Let’s get a bit modern with France’s Lunebord.
His track Moonlight Sensitivity is somewhere between drum and bass and contemporary hip hop. It has that high end jittery sound atop the beats. And even some pitched vocal element. But it also has a lovely wandering way with the synths. This gives it that watery, silvery quality of pale moonlight. It’s a bit spectral, a bit fragile, and a sense that it will soon disappear behind clouds.
Treasure it while it’s here for soon it will be morning again.
Here’s a just released track from Melouie that flirts with a blend of melodic organic techno and IDM.
Melouie is from Berlin, Germany and he produces melodic techno, IDM, and downtempo. And you get all of that on Eyes Closed. He says “My music is a mixture between real recorded instruments and analog electronics.” And you get that too.
Eyes Closed opens with a soundscape of IDM creaks and crackles with a bit of melodic parping. It’s all very anticipatory until it settles down into a more conventional melodic techno structure but still with some creaking in the background to add that machine sense to all the warming organic sounds. The track has an optimistic sense of growth with a lovely break half way through. It’s one of those build and build track that ends really rather epic. Lovely way to start the week.
A triple bill for Ambient Sunday with two returnees and one artist new to these parts. We have returnees De Moi and Shuhandz x Joseph Thrash, plus new artist Simplistic Scientists.
De Moi appeared here six months ago. He’s producer and musician but also a maths and natural sciences graduate from Czechia who splits his time between the White Carpathians and Prague. His work has an emotive quality among the chill. But on Ferveō we get something much more meditative. It’s taken from the Skyey EP. The title Ferveō means fever or hot, I think. But there’s nothing burning here except time. Its a beatless beautiful track. Tones arrive, are held, and then move on. And in the meantime there are little trills and swirls. It’s all terribly precise as the tune hisses by. This is just terrific.
Another returnee is Shuhandz alongside Joseph Thrash. Joseph Thrash has appeared here before as Nifty Earth but he’s moved on from that persona. Here we have his remix of Deliverance for Shuhandz. There’s something warming and comforting about this track. It has a dreamy, rather enveloping quality. The piano offers solace in among rich hazy electronics. But over the course of six minutes it allows itself more than one mood. As it hits the second half it take comfort into joy. There’s a roll of the piano that is almost into piano house territory. It’s all upbeat and positive and ready to go out into the world. That’s about coming through to the other side. Keep moving.
Offering complexity in simplicity are Simplistic Scientists 木火. A trio whose working arrangements are unusual. They say they, “formed in Cheltenham in 2010 playing together live as an acoustic/hiphop trio with @JPDL on spoken word vocals. Since then, multi-instrumentalist Greg Davies has moved to Changsha and the drummer Rich ‘Reggie’ Bourne is still in Cheltenham.” Got that? So, given their domestics they are a production only outfit these days.
The track on offer is Digger, opening track from their On The Moon EP. Greg says, “It’s named after my local record shop in Changsha, China.” The focus on Digger is really back to the mid-90s style of downtempo hip hop. This has a slow, rolling, crunching hip hop sound. There’s a load of scratching and a few spoken samples for that authentic feel. Vibes are smoky and late night and come from the combo of piano and brass. It has that noir jazz quality that you want. Brilliantly executed. Oh yeah.
It really does feel like Spring is here as the last days have had some sun. The kind that warms as well as illuminates. You can see buds everywhere. And Craig Lowe’s Echoes soundtracks Spring with its perky promises of something sultry to come.
Craig Lowe is originally from Weymouth in the West Country but is now based in London. He was a session musician before starting his own audiovisual project performing, “electronic techno-inspired dance music.” Echoes is from his Solace EP out next month. It isn’t your standard techno track. It’s a lot more complex and lighter than that. It has a rippling, swirling house quality. And a fleetness of foot that allows it to change direction in a pirouette. There’s a manipulated vocal element that I don’t usually enjoy but it’s all done it such a joyous rush that it’s hard to argue with the uplifting positivity.
Here’s a premiere of a lovely deep house ambient track Faux Gamma by Hamparsomian.
Hamparsomian is William Hamparsomian from Stockholm, Sweden. Faux Gamma is part of a two track release with Local Group. It’s a six minute cosmic journey, although it has that suspended in time feel. Starting beatless, chords are held for light years as the electronics ever so slowly wind themselves up for action. The track them allows the beats to take it something more purposive but still terribly hazy and dreamy in a gentle deep house kind of way.
All this cosmic wandering sensation make sense when you realise that of the track Hamparsomian says it was, “born in a creative streak that took place during the end of “the great conjunction”, an 800 year cycle of Jupiter shaking hands with Saturn. The tracks are shaken by the vastness of it all. They represent a journey from start to end and then to the start again.” Whether you want the further astronomical reaches of the solar system or simply to explore yourself within, all of that is here. And there’s more, much more. A beautiful deep house track that acknowledges its ambient roots.
I want my Friday to have a bit of a bounce, a bit of a swing, and trumpets. All of this and more is on the deeply funky instrumental hip hop jazz fusion Persistence by Paradox with ReFlex the Architect.
Paradox is a rapper from Denver, USA. But you know I’m not one for vocals, no matter how witty or thought-provoking. So I’m heading straight for the instrumental version of Persistence. Fantastic mellow jazzhop tune opening with some guitar and ululating. Then come the beats, flutes and all round good vibes. When you think it can’t get any better it casually drops a live horn solo. A three and a half minute festival of hip shaking, sultry, swaggering music. Get in.
I does love a bit of sleazy bass. And there’s a great one on Davide Perico & Mopoc’s track Temporal Loop (side B).
Davide Perico is a sometime sound engineer and producer from Arluno, near Milan, Italy who is now doing his music full time. Most of his work has a lo-fi sort of bent. But not here. Mopoc on the other hand is from Edgerton, West Virginia, USA and who does a range of music including EDM. They’ve come together on Temporal Loop to deliver an EP with an A side and a B side. I’m focusing on the B side.
The track starts with a sleazy almost squalling bass line that has more than a little Big Beat about it. It’s brash and punchy and none the worse for that.. This is interspersed with bits of electronic trickery. It has a cocky self-confidence that’s totally justified. It’s happy when approaching the half way mark to stop off for a spot of almost guitar based synth contemplation before bringing back IDM bass skirls. You can sense the dubstep past form Mopoc creeping in here. A four minute good time was had by all. But don’t expect it to respect you in the morning. Good times done dirty.
The humble carrot. Perhaps my favourite vegetable. So good in stews and savoury dishes but also good in cakes. slono is though promoting the benefits of that classic French dish Pot au Feu, the EP from which acid techno banger Carrot is taken.
slono is from Boston, Massachusetts, and offers by way of biog that he “chases the elusive atmosphere of long nights coming to an end.” The atmosphere of this night’s end if acid and a whole bunch of techno on Carrot. He says, “This track is a straight acid banger. No frills.” That’s a bit unfair on a really super track. This has 909s going off everywhere and a 90s type techno beats undercarriage. They are grated together to deliver a track that builds and builds and messes with your mind. Like all good acid should. Like a siren going off permanently in your head this is an explosion of carefully controlled sound. So good.
And if you want to try a recipe for Pot au Feu (pot on the fire – a simple French beef stew) then you can do no better than follow a recipe from the master Raymond Blanc.
Little fluffy rolls of cloud are lit by lovely red and golden light this morning. Perfect for some dreamy leftfield house from Ninze.
Ninze (Julian Mosch) is from Leipzig in Germany. And here’s a track – Cloud Drive – from his new Lost In Light EP. Available on limited edition vinyl. This is the very essence of watching clouds slowly morph and form and disappear as they drift by. There’s not a moment wasted across the eight minutes this takes. It warps its way into life with little tickles of sound set alongside blank tones. It shimmers and sparkles with unexpected timings. Beats are there but almost incidentally. This is all about mood and timing. Experimental and complex leftfield house sounds but delivered as a warming blanket.
Back to the week. Have that haziness that coffee can’t dispel. Only some gentle beats will do. Here’s a couple from Lo-Fi Luke x Goson, and Prod SirMellow.
We had Sweden’s Lo-Fi Luke x Goson’s first track back in November. They’re back with another delightful tune called Ride. Come on board. Enjoy the gentle clicking beats and the slow thud of bass. But what delivers the beautiful kick in the pants is a mix of slow drawling piano and a bit of guitar. Both tightly woven such that the track is infused with mellow fruitfulness. Spring is sprung but this is properly Autumnal.
Across the Atlantic to Maryland for Prod. SirMellow who is a lofi producer. He goes for something simple yet effective on WhereRu. It’s a slow thudding beat, some surface noise and a lonesome guitar. It’s all terribly lo-fi, a little sad, and the feel of walking in the rain. Emotion drips off every second of the track. In other hands it could all be a bit dispiriting but there’s something rather exquisite about the way this delivers just the right amount of pathos to make you sigh but nothing too depressingly further. Clever stuff.
