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May 10 2013
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Ambient, Post-rock, Review

Review: Sunwølf – Midnight Moon

Sunwølf - Midnight Moon

The UK’s Sunwølf are back with their sophomore album Midnight Moon.

While that Kinski-esque vibe remains, Midnight Moon is cool because it manages to achieve a sound best described as stonerdrone. Less ambient than their last outing, Sunwølf get to the riffage quickly and keep at it for the duration. As that Polygon Window album was titled Surfing on Sine Waves, Sunwølf have created a sound that is surfing on riffs. The first three tracks of Midnight Moon are not drone enough to be boring/for enthusiasts only, nor does it ever quite hit that “gonna drive my Camaro into the heart of the sun” level of groove. It maintains a slow, steady groove balanced right between

Later in the album, we do hit the point where the music is much more ambient. In these moments the music sounds quietly beautiful to the point where I started feeling a little reflective while listening. Compared to their first album, Midnight Moon isn’t as evocative of a specific locale or sense of place, but an emotional space. A lot of the rest of what I said about Beyond The Sun is true here, Midnight Moon is also lovely stuff. As good as the first one was, this sophomore effort demonstrates a huge artistic progression.

- Jayson

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Feb 11 2013
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Ambient, Chip Tune, Pop, Review

Review: Sleepy Tree – Extended Play (Vols. 1 & 2)

Sleepy Tree - Extended Play Vol. 2
Sleepy Tree – Extended Play Vol. 1 & Extended Play vol. 2. Self-released, 2012 & 2013.

A few months ago, I reviewed AC Deathstrike’s Space FLyer, which concluded with an EP of 8-bit and Synth music. I really liked the album proper, and I thought the 8-bit project was great but could have been improved by adding vocals.

As it turns out, Alex Dougherty was thinking the same thing, which is why his new project, Sleepy Tree, came to be. Sleepy Tree is mostly synths, with some chip-tune thrown into the mix, and Dougherty singing airy, echoey lyrics. As I said, it’s not exactly an 8-bit with vocals thing. In fact, it kind of sounds like a bridge between Space FLyer and the 8-bit EP. In other words, none of the music on either of the first two Extended Play volumes will sound completely foreign to fans of AC Deathstrike, but it will sound like a new direction for Dougherty.

As you can expect, it’s great stuff. Dougherty has a knack from saying terrible things in the happiest way possible. On “Pick up the Pace,” an upbeat, downright bouncy tune, he sings:

We’re being lead into
a burning forest full of napalm
and people would rebel if they could
if they knew who is bad, who is good

At the end of the song, he warns, “We can learn from the past/read about it’s been done before.” So, ultimately, it’s a subtly hopeful song full of violent imagery hidden in a happy song. In other words, it’s the AC Deathstrike formula, but with synths.

I decided to play catch-up and review the first two volumes together because a) I don’t think there’s any specific theme that separates the two volumes, and b) Sleepy Tree is releasing one EP a month for 12 months. Dougherty intends to take the best tracks and turn those into an album sometime next year, so these kind of offer a look into the making of a future album. I’ve loved everything from the AC Deathstrike family, and this is no exception.

Extended Play and Extended Play Vol. 2 are available for free on AC Deathstrike‘s Bandcamp page. You can also take a look at other AC Deathstrike projects and side projects there.

-jason

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Jan 11 2013
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Ambient, Electronic, Experimental, Pop, Post-rock

Pellets: Late Night Venture & Joe Evans

Late Night Venture – Pioneers of Spaceflight
Late Night Venture are a self-described post-rock/shoegaze outfit. I will say “sure” to that, because yeah-they are doing that kinda thing. You throw on Pioneers of Spaceflight, you’re going to here that “shimmering” guitar thing that all post-rock bands are obligated to do. What I dig about Pioneers of Spaceflight is that Late Night Venture are not afraid to do other things that are not that shimmering guitar tone or the whole bombast and crescendo thing. To be specific there are scoops of indie pop, almost Washing Machine-era Sonic Youth type moves, and singing! It can’t be post rock if there is falsetto. Really all of Pioneers… has a much more gentle tone than what you’d hear from the likes of Caspian, almost a late 90s indie rock feel to it. Goes a long way toward combating genre burnout. Good stuff.

Joe Evans – Affected Piano
You pretty much could never ever title an album better than Joe Evans titled Affected Piano if you wanted to name an album in a way that describes the music inside the best way possible. You could have also called it Piano Drone, if you wanted, but that would be too limiting. Starting with a piano tuned to a 19 note system and proceeding to to massively modify the resulting sounds to the point where they’re not recognizable as coming from a piano in any traditional sense. A lot of the dynamic of Affected Piano is shifting between moments of traditional recognition and passages of abstract modification. It’s an interesting dynamic and the whole of the album hovers around some strange emotional places.

- Jayson

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Dec 20 2012
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Ambient, Electronic

Review: The Star Pillow – Fattore Ambientale

star pillow f a

The Star Pillow is a great name for band, for this band specifically because they actually kind of sound like it – in a very “I could easily imagine myself floating through the heavens on a cosmic voyage of infinite discovery as I listen to Fattore Ambientale” way.

The Star Pillow weave guitar, electronics and most prominently, piano and keyboard into subtle compositions. Purposefully written to have a strong narrative sense; it’s almost visual on Fattore Ambientale. The stand out quality to The Star Pillow’s sound how each song is grounded in a very delicate beauty. The piano & keyboards are the key here, their presence is what makes me think “drifting through the cosmos as the starts twinkle.”

Fattore Ambientale is a welcome break, something new in ambient music. Don’t skip this one. A beautiful way to ring out the year.

The Star Pillow Soundcloud

 

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Nov 30 2012
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Ambient, Electronic, Review

Review: Tours – Okay


Tours – Okay (EP). Young Latitudes, 2012.

About a year ago, I reviewed Tours’ previous EP, Stay. Stay was kind of a dreamy, slightly melancholy thing. On the follow up, Okay, Tours (AKA Dylan Sieh) has done gone in a different direction. Sure, he’s still got that chill wave vibe, but it all feels more concrete and more optimistic. In my previous review, I said that you wouldn’t be dancing to the music of Tours. On this EP, you just might.

The first track, “I Need U,” is very different from the stuff on the last EP. It’s very beat-driven, and it actually kind of reminds me of a sort of minimalist Daft Punk. There are layers here, but it’s subtle. Really, I could say the same for track 2, “Wet Luv.” After hearing these first 2 tracks, I would be confident in calling this EP an electronic-dance album.

Then, track 3 sulks in. If the last 2 tracks were minimalist Daft Punk, then “OKY” is minimalist Tours. Most of the song is just a kind of lazy drum and an almost inaudible piano, yet when I hear it, I picture some broken-hearted dude walking though the rain at night, clutching his coat to his chest to stay warm. I’m not sure if that’s what Sieh is going for, but it’s a pretty strong feeling that pours off of that one track.

The EP doesn’t end on that bad note, though. The final track, “Yrslf,” sounds not just happier, but somehow optimistic, like things are actually going to be “OKY” despite whatever you might feel during the previous track.

In just four tracks, Tours takes us through the emotional landscape of someone who has lost someone and is trying to be okay with it.

Tours’ EP OK is available on the Young Latitudes bandcamp page for whatever you want to pay (even free, if you wish).

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Nov 29 2012
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Ambient, Electronic, Experimental, Pop, Review

Review: Fiona Soe Paing – Tower of Babel EP

Fiona Soe Paing - Tower of Babel

Two years ago I reviewed Fiona Soe Paing’s Songs From No Man’s Land album. In that review I talked about the locative power of her music, which made me feel nostalgic for a place that I’ve never been and may never have existed at all.

The Tower of Babel EP has the same properties, but not the same characteristics.

The skeletal frames of  pop songs can be seen protruding through the mix here, but the music has an overall darker, more dissonant edge. The more reflective, contemplative sound from No Man’s Land is gone. In it’s place is a pseudo-sensuality that beckons and repels in equal measure. Like watching a snake slowly moving; you’re drawn to it’s movements but wary of it’s venom. The locative property remains strongly in effect. Really what I’m hearing are hit songs from a decaying future that’s a lot more impressive than where we are in it’s scope. This is the music I hear when reading Neuromancer or Virtual Light.

Daymoon Sun- from the Tower Of Babel EP – free download on Bandcamp from FionaSoePaing on Vimeo.

Well worth the time to explore.

- Jayson

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Nov 21 2012
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Ambient, Electronic, Experimental

Pellets: Be My Friend In Exile, Tape Loop Orchestra, Sujo + Sun Hammer

Be My Friend In Exile - Passive/NegativeBe My Friend In Exile – Passive/Negative

The audio equivalent of looking at a Mark Rothko painting. Deceptively simple drone, nuanced when focused upon. The soundtrack of standing in liminal space. Passive/Negative treats some familiar ground for it’s style, but it’s worth the time. More memorable in it’s quiet moments than it’s louder ones. I like you better when you’re less creepy, but I still like you.

 

 

 

Tape Loop Orchestra - In A Lonely PlaceTape Loop Orchestra – In A Lonely Place

It sure sounds like it, that it’s a lonely place. One of the things about this album for me was how the song titles made this more poignant. The three tracks that make up in a lonely place have a shimmering, analog edge that wavers between coldness and comfort. Not quite cinemambient, but getting there.

 

 

 

Sujo + Sun Hammer - FistulaSujo + Sun Hammer – Fistula

The press release for this album sold it as a drone-doom + glitchy electronic thing. Kinda. That’s what I say to that.  Or well, rather overly. Fistula doesn’t sound like someone took both of those genres, fully functional an complete on their own, and nailed them together. It sounds more like someone took the souls of those genres and nailed them together. Like if doom wasn’t about doom but the feeling of doom. If you live somewhere that has snowstorms you might have been in a whiteout. Fistula also sounds a lot like that.

 

 

- Jayson

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Nov 14 2012
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Ambient, Review

Review: Good Weather For An Airstrike – Lights

This is the third Good Weather For An Airstrike album I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. In the last several years I’ve been privileged to hear Tom Honey’s music and listen to him grow and change as a musician. Lights, following Underneath The Stars and A Winter, is the album on which I hear Mr. Honey take his craft to a new plateau of development.

GWFAA has always been a project about the combination of classical instrumentation, ambient sounds and field recordings. Previous albums have combined these elements in different ratios, but Lights manages to put them together perfectly. I don’t think I can quite emphasize that enough. Although I especially like the brief inclusion of that uniquely American instrument, the banjo.

In the past I’ve had to grapple with expressing the complexity and nuance in the compositions on previous GWFAA albums. For Lights, that complexity and nuance remains, but I feel very comfortable describing these songs in terms of feelings of a positive nature. There’s a pervasive sense of peace running though the whole album, the kind of feeling you have as you drift off to sleep after a good day. The warmth of a sense of nostalgia that manifests without any feelings of bitter contrast with the present. Absence that makes the heart grow fonder. That’s what Lights sounds like.

This is Tom Honey’s masterpiece. If you passed on the other GWFAA albums for some reason, now’s your chance. 

- Jayson

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Oct 22 2012
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Ambient, Experimental, Movies, Review

Review: Beyond the Black Rainbow

Beyond the Black Rainbow
Beyond the Black Rainbow. Dir. Panos Cosmatos. Chromewood Studios, 2010.

OK. I know this is kind of weird that I’m reviewing a movie that isn’t about music. Beyond the Black Rainbow is a trippy, psychological sci-fi thriller that pays homage to the films of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. It’s a little different than a lot of movies like this, where a lot of what happens could be mistaken for “weirdness for weirdness’ sake.” Indeed, there is not a whole lot of narrative going on in this movie; rather, it relies on strange visuals and its soundtrack to convey a mood. It’s the film equivalent of those color field paintings.

So why am I reviewing it? Well, we review a lot of music here that we say could easily be the soundtrack to an art-house film. The soundtrack to Beyond the Black Rainbow is as much of a character as young Elena the test subject or the demented Dr. Nyle.

The soundtrack in question is composed by Jeremy Schmidt of Senoia Caves, and it represents what is possibly the best pairing of music with visuals I’ve seen since Wes Anderson. I watched the whole thing with the rest of the lights off, and the sense of dread Schmidt’s synthesizers conjured up was a real, tangible thing, and I usually don’t react that way to movies. Here’s a clip, devoid of any context as to not be too spoilery:

To tell you the truth, the soundtrack was part of the reason I even wanted to see this movie. I’m kind of over the whole “let’s just be weird to be weird” thing, but when I saw the trailer, the music and the psychedelic imagery suggested that this was going to be something more, and I really think it is.

So this is me officially recommending Beyond the Black Rainbow not as a compelling story with characters you’ll root for or you’ll hate, but rather as a work that you experience emotionally, rather than intellectually.

Beyond the Black Rainbow is available on video by Magnet Releasing, and it’s available on Netflix Streaming.

-jason

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Oct 16 2012
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Ambient, Experimental, Review, Rock

Review: Sunwølf – Beyond the Sun

Sunwolf - Beyond the Sun

This is lovely stuff. I got this before I knew there was a new Godspeed! You Black Emperor coming out, and while Sunwølf doesn’t sound anything like them really, Beyond the Sun charts a lot of the same emotional landscape their stuff did – at least for me. More striking than that, is while an English band, there is a very strong American southwest element in Sunwølf’s sound. Going back to that whole ‘instrumental music as soundtrack’ thing, Beyond the Sun could definitely be soundtrack some great art-house western. Long stretches on “Home” being evocative of traveling across the Utah desert, or similar imagery. When Beyond the Sun has it’s louder, heavier moments Sunwølf draws an extremely favorable comparison to Kinski-one of my all time favorites. Track for track, Beyond the Sun has something for everyone that enjoys modern instrumental music. As sometimes happens, I like an album in a very pure, intrinsic way that makes hitting a higher word count when reviewing it impossible. Don’t take offense, lads. Beyond the Sun is an instant classic, regardless of what genre you want to label it as. For what it’s worth, I also love the band’s name and the album cover.

- Jayson

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