ZYKLEN – DESIRE PATHS
I had not heard of Zyklen (Simon Ferris, from Devon, UK) before, even though he has released no less than 19 titles since 2017. The first 14 on his own personal netlabel novinyl.net, and some labels like Neotantra, Mare Nostrum and Chitra Records since 2022.
His latest album, Desire Paths, is the third release on the brand new Owl Totem Recordings – the ‘dark vibes division’ of Dronarivm.
Whether these are indeed ‘dark vibes’ is for the listener to judge – I did not experience this as ‘dark ambient’ myself at all. This is varied ambient, drawing inspiration from numerous sources: Ferris cites Loscil, Trent Reznor, Loop Guru, Pete Namlook, Michael Brook, Jean Michel Jarre, and Tangerine Dream as his sources of inspiration (among others).
Working from his home studio with a relatively compact setup, Zyklen can produce an immersive cinematic sound (Legend Of Cape Bojador), includes his voice for a chilling chant-like effect (Pytheas And The Frozen Ocean), or even a full (synthetic) choir arrangement when needed (Roanoke).
There’s not much background information about this album, but the quote about “The human obsession with exploring […], or simply discover what’s over the horizon’ tells you all you need to know about Zyklen‘s music.
Desire Paths is available on CD (ltd. 100) and digital.
DAVID MARGOLIN LAWSON & DAVID MERRILL – ANALOGUES
The New-York based recording engineers and sound designers David Margolin Lawson and David Merrill are used to working on all kinds of theatrical, orchestral, film projects, and live events. As a duo, they use that experience to create music celebrating their inspiration from ‘mid-century’ electronic composers. This refers to composers like Morton Subotnick, Éliane Radigue, Edgar Varèse, Iannis Xenakis, LaMonte Young, but also artists such as Vangelis, Steve Reich, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, and Jean-Michel Jarre.
Reading such a list usually suggests you’re in for a nostalgic trip with musicians keen on re-creating the music from that era as exactly as possible. But not in the case of Lawson & Merril. What struck me is that the influences of the artists and composers mentioned are definitely audible (the ‘pop’ artists somewhat more prominent than the composers by the way). At the same time, the duo manages to turn all those influences into their own blend, which is music from NOW as much as it uses nostalgic ‘mid-century’ elements and citations. Each of these long tracks (12-16 minutes each, except the 8-minute closing track) is a carefully crafted ‘sonic landscape that explores our macro and microcosmic relationship to time and place’.
The album title may suggest that mainly analogue synths were used, but that is not entirely true: Analogues is created with a mixture of vintage and modern analog and digital synthesizers with ‘a fair amount’ of electronic processing.
It’s the duo’s second album, following up Signals from 2022 which was also released on Neuma Records. I’m not familiar with that album, but after listening to Analogues I’ll definitely check out its predecessor too.
Unlike Signals, Analogues is a digital-only release.