drone / experimental / electronic

T. R. Hand is an alter ego, an urban guru, a musician, a designer and also a magician of colors. Many functions that result in a very interesting concept: a deluxe CD with art in everything! This is the natural evolution of Folke Meditation’s concept. This could be seen in the album design, in the booklet, in the music, at the CD edition; all reflecting the intensity of this artist. These characteristics translate particularities of a creation through field recordings, vocal recordings, acoustic/electronic instruments and even in the reuse of some sound materials (something that has always existed in the music history).

With all the voices coming from the American visual artist Bonnie J. Curry, the album starts with ‘The Last Stagger of the Whispering Knights’, a music that length the exact time that it takes to walk from the Rollright Stones to the Whispering Knights (with all field noises coming from that); ‘Hypnogogia Tightrope (Incantation of the Egg)’ brings to us a delayed mantra with acoustic guitar and water sounds ending up with crossfades between this mantra and synth sounds; ‘Swan Neck Distortion’ reminds me of Sunn O))), Earth and some Swans’ albums, but played with SO MUCH devotion and with a drastic change in the end of the song! ‘Apophenia Gaze’ have so interesting sounds of glockenspiel and strings; ‘Junk Devotion’ and ‘The Rosebud Incantation’ are very strong and powerful musics to finish this long EP (the last one also have references from Citizen Kane).

At the description of the album there’s just this text: "Set the egg before you, the God in his beginning./And behold it./And incubate it with the magical warmth of your gaze”. These are quotes fom The Red Book/Liber Novus by Carl Jung - his most intense inner experience hidden until the year 2009. In a free interpretation (and going way beyond what I should in my thoughts), it’s interesting to approach this quotes freely as a metaphor that, even years away from its original time, ends up portraying a current lack of humanity in our society: By not knowing your inner God, you end up not understanding that each person is a God who deserves respect, admiration, and tolerance.

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Glauber

dark ambient / vaporwave / electronic

Since we're dwelling in dystopian worlds and haunting musical areas, allow me to introduce the brand new album by Belgian act Zer0 れい. Once again Sebastien Dessauvage delivers a strange, otherworldly album, loaded with synthwave, gloomy soundscapes and eighties rhythms.
The album contains ten tracks and drags you along a fututistic but dystopian Neo-Tokyo. Imagine sci-fi music from the eighties, or Knight Rider on LSD if you will. After all, Sebastien Dessauvage does know how to create something unique and mindblowing. He proved that with harsh noise acts like Unholy Analog Noisemachine, Crucifix Eye.

Personally, I'm not very familiar with the vaporwave scene, but I know that this album has a lot of interesting hooks and edges. For starters, this is gritty, raw synthesizer music, often driving on repetitive machine drums and spooky soundscapes. Old videogames come to mind. Funny thing is: if some of these tracks would be played by a whole band, real drums, guitars and whatnot, they could actually become post rock favorites. But let's not think about that. Let's just enjoy the weird world of Zer0 れい.

Because that it is. I can't really find acts to compare this music with. The artist mentions Luxury Elite, Bl00dwave, Aphex Twin, Windows 98の, Chris††† and Macintosh Plus but to me, most of them are unknown. For me, Deutsch Nepal comes to mind but in a more mechanic and colder version. Deutsch Nepal meets old Kraftwerk, something like that. Fact remains, there are some highly enjoyable piece of music to be found, like the forward pushing 'Meat Locker' or the eerie ambient tune 'Beneath The Rubble'.

Other favorites of mine are '​煙幕 (Smokescreen)' and the skull piercer '偵察 (Reconnaissance)'. Although staying far away from a radio-friendly approach, these are tunes that can easily get stuck in your head and that is quite rare with underground music. That's pretty much all I can write about this. I strongly suggest you give it a shot, especially if you're into odd, dark and intense synth music. Put it in your dark ambient playlists and get surprised once in a while. You most certainly will be, I'm sure about that.


​Serge

post rock / progressive rock / experimental 

It's Only Permanent is an album released by American experimental progressive/ post rock group Black Flak and the Nightmare Fighters, from Salt Lake City, Utah, in January 10. Almost forty-two minutes long, the record has ten tracks: 1) It's Only Permanent, Part 1; 2) Burning at Both Ends; 3) Clustercuss; 4) On a Good Day We Can See The End From Here; 5) Sunny Day Anhedonia; 6) F41.0; 7) Bird Without Feathers; 8) Wilt; 9) It's Only Permanent, Part 2; 10) You're Gonna Carry That Weight; with a beautiful, delicate and sensible style, already in the first song, you can feel the musical grace and the revolving tenderness that encircles the majestically soft, but dense harmonies, that runs throughout this marvelous work of art. 

With creative abilities that sideline a thoroughly dispersive, fabulous, dream-like sound, able to easily conceive in the diagram of its dynamic nature the colorful notes of its melodic infinities, the general structure of the band’s music is simple, but exceedingly whimsical, diluted, fantastic and genuine. It has a voice and a salutary disposition of its own, definitely delivering a sensational projection of peripheral sensitivities throughout the serene journey made possible by the grace of its cohesive and humane elegance. 

It's Only Permanent is mainly distinguished by its predominantly calmer, gentle and beautiful sound. You may not become too impressed or exhilarated by this album initially, but definitely, its overall qualities and virtues abundantly surpasses any predictabilities the record may have. With reflexive dissonances that understands the grace of its renitent and fragile splendor, the music of Black Flak and the Nightmare Fighters is an introspective symphony of vivacious artistry, that explores in a subtle minimalism the most discreet – but at the same time extraordinary – layers of their music. 

While they do fall in more ordinary territory sometimes, this doesn’t damage their music at all. The proverbial lucidity of their style is exceedingly functional, and the postulated boundaries they melt per second displays the paradoxical undertones of a deeply sagacious, restless and dynamic creativity, that is eager to go beyond all the intrinsic musical contingencies they might perceive as restrictive. Definitely, It's Only Permanent is a beautiful album, completely worthwhile listening. If you are an enthusiast of modern experimental post rock, you will positively love this amazing work of art. 


Wagner

post rock / experimental 

UMA is a fantastic masterpiece released on December by French post rock supergroup FalKor. To describe this album as a splendid and fabulous state of the art work is overwhelmingly insufficient and restrictive. An exceedingly organic, imponderable and lucid allegory of ghostly harmonies that slowly penetrates into the delusional creative space of a fugacious and discreet parallel reality, the music and the general style of FalKor is an imperative, but graceful resonance of majestic splendor. The first track, Olivia, is certainly one of the best songs that I ever had the pleasure to hear. Sensationally beautiful, this marvelously poetic and dense sonorous fragrance resounds the colorful vitality of its own inflictive axis of astounding grace and elegance.  The music of FalKor is simple – at least, to a certain degree – but invariably profound and cohesive, and they know exactly how to explore with all the strength of their soul the energetic sensibilities of their vivacious and exceedingly genuine creativity.   

Forty-six minutes long, the record has seven generally extensive tracks: 1) Olivia; 2) Battement I; 3) Abooksigun; 4) Mirror; 5) Battement II; 6) Kýma; 7) Cauchemar; with some folk, electronic and medieval elements discreetly inserted into their music, the style of FalKor is peculiarly unique, expansive and uncompromised. With graceful sonorous boundaries being humanely and profusely eroded, their music is a delusional paradox being transported from an omniscient existential somnolence to an imperative rapture of despondent vitality. Working tirelessly the most intense and serene elements of their music, FalKor delivers on this work formidable symphonies of delightful splendor and peripheral demise. 

With graceful and captivating harmonies – ably inserted in a context where a consistent universe of sound collides with everlasting musical sensibilities –, UMA is a very original and intelligent creation, that fantastically revolves around the abstract densities of its own salutary musical propositions.    

Despite the fact that, in the middle, the breathtaking vitality of the album declines a little, the natural grandiosity of FalKor as a sublime victory of structural, sensitive and harmonious originality remains intact. Defying the conventional rudiments of traditional musicality, FalKor unveils the unexpected, in a superb and authentic style, that definitely will make you an avid enthusiast of this fantastic band. 
  

Wagner

drone/ ambient/ experimental

The Simulacra Transmission is an album by American ambient minimalist project Shipwreck Karpathos, released on December 28. An hour-long elegiac symphony, the record has only four tracks, exactly fifteen minutes each: 1) The Pilot is The Builder; 2) The Builder is The Destroyer; 3) Virgil is an anomaly; 4) Wake The Singularity. If you are relatively familiarized with the sound of Shipwreck Karpathos, like I do, you will notice their recent inclination towards a drastically digressive, profoundly introspective and almost stagnant and minimalistic drone soundscape musical direction. Let me say that if you don’t appreciate this type of music, you will become exhaustively bored. What we have here is a soft, very serene and calm atmosphere, that expands throughout the tissue of its own hyperbolic vicinities, while duplicating the essence of its harmonious, but nevertheless symbolic sonorous conflagrations.  

Like I’ve written above, if you are familiarized with the sound and the style of Shipwreck Karpathos, you will probably love this album. It’s deeply authorial and artistic, despite the fact that on The Simulacra Transmission there is nothing new for enthusiasts of drone music. But this skilled group from Portland, Oregon, definitely does a decent work, exploring exceedingly well different musical layers of creativity, on a platform of sensible delight, that intelligently takes soundscape minimalism to a more profound level of musical elasticity. 

Of course, it requires some patience to go through one hour of music like this, that stays basically the same the entire time. Despite the good quality – and the essential characteristics that makes the music of the group to be poignantly peculiar –, the album is very homogeneous, and do not present any stylistic or effective challenge to the genre per se. 

Nevertheless, The Simulacra Transmission is a very perceptive, intuitive and cohesive album, and definitely a favorable exemplar of how a marvelous drone ambient soundscape elegy should be executed. The album can also be interpreted as one long symphony, split into four, as each song – more or less – can be considered the continuation of the previous track. So, despite the lack of audacity or innovation, The Simulacra Transmission manages to be a very consistent and dense record. Definitely, a satisfactory and coherent work, that will please the enthusiasts of drone music. 


Wagner

ambient / drone / experimental

Consouling Sounds

It was a profound year for the Belgian quality label Consouling Sounds. Dark Night Mother is the last of the twenty-two CD launches the label made this year. Stefano Pilia and Massimo Pupillo are two Italian musicians behind this project. They know each other more than a decade and started to record their acoustic home sessions. These creative meetings formed the foundation of Dark Night Mother. 

The broad experience in different music styles, the artists worked with, makes it difficult to catalog the recording. Stefano Pilia as bass player and Massimo Pupillo as guitar player are improvising musicians with a keen view how to melt their chemistry into mysterious and ethnic musical journeys. With the help of four female vocalists (Olivia Arebalo, Lucinda Mahua, Alexandra Drewchin and Sandra Canessa) a strange world of native singing, ambient and acoustic sounds was established.

The duo prepares precisely and patiently the listener to enter a world, not so easy to discover in one bite. After several listening trips it became clearer what the artists tried to achieve. Emotions of the past, present and future are molded in beautiful sound constructions. Indigenous voices bring a shamanic atmosphere and produce a strange hypnotic effect. The female singers have a very important contribution to the sound structures on this album.

Dark Night Mother had a weird outcome in how time moves when you are grasping deep into the music. In fact there is no darkness to be found in this recording. Beautiful, peaceful vibes with some melancholic parts create a new perspective of combining the uncombined. The weaving of world music, acoustic music with minimal electronica is what Dark Night Mother stands for. Stefano Pilia and Massimo Pupillo  shaped a beautiful world with abstract minimalist moods, grown from improvisations.

This music for the mind shows its splendor with patience and will be appreciated among music explorers like the fans of Hector Zazou and David Sylvian.


​Patsker 

experimental / polyphonic

During the so forced last days of the year, more and more people have the urge to hide from this commercial turmoil. Jonathan Hering gives you a chance to step into a time machine and leave the agitation with his debut album Carmina Chromatico. This Liverpool based composer offers a listening trip that spans more than six hundred years of polyphonic music.

Carmina Chromatico contains twelve tracks with only his voice singing all the parts. The composer gave his own twist in reconstructing layer by layer of the almost forgotten renaissance and baroque songs. Jonathan Hering used his bass to counter-tenor range in the compositions up to eight vocal lines. This DIY chewing over resulted in a puzzling journey of emotions. 

We can’t deny this monks work shows dedication and an original interpretation in this bestowal of European polyphonic music. After a few listening trips we felt impressed how far the vocal range of Jonathan Hering extends. He managed to keep the avant-garde sound and mood within the perimeters. 

The last track, Lachrymose, shows Jonathan Hering’s talent as a composer. More than eleven minutes of innovative music soaked with ancient influences and weeping ambiances. The cold organic atmosphere is your only guide when you take the journey into this polyphonic view of the composer’s world. There is hope in the end with the repeating of the ‘light everlasting’ words.

This album does not contain easy listening music. The quirky approach of the original songs is sometimes even a little artificial and scary. Jonathan Hering’s Carmina Chromatico is a piece for avant-garde lovers. Our kind of X-mas music.

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Patsker

ambient / experimental / jazz / idm / glitch

Krysalisound

Sometimes it's good to step out of your musical comfort-zone and into strange sonic territories. I guess that's what the good people from Krysalisound must have been thinking when they signed this odd duo. Mostly known for their soothing ambient releases, the label now unleashed something unusual, to say the least.

​klās'tĭk is the duo of Andrea Koch and Masaya Hijikata. One lives in Berlin but has Italian roots, the other resides in Warwaw although born in Japan. So the cultural background of klās'tĭk is quite eclectic, so I guess it's no surprise that their music is quite eclectic too.

It all begins with a song called 'Chauvet'. At first, the song calmly explores the regions of experimental ambient and live looping, only to evolve into something ritual with eerie vocals and  glitchy percussion. 'Airtight Decoration' then drags the whole thing into the world of jazz, mostly characterized by the drums. Somewhere in the back of my imagination, Tom Yorke is jamming with Autechre and the Dale Cooper Quartet. 'Torque', a brilliant piece of drone-jazz somewhat follows that example, but without the vocals. That's probably why 'Torque' is my favorite track on this album with its pulsating soundscapes, complex drums and an almost magical atmosphere.

Every track on this album has its own story to tell, and it's rarely something easy-digestible. 'Night's Highest Noon' is chaotic and strange, and so is its follower 'Commuters'. Yet, here too, beyond the intense elements of free-jazz, there are unexpected loops and sounds, turning each song into something you have probably never heard before. I guess it's up to you to decide if that's good or bad. All I know is that this is a baffling debut, one that needs time and effort to be explored. Or in other words: this is glitchy jazzbient at its very best. I don't know if that is a genre but it covers the load quite well. Interesting debut....


​Serge

ambient / berlin school / kosmische

Belgian Neumusik

Ambient Nation 5 was officially released at the Belgian electronic music festival B-Wave in the beginning of December 2018,. The boss of Wool-E discs/Belgian Neumusik handed me the three CD box for a review.

With pleasure I wrote this moodily tale about the universe of the Belgian booming electronic music scene. As a big fan of the Ambient Nation series it will be very difficult to stay objective, but we will. (All previous releases have a special place on my CD shelf).

First a little word about Ambient Nation. A group of people wanted to promote electronic music in Belgium. They started the label Art For Ears and released the first edition in 1994! Shortly during the years after, number two and three was released. In 2014, Ambient Nation 4 gave birth after a very long period of silence. There was again a growing attention for the Belgian electronic music scene. The organizers of B-Wave, Cosmic Nights and Ambient Antwerp Festival gave the scene more oxygen during the last 8 years. The possibility to play and watch live performances had a very positive impact to the electronic music milieu In Belgium.

Three CD’s with 28 Belgian artists bring you a wide electronic musical journey. Some artists had already releases on international labels. Others are seeing the light after years working on their DIY stuff in dark dusty rooms. The CD’s black, gold and red contain a diverse approach in ideas and handling of the electronic tools, synths and other weird effect boxes. 
CD black: 

Synodic Wave, Rhea, Owann  and  Sensory++ serve peaceful and easy digestible ambient soundscapes. Their beautiful vibes bring sweet calmness in your speakers. Nisus on track four embraces the old school Berlin style sound. Zer0 れい known for his experimental  out of the box views, sounds ethereal with oriental influences. The darkest and most mysterious electronic track filled with obscurity is presented by Hoshin. By Senses takes us to the ritual side of ambient with tribal voices as the main theme of the song.  Pieter Vermeyen’s Tryggja is drowned in piano and field recordings and to my opinion with Hoshin’s Fault, the two most appealing tracks on the black CD.

CD gold: 
Active since 1977 and one of the oldest electronic music projects in Belgium, Age has the honor to start the gold CD.  Their timeless cosmic ambient is still up to date beside the detailed production of Light Arrows. A Brief Look Into The Past from Lounasan is a ‘Berlin Schulze’ track next to a non-conventional attitude and rhythmic beats. Time for some new age tunes with Alain Pierre who composed a track with many faces and variations. Frank Deboosere (our Belgian weatherman) plays light poppy new age and predicts us unstable weather with his tune Alfa 14. Sebastopol takes us back in time with slow old school synth melodies. Alienna, a female loner in the Belgian electronic music scene, shows her talents in a beautiful pulsing lounge track, The task Of Sisyphos Pt. 1. Dirk Serries, who moved away to minimalism  and quit producing ambient nowadays presents a floating guitar ambient track. Close your eyes and fly. Serge Devadder explores the world of soundscapes adding a deep bizarre space mood. Galactic Undergroud drops his ambient impressions of the first man in space with Sky Ripped. A stunning track from the live performance at Cosmic Nights 2018. The gold CD ends softly with the dreamy sounds of Sonmi451.

CD red: 
Nothing But Noise are the original founders of the legendary band Front 242 and play deep electronic music. This catchy mix between ambient and rhythmic Berlin style synths stands for colourful and creative sounds. Next to the bleeps and dots of Earthwave we enter the orbit of spacey atmospheres again. Syndromeda takes us to the deepest voids in vast space with interesting soundscapes and peaceful melodies. The fourth track on the red cd is Final Stage by Analogic Synthisme. Choral synths and modest rhythms are constructed in a smooth Berlin style. The two brothers of The Roswell Incident love to create gliding electronic sounds stuffed with effects and sequencers. Curious vibes are added layer by layer in the up tempo Berlin style story Broken Shadow by Karl Hefner & Hugh Lagerfeld. The strange electronic sounds of Aerodyn combined with the etheric vocals generate the most mystical and original track on this compilation. The psychedelic electronica of Onsturicheit is stubborn and original. This most experimental track, Het Irrationele Denken, shows controlled electronic ghostliness. Jovica Storer closes the compilation with a slow resume of all the sounds we have enjoyed. The track Sweet Mocha carries the message for the Ambient Nation 5 release like its tittle.
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Ambient Nation 5 shows a dazzling array of Belgian artists and their talents. The compiler made sure that the attraction to listen, due to variation, never had a chance to fade away. The multiplicity of electronic sounds and soundscapes will poke many electronic music lovers. Several artists composed specially a unique track for this triple CD,  limited to 300 pieces. Hurry and grab this unique art for ears while you still can.
Patsker

experimental rock/ post metal / sludge metal

Ambiance is an album released in November 2, by Swiss experimental post metal trio Ølten. Forty minutes long, the record has eight tracks: Igelkott, Raus, Klark, Lied, Gover, Sludge, Popoutro and Pope. An interesting album, that presents to the audience a colorful, eccentric mixture of post metal and sludge with a varying degree of experimental tenacity, the music is elaborated in concentrated layers of consistent vitality and synergy, with continuous grooves of expansive densities, intrinsically worked over the lethal placidity of its exceedingly abrasive harmonies. 

The style of the group – despite its opaque premises –, is very flexible and cohesive. They engage in a salutary degree of experimentalism, without any fears, but without extremisms or exaggerations either. Moderate and proverbial to a certain extent, their melodies dilacerate its own rhythmic devices, flirting a little with repetitiveness, but they do it in a very dynamic and lucid fashion, never becoming monotonous nor tedious. The know how to genuinely provoke the organic fuel of their harmonies, and definitely knows how to maintain vivid the mostly ecstatic densities upon which their music is made. 

While Ambiance is not a fantastic nor fabulous album, it has major qualities that reveal – to a certain extent –, how original, audacious and inventive these skilled musicians really are. With embracing tonalities that circumnavigates their slow paced harmonies, working exponentially, beautifully and existentially with somber, but discreet elements that makes their music to be a little bit sinister and mysterious, but inadvertently fragile at the same time, Ølten knows how to transform music into a more surreal, dispersive and quintessential form of art. They are definitely a sensational band, whose stylized sound departs from a distinct, plural level of creativity.  

Despite all of their qualities, though, they definitely have to reinvigorate their music with more unpredictable components, something to make them sound more tempestuous and exhilarant. Nevertheless, they are definitely in the right direction – elaborating a sound of their own –, that doesn’t appeal to a particular genre. Ølten is an interesting group that deserves to be followed closely, and Ambiance is an intelligent and very nihilistic experimental ambient rock album, that oversees the gracious and sensible development of a genre, yet to be fully understood and defined. 



Wagner