More wading through my new ambient discoveries this week, plus an outlier in the John Martyn.
Loscil - Equivalents
Arovane - Gestalt
Monolake - Cinemascope
Monolake - Gravity
Arovane - Lilies
John Martyn - One World (Deluxe CD 2)
As I said last week these ambient artists - Arovane, Monolake and Loscil in particular, have a well established back catalogue of albums dating back to the turn of the millennium. So lots of listening to come as I dive deeper into these artists.
From what I've heard so far it's nearly all good which means it's of a consistency in quality that is eventually rewarding, although at first can seem overwhelming as some of the albums are barely distinguishable from each other - until you study them - a paradox of ambient music - it satisfying as background music, and at the same time close up listening. The latter certainly never fails to reveal hidden delights as the tiniest pin drop or cave echo or cricket chirp attains magnificent significance. It's like training for the ear (and consequently the brain) as the music, or sounds, reach previously uncharted territories within your consciousness. I don't meditate as such but I think this is similar. Just occasionally I'll lie on the floor with such an album in the headphones. It's a great way to spend an hour.
Briefly then, the two Monolakes are excellent. I've realised he does make some more upbeat dance beats too, but these two are more my cup of tea - rhythmic glitch similar to the classic Loop Finding Jazz Records by Jan Jelinek (another German producer).
Arovane's Gestalt out earlier this year consists of a series of short ambient snippets rather like Aphex Twin's SAW II. I haven't heard Lilies enough to clock it too well yet beyond an inkling of some Japanese flavour in the instrumentation.
Loscil may just be my favourite of these three - his music is beautiful, yet deep - deep in a sort of "3-D depth way". On the surface simple, but underneath vivid, lush and resonant.
The production on all these albums is brilliant - everything has its place in the mix such that the deep reverberating multi harmonic drones make space for those pin drops, caves and crickets.
Come to think of it now John Martyn's One World is ambient music in some respect. In particular his amazing Small Hours track recorded beside an English lake complete with surrounding sounds. On this fabulous deluxe version we get three versions of this magnificent track (and 79 minutes of bonus material) - the original album version, a live performance from an eye opening Regents Park gig recorded in 1978, and an outtake. The whole package is brilliant and the bonus adds to, rather than diminishes, the original. One World came top in my recent John Martyn rundown >>.
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