Tagged: Ambient
ghost signal #5
ghost signal #5: negating time in tlon
eraldo bernocchI & chihei hatakeyama – shapeless buildings (00:00)
francesco giannico & giulio aldinucci – reframing (09:23)
coaxial – the symbolism of a safety pin (15:06)
slow clinic – abrasions (19:15)
nonconnah – the collapsing bridge (28:49)
emily a. sprague – water memory 1 (32:10)
illuha – aikou (39:26)
olan mill – pladin (47:16)
mésange – creator (52:18)
ghost signal #4
ghost signal #4: it is a good life
modern classical | ambient | drone | experimental | acoustic
astrid & rachel grimes – mossgrove & seaweed
helen money – machine
date palms – night riding the skyline
leandro fresco/rafael anton irisarri – lo esencial es invisible a los ojos
chihei hatakeyama – bus terminal in konya
ensemble economique – gonna get right with god, right after this next cigarette
western skies motel – two worlds
kitchie kitchie ki me o – europa(first light)
ghost signal #2
ghost signal #2: the ninth inning
tracklist:
heroin & your veins – i feel nothing (00:42)
labradford – c (02:55)
nonsun – peace of decay, joy of collapse (08:11)
heinali & matt finney – tinderbox (16:43)
aluk todolo – iv xii mmx (26:26)
shrine – radiant skyline (unit 4) (35:30)
lawrence english – object of projection (43:20)
the bug & earth – agoraphobia (47:45)
dälek – it just is (52:47)
samples taken from detour (1945)
ghost signal #1
Presenting Ghost Signals: a new mixcloud series of hour long playlists, collecting (mostly) instrumental drone/ambient/doom/psych/post-rock/metal/modern classical pieces that share a common mood, loosely threaded together by samples from old noir movies/short stories/talks and speeches etc.
Concept inspired by Midnight Radio by Ehud Lavski and Yael Nathan: https://imgur.com/gallery/oYoLyHC
ghost signal #1: horror eats the light
tracklist:
grails – i want a new drug (00:00)
dag rosenqvist & matthew collings – renaissance (02:57)
erik lavender – innesluten (07:35)
locrian – a visitation from the wrath of heaven (13:04)
glacier – though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow (21:19)
bohren & der club of gore – maximum black (34:16)
origamibiro – odham’s standard (41:36)
rafael anton irisarri – sky burial (44:36)
wrekmeister harmonies – night of your ascension (pt 5) (49:49)
spoken word parts written by thomas ligotti.
Ore – Belatedly
Ore is a ‘tuba doom’ album. Which sounds ludicrous, and thankfully the label doesn’t nearly do it justice – half an intimate, solo meditation on loss from sole member Sam Underwood, playing tuba and accompanying himself with such lo-fi things as drumming on Ikea shelves, half a series of frequently surprising collaborations with a variety of different instrumentalists, Belatedly is a tricky record to categorise. But whatever you want to call it it’s a gem of a record.
Charnia – Het Laatste Licht
Post-metal and ambient/drone aren’t genres which you would think could easily co-exist. Charnia have a good go at splicing them together on Het Laatste Licht (The Last Light) and whilst they don’t quite manage to square that circle they still find some interesting and fertile ground for experimentation.
Heinali & Matt Finney – How We Lived
Matt Finney was off-grid for a while before last years excellent record with Siavash Amini but seems to back in force with a barrage of releases with a menagerie of different collaborators. This one, with his old sparring partner Heinali, tells the story of that hiatus in typically unflinching fashion.
Lawrence English – Cruel Optimism
I’ve been listening to a lot of drone/ambient/modern composition and the like over the past few years but have seldom written about it. I find it hard to quite capture what’s going on in these abstract pieces. If writing about music is dancing about architecture (and cheers Zappa for sewing that seed of doubt in every music writer’s mind) then writing about abstract pieces is like trying to describe alien structures of non-Euclidean geometry whilst on too much acid to ascertain which limb is which.
Or at least it is for me. Maybe I just feel uncormtable describing anything I can’t overuse the word ‘riff’ for.
Anyhow. I had a go at reviewing the latest work from Lawrence English. i very much like it, something which I hope comes through in this unappetising word salad.
Review, as ever, over at Echoes and Dust.
20 for ’15 – Helios – Every Passing Hour
Part 12 of a 20 part rundown of my favourite tracks of 2015
Every Passing Hour doesn’t feel like a night time song but thanks to a couple of occasions I’ve listened to it in the dark I can’t help but think of night when I’m listening to it. The first time I was walking to the train station for the first train to London on a work trip, passing by more students taking the post-revelry walk home than people starting their day like me. The other time I was heading home for Christmas by megabus to save a few pounds, trundling through the cold streets with my head rested against the window. When I listen to Every Passing Hour I see streetlights smeared across the black sky by sleep-addled eyes and think about the pair of frustrated guys trying to convince their utterly hooned friend that yes he could walk if he’d just get his drunk ass up off the pavement.
It’s funny how these things memories attached to songs. Every Passing Hour sounds like it deserves a more bucolic scene, but hey. That’s city life for you. Helios, aka Keith Kenniff, suffered for me in being one of those artists who seem to capture exactly what they’re going for so well on a relatively early release that no matter the quality of what followed I wasn’t all that interested. I convinced myself Eingya was all the Helios I’d ever need. But I gave every new record a listen to reaffirm my faith in that records unassailable Heliosness.
Every Passing Hour, and the rest of parent album Yume, changed that. This song might be the single most beautiful thing he’s released. I’m not sure if it’s a new creative peak or whether I’ve just found myself in a place where I’m more open to Kenniff’s work but either way this is a truly breathtaking piece, starting in unassumingly melancholy ambience and building to a mini-masterpiece of longing that made nondescript sleepy Welsh streets hum with meaning on cold winter mornings.
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