of Massive Attack styling with some trip hop chill. It’s got a lovely lo-fi ethic to it. That’s explained by, “I recorded the piano for this at my girlfriend’s house – you can hear her washing up in the background. We then got creative with cutlery as percussion and layered on a few guitar/bass/live kit grooves to fill it out.” There’s a delightful unhurriedness to it all. Sounds lope off and refuse to be fully corralled. Proper summer vibes.

Spotify

Trophy Boyfriend (Gregor Ruigrok) is from Kildare, Ireland and has a jazzy chill take on his trip hop.

Deletia comes with bird song, surface noise and a sleazy sax that sounds perfectly natural. Deletia means a marker of things that were once somewhere (often used in emails). What’s missing here isn’t clear. It’s all too hazy lazy for that. Beats have that modern synthetic crunch while the samples hark back to a more authentic past. It’s all very lush and romantic in a coronavirus isolated by yourself kind of way. Ideas of what has been filtered into as things are. Beautifully wistful chill. Prepare to melt.

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Sunday is Ambient time with:4znek, and Project Tapeworm #Ambient #Drone #IDM

•July 12, 2020 • 2 Comments

Ambient Sunday’s theme is time, specifically time to look back at what was and what could have been with 4znek, and Project Tapeworm.

4znek is from Philadelphia, USA. He mainly does stuff that’s EDM but this one is definitely ambient. Times Past is the track. It’s not clear if this is a positive look back at the past of a wistful or sad one. This is a very modern ambient. It’s a chilled version of almost trap / hip hop in the beats which have a high end synthetic edge that’s offset by some strings that risk being saccharine in other hands. They serve to balance each other out to take ambient forward in new ways. All a bit ironic given the track title. It’s all lush and yet not especially romantic. A track that says it’s time to move on.

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Project Tapeworm is from the USA. It is the electronic side project of Inversions bassist Jade Joray Robbins, and inspired by the works of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Dust Brothers and John Carpenter. The track is Old Times. It’s ambient but with a hefty does of IDM. There’s a central synth that takes a mournful tone but in a way that’s fractured and worn. It has a sense of those spliced tape experiments of the early 80s in its lo-fi appeal. It’s only two minutes but ineffably sad with an indefinable sense of longing. Hardly a surprise then when PT says, “I made this shortly after my brother nearly died twice in one day due to his own vices. It’s kind of become a theme to all of the good, but broken memories.” These are the important things.

Taken from the album Dissonant Synthesis

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Let’s get minimal techno with: Bryce Terry, and Father Space Cadet #Techno #Electronic #Minimal

•July 11, 2020 • Leave a Comment

It’s all USA today with tracks from Bryce Terry and Father Space Cadet. The mood is minimal techno but militant.

Bryce Terry music producer from Phoenix, Arizona. He says he’s into 80s sounding synths, low pass filters and tempo delay. Some of his work is in the synthwave vein but not this time.

Enter The Centre is a strange minimal space techno beast. It wanders in from synthwave borders only to spiral around a small unregarded yellow sun in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy. It gets itself into a psychedelic ambient techno fizz. This gives an ambient sheen to everything but it has a restless and unpredictable nature. This is really very, very fine.

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Spotify

Father Space Cadet is from Brooklyn, New York but is preoccupied with more earthly concerns. His debut track, America’s Funhouse is a BLM protest full of anger, anxiety and awareness. The track is dedicated to, “MADE FOR GEORGE FLOYD, BREONNA TAYLOR, ATATIANA JEFFERSON, AURA ROSSER, STEPHON CLARK, BOTHAM JEAN, PHILANDO CASTILLE, ALTON STERLING, MICHELLE CUSSEAUX, FREDDIE GRAY, ERIC GARNER, MICHAEL BROWN.”

The track is IDM techno as a constant minimal siren of noise and confusion. Samples pepper the track and the atmosphere is dense, foggy and dank. Beats pound away. Synths have roughened edges. This is anxious late nights. Too bright days with their harsh glare. This is danger round every corner. This isn’t an easy track to listen to. But that’s the very point. What are you doing when you hear the siren?

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Friday techno with: Julius Abel – Illusion #Techno #NewMusic #Melodic

•July 10, 2020 • Leave a Comment

And so some melodic techno for Julius Abel and Illusion. Based in Vienna, Austria, Julius Abel has been releasing music for the best part of a decade. His style is clean and bright with a definite commercial sheen.

Illusion is a slight step away from that style. For starters, it has no vocals. This is, as Julius says, “everybody should be able to interpret the “Illusion” of all the recent news and circumstances we are living trough the last couple of months.” This is a lovely light techno track using a guitar line that sounds perfectly natural in among the beats. Provides the guide through the track.

Synths largely soar but occasionally a hint of fuzzed edge emerges briefly to remind you that not everything is perfect. Reflecting on 2020, Julius says, “Just like the song it started off textured and smooth but evolved into a new, fast-paced and unknown environment.” This track reminds you that not everything is terrible despite all that has happened and to seek out the simple small pleasures in life.

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