Dances with Aliens on: Artefact by Johan Agebjörn & Mikael Ögren #Techno #Ambient @johanagebjorn

•June 14, 2021 • Leave a Comment

A new album from Johan Agebjörn & Mikael Ögren takes you on a journey to explore space and space techno in all its dimensions from ambient to a more retro-futuristic harder edged version.

The album is called Artefact and is inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama. According to Wiki, the story involves a 50-by-20-kilometre (31 by 12 mi) cylindrical alien starship that enters the Solar System. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries.

The album opens with the ominous IDM space rumble of Extravehicular Activity before coming to the ambient wonder of Passing The Gates. This moves on to alien strangeness and awe on The Plain and then The Storm That Passed. In Flight Over The Sea there’s a cavernous slightly echoed opening before light retro synths get an elastic outing.

Static Air offers the first vestiges of humanity with the astronaut element amid anticipatory synths that bobble around. Octapod marks a pivot in the album, where the spaced elements give way to an edgier, more frantic and paranoid set of bass ridden sounds. Threats and pleasures lurk around every corner. There’s more of the latter in Monitoring the Zooids, a track that tinkles away with optimistic synths and sounds.

The album’s penultimate track the rather wonderful and best thing on the album Space Travel. This is a lovely space techno tune with a bit of retro-futurism and even builds itself up to some late 80s / early 90s wide-eyed Beltram feeling. There’s an accompanying comedown on the joyous Final Sight.

Do take this journey but whatever you do don’t miss out on Space Travel.

Also available on CD and d/l

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Ambient Sunday: At The Psychedelic Circus – Kala Nag #Dub #Ambient #IDM #Experimental

•June 13, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Ambient Sunday returns with something more challenging than usual in the form of At The Psychedelic Circus’ experimental IDM. There’s shades of The Orb but on a bad trip.

At The Psychedelic Circus are an audio visual collective from Utrecht, Netherlands. Their mission statement is, “We bring you atmospheric psychedelic electronica. A fusion of the wandering human mind and our electronic reality.”

The track is Kala Nag. I’m assuming given the video that the title comes from the elephant in Toomai of the Elephants by Rudyard Kipling (of Jungle Book fame) albeit Kala Nag translates as Black Snake. But this is no Disneyfied track. It’s takes the essence of freedom and confinement for the elephant in the story through to the sounds. It’s a swirling psychedelic set of sounds and samples of India but set against an ominous low bass ridden thudding of dubbed beats. A slow stately march into the jungle. It’s danceable but in a paranoid way whilst wading through treacle. This is a dangerous trip to see the elephants dance that’s worth the experience.

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Get your techno groove on with: Ias Ferndale – Zawbiea (Extended Mix) #MelodicTechno #ProgHouse

•June 12, 2021 • Leave a Comment

All too often these days tracks are two minutes or so. It’s therefore a delight when some thing big and bold hoves into view confident enough to be approaching nine minutes. That’s what Ias Ferndale has delivered on the melodic techno groover Zawbiea.

Ias Ferndale is from Berlin, Germany and that’s about all I know. Zawbiea, however, is his second single. The title means زوبعة which translates as whirlwind. This is a massively confident track. It uses an uplifting prog house template but restrains it with a bit of techno darkness.

It opens with throbbing sounds and a bit of wailing that isn’t too obviously Middle Eastern. And that’s a good thing to stop it slipping into cliché. It maintains a taut tempo and atmosphere as it starts to wind itself up. There are airy synths that give it a rippling, furling sound.

The track oozes self-confidence, even to avoid a traditional break. And yet it maintains tension, anticipation and a rolling, galloping pace through to the end. There’s a shorter six minute edit on Spotify but the get the full effect, stick with the Soundcloud version. Superb whirling, swirling, grooving prog techno joyfest.

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Are you an owl or a lark? Listen to Project AER – Lark Rise #Chill #Downtempo @ProjectAER

•June 11, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Are you an owl or a lark? I’m a lark usually. But this morning I’m up early but struggling to stay awake. Project AER’s Lark Rise is lulling me back to bed with its downtempo charms.

Project AER is the new project for the UK’s Alex Reade who has been making music for a decade now. His current venture is described as a, “blend of ambience and guitar-driven beats.” And Lark Rise pretty much fits that description.

Lark Rise is the first single taken from forthcoming album Motions which is out in the middle of next month. It’s a two and a half minute swirl of the most exquisite chill. Opening with a slow piano line and a little tinkling anticipation it rises with the day and some wood block beats. Rosy fingered dawn is here. A guitar line comes snaking to give it the central melody to face the coming day. There are ethereal washes that keep the stresses and strains of reality at bay. Time to sneak back to bed with another cup of coffee before I face the in-box.

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Big bad boom bap with: Joe Nora – Far Out (feat. G Mills) #Chill #HipHop #StudyBeats

•June 10, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Pre-Friday vibes are ready for some head nodding to get through a hectic day. Joe Nora is along for the musical accompaniment with a big bad boom bap chill track.

Joe Nora’s explanation for his name is rather sweet. He says, “The backstory of my name is that before I was born my parents decided they would call me Nora if I was a girl and Joey if I was a boy. Not wanting to know until the day of, they called me Joey Nora up until I was born and they found out I was a boy. It is the kind of balance that I liked about it, the sort of yin and yang of my name and of me.”

Far Out is taken from his Rainfall EP, inspired by the only week of rain in LA this year. He should be so lucky. The track starts with a little surface noise and some jazzy smooth Rhodes chords before the live beats (courtesy of G Mills) come in. They’re allowed to be on the heavy side and roll slow. Gives the whole thing a really slowed down vibe. All you can do is slowly nod your head to the beats as the chords wash over you and in so doing wash away your cares. Surrender to the unhurried beats and draw solace from the Rhodes. Everything else today can just wait a while. Tell the world you’ll be back soon.

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Downtempo ethereal music from: Rohne – Phase #Electronic #Chill #MelodicTechno

•June 9, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Midwesterner Rohne (Keenan Branch) returns with a new chilled track that takes something from ethereal chill and something from melodic techno.

He’s originally from the mountains of the Pacific Northwest but is now in Portland, Oregon. Here’s the title track from his new Phase EP. This opens with wind washed sounds before letting in some clicky clattery beats. But behind all this are melancholic held tones that gradually occupy more of the experience. It’s all a bit wistful and a little ethereal. It’s wandering in a deep house vastness, warmed by melodic techno beats. It lifts you up and then pulls you down. A bit like life really. This tune is whole of the solitary human experience.

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You gotta live right. You gotta chill right: Human Centerpiece x Thèmemoir – The Collision (Bastelbande Remix) #Chill #Electronic #Downtempo

•June 8, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Chill turned all the way up to 11 by Human Centerpiece x Thèmemoir in a remix from Bastelbande.

Back in 1999 I was travelling for work quite a lot. Meant too many evening in unknown cities across the UK with nothing to do. Eating alone in a restaurant’s never been my favourite thing so I used to trawl record shops where they were open late. Moby was someone who’d been around for ages but never really done much for me. But I’d heard his fifth album was supposed to be ok. In the absence of anything else to buy I bought it.

Play was the album and it got played over and over again for the next 12-18 months. I was obsessed by its gentle chilled sounds, organic house style and the floating old vocals laid on top. That may seem like a bit of a formula now but it felt so fresh then. But I then reached the point of saturation and it went into a cupboard never to re-emerge.

The Collision as remixed by Bastelbande connected to all those lost feelings from 20 years ago. The track is by Human Centerpiece x Thèmemoir from The Sum Of All Destruction (Remixes) EP. Bastelbande are originally from a small town near the border of Berlin, and comprise producer duo André Meyer and Mathias Wilhelm. The track has that yearning old gospel-ish vocal element allied to a mournful piano line. The beats are crisp and precise giving the track a strong centre. That allows the melancholy to swirl around it. A trumpet line gets added later for that woozy lost-in-the-moment feel. Quite delicious.

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Study Beat Monday: YourFavourite – Count On You #StudyBeats #Chill

•June 7, 2021 • 1 Comment

Back to work for me after a week off. Calls and emails starting early but trying to resist getting sucked back in by taking the time to have a bit of a chill with some study beats from YourFavourite.

YourFavourite is from Sibiu, Romania and describes themselves thus, “Y.F.G.P – Your Favorite Ghost Producer” Count On You is the featured track. It’s taken from the three track Time Keeper EP. Unusually for me, this is built around some disembodied ethereal vocals alongside a classic low slow set of beats. Synths are equally unusually kept far in the background giving the whole thing a sense of keening ululation. Really rather head noddingly beautiful.

https://www.deezer.com/us/track/1377812032

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Ambient Sunday with: Mohsen Sokard – Event Horizon #Ambient #Drone

•June 6, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Just the one for Ambient Sunday this week. We have Iran’s Mohsen Sokard and the droney Event Horizon.

Mohsen Sokard is a pianist, composer and sound designer from Iran as well as the man behind Digital Dream (a postrock band) and Siberian Giant (an artrock, indie, ambient duo). His work has a strain of cinematic but also a strain of experimental to it.

Event Horizon is taken from the new Unnatural Experiments EP. It’s a deeply fragile piece, resting on delicate string drones and bits of bobbling sound. It has that timeless sort of sweep to it. An unpeopled landscape of sound and with a whoosh that could be far off winds or space hiss. There’s just a touch of neo-classical in tiny tickles of piano but not so much that they interrupt the drone. A track which aches its way into your soul throughout.

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House lovers need: Cosmicat – Toxic Romance #MinimalHouse #House #DeepHouse @MDLBEAST

•June 5, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Middle Eastern Minimal House from Cosmicat on Toxic Romance.

Cosmicat is a female DJ from Saudi Arabia. That shouldn’t matter. But undeniably it does. I haven’t kept up with change in the Middle East but was surprised that the limited reforms that have taken place since 2017 in Saudi Arabia have allowed such a thing. Among the factors that define rights for women in Saudi Arabia are government laws, alongside strictures of the Hanbali and Wahhabi schools of Sunni Islam, and traditional customs of the Arabian Peninsula. More on women’s rights in Saudi here.

Cosmicat is Nouf Sufyani, Saudi Arabia’s first female DJ (more at Vogue.me). She’s a cat woman, hence the artist name, and offers, “There are two means of refuge from the misery of life – music and cats” from Albert Schweitzer on her website. After graduating from dental school she became a bedroom DJ and taught herself everything she needed to know about producing in private. In 2019 she performed at the first music festival in Saudi Arabia – MDLBEAST’s Soundstorm. And is now releasing Toxic Romance as her debut track.

Toxic Romance throws off that weight of backstory pretty successfully, offering a confident piece of minimal house. There’s a set of crisp restrained drums which interplay with big synth washes. There are shades of melodic techno and deep house. It’s all very deep and hypnotic, with the vocal element adding to things. Her voice comes across as a mix between Grace Jones and Billie Ray Martin (Electribe 101). This is a stern techno bass getting lost in stabbing synths and deep house beats. When you hear the sound, move around.

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