Ambient / Drone Recommendations June 2015

Review: It's been six years since the last Xerrox album, but in the meantime Raster-Noton boss Carsten Nicolai has been busy dreaming up new concepts. The latest in the series is inspired by movies he watched during his childhood, which in turn led him to compose this soundtrack to an imaginary movie. It's hard to imagine Nicolai providing the backing score to a blockbuster and if anything this could be a substitute for narrative in a kids' fantasy movie. The ominous bass on "Xerrox Radieuse" sounds like the villain entering the scene, while the gentle bell tinkles of "Xerrox 2ndevol2nd" is the heroine's signature. Most impressive though are the swirling, cumulous-like synths on "Xerrox 2ndevol" and the orchestral strings of "Xerrox Helm Transphaser", which place Nicolai in the company of Vangelis.

Review: Former Gas man Wolfgang Voigt has always been capable of producing stunningly beautiful ambient music, though little he's released is quite as deliciously evocative and mood-enhancing as National Park. The 10th installment in his long-running Ruckverzauberung series, it comprises a single, 62-minute piece composed to celebrate the opening of Germany's new Hunsruck-Hochwald park. It was initially recorded as an installation piece to play in the park, and you almost feel a soft breeze on your skin as you navigate through his aural forest. Seeped in emotion-rich strings, subtle electronics and field recordings, it's a thrillingly positive and sumptuous recording.

Review: Ever wonder where Music From Memory founders Abel Nagengast, Jamie Tiller & Tako Reyenga got the name of their label from? The answer is obscure New York musician Vito Ricci, whose diverse and quite stunning discography of private press releases is compiled on this wonderful retrospective I Was Crossing A Bridge. Active during the '80s musical heyday of New York, Ricci description as "one of the unsung heroes of New York's downtown music scene" is fully qualified on this 18 track double LP release, which contains such a dizzying array of musical styles it's tempting to call him a musical genius. The three strong suite of "Inferno" tracks in particular could easily be mistaken for the work of Container, and that Ricci was capable of that as well as some tongue in cheek coke boogie like "I'm At That Party Right Now" means Music From Memory should be applauded once more.

Review: Luke Abbott's techno-filtered shards of drone are more usually associated with Border Community's catalogue, but the Norwich-based sound scientist has something slightly different in store for us this time around. Music For A Flat Landscape is the official soundtrack to The Goob, a British drama starring Sean Harris (24 Hour Party People), issued through his own Bufallo Temple label. Abbot paints a dreary landscape on this collection of compositions; from "Ascending Spirals" to "Passing", these ten tracks are full of energy and charisma, giving you an already foreboding picture of what's to come in the motion picture. Most impressive of all is the fact that we finally have a soundtrack that isn't made up of contemporary chart hits but rather a bleak and terrifying world of electronic surrealism. Recommended.

Review: Thore Pfeiffer's wonderfully abstract soundscapes have already appeared on the Kompakt catalogue for a compilation that was released last year, but he appears herein with a debut album... and yes, it's kind of amazing! Im Blickfeld spans over twenty-one tracks and if you're the kind of listener who is looking for something deep, ethereal and meditative then you've hit the jackpot. In all honesty, it's difficult to describe Pfeiffer's rich minimalism in mere words because this is an LP made of emotions and aural alchemy. Tracks like "Drang" or "Nicht Genug" feel like they're talking, trying as hard as they can to let the artist's words and thoughts through thanks to their movement and playfulness. This is fantastic music to zone out to, check it!

Review: Saaad is the Tolouse-based drone project by Romain Barbot, who works together with Greg Buffier. The duo have released on labels like Hands In the Dark and BLWBCK and have collaborated with sonic surrealists such as Insiden for Paris' In Paradisum imprint, but Saaad land on Russia's fledgling Grains Of Sand Records for their outing. Much like their previous output, Delayed Summer is a cinematic, HD-quality drone masterpiece, where apocalyptic swells of sound spread across a vast landscape. The opener "Pole (Jam XIV)" is ringing and full of doom, while other pieces such as "I Can Feel You (Jam III)" are more sinister and could easily accompany any sci-fi film made between 1970 and 1999. This is serious stuff, it's for the sound sommelier.

Review: It would be fair to say that Kuniyuki Takahashi aka Koss is one of Mule Musiq's resident producers. The Japanese deep house sculptor has released a large number of EP's for Mule and the present LP, Koss, is already his fifth for the label. On Silence, Koss decides to strip the tracks of any beats or concrete structures and go for the utterly abstract, paint a vivid picture out of electro-acoustic magic. Pieces such as "Town" or "Mirror" are special precisely because their movement is created out of ambience, the rhythms forming from the intricate flow of the sparse soundscapes. It's a truly beautiful piece of music and it's a another winner from the excellent Mule.