In Place of Dreary Patterns

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Archive for category 4 stars

Ultra United - (2002) Ultra Audience (****)

Jul 5

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Electronic Music, Noise, Reviews | No Comments

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Ultra Audience is the sole document of ambient / noise group Ultra United, and thus evidently quite the labor of love.  There is a lot of passion in these 9 tracks, each which is accompanied by a  picture or short poem in the beautiful, colorful booklet, raising the question of whether the album is meant to follow some kind of vague, abstract concept.  The poems are often in stilted, cliched rhymes, but they lend a very personal air to the music and overall the packaging is undoubtedly marvellous.  I spotted a used copy in a local record store, having never heard of this group or album, instantly gravitated towards it and ended up buying it.  For something by a group so obscure and likely made on a low budget, it sure looks great.

Many groups that blend the genres of ambient and noise are jam bands of sorts, letting abrasive textures take over their music when it suits the flow of the improvisation.  This is where “Ultra Audience” differs…  it is obviously solitary, composed music, and is almost totally focused on textures of sound as expressors of emotions.  Which movements on the album should employ volume and harshness has been carefully chosen.  Accompanied by the poetry inside the booklet the message, the album seems to say, “This is how I have felt during my life.  Listen, and if it’s unpleasant…  Now you know how it was for me”.  So much ambient music focuses on the cosmic, but this musician is not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve.  The poems reference the happenings of a life we have no hope of further access to, but leave the music with this general sense of significance in the context of a life.  The unfortunate side effect is a certain angsty cheesiness in the vein of the woman sexily exhaling cigarette smoke on the cover, but this can be mostly avoided if you put the booklet down.

Each track is its own notably different textural realm, separated from the others by at least 10 seconds of silence. Some of the noise tracks simply rest in a suspended state, (”From Consciousness to Nowhere” and “The Volunteer”, accompanied in the booklet with the phrase ‘life in a locked groove’) mimicing the feeling of being stuck in a depressive rut.  These are the album at its most unpleasant.  One can feel they endure the noise, a humourless grey sheet that brings back every dismal rainy day, for a reason.  This is not a nihilistic album, as is obvious in the very dramatic synth pieces (similar in style to Vidna Obmana, vintage Steve Roach or even some old Skinny Puppy instrumentals), like “The Quiet Riot” and “Sunset”.  These tracks have wonderful, sensitive melodies, but are few and far between on this album.  “Physical Initiation”, with its abrupt lurch into static life, is a well placed opening gesture.  “Scrape the Sky” contains aggressive analog synth squalls that are like a storm.  Only “The Incendiary Lover”, led by a needlessly distorted synth line that makes the track sound incredibly cheap and sequenced, really gets any criticism from me.

The noise textures are not volatile bursts of furious feedback, rather they are cold digital distortion created through DSP.  They have less depth than analog noise often does, and on their own, the sounds are rather uninteresting, but by the end of each of the rather lengthy tracks they are densely intertwined in such a way as to be mesmerizing to me, although they may still be unlistenable to some people.  I feel the dullness of the textures reflects the stagnation of desensitization and apathy.  As Maurizio Bianchi said, sound “to work on complete realising of the modern decadence”.  The highlight of the album for me is the absolutely transcendent closer “Snow Muzak” which after beginning with 4 minutes of silence, uses its digital cleanliness to evoke an unnaturally simple, glistening surreal dimension not too far removed from the work of Gas or Oval.

“Ultra Audience” is a solid album that succeeds in bringing the genre of ambient to a more personal, immediate and narrative place, as well as integrating it with elements of digital noise.  It had to grow on me, as it’s very slow moving music.  Fans of minimal ambient music should pick this up if they see a copy.  4 stars.

Scorn - (1997) Logghi Barogghi (****)

Jun 15

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Dub / Chillout, Electronic Music, Reviews, Sampling / Instrumental Hip Hop | No Comments

scorn-logghi-barogghi

Regardless of what I say about it now, Scorn’s 5th album “Logghi Barroghi” is destined to be dismissed as just another in a long string of minimalist dark ambient beats.  In my opinion, it does distinguish itself from the others - it is one of the most unfriendly, minimal and alienating albums I know, and certainly the most ‘out there’ Scorn release to date.  Though it is hard to enjoy, it has the rare distinction of being a musical enigma.

Even by the standards of the always dismal Mick Harris, “Logghi Barogghi” represents a particularly deep and bizarrely unfamiliar circle of hell.  Its tone is one of nameless fear and confusion.  The messy, hallucinogenic red blur on the cover, like the vision of a individual massivelty inebriated at the point of despair and black out, staggering down a threatening and alien city street in the night, proves the perfect image for the drugged disoriented terror that is this album.  In a way it is more unsettling than his spacier ambient works as Lull because it brings the darkness back into the context of our urban everyday world with the organic sounds of the drums and bass.  These familiar timbres keep the listener grounded, prevent this album from providing the psychedelic escape into peaceful abstraction of space ambient.  Instead, it comes across as very dystopian.

These rough break beats fall into what at first seem to be sluggish hip hop grooves but soon morph into shambling mantras as layers and layers of rhythmic electronic ambience are quietly and systematically added.  The impatient listen will start to wonder around the 3 minute mark when the main hook / theme of the track will be introduced, only to be disappointed when the song ends 3 minutes later without ever resorting to anything of the kind.  Listeners able to immerse themselves in the subtle polyrhythms of these carefully constructed loops will find themselves drooling.  For those with time, this is a sublimely rhythmic experience.  Nobody can make a loop feel ’spiral shaped’ quite like Mick Harris.

Apparently, vocal samples cannot reach this abyssal plane without becoming stretched and mutilated into garbled nonsense.  Indeed, no words can really describe the emotion on this disk and would thus only cheapen it.  The sound palette here is incredibly stark; nearly every sound is muffled, chopped up, distorted and then muffled again, sometimes in very arbitrary and chaotic (yet emotional ways), resulting in a very gritty sounding production.  No sound can hold together for long.  The bass lines commonly utilize ungodly low frequencies, and may not even be audible on some lower budget systems.

“Spongie”, which is dominated by the sound of a whining mosquito turned drone, stands out as especially bizarre.  “Out Of” gets points for containing the closest thing on the album to a nice cleansing spliced break beat solo ala Aphex Twin or Venetian Snares.  “Black Box II” is refreshing with its sparkling high frequencies.  Mostly, though, as with every Scorn album since it became a solo project with 1995’s “Gyral”, the tracks, while all good, keep a very consistent sound throughout the album.  After you’ve heard a few songs, the rest of the album won’t surprise you.

All in all, a solid and unique Scorn album.  It is definitely possible to listen to “Logghi Barogghi”, though I feel that to really allow yourself to be absorbed into it is to willingly descend into some sort of psychological dead end.  Listen at your own risk.  4 stars.

Jute Gyte - (2009) Subcon (****)

Jan 18

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Electronic Music, Industrial, Reviews | No Comments

jute-gyte-subcon1

As much as they may try to distinguish themselves, the obscure Jute Gyte clearly belongs to the recent wave of lo-fi “progressive” noise, a genre that blends various extreme electronic subgenres that perhaps all share a certain spirit - the completely freeform, ’sound without association’ style of CCCC and Merzbow with the power electronic of Whitehouse; the early martial industrial rhythms and tape loop techniques of Laibach, SPK and NoN; the hellish soundscapes and brooding, deceptively quiet malevolence of Lustmord or vintage Nurse With Wound.  These groups, in their day, represented a purity, a directness of attitude and approach.  They were honest, they made me no compromises, and they had little sympathy for the listener.  They cared nothing for listenability or reasonable pacing.  All this was sacrificed so that they could stand apart from all other forms of expression.

With the blending of subgenres found in groups such as Jute Gyte and Wolf Eyes, this purity is lost.  As a result, this group is less distinct than any of the aforementioned by pioneers. However, the music is ultimately more listenable and musical than any of those groups.  Few would deny the thought and structure present on this release, but it becomes predictable.  It’s closer to the realm of music most of us are used to.  It’s also lost a large portion of its organic immediacy.

The sluggish hypnotic loop is Subcon’s weapon of choice - disjointed, synthetic grooves usually created primarily with gritty, washed out synths and samples rather than actual drum machines.  The repetition can be initally disappointing, but it’s a great album for meditative states and just plain zoning out.  The nature of the loops also unfortunately suggests that the album was sequenced, rather than performed.  Without this human feel, a lot of immediacy is missing from the compositions.  To be fair, sterility may be the point; in any case, it is certainly not avoided.  By being sterile they seem to express a lonely certain desensitization.  Often a strength of noise music, however, is that one cannot tell how it was created, or what the source material could be, and “Subcon” seems to remind you often that it was programmed on a laptop.  On the other hand, the loops themselves were thoughtfully composed, and are often quite effective.  The compositions themselves are filled with interesting ideas, and the dramatic logic with which they unfold is near-perfectly timed and convincingly alien.  “Subcon” posesses a unique and interesting rhythmic sensiblity.  Groups like this sometimes rely on their anonymity, the inhumanity of their music and cryptic, occult inspired artwork to add a feeling of false importance to their work, but I’m happy to report these tracks do indeed contain substance.

The more aggressive noise washes found on many of the tracks sadly fail to impress, due to the cheap, digital sound of the distortion and the aforementioned audible presence of triggered notes.  It’s hard to lose yourself within a womb of sound when the sound has so little spatial depth, as well.  Most tracks that reach full tilt here would have benefitted from having these sections removed.  At slightly quieter volumes, however, Jute Gyte creates their best textures.  These mangled and granulated synths buzz with an enchanting dusty resonance.

The best example of this is the best track on the album, 9 minute opener “Lung”, a track with some real dynamics and intelligent use of space.  “Pure”, while overly repetitious and predictable, has some beautiful harmonious processed voice sounds, pitched down to fit the murky, muffled sound of the album.  Then follow several less impressive noise tracks which vary little within their durations and contain few interesting sounds, although they do well at creating a sort of drained, watery melancholy, especially “Rain”, which sounds like a storm and actually contains rain samples.  It is as if with each repetition of the loop, the listener drifts further from some distant hope.  The album gets a few points for “Days”, a 10 minute ode to lethargy with little in the way of progression, but plenty of vintage dark ambient charm.  Along with the next track, “Sign”, it sounds not unlike a vintage Throbbing Gristle track slowed down and run through a granular synthesizer.  The rhythm and tonal quality are similar, but the sounds themselves have been processed into a metallic, synthetic mulch and bear little relation to the analog synths and tape loops of old.  “Sign” is a more active track.  A sound reminiscent of the muffled growl of some massive creature trapped underwater makes it a highlight.  Both “Days” and “Sign” are better off for never reaching higher volumes.  Final track “Weep” is a magnficent and mysterious buildup, climaxing in a thick wash of flute tones and bassy murk echoing into infinity.  It’s powerful and achingly emotional.

In conclusion, this is a solid record.  It avoids cliche, and has some tracks that are truly worth hearing.  It also contains some fairly forgettable material.  It is not essential, but I enjoyed the band’s aesthetic enough that I’ll definitely check out their other records.  Overall, I’d recommend this album to anyone who’s been enjoying this rennaissance of DIY progressive noise and ritual ambient groups, and is looking for more music in that vein.  Most criticism I could apply to this record would apply to aspects that could easily have been intentional stylistic decisions on the part of the band.  “Subcon” creates a world, and the fact that it remains spatially two dimensional is part of its lo-fi charm.  4 stars.

COH - (2007) Super Suprematism (****)

Dec 28

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Avant Garde, Electronic Music, Reviews | No Comments

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Having just acquired some seriously nice studio monitors for christmas, I thought I’d christen them by listening again to COH’s 2007 limited release “Super Suprematism” (only 33 copies!).  I’ve heard this album many times, but it has a certain quality many noise albums have, which is that they are enjoyable when playing, but very hard to recall after the fact.  Not to say this is noise - COH’s trademark blips clicks, delicately textured synths and subtle spacial atmospherics and panning are still arranged into rhythms, beats and song structures, but it’s true that they’ve gotten more abstract.  The title seems to apply not specifically to the album but to COH’s style in general; I wouldn’t say the change in direction is a particularly more ’suprematist’ one.  COH has recently been diversifying and actually become more accessible, a word few would apply to any group on the Raster Noton roster..  2006’s “Above Air” was an ambient departure, much less cold and mechanical than previous work.  2007’s “Strings” delves into acoustic instrument sounds, processed through Pavlov’s unique methods.  Much like 2006’s “Patherns” EP, “Super Suprematism” represents the perfection and maturation of his older ideas, and thus is not in the least bit accessible.  Still, if you found any of his work to have beautiful textures and a soundworld pleasing in how starkly empty, clean and perfect it is, you will likely enjoy this album.

More than past albums, “Super Suprematism” demands silence and patience.  It sounds like Pavlov is taking cues from his one time collaborator Richard Chartier (see 2005’s “Chessmachine”) or label mate Ryoji Ikeda.  Pavlov seems to have tired of the simple, metric pulses that dominated his earlier work.  Rhythm seems spontaneous and subconscious…  It is not consistent enough to say there is a ‘tempo’.  The buzzing energy and life found in much of his early work is not here.  It could not be played as a noise record.  It might piss someone off, but there is no aggression.  Where past work would sometimes disorient the mind with chaotic density, this album gently and slowly drags you into an ordered yet truly bizarre world.  The transitions and movements of the songs are slower.  2005’s “Post-pop” was already moving in this direction.

One gets the impression that the placement of each sine wave drone, bell and sub bass wash is more perfect than ever.  It evokes surfaces and worlds impossibly smooth, clean and polished like the sounds themselves.  The drones still possess the familiar warmth that made his piece for Raster Noton’s “20′ to 2000″ series, “Into Memories of S-tone”, so great.  “08″ is a perfect example of this.

Certain human emotions have a way of creeping their way into COH, despite it being the purest of avant garde.  Anticipation is one.  Other albums contain fear, sadness, loneliness, blissful peace, calm.  On this album, though, a sensation of emptyness, clearness and stillness, which is not exactly ‘emotion’, seems to be the real point.

The final track “10″ or “Super Suprematism”, is the only catchy song on the record.  It has an interesting processed vocal part repeating the title, and something you might call a chord progression or bassline.  The sound here is beefed up with enough different frequencies to almost pass as some sort of processed instrument, and yet one knows it is not.  For a few short minutes, the album almost ‘rocks’.  It’s a great track, one of Pavlov’s most likeable.

In conclusion, I am glad that while COH breaks ground and attempts new styles with other releases, he still stops to make releases like this.  It’s not the most listenable COH album, but it’s an absolutely solid addition to the catalogue.  COH is always a mind-expanding experience, and remains my favorite Raster Noton artist.  4 stars.

Merzbow - (2008) Protean World (****)

Sep 23

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Electronic Music, Noise, Reviews | No Comments

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As usual with Merzbow albums, “Protean World” is about energy and texture.  This recent release is ferocious, free form, and seriously loud.  Most of those aspects are present in a typical Merzbow release, but what sets apart “Protean World” is its monotony, the complete lack of change or dynamics.  It’s one massive, cleansing blast.  It’s overwhelmingly dense and thick; it’s difficult to tell the layers apart or even the number of layers present.  The layers don’t even really seem intended to mesh or sync up, exactly.  This album is actually a lot more layered, chaotic and full of sound than even a lot of the classic Merzbow albums that are known for being relentless and harsh, such as Pulse Demon.  It might be the most relentless album I’ve ever heard from him.  It completely surrounds you, like a howling wind.

“Protean World” abandons rhythm more totally than any album I’ve heard of his, despite being the first Merzbow album I’ve heard to include live drumming (although I know he’s done a lot of experimenting with that on other recent releases as well).  In the past, there was usually at least some kind of rhythmic feedback loop or shakey pulse present in the mix.

Most of these comments apply primarily to Side 1, as Side 2 has a little more dynamic range and a few more rhythmic elements, although it still completely retains the overwhelmingly dense, layered feeling of Side 1.  Compositionally, I prefer Side 2, but for a screaming, enveloping catharsis, it’s hard to beat Side 1.  Few, if any, musicians do this as well as Masami Akita.

“Protean World” is definitely not going to convince any detractor of noise that Merzbow is ‘music’.  In fact, even seasoned Merzbow fans may be hard pressed to find the musicality in these cacophonous 35 minutes.  Basically, whether you’ll enjoy this album depends on what you look for in music, and what you look for in a Merzbow album.  There is some serious intensity here.  It can be easily interpreted as angry and violent, but in the end it’s just the sound of power, pure energy.  If you’re in a bad mood and catharsis is what you want, this will do you just fine.  It has less of that meditative quality that even Merzbow’s harshest material has often had, but I still don’t feel like the energy of the album is truly negative or dark.

I do wonder about the aesthetic pleasing but possibly ominous splintered wood in the album art.  If I had to analyze it, I’d say it looks like a building that’s been destroyed by a natural disaster like a tornado or a hurricane.  The idea of the subservience of civilization and man-made things to something so powerful as extreme weather seems a fitting theme for an album such as this.

In conclusion, this is an interesting Merzbow album that I enjoy listening to.  It’s not essential, and it’s not one of his best, but then again it’s so specialized towards a certain idea that it’s destined to be one of those albums that’s meant for certain occasions only.  4 stars.

Robert Rich - (1983) Drones (****)

Aug 11

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Ambient, Electronic Music, Reviews | No Comments

Robert Rich - Drones (Cassette)

Following “Sunyata”, the long form, beatless spacy pieces would continue for the following pair of albums, “Trances” and “Drones”, both released on cassette in 1983.  Each contains two pieces around half an hour in length.  They still have that time-eating ’sleep concert’ feeling, as well as the youthful, raw intensity of their predecessor album.  First to be discussed is “Drones”…

With opener “Seascape”, Rich created his first real masterpiece.  Half an hour of sound that may have been improvised, but regardless creates a coherent world.  Mournful, wandering, anxious thoughts rush quietly over the sounds of shore in the form of warm synth chords.  Song title and sound have combined to become Rich’s first real theme piece.  It’s a song for a sunset on the coast, sketched, it would seem, by someone with plenty of demons and preoccupations.   The dark, unsettling feel of “Sunyata” continues here.  The production is the same thick, soupy murk.  This time, however, Rich seems to have a clearer idea of what he’s going for.  By the end of the piece, we’ve drifted a long way from where we started.  A pure, resonant guitar echoes across the surface of the water from miles away, the first inkling of the ambient guitar sound he’d use so much in later years.  “Seascape” fades out.

The other piece from the original release, “Wheel of Earth”, is a lot more static, and reminds me of watching clouds pass slowly overhead.  The whooshing, airy sound of the song, as well as its overall pacing, are very reminiscent of clouds, and recall Steve Roach’s work.  Hauntingly slow, lonely synth notes ring like sirens in the mist.  A feeling of hugeness is achieved.  It’s not as emotionally involving as “Seascape”, but still transports the listener, and hypnotizes the listener the same way as can the gradual movement of the clouds.  A solid track, although modern technology has helped this kind of thing greatly in the last couple decades.  Just check out Steve Roach and Vidna Obmana’s “Well of Souls” double album to see what I mean.

The third track, the shorter, 12 minute “Resonance”, is only available on the double disk reissue, but since that’s the only edition available anymore, most people will hear this track.  The song is what its title indicates, pretty much - a cold, distant, resonant hum, evoking industrial machines with their hums and whirs, but so far underwater that theor sounds are rounded, faint, more like ghosts.  It’s an uneventful, simple but remarkably dark piece.

In conclusion, “Drones” contains 3 solid tracks that all explore different realms in their lengthy running times.  If all 3 tracks were as powerful as “Seascape”, it would easily be a 5 star album, but as it is, I would say it deserves a 4 in its original form, and a 4.5 with the addition of “Resonance”, which, unlike “Wheel of Earth”, does not overstay its welcome, or feel at all dated.  I recommend this to anyone interested in Rich, but it shouldn’t be the first album of his they hear.  Only “Seascape” is among his best work.

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Venetian Snares - (2009) Filth (****)

Aug 3

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Electronic Music, IDM / Glitch, Reviews | No Comments

Venetian Snares - Filth

“Filth”, Venetian Snares’ latest record as of this moment - another thematic one - is refreshingly, unapologetically abrasive.

With this record, Funk lets himself wallow in the ‘filth’, the seedy underbelly of our society, and makes no attempt at sophistication.  Most of the album is incredibly fast, dissonant, and frantic, the song names pornographic and obscene.  The record does at times allow itself to be sensitive, such as in the signature, chiming melodies of opener “Deep Dicking”, but even then the tone is always lonely, isolated and emotionally unstable, recalling the ‘exploring a long abandoned attic’ feel of “Winter in the Belly of a Snake” or the straight up horror of another of his darkest records, “Doll Doll Doll”.

Summarily, the album feels like the most self destructive drug (stimulant) binge imagineable, taken further and further without any thought of self preservation.  It is the sound of desperation and extreme densensitization.  The rhythms will make you sea sick, attempting to dance will end in a heart attack or with your face flat on the floor.

But this is not Funk’s typical breakcore.  Funk’s favorite genre is now apparently acid, and what better to express the restlessness of a stimulant high?  The squalling, babbling basslines ramble with twice the insanity of any original early 90’s acid, the insanity only heightened by Funk’s penchant for time signatures.  If this is acid, it’s some pretty hard acid.  And the pieces are as complex as ever.  For sheer unpredictability of rhythm, little can match this album.  Aphex Twin’s “Analord” was a solid and competently produced entry into the genre of acid; “Filth” actually takes it in new directions.

There is one thing about the album though - every track really is extremely similar.  The formula described above doesn’t vary too much…  With similar tempos and acid techno timbres in every song, the tracks only begin to distinguish themselves upon many repeated listenings.  Only “Mongoloid Alien”, with its processed vocal, and “Kimberly Clark”, with its memorable fuzzed out bassline, manage to be at all catchy.  This and the constant, tense unease which permeates the album, seemingly on purpose, make it really difficult to listen to unless you really do have THAT much energy to expend.

In conclusion, “Filth” is an interesting and complex record that, while unique, suffers from a certain lack of listenability.  I’ve grown to enjoy the album a lot, but you’ve definitely got to be in the mood.  Aaron Funk may have made the least relaxing album of the year.  His new EP, “Horsey Noises” is both a more accessible and diverse exploration of the some of the same acid techno inspired ideas.  4 stars for “Filth”.

Robert Rich - (1981) Sunyata (****)

Aug 2

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Ambient, Electronic Music, Reviews | No Comments

The cover for "Sunyata".

The cover for the reissue of "Sunyata".

I’ve decided, after recently listening to a lot of Rich’s work and getting really immersed in it, that I’d like to go through his whole discography, and of course, as I do, I’ll be reviewing each album, which brings us to his first release ever, the very beginning, the actually quite epic and lengthy “Sunyata”.  If you get the latest rerelease, you’ll only be getting the 1st and 3rd tracks, but I’ll review it as the original complete three tracks, since that’s what I listen to whenever I put it on.

“Sunyata” sees Rich as a young, eager, nocturnal force, channeling unrefined, otherworldly, energy in long, formless slabs, 20 minutes or longer in length.  There is no rhythmic component what-so-ever, not even in the droning swells of sound themselves.  There’s also no real structure… these pieces were almost surely improvised, and the listener really feels the young Rich dreaming and visualizing along with them, making his way across some uncharted, exciting mental landscape…  It’s actually some of his least mainstream work ever, showing that this particular artist never set out for easy success with the new age crowd.  Trademarks of his later albums, such as tribal drumming and handmade flutes, are completely absent here.

The sounds themselves are vague and shrouded in mystery.  No sound is distinct, everything merges into a thick, soupy resonance.  This gives the songs a certain lack of specificity… they could evoke so many different environments, each not quite visible through the thick fog of heavy reverb.  Rich delves deep into the surreal realms of fantasy, contemplates the mystery of nature.  He does not keep the listener safe, indeed it could be said that he is trying to scare you…  It dares to go further than Eno’s “Ambient 4: On Land”.  It’s as if the feelings in this music were too intense to restrain…  sustained unease permeates the first track, “Dervish Dreamtime”, and it seems no coincidence that within the drone, there could almost be a human voice, singing out some relentless melancholy in a 19 minute sustained cry.  The eerie, glassy red shimmer of the second track, “Sunyata” is at least for me, the highlight and by far the most cohesive track on the album, so it makes sense that it was later used for “Trances / Drones” (Rich’s 2nd and 3rd albums) 2-fer reissue.  “Oak Spirits” is another long meander, and draws you in even deeper due to its 40+ minute running time.

There is a clarity and focus that Rich would find later as he started to explore the art of making thematic records and produced classics such as “Rainforest”, “Seven Veils” and “A Troubled Resting Place”, but for now, Rich is content to wander from place to place like a dream…  Indeed, like the dreams of the audiences he intentionally put to sleep.  I’ve heard that the songs on this album were originally designed for the sleep concerts Rich frequently put on in the 80’s, and nothing could be more fitting.  Countless times already, I’ve drifted off to these sounds.

In conclusion, his later work creates a more complete, consistent, cohesive and subtle sound environment, but “Sunyata” is still incredibly powerful on its own merits, and while it’s a little dated, still sounds absolutely beautiful.  It lacks the “deep”, “mature” feeling of later Rich, but then, it did come from an adolescent mind, and the seeds of all his later work are absolutely here.  I recommend this for those who are already fans of Robert Rich, or for people who wish his more structured, faster paced works were closer to pure space ambient.  Solid stuff.  4 stars.

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Mira Calix - (2001) Prickle EP (****)

Jul 5

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Ambient, Electronic Music, IDM / Glitch, Reviews | No Comments

Mira Calix - Prickle

I’ve been a fan of Mira Calix for a while now.  Generally, she makes up for her lack of production prowess and the overall simplicity of her music through sheer wild compositional creativity, integrating a tapestry of synths, field recordings and vocals into an incredibly unique sound.  This music could sometimes be called “ambient”, but it’s far from background music, and wastes no time.  “Prickle” is indeed a good example of this sound, although due to its focused nature, doesn’t stray far from its theme.  It’s definitely on the mellower side of Mira Calix’s output.

The main 18 minute piece has 4 sections, and a processed, watery string synth leads for most of it.  Only the second section has a prominent rhythm, and even that consists only of the usual Mira Calix kick and snare combo.  Where the piece shines is in its emotion, the emotion of the melodies themselves…  Hopeful, vulnerable, reflective, worrying, comforting all at once.  Worth many listens.  Dreamy, haunting vocals take the background.  No words are distinguishable.  The later sections utilize a lot of pleasant hissing and steam-like sounds while resonant wind instrument tones state a meditative theme.  The whole thing is full of great ambient sound, and despite the comments some have made, I believe it meshes wonderfully into a whole.  It may not make me feel as if I’m in any place in particular, but it certainly is evocative in its special way, and fits the feeling of the melodic and rhythmic elements.

The song doesn’t feel like an epic, despite being 18 minutes.  There’s a bit of an emotional climax at the end, but the time before it could hardly be called a ‘build up’.

Andrea Parker’s mix of “Skin With Me” is a welcome change of pace.  Rather than the contemplative wash of ambience and string synths of the previous 18 minutes, we’re treated to a sleazier, slower, more spaced out version of the frantic and dark original track from Mira Calix’s first album, “One on One”.  Someone called this beat ‘repetitive’, but I firmly believe that’s the point.  Lose yourself in the hypnotic bass tones, sampling and vintage drum machines…  This one grooves hard.  This track alone made me check out Andrea Parker.

In conclusion, “Prickle” contains two great, listenable pieces.  For the prices it often sells for, it shouldn’t be missed.  However, it doesn’t represent everything Mira Calix has to offer.  I recommend her latest full length, “Eyes Set Against the Sun”, which is an improvement in every way.  Still, “Prickle” is an admirable effort.  4 stars.

Simultaneously published on Amazon.com.

Biosphere - (1997) Substrata (****)

May 7

Posted by Mr. Landry in 4 stars, Ambient, Electronic Music, Reviews | No Comments

Biosphere - Substrata

So much has been said about Biosphere’s “Substrata” that I’ve held off on reviewing it until now.  It’s by far Geir Jenssen’s most well known work, and the perfect example of his “arctic ambient” style.  I do find it to be less interesting than later, more original records like “Dropsonde” for this reason - the sound you’d expect, hearing the words “arctic ambient”, is probably a lot like what’s here, even if you’ve never listened to anything along these lines before.  That said, it’s hard to deny the flawless flow and listenability of this record, especially in the first 7 tracks.

And indeed, the latter is a lot of what Biosphere has had going for him all along - listenability,  memorable tracks and melodies.  These are not slow moving, formless or lengthy soundscapes…  indeed, they are almost “songs”.  Average track length is about 5 minutes.  They have obvious melodies, created by guitar and shimmering synth.  Sure, muffled, peaceful drones are a constant in the background, and everything’s been given a thick coat of reverb, but really, nothing here feels alien, huge, deep or truly mysterious in that way only space ambient can.  It’s as ‘pop’ as ambient gets.  It’s as if Jenssen simply wants to remind of us of a specific environment, rather than take us there and completely immerse us in it.

It’s up to the listener whether or not that’s a problem.  Indeed, such an experience of immersion can be unpleasant or frightening, and yes, on “Substrata”, the melodies and sounds themselves are gorgeous.  For you, is ambient music about conventional elements, such as melody, used in an ambient context?  Or will obvious melodic patterns just make the songs too easy to memorize and jar you out of whatever zen-like state you hope to achieve?  Each listener will have different answers to these questions, but suffice to say, for me the latter is often true.

Biosphere’s music seems incredibly calculated.  The thematic consistency is sometimes forced rather than natural.  It never allows itself to simply drift or hang in space, with the exception of some of the more adventurous final tracks, such as “Sphere of No-Form”.  It’s here that the feel of the album is allowed to become a little more ambiguous, no longer so obviously comforting.  A little darkness creeps in around the 8th track, “Antennaria” (it’s actually a little jarring, but starts to make sense with the following tracks), and lives there for the rest of the running time.  Then, 40 minutes into the disk, Jenssen has nothing to prove.  The loops are less catchy, the songs become worlds.  We are immersed in “Substrata”.  Pity it took so long.

In conclusion, “Substrata” DOES relax me, and it’s very pleasant to listen to.  Does it take me somewhere?  Sometimes.  Does it take me to the arctic?  Well, it certainly feels “cold”.  It’s a great album, but I find myself wondering what about is supposed to blow me away.  If you’re new to ambient music, I recommend “Substrata” whole-heartedly.  If you’re already into some of the ‘deeper’ stuff out there (Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Lustmord), “Substrata” may be a little bit of a letdown, what with all the hype.  If you’re already into Biosphere, you’ve probably heard it already.  If you haven’t, well, it’s a solid release, but I’d pick “Dropsonde” over it any day.