awesome, thanks!

so I've been listening to both Radicalfashion and Eluvium and have come around quite a bit on both of them. "Indoor swimming at the space station" is absolutly beautiful and basically that whole Radicalfashion CD is killer. guess I needed to let it grow or wash away expectations I had and become it's own thing.

anyway, listen to them both or I kill you.

Thats what i like about you Pooty...just when i'm about to give up on you, you always seem to come thru in the end

Thanks for the Beautumn!!!

if I like a cd alot at first, it usually doesnt stick with me. grower's I usually think sound pretty shitty at first and then it's something I'll listen to for years. dont ever expect my first reaction to be my last. (except with that BT, it was pretty boring)

Machinefabriek
Zink CD3"
Cut Hands 2007


01. Zink [15:34]


Solar dust morphing into the finest, pure chrystalline drones. The sound of underground sources rumbling and gushing out slowburning streams of heldback melancholy. Zink is the newest piece by Holland's finest dronaholic, Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek. A shot of bliss right into your sick veins. Comes in a jewelcase with a zinc patch glued on top, engraved title and numbering. Limited to 75 hot copies.

I'm suprised no one is talking about the Rhys Chatham disc. if you get over the concept and actually listen, this thing moves so gently. the first track is really dense and builds into a really pretty tune. the wash of guitars sound alot like bowed instruments. pretty good stuff guys.

also, has anyone heard Dip? from L, Pierre? seems alright from samples, not sure if its worth my time to download so If you have heard it, let me know if its good, Ill grab it and up it up.

yeah, Labradford. amazing stuff.

reminds me of some early morning winter cigarette rendezvous with gorgeous geniuses.

I can't explain this either. I posted this in 07 Trout thread and it was met with little more than derision. It takes some attention to appreciate, and whats not to like once you do. It's very linear to my taste but very dense and grand at the same time. I likes it.

thanks CinnamonP for bringing this to the attention of the thread, and thank you Izzy for posting it in the trout thread! I never look in there really, and I've been away for a while. But I think this Rhys Chatham disc is fantastic. It's massive sounding, and subtle. Reminds me of some of the old Glenn Branca stuff, but better to my ears. The only Glenn Branca disc I have is a bit too percussive for me. Anyway, I can't wait to put this on a spin on my stereo, WAY LOUD. Too bad we couldn't have experienced the performance ourselves. Talk about vibrations!

Around the 8:00 mark this starts to sound like a wierd deconstruction of Daydream Nation. I hear echoes of "Silver Rocket" and "Hyperstation."

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?0n2jmm2xn33

ambient drone ala hecker, steve roach, eluvium. definetely not as abrasive or experimental as those mentioned. I've listened to it a couple times, and it's pleasantly immersive but a bit exhausting at times. listen to it loud on your stereo!

he has all of his other releases for download at his site, too. if you like this one go here

http://tykechandler.googlepages.com/lahto

Hello! I recently stumbled upon this forum and have already found so much great new music thanks to you. Here is something I upped to another forum, but perhaps it will be of interest to some of you.

Crawl Unit--vs Silence

www.megaupload.com/?d=LQS2N427

CRAWL UNIT - "VS.SILENCE" - cd

Crawl Unit are best known for works of noise- oriented experimental sound, having played live with acts such as Merzbow and Trance among others. Vs. Silence explores starker, softer, more minimalistic areas of slowly evolving sound and sound constructions. Sheets of dense, low volume sonics billow out into infinite space, a horizon recedes as you run towards it, the landscape expanding and resonating around you. The zones and images created during this full-length are limitless. Vs Silence recalls the work of artists such as Aube or Thomas Koner...but even these are only general comparisons as Crawl Unit have clearly staked out their own universe, the Vs Silence disc being only one experiment in many.

awesome, thanks and welcome!

Not 100% ambient, but pretty close. Plus, I didn't upload the files for nothing.


Rosy Parlane - Jessamine (Touch, 2006)



Droning layers of unrecognizable sounds despite credited instrumentalists. It's nothing earth shattering but somehow ingenious and very focused. Similar to Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 in a linear production. Boomkat reads, "The album’s second chunk builds on this theme still further, introducing a low end thrum which would give Sunn O))) a run for their money," While this may not hold true, "Part Three" is the track which makes the album worth it.

Speaking of SAW Vol. 2 can someone up that?

way too lazy to post that for now. but here's links I found for you

disc one
hxxp://lix.in/2359b6

disc two
hxxp://lix.in/c6156e

hope they work

I'd like to see a writter actually make drone and white noise ambient sound interesting instead of throwing around the same run-down. "A blissful jourey into harmony/discordance, these three create tones from almost nothing. sounds arise and fall through sheets of noise forming a thick layer of blah blah blah". like shut up, give me something to actuall work with. it is so hard to find something interesting in the fields of boring ambient because everything from Tim Hecker to some guy who lets a bell reverberate for 45 miinutes has the same description. sorry guys.

makes sense to me as well. I think it would be more informative for the reviewer to describe what instruments the composer/group are toying with, in addition to a better description of the music itself, what it compares to, etc. whether it's loud or soft listening. I usually skim reviews anyway, and go straight to samples on Boomkat or some shit.

I've been figuring out an angle to go with for a cd review. I'd like to send in something to someone and maybe contribute to some sort of music review site and I think I am going to give an actual discription of some sort of ambient. alot of these reviews sound well written but don't actually tell what the music sounds like. I understand it's hard to discribe a disc like Playthroughs with as much passion as you actual feel for the music considering what the cd actually is but I'd love to give it a shot.

and the fact that alot of these discriptions sound the same give me less hope for the state of ambient. it feels as though it's a drying well. I love all kinds of ambient but here's an example: Fennesz's Endless Summer (as everyone of you already know) is pretty much one of my favorite releases of, like, ever. Playthroughs from Keith Fullerton Whitman is also amazing. has anything taken such a new route as these two in the past how many years? Tim Hecker did an alright job but it didn't sound new, it sounded like improvement. so many of these artists seem to take typical "almost pop" structures and break them down into white noise or produced malfunctions. Even artists like Radicalfashion, who's new disc I really enjoy, is a play off of Multiples which it's self is a play almost directly from Reich (the second half of the disc that is). I know these sort of feelings towards new VS old can/are applied to all sorts of music but ambient NEEDS a groundbreaker to come along or the genre will end up feelings like "indie rock" with it's springsteen of 07, joy division of 03, Nick Drake of 04. anyway, I still love my ambient but I'll be waiting for the next classic.

I made a slight effort with this album, but really, it's pointless when the instruments are so distorted to actually say something like.. the 3 minute strumming rips through your skull blah, blah blah.
http://www.soundopinions.com/forum/index.p...ndpost&p=326925

and I'm not saying yours, I mean what gets passed as "critical journalistic review". I'd rather something like yours where you explain some sort of emotional attachment and I understand that is completly subjective but you gave a little bit to back it up...plus you explained what would have taken 1000 words in maybe 75. dont mean to come across as a dick.

's cool

that sounds like a good idea, C P. again I'd reiterate that the reviewers are just mostly lazy and don't think enough when they're reviewing the music, they are letting their emotions get in the way and falling back mostly on reverie. which should be acknowledged for the most part but not take up the entire body of a review. it probably just takes some more thought on the authors part about his audience, and not about how he or she alone feels when strapping on headphones. but what's so tricky about it is that the music plays with space and time, making it harder to describe without resorting to ethereal adjectives. shit, maybe I should try my hand at reviewing as well. I might learn more about the medium.

as far as your rant about the state of ambient in these times, I think it's doing just fine. there have been plenty of releases in the past couple years that I have totally loved. and I think there has been some interesting evolution in the past few years. like the morphing of classical minimalism (reich, part etc) and the hybrid of metal drone with ambient. there's been some crazy stuff that has challenged me (svarte greiner, and dockstader, for example). not all of the noise stuff I like really, but new directions have been taken and I'm anxious to see what will come in the future.

Here are a couple Stars of the Lid recordings people might not have.

Maneuvering the Nocturnal Hum.
Side A: Jetebel (Music From The Short Film) 20:56
Side B: Live In Alberta, Calgary 23:32
hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=7AA0JDYZ

Live at Milvale Industrial Theater
hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=90VPJ1WJ

Please explain what you mean. I'm not disagreeing, I just don't understand.

Books Tour
THURSDAY 4/12/07
Babylon
Ottawa, Ontario

FRIDAY 4/13/07
The Opera House
Ottawa, Ontario

SATURDAY 4/14/07 w/ Mantler
Ukrainian Federation
Montreal, QC

SUNDAY 4/15/07
Somerville Theatre
Somerville, MA


MONDAY 4/16/07
First Unitarian Church Sanctuary
Philadelphia, PA


TUESDAY 4/17/07
9:30 Club
Washington, D.C.

WEDNESDAY 4/18/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
The Orange Peel
Asheville, NC

THURSDAY 4/19/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
Bijou Theatre
Knoxville, TN

SATURDAY 4/21/07
Antones
Austin, TX

SUNDAY 4/22/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
Malibu Performing Arts Center
Malibu, CA

MONDAY 4/23/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
Great American Music Hall
San Francisco, CA

TUESDAY 4/24/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
Aladdin Theater
Portland, OR

WEDNESDAY 4/25/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
Richard's on Richards
Vancouver, BC

THURSDAY 4/26/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
Neumo's
Seattle, WA

FRIDAY 4/27/07
Walker Art Center
Minneapolis, MN

SATURDAY 4/28/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
Old Town School of Folk Music
7:00 PM
Chicago, IL

SATURDAY 4/28/07 w/ Todd Reynolds
Old Town School of Folk Music
10:00 PM
Chicago, IL

MONDAY 4/30/07 w/ Real Quiet
Lincoln Center
New York, NY

WEDNESDAY 5/2/07
Boulder Theater
Boulder, CO

What I was saying is ambient was a whole nother genre with no walls and now it seems too to follow trends and play off influences a bit too much. just my opinion though and going back I may have come across too forward and forceful about the whole matter.

machinefabriek - zwart



*LIMITED TO ONLY 40 COPIES!* It hasn't taken long for Dutch mad-scientist Rutger Zuyderwelt to get a stranglehold on the fickle music scene. It was only last year in fact when his debut album 'Marijn' captured the hearts and minds of so many disillusioned experimental music aficionados, and since then there's been no stopping him in his conquest. With a new 3" cdr released on his own website almost every month he's kept up a frankly unbelievable level of quality while keeping as prolific a schedule as Uwe Schmidt in his prime. 'Zwart' (meaning black.) is the latest emission from the Dutchman, and coming housed in a black cd case on a black-on-black cd, you might think it's likely to go bump in the night. Well you'd be wrong, the three tracks showcased here, while long, epic and sometimes devastatingly noisy are very far from the rimy terror you'd associate with the packaging, in fact I might even say there are occasional moments of joy, if you look hard of course. The disc opens with one of Zuydervelt's strongest pieces yet; entitled 'Cello Recycling' this is a magnificent collaboration with American multi-instrumentalist and producer Aaron Martin (who debuted on the Preservation label earlier this year). Martin's cello is used as source material and Zuydervelt proceeds to build layers of noise and harmonic drone right up until the knee trembling climax. This track will appear later in the year on an exclusive Type Records EP, so if you want a very early preview you'd better act fast. The second piece 'Flotter' and the disc's longest at a mammoth 22 minutes is the perfect example of Zuydervelt's commanding power over noise and drone. Not everyone can handle this kind of music, and week-in-week-out I hear countless cds from artists who consistently get it wrong, here however we have a veritable masterclass in the genre; subtle, arresting and occasionally cacophonous, over almost half an hour you are never given the chance to lose interest or excitement. There is something devastatingly cinematic about this piece, but don't expect to hear it accompanying any Hollywood movies in the near future, rather this is a piece of music that defies visual accompaniment, inciting enough images to power hundreds of short, shocking vignettes. Luckily after this earth-trembling experience Zuydervelt allows the mood to become lighter with the album's closer 'Zink', a mind-melting chunk of dense ambience reminiscent of Tim Hecker or possibly even Stars of the Lid. This piece shows that there can be room for a little romance in the world of noisy drone as simply and beautiful melodies are submerged beneath machine clatter and static crackles - this is the other side to Machinefabriek

Here's another Crawl Unit release. This is actually a vinyl 7" which I recently ripped to mp3, so please pardon any flaws. It's less drone and more jarring noise than the previous upload.

Crawl Unit -- Remains
(12min10sec, 192 kbps)

1. Cutting Up Shadows (Soundtrack For Any Portrait Of V. Mayakovsky)
2. Study For Damaged Speaker, Ten Inch Diameter (Piano Version)
3. Solvent Song, For Piano, Microphones, Loudspeaker, And Magnetic Tape (Excerpt)
4. Degenerative Experiment (Shaggs Live Recording, 14th Generation Version)

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?bmmyby5zjmy

hey somb guys, listen beautiful classic ambient tracks I collected

LINK

Gareth S. Brown - Iron Henry(Misplaced Music, 2007)

1. 1st Cabinet: Iron Henry/ Keys
2. The Turbulent Syrup of Ambition
3. Interlude: Whitby Museum
4. On Lake Above Thee
5. Teeth of Living Coral
6. 2nd Cabinet: Frozen Charlottes
7. Worms
8. Temptest Prognosticator
9. A Nose-Mounted Observatory (of My Other Eye)
10. 3rd Cabinet: Igneous Rocks/ Moths
11. Sea Bishop
12. Hand of Glory



So i've had this one for awhile now, but i never really had a chance to give it a good listen. Now that i have, i'm very glad i did. This kinda sounds like that Clogs album from last year, if it was performed by a toy chest come to life. If that sounds kinda scary, stupid, disheartening, etc. i can safely say that it pulls it off beautifully. Fans of modern classical take note.

Its getting tough to keep up with this guy. Although, this is probably my favorite release that he's done.



Machinefabriek - Slaapzucht

http://www.mediafire.com/?ckniextxtey

I wonder if this person will ever post again.

edit: After actually listening to this entire mix, I wonder if it's a joke.

very much loving Susumu Yokota's Sakura right now. I'm sure it's here somewhere, but if it's not I can up it.

anyway, I know nothing about ambient music, and I need places to go from this album. I have like, the first Selected Ambient Works, which probably doesn't even count. What's relatively accessible/a good starting point?

When I first heard Odori by Radicalfashion, Sakura was the first thing that came to mind. Other than that, yeah, I'm looking for more stuff like this too.

Christian Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Cendre [Commmons, 2007]

1. Oto
2. Aware
3. Haru
4. Trace
5. Kuni
6. Mono
7. Kokoro
8. Cendre
9. Amorph
10. Glow
11. Abyss



This sounds pretty much how one would think it would sound coming from Fennesz and Sakamoto (ie. think Endless Summer with a greater emphasis on piano). Beautiful and soothing.

great cover art

great album




i'll definitely have to pick it up when i get a chance

get brian eno's "ambient works"
Selected ambient works vol.II is ace too

Thank you so much for posting this, really looking forward to listening.

I'm listening to the new Stars of the Lid now, and it's great.

I should put this in here as well, it's a re-up of the Rosy Parlane disc

hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/s7stga




Yeah, Selected Ambient Works II is much better in my opinion than the first.
Eno's music for airports
Helios - Eingya
Stars of the Lid - tired sounds of...

let me know and I could maybe up one of them later.

This is nothing like Sakura, but it is good.

One of Eno's first in his series, four track of very minimal shifting sound loops. It was, beside Ambient Works V.2, the album that got me into this kind of music.

hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/uaarx9

as far as something that sounds like Sakura, I think Undo wasn't far off about Radicalfashion. Also maybe Biosphere or Another Day on Earth(which was posted earlier by someone), both share the slight techno influence on them.

I'm suprised how many people (including mostly critics) who like the radicalfashion record. I thought it was completely uninteresting - the melodies were awful. When I received it in the mail, I posted it in this thread. I was so unimpressed within 48 hrs that I deleted the post. I listened to it 4 times and haven't listened to it again. Here is a MUCH better piano based record from the same label (fatcat) as Max Richter.



Hauschka - Room to Expand

http://rapidshare.com/files/22059840/hausrte.zip.html

I thought I was the only one that didn't care for it. I tried to like it considering many others on the board do(gave it extra chances and such), but it never paid off.

Something about the atmosphere of the Odori just works for me. It is such a beautiful mix of modern-classical, electronic and ambient (hell, theres even some drone thrown in for good measure). Many albums are relaxing, but it really nails the whole "dreamy" vibe, which not many records can claim to do imo.

***disclaimer: the following is a weak attempt at song interpretation. if you'd rather not read on, just know that the song Suna FuCkin&8 pWNsS!!

The standout track on the album for me comes early: Suna. For me, it is a song about running (which is ironic, since if i'm not mistaken, i do believe "suna" translates to read "sand"). The track starts off playful and upbeat, and then at about the 1:32 mark, it slows its step, a moment of sombre reflection perhaps. Shortly after it returns to the carefree running of the beginning, only this time something has changed, nothing seems as bright or playful as before. Something has been lost, or gained. Whatever it is that has been changed, the confrontation comes at the 3:20 mark. The cloud which loomed throughout the second half of the song finally overtakes the runner, and all of the joy from before is gone. Perhaps the "cloud" was the realization of the instability of the ground itself, something which the runner realizes only seconds before sinking into the sand.

In other news, this Fennesz + Sakamoto album is pretty stunning.

What immediately came to mind when I was listening to this last night was The Pearl, the Harold Budd/Brian Eno collaboration. It's like a modern day noise ambient version of The Pearl, and I think they were following cues from that particular collaboration. I like it a lot.

Never heard of this. So its worth tracking down then?

To be honest, the only Eno i've heard is Music for Airports! Although i know i'm familiar with some of his stuff (for example, i know i've heard parts of Apollo).

you should definitely hear it, it's good. I'll up it either tomorrow or very late tonight, if I'm around.

apollo is probably my secodn favourite of his ambient works. then, it's probably "thursday afternon". the others, i feel, are more melody based, rather than ambient. they're short, quiet melodic pieces. nice but nowhere near as enjoyable as "music for airports".