seconds_before_awakening Archives

Good Weather for an Airstrike; Seconds Before Awakening; Aspectee; Ryonkt; Fog Lake

February 29, 2012 February 29, 2012

In the Shortlist sections, I will mention some of the albums that I enjoyed listening to, but couldn’t find the time (or the right words) for a “full” review for. Still, I think they deserve your attention: use the links to find more info and hear previews.

Good Weather for an Airstrike – Underneath the Stars
Tom Honey (Hampshire, UK) originally set up Good Weather for an Airstrike to create deliberately soothing music to help ease the tinnitus problems he suffers from. His main influences are artists like Sigur Ros, Eluvium, Hammock and Stars of the Lid. “Underneath the Stars” melds “dreamy strings with hints of fragmented guitar tone, soft drones and a set of subtle field recordings.”

Seconds Before Awakening – Nine
As Seconds Before Awakening, Michael S. Walley creates a “soundtrack for dreams and dreamers alike”. “Nine” – the 10th album in the series that started counting from Zero – is a 59 minutes long, slowly evolving deep drone. “I almost feel like this is the sound of nebulae and galaxies frozen for us to contemplate the shifting energy and interplay between matter and nothingness. These sounds remind me that infinity is real, here and now.”
[Free Download]

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Pavonine; Seconds Before Awakening; Le Berger; Language of Landscape; Sunlight Lineage

November 3, 2011 November 3, 2011

In the Shortlist sections, I will mention some of the albums that I enjoyed listening to, but couldn’t find the time (or the right words) for a “full” review for. Still, I think they deserve your attention: use the links to find more info and hear previews.

Pavonine – Night Falls with Silver in its Mouth
Opening with some Satie-esque classical piano chords, but soon the atmosphere changes to haunting, almost subconscious sounds.
“Most of the sounds in this album were made using recordings of things we hear in the night… heartbeat sounds in our ears, breaths in and out, the occasional bus driving by or distant siren.”, as Adrienne ‘Pavonine‘ Russell explains. “‘Night Falls with Silver in its Mouth’ is an album that is based on the auditory environment of night where the general ambient sounds of busy days drop away to silence; when the minute becomes amplified, and, though the cause may be hidden in the dark, the fact that something is there cannot be denied.” Free download from Treetrunk netlabel.

Seconds Before Awakening – Eight
“Do not listen while driving or operating heavy machinery”, Mike Waller (Seconds Before Awakening) advises. And that’s a good advice, because this free download offers 60 minutes of deep listening soundscapes that may induce a state of half-sleep. Immersively beautiful and, at some moments, almost uncomfortably dark.

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Nigel Samways, Le Berger, Herzog, Ambient Fabric, Seconds Before Awakening

March 30, 2011 March 30, 2011

This is the first in a forthcoming series of “Shortlist”-entries. In these Shortlists, I will mention some of the albums that I enjoyed listening to, but couldn’t find the time (or the right words) for a “full” review for.
Still, I think they deserve your attention: use the links to find more info and hear previews.

Nigel Samways – Nine Barrows Down
20 minute EP with a haunting soundscape referring to “a teenage experience of potentially baffling and unexplained origins whilst alone at night in the Dorset countryside.”

Le Berger – Expeditions on the Greyscale
Subtitled “One Tiny, Two Medium and a Grand One”, referring to the length of the four tracks: 00:11, 11:11, 11:11 and 33:33, respectively.
Beautiful minimal drone/loop set by Le Berger (Samuel Landry from Montreal, Qc), with obvious references to the work of ‘deteriorist’ William Basinski.