Tag: guitar

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Steiner; Andree+Mason; Listening Mirror; Yann Novak; Stenbit

In the Shortlist sections, I will mention the albums that I enjoyed listening to, but couldn’t find the time (or the right words) for a “full” review for. Still, I definitely think they deserve your attention, with ór without extra words!

Steiner - At of From a Distance

STEINER – AT OR FROM A DISTANCE
A remarkable cover that includes a remarkable album. Steiner (Stijn Hüwels from Belgium) has previously self-released a few albums, but this is his first for a ‘real’ label. Seven tracks blend in to one continuous, cinematic 35 minute mix.

ambient music, other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Eivind Aarset – Dream Logic

Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset will probably be known by many of you, just for his contributions to the music of artists like Nils Petter Molvaer, Arve Henriksen, David Sylvian.

When reading about his new solo album, the combination of some details made it clear to me that this was a release to look forward to:  

First: it is released on the ECM-label.
Second: it is co-produced and co-composed by Jan Bang.  
Third: it’s title is “Dream Logic” …

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Machinefabriek – Secret Photographs


Secret Photographs

Actually, I did send a mail to Machinefabriek thanking him for sending me this album, but also explaining him that I would pass on mentioning it – simply because I do not want to fill this weblog with alternating reviews of the same artists over and over again. 
(And there’s quite a lot of Machinefabriek on ambientblog already – just do a search to find out).

But I forgot Rutger Zuydervelt is one of the very few extremely prolific artists that manage to find an interesting angle for almost every new release.
Secret Photographs is no exception to that rule. It somehow crept up on me, I kept returning to it because the album seemed to reveal new details with every listen.

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Kyle Bobby Dunn – Bring Me The Head of KBD

Like his previous release on the same Low Point label (“A Young Persons Guide to KBD“ from 2010), Kyle Bobby Dunn‘s latest release is a 2 hour double album set with a title suggesting a somewhat bombastic “grandeur”.

But the sound on “Bring Me The Head of Kyle Bobby Dunn“ offers the opposite of what the title suggests.  “Drawing upon a love for emotional detailing and cinematically charged grandeur, these suites offer an apex in romantic, haunting and lonely bliss”. 

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Bernocchi, Budd, Guthrie – Winter Garden

If you are familiar with the works of Harold Budd together with Robin Guthrie  (Cocteau Twins) on earlier classics like Lovely Thunder, The Moon and the Melodies, The White Arcades and Before the Night Falls/After the Day Breaks, you will probably have a good idea what this new album sounds like.

Compared to these earlier albums, “Winter Garden” may hold no radical surprises. 
But in case of this particular album that is definitely meant as a positive remark: never change a winning formula, as they say!

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Marcus Mohall; Bvdub; Keith Freund; Anonymeye; Volkan Zorlu

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.


Hinna

Marcus Mohall – Hinna
Sometimes it is amazing to find the most beautiful sounds just floating around to be downloaded for free. Like these two short drone-tracks from the EP called “Hinna”  (“Catch”) by Marcus Mohall, from Sweden. 
Deep, spacious drones, based on field recordings, chords from a Nord Modular G1 and lots of reverb. These EP’s 20 minutes leave you wanting for more.


Bvdub - I Remember

Bvdub – I Remember (Translations of ‘Mørketid’)
“Translations” (not ‘remixes’) of the original 2007 album Mørketid‘ by Netherworld (Alessandro Tedeschi).
80 minutes of multi-layered washings referring to the period of the year “when the Arctic winter cold encases everything and the sun doesn’t rise over the horizon” – so what better label could there be for this release than Glacial Movements?!
The original work is used “as a base, and it is indeed interwoven in the translations, but my translations serve more as my own narratives on the memories and feelings his original work evoked. The translations are about memories… memories of dreams lost, and never fulfilled… but also the beauty in knowing that dreams exist…as whether they come true or not, it’s in their pursuit that life means anything.”

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Wil Bolton, Benjamin Dauer, Savaran, Roger Martinez, Karl Verkade

In this “shortlist” section, 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).

Melt cover

Wil Bolton – Melt
Another great release in the Rural Colours subscription series, perfectly timed for the spring and summer season.
“‘Melt’ is a single long-form track of warm, overlapping tones created with a toy keyboard, a synthesizer, analogue delay and looper pedals, and some minimal laptop processing. Glitches and signal problems were welcomed into the process, shrouding the fragmented yet lyrical keyboard melodies in a gentle mist of fuzz, clicks and hiss.”

Saturation Event

Benjamin Dauer – Saturation Event
“..A series of explorations in tape saturation – that place where the audio begins to slightly fall apart – not harsh digital distortion, but rather, that warm and blurry type of analog distortion only possible w/tape (or tape emulation). As you listen, at times the audio in the lower frequencies might fall apart while the upper register remains crystal clear. On others you might not notice anything but maybe the slightest hint of added analog warmth.”

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Ghost of 29 Megacycles – The Hummingbird Dream


hummingbird dream

The Ghost of 29 Megacycles (Australia) recently released a beautiful new EP-album called “The Hummingbird Dream”.

Though this is the second release under this name (following up “Love Via Paper Planes”  from 2009), the main part of this new album is a long drone solo recording by Greg Thaw on guitar, organ and field recording. 

Part 1 of this “delicate two song cycle born from sleepless nights, morning silence and sadness” starts with a guitar based drone, slowly deconstructing – until the morning breaks.