When you listen to this album you hear quiet (Indian) Music – tambur, oud, violin, slide guitar, flute – with an occasionally added non-indian touch (like the trumpet of Nils Petter Molvaer, or (REM’s) Bill Rieflin’s percussion).
But when you listen closely you will hear all kinds of things are happening behind this music.
Fragments and splinters bounce around like light in a house of mirrors (hence the title, of course).
I recently upgraded my audio system with the NAD C272 power amplifier. I was not quite happy with the standard (stereo) sound performance of the Cambridge Audio 540R surround receiver. A good surround receiver, but a bit flat in the standard stereo performance (though lot of people think otherwise, that’s why I chose this particular one). Reverting to a stereo system was no option for me, because I really enjoy surround music when playing movies or electronic multi-channel music.
By adding the C272 for extra power, the performance in playing ‘normal’ 2-channel music (which I still play 90% of the time) strongly enhanced, so I get ‘the best of two worlds".
The NAD power amplifier is stored out of reach, and has a convenient "Sleep/Wake" feature that activates the amplifier when receiving signal and makes it go into sleep mode when there’s no signal for 5 minutes.
But there’s a downside.
It’s been quite some time since my latest post to this weblog. Holiday time, the obligatory holiday trips …I obviously had a hard time…
But the new season has a promising start:
If you live near Utrecht, Holland you should keep an eye on the following events
(and if you don’t live in Holland but are interested still, keep an ear on the FOLIO webstream as linked below):
Sounds promising, doesn’t it?
On the ambient music mailing list (ambient@hyperreal.org), Stephen Fruitman recently dropped the term "piambient" as a description for ambient-piano recordings. This, inevitably, led to a list of ambient sub-genre definitions which I cannot resist to copy here:
Foambient = folky ambient
Skambient = idm-type ambient
Shambient = shamanic ambient
Harmbient = hard ambient
Oh!mbient = surprising ambient
Smarmbient = Intelligent ambient
Dumbient = Unintelligent ambient
Indumbient = industrial ambient
Dambient = dark ambient
Dimbient = slightly less dark ambient
Clambient = classically-tinged ambient
Trambient = traditional ambient
Grambient = ambient your gran might like
Mumbient = ambient your Mum might like
Flimflambient = insubstantial pretentious ambient
Jambient = ambient with an improv element.
Wambamthankyoumambient = a taxonomic domain into which you may conveniently place anything in a post-Bowie vein.
Nihilists may be referred to the Amnotbient list.
Third persons to Isbient.
Pluralists to Arebient
Minimalists to mbnt
(thanks Alan Lockett)
Ambien = non-habit forming ambient
(Brent Colflesh)
Ommbient = far eastern-tinged ambient
(Rob :: db)
Wombient – Drone ambient that simulates environments outside of the womb; music for the womb.
(Jacob Newman)
Well now I’m finally getting a map of the complete genre!
Please post your own valuable additions too.
Recently the Impakt festival in my hometown presented a ‘street’ version of the Dreamlines Project, originally created by Argentinian artist Leonardo Solaas for the internet. We’ve seen this kind of image-gathering trick done before (using Google or Flickr image collections), but never with results as beautiful as this!
As the information states: “Dreamlines is a non-linear, interactive visual experience. The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association.“
Yes – this is generative ambient art! It’s your visual companion to your ambient soundtrack.
So…start up the sound (by clicking the ‘play all available tracks’ above right), open up a new browser screen through the link below, enter some random keywords and enjoy….
Some examples? Just click here for the ambient association. Funny thing: entering four-letter words has equally aesthetic results (but with harsher colours). And just entering black is equally enchanting..
Thanks, Leonardo, for this beautiful vision.
Those of us that bought the original album back in 1981, would never have dreamt anything like this would ever be possible…:
To celebrate the re-release of Brian Eno & David Byrne’s “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” there’s an opportunity to remix two of the tracks yourself.
From the special remix website, you can download track-packs for “Help me Somebody” and “A Secret Life” and start working on them yourself.
Re-upload your mix, and you’re in..!
The ‘Luchtkastelen’ (Castles of Air) Festival focuses on new music for church organ. |The festival will feature organ performances, improvisation performances, as wel as performers ‘remixing’ classical organ recordings.
This follow up to the 2000 edition of this festival can be enjoyed on three days on different locations: April 22 in Utrecht, may 13 in Amsterdam and may 20 in Rotterdam.
Apart from all live performances, traditional church organ music will be remixed by Matthew Florianz, Arno Peeters and myself.
“Asma Morgana” is my deconstructed version “Andante Cantabile“, played by famous dutch musician Feike Asma. Mixed by … yours truly !! (Click ‘Read More’ to listen)
Check the website link for more information and program details in English.
[The remaining post is written in Dutch.]
2006 celebrates the 10th anniversary of a musical revolution that hardly anyone noticed.
In 1996, a company called SSeyo released the first version of their KOAN musical software. An incredible ingenious piece of work that introduced the concept of “Generative Music” – music that chooses it’s own path from a set of rules and parameters, and sounded slightly different every time it is played.
