Loscil - First Narrows
Loscil - Sea Island
Monolake - Silence
Ulrich Schnauss - Goodbye
Arovane - Tides
Tycho - Awake
I feel my music listening is heading off into a new direction at the moment with the player starting to be dominated by ambient artists over the last few weeks. Something similar happened just about 18 months ago when I started listening to Fennesz, Gas, William Basinski, and Stars Of The Lid, and from the German 70s scene, Cluster and Harmonia and their collaborations with Brian Eno.
The fleeting gratification offered by mere snippets and trifles.
They were the more mainstream artists, if you can call anything mainstream in this genre, but in addition I alighted upon other artists in the somewhat underground world of "sound design" or "sound art", like James Joys from Belfast and Keith Berry from London. The former's album Glyphic Bloom nearly won my album of the year title for 2019 and deserves a listen (a recent twitter post by the artist bemoaned the fact that no one hears his music and he may as well "toss it into the sea") - with just 38 monthly listeners on the dreaded Spotify, for someone with so much talent, this is distressing, but not surprising - some of this sort of music demands effort and that's an effort many people are not prepared to invest these days. More the shame though, as anything that takes effort often yields greater long term satisfaction in comparison to the fleeting gratification offered by mere snippets and trifles.
This time around my resurgent interest in (recent experimental) David Sylvian, (post rock) Talk Talk and (digital guitarist) Fennesz has led me to some new artists including Tycho (aka Scott Hansen) from San Francisco, Monolake (aka Robert Henke) from Berlin, Ulrich Schnauss also from Germany, Arovane (aka Uwe Zahn) from Germany again, and Loscil (aka Scott Morgan) from Vancouver, Canada. Being from Germany, or Berlin especially, with that town and country's musical pedigree, would seem to offer an advantage in this electronic field. [..or being called Scott? Ed]
Clean, sharp and minimal.
Ok, on to the music. Well, and the art. The artwork for these types of albums is almost universally brilliant. It's very much part of the overall aesthetic. (Stars Of The Lid won my album cover of the year in 2018). Scott Hansen of Tycho is actually an established graphic designer and all his album covers are beautiful (and themed). Awake graces the top of this post. The others aren't bad either - usually clean, sharp and minimal, like the music therein.
Strum and swoosh.
Tycho and Ulrich Schnauss share the most similarities. I've heard their music be described as "strum and swoosh" - highly reverbed guitars over lush synth pads. The music takes a bit of a pounding in the press (my favoured Pitchfork magazine doesn't think much of Schnauss calling his music inconsequential). Some Tycho albums have been compared to Boards Of Canada but I can't hear much similarity within Awake.
Both Schnauss and Tycho are indeed fairly mainstream and easy listening but it's so well done I find it instantly likeable. I tell you what it reminds me most of - both in sound, and in design, is Jean Michel Jarre's 1970s work. I think it will sound great in the car. Will it still offer interest in 6 months' time, or 5 years? If I keep this blog up for that long I'll find out.
Monolake, Loscil and Arovane, are ultimately all a bit more interesting. From this first brief fly past I'd say Arovane seems to be the most upbeat and mainstream - his Tides album dates from way back in 2000 - it's amazing to think such sharp, modern, experimental music, dates from 20 years ago.
Then Loscil is the most still and ambient. I love both his albums sampled here - beautiful and interesting. Containing some real organic instruments, and fascinating sound effects, over modestly lengthed drones and loops that seem to merge into each other. First Narrows in particular is great - I like the way the same theme seems to return to different tracks throughout the album. This is no spring chicken either, dating from 2004.
A sonic delight.
Then in between the two you get the glitch and wash of Monolake. Silence is a sonic delight - it's not necessarily music, but it's not unmusical either. Rhythm takes precedence over melody - rhythms that are imparted by very subtle sound effects and pulsing elements with merely a hint of actual percussion. I don't know what it is really, but it's endlessly fascinating on the ear. I've heard elements of Monolake's style elsewhere, but it's hard to describe where. As a standalone album it's pretty unique. I read a review elsewhere that suggested Silence should be one of those albums hifi showrooms use to demo the dynamic range of their sound equipment.
As you can tell by the dates of some of these releases, all these artists are well established and have a wealth of back catalogue which I'll be deep diving into in the coming weeks.