A bumper edition of Ambient Sunday this morning. Think of it as your own personal ambient mixtape with tracks from Sensitive Chaos, Noumo, The Balmer Series, and Nikolay Pashkovets.
Sensitive Chaos is from the US and is an ever changing grouping led by Jim Combs. For the album Closer To Home, Jim was backed by Ryan P. Taylor on guitars and bass, Josie Quick (Perpetual Motion) on violin, Brian Good on soprano saxophone, Mitchell Sosebee on drums and percussion, and Brian Donohoe (Snarky Puppy, Progger, One O’Clock Jazz Band) on alto & tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute, and keyboards.
If that line up makes it sound like you’re in for a jazz experience think again. Watching Embers Glow is gossamer delicate ambient which is less drone than drifting along on a breeze. The synthesisers are the focus and all the organic instrumental have been looped about so that all that’s left is a beatless, liquid sound that comes in lapping waves. Gorgeous.
Staying in the USA we have The Balmer Series. I wasn’t aware before but Wiki says, “The Balmer series, or Balmer lines in atomic physics, is one of a set of six named series describing the spectral line emissions of the hydrogen atom.” However, the biog for this artist takes a fantasy approach to things offering, “The Balmer Series was born on a remote island in a private universe where a woman whose earth name is “Elisabeth Balmer” could only exist as an orb of light with the ability to perceive all creative possibilities. There she reunited with a faceless, fantastical humanoid who represented all she loved about being an orb of light: a ceaseless ability to explore her vast innermost realms and soar to the highest peaks, the same places where dreams are made.” Ummm… right.
The track is Ultraviolet from the Sublimatum album. It’s a three and a half minute organ dream. Opening with twittering birdsong it soon becomes a celestial organ that chimes its way into your heart. It manages to deliver an almost crystal clarity to things, eschewing beats as it goes. And there’s a poignancy of life and light here in the edgeof drone. Of it The Balmer Series says, “This is a gilded dream in which you occupy as an orb of light, filtering through consciousness—your memories like some abstracted vision through water, suddenly more clear. Almost a return to form, but rather, a recapturing of a lost essence.”
https://www.tiktok.com/music/Ultraviolet-6951502883212756993
Switching to Germany we have Noumo who says, “I’m a Berlin based music producer, influenced by a variety of genres. I write my own Singer-Song-Writer songs and will also release a Rock-Metal project by the end of the year. The foundation of my musical development was always the classical music genre though. Apart from that i work as a medical doctor.”
But Let Me Repair Your Heart is none of those genres. It’s an ambient cum study beats. This manages a wonderfully wobbly approach to the tune which just beautifully evokes the fragility and frailty of existence and emotion. It’s all about processed guitar and piano vying with synthetic beats. Everything is a bit slowed down and gentle. The guitar wants to repair through doses of loving hooks. It’s all terribly lofi and the better for it.
And so to Russia for Nikolay Pashkovets. He humbly offers as biog, “I’m an ordinary guy from Russia, my job is not related to music, so music is a hobby for me, or my reflection.” His work is mostly in the ambient genre with bits of neo-classical and post-rock.
We have I Will Stay Invisible Present With You from the album Hands To Heaven which is ambient but has a little neo-classical tinge. It opens with a long drone of sound, allowing found sound of people to come through as if in a dream. Cymbal washes come from a distance and give it a neo-classical touch. This track is all about tones, rather than tune but does so without in any way sounding forced. But there is a sense of everything being seen from far away. A sense of disconnectedness and ghostly presence. As Nikolay says, “When I am gone, I will remain present with you in the form of my music.”
