Purl - Form Is Emptiness

Archives: 2016

In my mind, Purl will always be a Silent Season guy, for one rather silly reason: his album Stillpoint was the second CD I ever bought from the label. And a humdinger of a record it was, so perfectly capturing such a sublime vibe the dub techno print cultivated at that point. Never mind that would end up being Mr. Cimbrelius' last release with Silent Season, or that he'd only had one other item with them before (Deep Ground). In my mind, Purl was Silent Season, and always will be.

That's obviously completely erroneous though, Ludvig shopping the Purl brand among many labels throughout his career. Heck, even by the time he'd put out Stillpoint, he'd already had more albums out on Dewtone Recordings than any other label. The following year, however, he made his debut with a little ambient print just getting their feet wet, with a similar aesthetic to Silent Season (densely layered dub drones, naturalistic cover art). He'd go on to release many more there, plus their off-shoot print. For all intents, I should be thinking Purl as an Archives guy more than a Silent Season guy. Nope, still can't quite shake it.

Purl being on Archives makes sonic sense, and Form Is Emptiness delivers exactly what you'd expect of the pairing. Ludvig's drone tones are given more prominence, but his dubby rhythms aren't completely jettisoned either. In fact, they're often downright heavy, some serious low-end throb going on in the track Unlearn even as gentle, ethereal pad work weaves through the bass. Elsewhere, Under Mjuka Vatten and Willow (Graft I) keep the dub techno pulse steady, focusing more on the subtle harmonic tones layered overtop. And if final track Terra Lumina, at sixteen minutes in length, didn't make room for at least a little beatcraft during its runtime, it'd be a big waste of sonic space indeed.

Still, Archives is generally more an ambient label than a dub techno one (there's Faint for that), and Form Is Emptiness offers the beatless stuff too. Vissna washes layered strings and synths like waves upon a seashore, while the titular track expands on Vissna's ideas to grander scale. Not to mention most tracks have at least some ambient dithering at their starts, gradually leading in whether there's a rhythm or not. Yep, there's all the things happening that should make this a standout Purl album. Well, almost.

Honestly, I think this is more an Archives issue than a Purl one. The label, while very dependable at providing a particular type of ambient, does tend to sound rather samey. I've brought up this critique before, and it holds true with Form Is Emptiness, a sense of repetitiveness settling in as the album plays out. Having heard Ludvig across many prints now, I can only conclude this is more him making music in the Archives style. Great if you're down for more with a little dub techno rudder, but may not leap out at you as essential as his other releases.

Purl & protoU - Sub Life

Dronarivm: 2019

Oh my, this is a cross-over event I never even conceived of. Superman meets Spider-Man, sure. The Simpsons meet The Critic, absolutely. Dr. Octagon meets Deltron 3030? Well, I marked out. Purl and protoU though? Like, how did these two even cross paths, much less find time to collaborate on an album? True, Ludvig has had many pairings with musicians this past decade, though mostly remained within his domain of dubby downtempo techno. Sasha, meanwhile, has been dark ambient 4 lyfe, y0'. These are two scenes that almost never cross-pollinate. Yet here we are, a mega team-up extraordinaire of cosmic proportions, and other Stan Lee levels of hyperbole you can imagine.

Even more interesting is this happened on Dronarivm, the first time either have appeared on the ambient and modern classical print. Heck, it's the first time protoU has appeared anywhere other than Cryo Chamber. And while Purl has drifted among many labels (Databloem, Dewtone, Archives, etc.), he'll always be one of Silent Season's key acts in my mind. It's possible Ludvig would migrating to Dronarivm at some point, but seeing Sasha anywhere other than good ol' Cryo blows my mind.

Still, given the contents of Sub Life, I can't imagine this album appearing anywhere else. It certainly fits within the Moscow label's wheel-house, what with the atmospheric treatments and minimalist modern classical touches. It also sounds little of what I'd consider 'traditional' Purl or protoU music – no dense layers of dubby synths or cinematic dronescapes. For sure I can hear elements of both as Sub Life plays, but if I were to do a blind listen, I doubt I'd easily identify them, needing multiple hints getting there. (“Okay, one of these musicians has exclusively released music on Cryo Chamber...” “God Body Disconnect! Because guitars!”)

Five tracks averaging around a dozen minutes each makes up Sub Life, all following a relatively similar path. A moody bit of atmospheric ambient sets the tone, with field recordings and dronescapes creating a sonic setting rich in texture, but not so thick you feel suffocated by your surroundings. A mysterious, desolate valley in Trees And Stones, an open dale in Sub Life, the wind-swept dunes at the shores of a beach in Sacred Fluids, a crisp breeze through a billowing leaves in Recreating The Purpose. All quite lovely pieces of calming tones, sure to ease you into a deep slumber should you doze off to it.

But nay, the main thrust of each piece is a singular featured instrument, improvising away in that modern classical way this sort of music enjoys. You get the piano in Trees And Stones and Morning Light, acoustic guitar in Sacred Fluids, ethereal voices in Sub Life, and even a subtle mix of all three in Recreating The Purpose.

If anything, this album has the feel of a ballet, the two performers gliding among each other in fluid movements. Which is par for the course where Dronarivm is concerned, made more remarkable with the dancers involved.

Purl - Deep Ground

Silent Season: 2011

Now this was fortuitous of me, finding an O.G. CD of not only any ol' Silent Season release, but a Purl one at that. Mind, this isn't one of the label's initial run of CDs, lacking their distinct gatefold design with recycled cardboard casing. Far as I can tell, this album came out with the launch of Silent Season's 'download series' (hence catalogue numbers being SSDxx), so it makes sense they'd spend less effort on a CD option. Wasn't the label mostly a digital one in the first place though? I guess, but growing positive buzz at the start of the '10s probably spurred on a little re-launch in the process.

All well and good for Silent Season, but there's a nice additional talking point to this CD where Purl is concerned, in that it's his first album to receive the CD treatment at all. True, it was just his third LP released, but for a chap who's put out a couple dozen albums this past decade, hard copy editions remain rare, especially the earlier half of his career. In fact, he never put out another CD until his Silent Season follow-up Stillpoint (so sayeth Lord Discogs). As his profile has grown, Purl's expanded his reach across more labels that do offer physical options, making these initial steps beyond the only-digital realm nifty little artifacts of a discography on the rise. So goes the line of marketing in the collector's world anyway.

And what sort of sounds may we find on Ludvig's debut Silent Season outing? Dub techno and ambient drone of course – it's the label's brand, after all. That may not seem such a big deal since it's familiar ground where Purl music is concerned, but his prior couple albums had been mostly pure ambient exercises with dubby overtones. Rhythms were not really part of his repertoire yet.

On Deep Ground however, he goes all out, unleashing the fiercest, freshest beats that- No, not really. First proper track Sus is actually quite laid back, a distant techno rhythm gliding along a gentle backing synth, sounding not too out of place on an old Aphex Twin collection. Elsewhere, Storisende feels almost proggy with its comparatively prominent chugging rhythm, its backing layered pads no less blissy than anything else in Purl's discography.

The over-arching influence of dub techno couldn't be ignored though, and Under Trädens Rötter sounds like it could have come from one of Wolfgang Voigt's Gas sessions, though more mysterious than ominous. Sargyll, meanwhile, goes real deep into the dub muck, its rhythm barely a low thrum as sound echo off cavernous spaces.

It's not all dub techno, half of Deep Ground made up of ambient pieces of varying length (shortest: three, thirty-three; longest: ten, thirty-nine). They're all nice affairs, typical of Purl's style at the time, but oddly sequenced, making the album's flow a little wonky in the process. By no means a deal breaker though, Deep Ground definitely worth scoping out among Purl's many LPs.

Yamaoka & Purl - Simple Songs

Databloem: 2018

Far be it for me to get flustered over seeing certain artists flit between labels I figured would have little cross-pollination, but it's still weird to see a chap I discovered on Silent Season appear on Databloem. First it was Segue, and now Purl, both producers that helped cement in my mind the definitive dubby, trancey, techno-chill Silent Season stylee (ASC too). And while it's a sound that could fit with Databloem's rather liberal explorations on downtempo and ambient music, they still have generally different followers. You'll never see a glowing write-up of Databloem on Resident Advisor, nosiree.

Fortunately, such artists aren't so constrained by label loyalty that they don't mind dipping into other's pools on occasion. Ludvig Cimbrelius (Purl) has in fact done the deed many times over the course of his career, including such labels as... wait, didn't I already do the obligatory Label Namedrop when I reviewed Stillpoint? *checks* I didn't! Ah sweet! Ahem... Labels such as Sediment, Dewtone Recordings, Eternell, and Faint. Many of those releases included pairings with other producers such as Sinius, Deflektion, and Hivertribe. So teaming up with this Yamoaka isn't out of the ordinary for Purl. Still, I'll be flubber-flustered if he ends up pairing up with, say, a dark ambient producer, releasing an album on, say, a drone label. Wait a minute, my Bandcamp bell just rung, let me che- Son of a gun!!

Yamaoka is headed by Yoshinori Yamazaki (Kenichi Oka was once a member, so sayeth Lord Discogs). Yet another one of those tireless ambient producers churning out multiple rare albums on multiple obscure labels like October Man Recordings, Secret Station, Doppelganger, Carpe... Sonum... Records? Dear God, everything I know that is ambient is collapsing within itself!

Anyhow, Simple Songs. Two types of compositions make up this album. The first are the long, ambient dronescapes where minimalist looping passages and melodies are stretched out like ethereal embers across a picturesque skyline. Very lovely, very calming, very expected of another release out of Databloem. The other assortment contain more momentum to them, quicker in their loops such that they percolate into pseudo-rhythms. Add a kick drum underneath these, and you could easily have trance, or neo-trance, or whatever folks want to call this stuff. So of course Yam' n' Pur' do so (or close approximates of) in tracks like Spinning Grid, Simple Songs, and River Run. Ah, that's the Silent Season stuff I was looking for.

And I won't lie, though I've come across a fair bit of mint material from this Databloem splurge, Simple Songs has thus far taken the cake for me. Yeah, it's a small cheat in cribbing the same dreamy dubby vibes as has made Silent Season among my favourite prints as of late, combining two enjoyed styles into one awesome whole. This is what great electronic music does though: mix and merge into wonderfully fascinating new combinations. And a staid scene such as ambient could use more of such worlds colliding.

Purl - Stillpoint

Silent Season: 2015

Purl is Ludvig Cimbrelius, a chap who's released a ridiculous amount of music in the last few years. Just under this name alone, Lord Discogs lists ten albums. Then there's Alveol, providing at least another dozen assorted albums and singles. Throw in a number of one-off aliases like Surr, Xpire, and Ziyal, and you have one busy body. So it goes, though, for the digital market of dub techno and ambient, producers almost necessitated to flood the field with their droning synths and treated field recordings to stay with the pack. Fortunately, Silent Season has a leg up on their competition in cultivating a consistent theme with their releases, music that invokes imagery, moods, and feelings of residing in their base of the Pacific Northwest. As that too is my region of residence, it's made connecting to their output easy as slicing a salmon fillet.

Except, as I write this, I'm not currently in Vancouver, but rather Edmonton. Where the skies are big and blue, with nary a rainforest, mountain, or rocky shoreline in sight. Where it is not mild and damp, but cold and wintery. Where- *glances out window*... Well, I'll be darned. Drizzle. Grey clouds. Reasonable temperatures. I've somehow brought the Pacific Northwest weather to the northern Prairies. Guess I can write this review of Stillpoint while here after all.

And sure enough, the opening track, Havets Sang, begins with the sound of rain on old growth forests, crashing waves against seaweed strewn beaches, and deeply dubbed-out synth drones wrapping you up in early morning blankets of fog. Yeah, sorry, my similes remain stuck in BC coast trappings. How would an appropriate Albertan one go, 'rolling hills full of farms and bison'? Surely not as rain heavy as we get in this track anyway.

Honestly, the music on Stillpoint goes more warm and comforting than what I just described. The follow-up tracks of Baleine and Wilderness maintain the ambient form, but bring in some deep, dub techno groove, then we get... Oh my! Melora, dear God, is this ever a lush piece of ambiance, with gentle angelic vocal treatments, ebbing and flowing as only the best ambient does. I know I've heard this kind of music hundreds of times before, but this one's still as gorgeous as anything I've ever heard. Who cares if it's named after a poor episode of Deep Space Nine [citation needed], Melora's almost worth the price of admission alone.

Many of the remaining tracks maintain the ambient dub techno mold, though some of them start suspiciously sounding like trance – or very brisk ambient techno anyway. Granted, that's part of Purl's MO, creating music that's very hypnotic and meditative. It does get a bit repetitive, but Mr. Cimbrelius use of layered pads, timbre, and distant beats makes for a captivating listen regardless.

Stillpoint is a great collection of dub techno, bringing remarkable warmth to a genre that's more often so cold. Huh, seems remarkably appropriate here, somehow. Ah, I'm just imagining things, probably.