The Slow and Steady Winter, Slow Dancing Society
From the fine folks in Australia at Hidden Shoal Recordings comes the latest release from Ambient Music Blog favorite Slow Dancing Society titled The Slow and Steady Winter.
It's quite nice stuff. Long, stretched out tracks with a lot of breathing room. Some towards the beginning of the record are rather dark, in a nice way. The tracks are generally atmospheric electric guitar ramblings with nice texture added throughout.
It's not a huge departure from 2006's The Sound of Lights When Dim, but if you liked that record, this one is definitely worth your time.
Plants And Hearts, Christopher Willits
Room40 has recently released a 3" CD single from San Francisco based drone-ist Christopher Willits titled Plants and Hearts. It's a single track of 21 minutes and 30 seconds of droning guitars and etc. Really nice stuff and great value as an eMusic download, if you're the kind of person who uses eMusic.
From the Room40 site:
Incorporating 4hz isochronic pulses and panning at the same frequency, this work encourages the formation of 4hz brainwave patterns associated with states of meditation, deep relaxation, enhanced creativity, light sleep and lucid dreaming.
Science! I don't know about any of that, but I'm listening to it while writing this blog post and I feel pretty ok.
Map in Hand, Seaworthy
I've written about 12k records and Taylor Deupree previously, and this week in the mail arrived a another record from the New York label, this time Australian three-piece Seaworthy's Map in Hand. Straight from the 12k Web site:
Seaworthy, a three piece collective that revolves around core member Cameron Webb as well as Sam Shinazzi and Greg Bird, was formed in early 2000 to explore melodic and experimental approaches to the construction (and unravelling) of minimalist sound scapes from looped guitar, warm drones, piano, electronics and field recordings.
It's a set of 12 tracks of really high quality guitar drones and loops. This is top-notch stuff. Subtle and sophisticated, which is sometimes what you don't get when it comes to guitar based ambient music these days. I'll admit I'm really no longer a fan of having to actually pay for a disc to be produced and shipped to me, but the disc is packaged rather tastefully and was accompanied by a nice postcard promoting label-mate Pjusk's sart, a record I like as well.
Related Seaworthy Profile at 12k Records Official Seaworthy Web site
One River, Scott Solter
One of the things that's nice about having a site like this is that someone who knows a whole lot more than you about things will find your site, and when you finally find out about the fact that they found your site, you get to take advantage of all the knowledge they've dumped onto the web over the years.
This happened this past week, via the excellent Asphalt Eden. The result is that I found out about One River, a 2006 release by Scott Solter.
Solter is a San Francisco based artist and studio engineer, and One River is an outstanding piece of ambient music. It stands up against any of the best drones from Stars of the Lid, Loscil, Eluvium, and etc. If you like only half of the stuff I talk about on this site, then you need to get yourself a copy of One River promptly.
Related Alphalt Eden Blog One River at Tell-All Records Scott Solter Bio at Tell-All Records
The Prepared Piano, Hauschka
The Prepared Piano from German artist Hauschka is quite a nice bit of piano music. Melodic and then dissonant in equal parts, it works as background music and still rewards close listening. From Hauschka's official site:
Hauschka is the alias of Dusseldorf?based pianist / composer Volker Bertelmann, whose work is based upon an exploration of the possibilities of the 'prepared' piano - a playfully disruptive intervention into the preconceived idea of the piano as a pure-toned, perfected instrument waiting for a gifted virtuoso to play on it.
Worth a listen, regardless of whether your taste in ambient tends towards the electronic or the "natural."
Scattered Practices, Ezekiel Honig
I mentioned Early Morning Migration a while back, the Ezekiel Honig and Morgan Packard collaboration. Well, lately I've been listening to Honig's 2006 release Scattered Pieces, and it's work of really nice quiet electronic sounds. It sounds like what I imagine a laundromat sounds like at 3am. Just quietly pumping along, and if you listen closely the dryers actually do sound different as the clothes get closer to dry.
Related Ambient Music Blog: Early Morning Migration, Ezekiel Honig & Morgan Packard Ezekiel Honig Wikipedia entry Ezekiel Honig MySpace profile
Air Curtain, Fourcolor
Speaking of 12k records, Air Curtain by Japanese artist Fourcolor is a superb record. Nice rolling textured melodies which a touch of blips and tech sounding glitch playing subtly in the background. Really quality stuff, especially for those of you who tend to listen to more of the electronic end of things.
Northern, Taylor Deupree
Taylor Deupree runs 12k records, and he makes some rather nice ambient music himself. Northern is a record full of long drones and meandering, glitch-like sounding tracks. The songs have quite a bit of nuance and texture to them and grow into themselves over time. I'm finding the record works nicely played through as well as it does when you're pulling tracks out at random throughout the day. Highly recommended if you're into the more electronic end of the ambient music spectrum.
Related Taylor Deupree MySpace Profile Taylor Deupree Bio at 12k records
Somnia, Greg Davis
A really nice recent find is Somnia by Grey Davis. Six tracks of quiet atmospherics and synthy drones. The shortest track clocks in at 4:02, and track 4, Campestral (version 2) is over 22 minutes in length. The record is full of nice long tracks that are really quite good at fading into the background.
I picked up a few other records from Davis recently as well, and they're quite good. I'll likely have something to say about them around here shortly. In the meantime, have a listen to his work, it's really top-notch stuff.
Early Morning Migration, Ezekiel Honig & Morgan Packard
Occasionally, in the back of my mind, I get the feeling that I'm screwed because it turns out I've already listened to all the good ambient music, and I've got nothing new to write about here. The feeling is a bit silly, obviously, as is embarrassingly made clear to me as I stumble upon a record or artist I've never heard of before and am promptly blown away.
This happened to me a few days ago when I discovered Early Morning Migration, by Ezekiel Honig & Morgan Packard. It's a collaboration, except they didn't create the tracks together. Six are by Honig, and 5 are by Packard. The result is a long, slow, beautifully sad record full of subtlety and texture. This is really nice stuff, and I've already tracked down other work from both of these artists, about which there will be more here in the near future.
Related Ezekiel Honig Wikipedia entry Ezekiel Honig MySpace profile
Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd
On the recommendation of a reader, I recently picked up two new records by Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd, Before The Day Breaks and After The Night Falls. I'm familiar with Budd's work, specifically his collaboration with Brian Eno on Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror. I've also got Budd's The White Arcades. I like both of those records, and had heard good things about Budd's collaboration with Guthrie in the past, so I figured these would be right up my alley.
These two records have a similarity about them. And by that, I mean they sound like Harold Budd. Big, roomy, reverby sounding keys and guitar, but all muted and flattened a bit to sound like you're listening to something just off in the distance. Or, maybe, what it would be like to listen to another record under water.
The two records are apparently meant each meant to be a counterpoint to the other, and you can see this in the titles of the tracks, i.e. track 1 on Before The Day Breaks is "How Close Your Soul" while track 1 on After The Night Falls is "How Distant Your Heart." I created a playlist that positions the corresponding tracks from the two records together and you can hear the kind of call and response going on.
These are two very nice records, and if you have any interest in Budd's work, or if you like his previous work, which many consider to be prototypically "ambient," then you'd be wise to have a listen to these records.
Marsen Jules
Marsen Jules is the alias of Martin Juhls, a German electronic musician. Back in January I downloaded Les Fleurs and found it fairly interesting. It mixes glitchy tech sounds and instrumentation with longer melodies and atmospheric sounds.
So when I came across a copy of the recently released follow up to Les Fleurs, Golden, I figured it would be worth a listen. Turns out I was right. It's more of the subtle glitchy sounds I liked in Les Fleurs, along with spare acoustic guitar melodies. And it's a bit more "electronic" sounding than some of the records I've been listening to lately, so it's a refreshing change of pace to all the piano and orchestration. You might call Golden minimal, but it certainly does not lack atmosphere or texture.
Juhls also produces and performs as krill.minima. Checkout the Marsen Jules site for more information and some free mp3 downloads.
Related Official Marsen Jules site Marsen Jules MySpace profile
Soundtracks, Part 4: Asche & Spencer, Monster's Ball
Part 4 of the soundtrack series is the soundtrack for Monster's Ball, composed by Asche & Spencer. There's a two things that make this record interesting. The first is, of course, the music. The tracks are quiet, but striking. A consistent theme, figuratively and literally, stretches across the work, but each "song" has it's own melody, its own contribution to the whole. It's a great listen for a quiet summer afternoon, as a thunderstorm approaches and you're considering where you might have left your flashlight.
The second interesting thing is that this record was recorded buy what amounts to an advertising agency. Asche & Spencer is a Minneapolis based agency that composes music for number of different mediums, from film to television commercials to software. Their approach is collaborative, and despite what their name seems to say, there's way more than 2 people working on the music. In face, Mark Asche, the Asche of Asche & Spencer, is no longer part of the company. It's a really interesting way of working, and somehow they find a way of avoiding compromise until there's no point of view in a collaborative environment. These guys aren't just making cute ad jingles, they're producing first-rate art. Really nice stuff, highly recommended.
This interview and short video give nice insight into how Asche & Spencer works.
Related Soundtracks, Part 1: Michael Brook, An Inconvenient Truth Soundtracks, Part 2: Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson & Sigur Ros, Angels of the Universe Soundtracks, Part 3: Cliff Martinez, Solaris Ambient Music Blog: Video: Making the Music for “Monster’s Ball” Having a Ball! - An Interview with Composer Thad Spencer of Asche & Spencer
You Who Pretend To Sleep, Joy Wants Eternity
I first mentioned Seattle post-rock band Joy Wants Eternity a few weeks back. Since then, I've acquired their second release, You Who Pretend To Sleep, and I quite like it. There's some standard post-rock type instrumental rocking going on here, but in addition there's some quieter, spacier tracks that really add some nice texture and keep the record from feeling like too much of a one trick pony. As in: loud rocking, quiet rocking, repeat until there's no space left on the CD.
If you like Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, and all the rest, you'll definitely like this. If I had a car and drove, this is the kind of record I'd listen to on the highway late at night.
Related Official Joy Wants Eternity Site Joy Wants Eternity MySpace Profile Ambient Music Blog: must you smash your ears before you learn to listen with your eyes, Joy Wants Eternity
Kurr, Amiina
I finally got my hands on the new Amiina record Kurr via eMusic, and I have to say I really like it. There are a few holdout tracks from previous EP's Seoul and AnimaminA, but on the whole the songs on this full-length record are more refined, a bit more pop-ish, some even with nice melodic hooks and bridges.
I hate to say it, but some of the tracks sound like they're destined for Volkswagen commercials. If you're into strange, but not to strange, Icelandic music like me, this is definitely a record to get. And if you're a bit put off by some of the weirdness of their previous work, this Amiina release is certainly more accessible.
Related Amiina MySpace Profile Official Amiina Site Amiina Wikipedia Entry
Piano Solos, Vol. 2, Dustin O'Halloran
I had mentioned Dustin O'Halloran's Prelude 2 a few weeks ago, and that record reminded me that I hadn't yet picked up O'Halloran's Piano Solos, Vol. 2. It's not available via eMusic, so I added it to an Amazon order and it arrived this past week. I've been listening to it quite a bit. I don't have much to say about it, but if you like piano music, or O'Halloran's work specifically, this record does not disappoint.
If you're not familiar with O'Halloran, his first record Piano Solos is a great place to start. You can also stream a number of tracks from his official Web site.
Related Ambient Music Blog: Prelude 2, Dustin O'Halloran Official Dustin O'Halloran Site Dustin O'Halloran MySpace Profile
The Solaris Project
I received a pre-release copy of some tracks by a Seattle-based duo by the name of The Solaris Project recently. They create long, interesting drones with guitar and koto. The tracks were all recorded live, with minimal post-production fussing with. The result is some really top-rate ambient music.
No news just yet on when they'll have tracks available for purchase or download, but in the meantime head over to their MySpace profile where you can stream 3 of tracks from the disc I received. I'm looking forward to hearing more from these guys.
Soundtracks, Part 3: Cliff Martinez, Solaris
I started this series back in February, and then I kind of ran out of steam. Well, I've been listening to some more soundtracks lately, and so I thought this is as good a time as any to pick back up and put out part 3.
I don't really remember how I came across the Solaris soundtrack, but I've been listening to it for well over a year now and it's one of my favorites. I haven't seen the film, but the music Martinez wrote and produced for it is full of wonderful tension. It feels mostly like something is always rising, and we never really get to the point where anything is resolved.
Despite this fact, I do find it to be a record that's quite comfortable to listen to, whether it's droning away unnoticed in the background, or I'm actively listening to it on a stereo or through headphones. It's particularly nice early in the morning, just before it's completely light out. A real nice listen all around. Highly recommended. Stay tuned for more soundtrack reviews, as I've got a few more queued up.
Related Soundtracks, Part 1: Michael Brook, An Inconvenient Truth Soundtracks, Part 2: Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson & Sigur Ros, Angels of the Universe
Standing on a Hummingbird, Mark Templeton
I'm usually not a big fan of glitchy type stuff. I find it a bit distracting, and for me a big part of good ambient music is that I sometimes don't even know it's playing. Mark Templeton's Standing on a Hummingbird has a fair amount of glitch in it, but strangely I find it to be comfortable. There are melodies and textures weaving around, and just as one is fragmented, the tension is relieved with something altogether different, like found sounds or new instrumentation. It's nice stuff, so please have a listen.
Here's a few mp3 downloads from previous work: Continue Later, Frail as Breath Drama Section, Frail as Breath
More available at fieldsawake.com/media.html
Related Mark Templeton MySpace Profile Mark Templeton Official Site