Tag: soundscapes

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Pleq, Spheruleus & Various – "A Silent Swaying Breath"

When they decided to work together on a charity fund-raising album “for those that has beenaffected by the recent unrest that ravaged cities across the country” (referring of course to the recent UK riots), Pleq (Bartosz Dziadosz) and Spheruleus (Harry Towell) chose a different approach.

Instead of asking fellow artists to contribute a complete track, they teamed up with SoundFjord (UK Sound Art Gallery), and started asking their (immense) network of ‘artists, musicians and the general public’ to contribute just a short (under one minute) sample for this project. 
Then they started working on these samples, creating this one hour album with twelve full length tracks.

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Penjaga Insaf – Sama Sadja

The opening track of ‘SAMA SADJA‘ , ‘Seimbang’, slowly unfolds reminiscent of a vintage Klaus Schulze track, but the similarity does not last for long. The album takes an unexpected turn, delving deep into Indonesian traditional culture, with fascinating and hypnotizing musical result.

It’s definitely no ‘roots music’ from Indonesia. But it’s not your average ambient drone, either!

ambient music, other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Human Greed – Fortress Longing

When waiting for this album to arrive, I have wondered about its strange subtitle: “The internal campaign for the safe and complete return of the sleeping egyptian to the desert”. 

How to prepare for an album about a sleeping egyptian craftsman, waiting endlessly in the British Museum, dreaming about his return to find rest under his lost ‘blanket of sand‘…?

I had no real doubts, of course, considering the preceding Human Greed albums, and Michael Begg‘s contribution to the Fovea Hex projects,  as well as his ‘Fragile Pitches’ collaboration project with Colin Potter.

But, to be honest, I was somewhat reserved about this album’s mythological theme and the effect it might have on the music.

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

Siddhartha Barnhoorn – Pillars of Light


Pillars of Light

“Pillars of Light” is Siddhartha Barnhoorn‘s first full album, but it can hardly be called a ‘debut’.

Although relatively young (born 1981 in Katwijk aan Zee, Holland), he has produced numerous film scores since 2004. Producing over 50 film scores in the last five years (!), not counting documentaries, trailers, commercials and other project, he obviously is not afraid of working hard too!

As a fan of atmospheric ambient music (which is not a strange thing when you’re a contextual composer), he decided to create his own independent album: “Pillars of Light“

ambient music, other-news, RECOMMENDATIONS

Janek Schaefer – Asleep at the Wheel…

Janek Schaefer’s website presents an impressive list of site-location projects that are very interesting to investigate, because they demonstrate Schaefer’s perfect balance of concept, visual and sound.
(A few of them, Unfolding and Extended Play, were presented on Ambientblog earlier).

As the Artist in Residence for the 2010 Milton Keynes International Festival, Schaefer presented “Asleep at the Wheel…’: a location project for which he completely transformed the deserted Sainsbury’s supermarket into a three-lane highway at night, a ‘ghost road of cars’, where the audio is played from the in-car sound systems. From the car seats, visitors could listen to presentations and interviews thematically dealing with sustainability and the future of the earth, and how we can be able to improve that future. 

“The exhibition is a thought provoking and immersive sound installation for multiple car radios, that contemplates our future. Exhibited in a vast disused supermarket, three-lanes of cars dissect the darkened interior, as the multiple hazard lights illuminate the space, revealing the finite road of our consumer driven daydream.”

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

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

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 Barrow Down

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

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.

ambient music, exclusives

Pleq – Ambientblog Mix

Ambientblog proudly presents a new “Guest mix”,  contributed by Bartosz Dziadosz a.k.a. Pleq. 

After reviewing his latest releases, I did not hesitate when Bartosz asked me if he could contribute a mix to the ambientblog podcasts.

This Pleq Ambientblog mix is not a mix of his own music, but a mix of Various Artists that gives great insight in the kind of music that inspires Pleq.

It kicks in fairly heavy with the high pitched noise of Go Koyashiki’s “Silhouette”, which when it suddenly drops feels like it has prepared your mind to ‘open up’ for the sounds to follow.

Bartosz’ mix balances the almost industrial electronic sounds with the more organic romanticism of (for example) Library Tapes, Max Richter and Spyweirdos.  

Before closing the mix, two previously unreleased tracks are included: a collaboration with Hakobune and another with Natalia Noeila Siebula.