LOSCIL Vinyl & CDs

Review: Originally conceived as a suite for electronics and ensemble but then abandoned, the latest from Vancouver-based ambient producer Scott Morgan aka Loscil sees him restructure, remix and transform the ashes of it into something newian album that feels like a smouldering landscape, its textures layered with both loss and rebirth. Loscil's Lake Fire is an album born from destruction and reinvention. Thematically, Lake Fire draws inspiration from a road trip into the mountains Morgan took to mark his personal half-century milestone. eventually surrounded by wildfires and thick smoke, and that experience seeps into the album's DNA, shaping its dense, hazy atmospheres. The title itself reflects a haunting ironyiforest fires often take their names from nearby lakes, a stark juxtaposition of destruction and serenity. The album unfolds like a shifting mist. 'Spark' is dynamic and drenched in deep chords that ripple through a cloudy haze. 'Arrhythmia' carries a heavy build, swelling with intensity before receding into silence. These pieces, along with the rest of the album, feel like echoes from another worldidistant yet deeply resonant. Released on Kranky, which has long been a home and supporter of his music, Lake Fire is another great example at Morgan's ability to craft ambient soundscapes that are both vast and intimate. It's a hypnotic listen and an exploration of impermanence and transformation wrapped in a thick sonic fog.

Review: Loscil (Scott Morgan) returns to Kranky with Lake Fire, an ambient fugue born of destruction and reinvention. Initially conceived as an all electronic-ensemble suite, most of the original compositions here were abandoned, except for the James Meager double bass collaboration 'Ash Clouds'. From the remnants of this ambitious but failed aim, Morgan reshaped and rebuilt the music, creating something entirely new from its soots. Impressions of a mountain road trip seep into the album's textures, marking personal milestones set against the eerie backdrop of wildfire smoke. The record takes its name from the strange irony that fires are often named after lakes, evoking a sense of ancient myth. The cover photos capture this moment of contemplation, taken from a rowboat near Revelstoke, BC, Canada.

Review: Loscil, the moniker of Canadian sound designer Scott Morgan, released his debut album Triple Point in 2001, now available on vinyl for the first time. An ambient dub concept album inspired by thermodynamics, Triple Point explores soundscapes that evoke the principles of heat and entropy. Tracks like 'Hydrogen' and 'Ampere' build from muted beats and looped synth melodies, creating an atmosphere that is clinical and stark. Morgan's talent for arranging sound is evident as he layers samples to produce a sense of intricate, microscopic processes. 'Pressure' and 'Vapour' show his ability to craft immersive environments, though the overall minimal approach. Fans of experimental electronic music will appreciate Loscil's meticulous sound design and the album's conceptual depth.

Review: Scott Morgan's latest immersive ambient deep dive as Loscil has its origins in a three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece orchestra from Budapest. Morgan pressed this recording to vinyl, then scratched and sampled it within an inch of its life. Each of these samples was then used (and abused) in a variety of ways, before being shaped into a suite of brand-new tracks. The process certainly worked, because Clara is simply superb: a collection of alternately melancholic, gently uplifting and becalmed soundscapes whose simmering orchestral origins are only noticeable if you know the back story. It's a stunning set all told and a genuinely involving and immersive ambient excursion.

Review: Scott Morgan has made rather a lot of fine music over the years, and little better than his seventh album as Loscil, Coast/range/arc. Here it returns on vinyl after a nine-year absence, complete with a fresh bonus cut recorded in the same period, the Biosphere-esque arctic ambience that is 'Black Tusk (descent)'. Sonically, it fits snugly into the rest of the album, which offers the clearest distillation to date of Morgan's trademark sound. Full of beautiful, icy and slowly unfurling compositions that tend towards the meditative, the set is notable for Morgan's seemingly innate ability to craft immersive soundscapes out of a mixture of hazy drone textures, gaseous electronic chords, soft-touch melodies, atmospheric field recordings and simmering, near cinematic musical movements.

Review: Since joining the label at the turn of the millennium, Scott Morgan AKA Loscil has become one of the admirably experimental imprint's most prolific artists. "Equivalents" is Morgan's ninth album for the label and sees him offer up eight meditations on a hazy, spaced-out theme. It's a slow-burn affair, where processed melodic elements, held-note chords and drone style aural textures slowly move across the sound space. It's a formula that guarantees goodness from start to finish, with the pulsing "Equivalent 3", ghostly "Equivalent 6", Mr Cloudy-esque "Equivalent 2" and the becalmed and poignant "Equivalent 8" standing out.

Review: Heavyweight ambient partnerships don't come much bigger than Lawrence English and Loscil, who pool their considerable resources into this majestic album for Kranky. If you're familiar with Loscil's shimmering, sweetly synthetic sound, you'll be very happy with the grandiose blooms of undulating colour bleeding out of 'Cyan', while English's affinity for subtlety comes to the fore on 'Aqua'. The approach for the album was centred around a century-old pipe organ at the Old Museum in Brisbane, but of course there's been a lot of work done on the original sound sources. There's no great tussle between the respective artists - their sound practices merge beautifully, rendering an essential addition to both of their considerable catalogues.