Tags: Drone

Review: G.Teixeira is an artist based in France and someone with a multi-faceted sound. His Almost Silent alias now turns out Undisclosed Fields Vol.1, a first release on Healing Sound Propagandist that takes the form of eight movements and six reworks. It's as dense as ambient gets, frankly, with heartbreaking melodies passing by and disappearing before your ears. Fizzing synth drones are layered up over crepuscular chords and the whole thing has you gazing off into the distance, your eyes glazing over as you happily get absorbed in the subtly shifting sounds, tones and timbres. This, then, is another high class album from both artist and label.

Review: Ivan Pavlov aka CoH's new experimental electronic opus Radiant Faults makes a point of its creation deriving from the use of a rare new synthesizer, the Silhouette Eins. Developed by the artist Pit Przygodda, the Eins is the centrepiece of this album for good reason: it is a unique bit of gear, in that it uses real-time video signal as its carrier for sound synthesis. This direct interfacing of visual and auditory realms inspired a haunting praxis in Pavlov, who began the album as a means to commune with ELpH, one of the "celestial beings" first communicated with and summoned by the supergroup Coil. Pavlov continues what Coil devilishly started here, fleshing ELpH out evermore into whispery echoes and sinewy traces.

Review: Icelandic musician Gunnar Jonsson Collider debuts on A Strangely Isolated Place with an expansive trip through six fictional environments, brought further to life through an accompanying video by artist Arna Beth. S.W.I.M. is an equal parts trip through space ambient and hauntology; 36 meets Pye Corner Audio if you will. Intense, low-centric 'Environments', 1-6, inspire hazily glimpsed vistas in the mode of ambient warmth. As if accidentally finding oneself witnessing celestial phenomena one isn't meant to witness - the space-trip from 2001: A Space Odyssey springs to mind - each of these tracks are almost like time-locked landscapes, slowed down by their lo-fi temperaments and subby pulses of feeling.

Review: Raison d'etre is Peter Andersson and Troum is Stefan Knappe and Martin Gitschel and between them they take a deep dive into subterranean worlds on this collection of amenity works that was recorded between 2011 and 2014. This is the first time they have been pressed to wax and we're delighted about it - the grainy pads and crystalline synths that cut through the foggy mire sound so much better on wax. Each of these pieces is an ever shifting tapestry of icy noise, luminous drones and guitar-driven melodies with a ghostly quality. It's a devastatingly impactful work from these dark ambient maestros.

Review: Josh Dahlberg is The Valley and the Mountain aka TVTM and is an artist who has made a big move recently from the deep westside of Detroit all the way across to the far reaches of the Pacific Northwest. He he arrives on Central Scientific for its inaugural release with Detroit-based producer and Akka & BeepBeep founder, Jo Rad Silver, taking care of the flip. Next to an array of hardware, there is plenty of improvisation with guitars in this EP - 'Experiment Obscura' is a widescreen and dramatic ambient cut with a meditative feel and 'Immersion Theatre III' is another empty but inviting piece with curlicues, wispy pads, distant guitar echoes and moodiness to spare.