2012, the year of Clubroot’s third album, which is the most stunning of the three. Songs blare bright and strong & each passes like the rising and setting sun, though that which trails the mass of sounds throughout suggest spaces so vast that the space the listener occupies will seem as wide as the Sahara, but with a gravity greater than Luna.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The sounds pick and pull, prying the listener to slip into the ephemeral places created by Dan Richmond’s colourful imagination. Choruses torrent over the towering bass, crystalline stabs flash rippling salutes, and the percussive hits leave their harmonic marks long after. This is deep music, marked by the sorts of wailings that one might expect, though there’s an unexpected, underlying tension to most of the songs. Though a near unfathomable weight dominates the scenes, the brightness of the colours carries the scenes away from mournful places and reaches towards… peace.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Resolutions are made as the thoughts in these songs are completed. Though movements sometimes seem to languish, the album fades quickly… and memory of the space trails after it’s set.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Following Mastura (and other albums), Master Margherita released Hippies With Gadgets. Approaching this product by Moreno Antognini with a straight face is difficult at best, though it’s clear within a few songs that this is a masterful artist at play. The music, all instrumental, is vibrant. The album presents a sneaky, dynamic mode. The rhythms move across a sphere of influences, tightly packed into a neat bowl & blasted with smooth delivery.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Since many of the songs have such a clearly set swing, Master Margherita is thoroughly entertaining when he breaks open the space in his dub-laden percussive mixes, giving plenty of room for the leading instruments to ripple along with his bubbly bass lines. Then, the beats stop all together.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Slower and slower, the album eventually fades into a hazy wash of strings and samples. All in all, this is a surprisingly mature release that has the potential for global appeal, at the grassroots level.
The sound of Sublamp stalks, naturally creepy. There is an industrial heaviness that weighs down on the environments conjured by Ryan Connor throughout the project. Serene soundscapes are marked by the drones of machinery that drill right through whatever waves that cross their paths. The drones, though not exceptionally dynamic, are deeply textured — there is a lot to explore In Our Hiding Voice.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Some sounds billow deep & wide waves while others grind out harmonics that echo throughout the dark chambers. Most of the tracks, like the sample of Dear Carpetfoot above, may seem scary at first, though as is anything unfamiliar. A close listen reveals that the space is well controlled, and through the ease-laden mix of massive walls of energy, one might easily turn any initial unease into a tranquil trip, observing what images Sublamp conjures within.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Though the album is not without tension. Girl, Calling to an Empty House, is a moving section, particularly when meditated on in reflection of its title. Though drone music as such is generally approached as experimental and abstract, one ought bear in mind that these abstractions are necessarily built upon something… . When passages like this one are constructed with a clear & present notion of what the abstract art is an abstraction of, then such art, like In Our Hiding Voice, hits its mark.
ASC, born James Clements, is a compelling & prolific artist whose passion for composition is clear. Over the years, his numerous releases have evolved from Drum & Bass and explore the boundaries of numerous styles. In an interview for Organic Beats in 2010, James said: “The lines between electronic music genres have become blurred in the last few years”, continuing, “I think my approach is definitely something that I’d consider uncategorised. I don’t try to fit in with any particular sound or style.” This album, The Light That Burns Twice As Bright released on Silent Season, is a shimmering, droning ambient crystal that anyone hearing it when looking for Drum & Bass would likely stumble and almost certainly pause to take in its stunning soundscapes.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The Silver Rain On Venus may be acidic, though ASC’s interpretation floats freely under the clouds. Deeply hidden in the pads and the occasional poke of a chord, it sounds as though there’s a chorus of creatures thriving through the heat. The hazy space is just brimming with sounds across the spectrum.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Though monotone, drone music, it’s hardly monotonous — the brilliant colours of songs like Low Clouds and I Need Rewiring bubble and blip through the atmospheres, which leaves the listener an incredibly rich array of sounds to stir the imagination. Each track is true to its title; the tranquil sounds are transports to their respective destinations. This is about as surreal as sound can get.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Beautiful, only occasionally weighty. ASC has formulated an excellent release in The Light That Burns Twice As Bright. Few ambient artists live up to this standard; it’s a sure sign of the worth of artists stepping outside their comfort zones to explore relatively novel areas. There are few drones as colourful as this, therefore this album is a must-listen.
Seph is one of those strange, sharp creatures whose magic spells tend to slip through some of the tightest blocks. Alquimia, the science of natural tricksters, bent with intent; the delusion is dangerously provocative. Seph has taken the lead of Dumb-Unit (an excellent purveyor of ominous techno), and morphed their generally gritty industrial path into a forest, still gloomy, but with marks glittering gold. Only a fool would miss its shine. Shine as it might, even a mighty album like this here hasn’t come close to hitting “gold” status (to be fair, the author is assuming here). Either, then, there are plenty of fools, or Seph is the biggest fool of all for putting in so much effort into a work of art that is so refined, and yet so unnatural that it would take no small amount of magic for people to lend their ears.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Sounds are shrouded with an ethereal force; bells mark passages replete with the gurgling, murmuring, and buzzing of beings small and large. They wake the creatures at the outset of the album. The kind of toll tuned for humans and trolls alike.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
What a wondrous environment these sounds would make at a dance, particularly the kinds set in forests paralysed by pools of radioactive waste & powered by force of will alone. It would take no less than a wizard to create the scene at hand, particularly out of the actual monuments that our civilizations are leaving behind.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Technology short-circuits and fails; failure is the memory that lasts as its destruction marks the last moment of its existence as such. The near mystical path of Alquimima observes this downfall, then awakens the spirits of the dead. The dead are collected and recreated into a harmonic abomination of technology and magic. This is a charming & chiming release, an excellent gift for all those hobby pseudo-scientists who fill their long days tending to their flocks…
Ronald L. Witherspoon is Buckethead, an awkward farm boy who picked up a guitar and would play along to drive-in movies he’d watch from afar. Buckethead is weird, though he shreds some good music there alright. Yup. Electric Sea is Buckethead’s 35th studio album. Not bad for a man who plays with a bucket on his head. Not bad at all.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Though the chords in his songs are simple, the textures he sets out are heavy with detail and emotion. The precision of his handiwork is clear; the sound is refined, really fluffy, and fun. Buckethead plucks and strums his electric strings with grace and ceaseless ingenuity. Technology is artfully employed, subtle effects like reverb and wah-wah shape the sound, adding depth and character, keeping things fresh and alive.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
On its own, Electric Sea offers a good glimpse of life in Bucketheadland. It’s rife with trusting, simple drama. Though it’s easy listening, it’s heavy in its spirit. Great listening for a quiet winter’s morning resting by a warm fire down on the modern farm — a momentary escape from the chicken slaughter.
