Sounds From The Ground - Widerworld

Waveform Records: 2012

I relaunched this blog four years and eleven months ago. Can you guess how many Sounds From The Ground albums I had at the time? None. None of their albums is how many I had on October 2012. I barely even had two of their tracks, Triangle and Gather, the latter by way of an earlier Elliot Jones project called Path. Including this particular release, I now have eight of their albums. In that time since, Sounds From The Ground released a ten track, twenty year retrospective called 20 Years Of The Best. Naturally, most of those have been given an Ace Track honour (such prestige!), yet I could make a double-LP playlist of SFtG Ace Tracks alone. If you'd have told me I'd be a Sounds From The Ground 'expert' after five years of doing this, I'd have laughed at the notion I'd still be doing this five years later. Surely it'd only take a couple years to review my entire music collection, not a half-decade.

Sans that 'best of', Widerworld is thus far the last album Jones and Nick Woolfson released on Waveform Records, the duo having since gone with their own Upstream Records print for new music distribution. Maybe they'll return to Waveform at a later date, but three albums deep now in the independent domain, and I think they're quite satisfied with how Upstream's doing. Ooh, they even rolled out a vinyl option for their latest effort, Alchemy!

As for this particular album, I mentioned in their previous one, The Maze, that SFtG were showing signs of evolving their ambient dub sound. True, it was an achingly sluggish evolution, but the change was at least noticeable, making more use of modern dub production over the staunch traditionalist stuff most associate with '90s trip-hop. Widerworld carries that on, though as we're still dealing with Sounds From The Ground, the sonic development still moves forward at a glacial pace. Fans wouldn't have it any other way, I reckon.

What stood out the most for me on this album were the tracks that almost sounded like Jones and Woolfson were cribbing a little from other acts. Yeah, you could make that claim about a lot of their work – comparisons to Kruder & Dorfmeister are inevitable – but I'm talking outside the usual assortment of name-dropped downtempo producers.

For instance, the track Hunters utilizes a few dubbed-out sounds that have me recalling Future Sound Of London at their dubbiest. Raining Leaves has gentle synth pads and bloopy chill acid that wouldn't have sounded out of place on older Aphex Twin in his more whimsical moments. Fields Of Green And Yellow almost has a laid-back country vibe with its acoustic guitar work, but those additional synth notes in the back-half are pure Sounds From The Ground vibe. And Ink Spots... eh, there's probably some glitchy dubstep guy out there that I could compare to, but I'm lazy in confirming it.

Sounds From The Ground - The Maze

Waveform Records: 2010

It took nearly fifteen years, but Elliot Jones and Nick Woolfson had finally found a way to evolve their sounds from the gound. They had to have been itching for something new after all that time, but their craft with ambient dub was so skill, there wasn’t much need to mess with the formula. True, they did some nu-jazz and trip-hop explorations too, yet so did everyone else in the downtempo scene around the turn of the century, so their efforts mostly got lost in the glut. Perhaps that’s why they ended up back with Waveform Records shortly after, a sturdy, steady print with a small enough roster they wouldn’t be buried in the process. Only drawback may have been Waveform’s dedication to the spliff’d side of chill vibes, but Sounds From The Ground maneuvered those waters far better than most throughout the mid-‘00s, milking the style nearly up to our current decade.

As I said though, changes were afoot, required even. Waveform itself was moving ever so slowly into contemporary sounds found on the crusty festival circuit, new cats on the scene embracing digital production over the sample-heavy style of the ‘90s. After so many years doing the dubby trip-hop thing, Sounds From The Ground finally embraced a comparatively ‘plastic’ aesthetic as well. The Maze was their first effort in this bold new realm of psy-dub electro!

Whoa, wait, that’s way too much overselling for this album. Its different compared to their prior work, but on a song-writing level, not that much different. There’s still an undeniable sense of dub groove Sounds From The Ground navigate with ease throughout, sections still filled with floating chill-out bliss (Temple Steps, Midnight Crossing, ambient leaning Afterglow), plus room for excursions into oddball electro explorations (Delphine, Acid Cornflats). Though never the hookiest of music makers, Jones and Woolfson come up with a couple nifty earworms befitting their legacy (A Thousand Colours features a lovely little swaying melody with its dub groove, This Land works in a grumbly, gritty bassline that has me wondering if the duo were feeling the dubstep itch as well). And just in case you still craved some of their jazzy influences, The Lenox gets some of that lounge vibe going with muted trumpets and spritely keyboards jamming alongside chill acid. Also, is it just me, or does the title of this song have you imagining Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, but staring Annie Lennox in the titular role? What a bizarre book that would have made, featuring an androgynous synth-pop singer over a grumpy Wilfred Brimley stand-in. Future consideration for the 2071 100th Anniversary reboot!

And that’s about it for The Maze. Like so many Sounds From The Ground albums, there’s little at fault with their songcraft, though if you don’t fancy the dubby side of downtempo chill music, you probably won’t be fussed with this album. Still, in adapting a few new tricks to their trade, The Maze is one of the higher recommendations in their discography.

Sounds From The Ground - Terra Firma

Waveform Records: 1999/2000

What was like being a fan of this duo in their early years? Was there any inclination they’d go on to release several albums in the new millennium? Kin definitely gave Sounds From The Ground some presence in the world of ambient dub, but the genre itself was in decline as the ‘90s drew to a close, trip-hop and other downtempo styles at the forefront of scene dominance. Whatever momentum their debut generated didn’t amount to much in the short term, and Nick Woolfson even spent some time working with other producers before rejoining with Elliot Jones for a sophomore Ground Sounds effort.

Still, the duo must have known they had a good thing going to not only reconvene nearly a half-decade later, but also establish their own Upstream Records print to release their own material. It doesn’t matter they initially only used it for Mosaic and a reissue of Kin, then let it sit fallow for a decade before resurrecting it from digital dust. Sounds From The Ground had the foresight, the clairvoyance, the forevoyance, to know they’d be in this together for the long haul. This early in their partnership though? Who could have predicted such a fruitful discography would emerge given the gap between Kin and Mosaic?

Enough questions about that. Here’s the answer to the question currently burning your noggin, which I’ve dodged with my own musings. Terra Firma is the Waveform Records version of Mosaic, the label once again tinkering with an original for stateside distribution. In this case, Waveform re-arranged a few tracks into different positions, jettisoned a pair of tunes (Snow, Circle & Star), and added two instead. The first, Shine, appears to be an exclusive to Terra Firma, while the second, Mineral, saw some compilation duty in releases from Planet Dog and Echo Beach. Shine is an interesting tune in the Sounds discography, something of a light atmospheric jungle track with jazzy vocals overtop.

In fact, this whole album has quite the laid-back jazz vibe going for it, more so than much of their work in the following decade. You can’t deny the influence Kruder & Dorfmeister were having on the downtempo scene at this time, with acts like Thievery Corporation and Jazzanova emerging as hot, new talents in K&D’s wake. Woolfson and Jones were undoubtedly no less influenced, leaving behind the ambient dub that marked their prior work in favor of a different approach to their craft. They didn’t stick with the pure lounge jazz for long though, soon retreating back to tried and true groovy, dubbed-out vibes, even within Mosaic/Terra Firma itself. If I can glean any difference between the two album versions, Waveform opted for back-loading the ambient dub stuff, whereas Mosaic mixed everything up.

In either case, this sophomore Sounds album is fine enough.Their best work was still a couple albums along though, finessing what they learned here. Fear not, Fans Of Sounds From The Ground in the year 2000, your future is bright!

Sounds From The Ground - Ready, Steady, Slow

Upstream Records: 2012

It’s been a year since I last discussed Sounds From The Ground. It doesn’t feel that long ago when I splurged on the near-entirety of their discography, dragging all ya’ll along in my musical crash course of an overlooked duo. That’s what makes all this so much fun, eh? Me finding new artists and labels, somehow having the funds to buy all their records, consuming the music and digesting the feels it generates, regurgitate them into words zapped into your retinas. Um wait, the process doesn’t sound appealing when described like that, does it? Damn this English language and all its appealing metaphorical abuses.

I only covered about two-thirds of Jones and Woolfson’s output in that earlier outing though, the rest waiting patiently in the bottom end of the alphabet before getting reviews on this blog. The gap’s hopefully given any curious readers of the duo’s music a chance to hear some of their tunes for themselves, gauging whether Sounds From The Ground are worth more of their precious listening hours or not. I bring this all up because, if ever there was a ‘fans-only’ album in the act’s extensive catalog, Ready, Steady, Slow is that CD.

Jones and Woolfson have long dabbled in various forms of downtempo and chill, but typically as one-offs on their full-lengths, ambient dub remaining their breaded butter. Fifteen years into a career had to have them anxious to try something different, and after resuscitating their seldom used Upstream Records in the late ‘00s, could finally indulge themselves a little. For their first ‘experimental’ album, we are given a pure ambient LP. As someone who’s enjoyed many a beatless moment from prior Sounds O’ Ground full-lengths, this was an intriguing effort, and Ready, Steady, Slow doesn’t disappoint, offering a nice variety of examples from the genre .

There’s droning synth pieces like First Light and Departures, calming meditative compositions like Watershell, Mice Skating, and The Long Curve, rapturous layered builds like The Turning Wheel and Mapping Points In Time, and pure cosmic bliss like Chrome Horizon. Oh, and a bit of room for field recording doodles (Interchange) and …folksy acoustic prog-rock (Long Lane)? What is this, the ‘70s? I guess so; or at least Jones and Woolfson have no qualms in letting the influence of early ambient maestros drive their music making here. Must I namedrop all the obvious names again? You know them all by now – Hell, I’ve reviewed a number of them already. Besides, it sells Ready, Steady, Slow short if I do so, because the honest truth is “Sounds From The Ground All Ambient Album” is a tough sell regardless. Matters aren’t helped in referring to Very Important Older Musics.

Ready, Steady, Slow is a lovely little ambient album, but as is often the case with lovely little ambient albums, not essential listening. Nor is it anywhere near an entry point into Sounds From The Ground, hardly representative of their music. As I said, a ‘fans only’ option.

Sounds From The Ground - Luminal

Waveform Records: 2004

After jumping around labels for their first decade as Sounds From The Ground, Jones and Woolfson finally settled on Waveform to handle most of their distribution upon releasing Luminal. It also started off a sort-of trilogy on their part, exploring all that one can explore within the realm of ambient dub. I've already covered two here, Brightwhitelight and High Rising. And now we've come to the end, at the beginning. Huh, who'd have thought I'd do this in reverse. In a nutshell, the duo was a bit all over the place for their first few releases, which likely explains their label jumping too. More recently, they've explored darker downtempo, glitch and drone, but I'll get to that's for reviews much later on. Figures in the middle of this career they’d settle into a comfortable rhythm.

As Luminal was the first in this trilogy, it doesn't quite reach the highs of High Rising. For what it's worth, though, I find this one more interesting than Brightwhitelight. There's still some of the duo's acid jazz background cropping up (they'd released another album but two years prior on Ninja Tune sub-label Nu-Tone), so it’s not all ambient dub all the time. Heck, opener Stampede wouldn’t sound out of place on a Thievery Corporation album, sans occasional galloping horse samples. In fact, if you’re at all familiar with Thiev-Corp’s first album, Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi (and shame on you if you’re not), you’ll find yourself in familiar territory with the first couple tracks off Luminal.

After that though, it’s proper dub t’ings. Whether with cascading synth washes in Razz and Poems, smoky reggae roots in Tumbledown and Ten Tons Of Dope, funky upbeat numbers like Burning Bright and London Fields (which includes a lengthy intro of ambient pad bliss), or a soulful jam with Move On, the thick bass and spacious reverb is in full effect. Yep, Luminal definitely sounds good for a mid-‘00s Sounds From The Ground album. Yessir, it does. So... um, how’s things with you?

Look, there’s little more to say on this one. Everything I can say about how this album sounds, I’ve covered in the other two reviews I mentioned above. I’ve plumb run out of things now, and I fear it’s selling Luminal short. Hell, I’m selling ambient dub as a viable genre short, aren’t I? Guess it can’t be helped. Like so many branches in music, sometimes a genre will have stronger connection to a listener than others and, for whatever reason, ambient dub hits that sweet spot for yours truly, despite the simplistic nature much of its produced in. For others, it might be minimal deep-tech, others still dub techno or noodly drone. I can vibe on some of those too, yet more often than not, this is my go-to sound, nicely presented from the ground.

I do give Luminal a recommendation if you’re even a casual fan of blissy downtempo vibes, but it ain’t a big deal if you pass on it either.

Sounds From The Ground - Kin

Waveform Records: 1995/1996

What the Hell? I know the first track, Gather. Wasn’t it on a Coldcut mix CD? Yeah, it was, Tone Tales From Tomorrow Too. But I don't recall seeing Sounds From The Ground in the tracklist. Don't tell me this was sampled from it. It's pretty damn close, but kinda different too. I'm confused. Help me, oh Lord Discogs! *brief moment later*. Ah, the group that initially made Gather, Path, was a project by Elliot Morgan Jones and Alan Bleay. Guess Mr. Jones took it for use when he and Nick Woolfson started their Sounds From The Ground work. And there are quite a few prior projects between both their discographies too. Did they recycle other material for their debut Ground Sounds album, Kin? It would explain the disparate tone running through this CD.

I'm not sure what prompted the duo to initially hook up, but their first production, Triangle, must have convinced them to keep making music together forever after. I can hear why, as the tune's a wonderful blend of early '90s ambient techno and dub, definitely a standout from a time when fans were spoiled for choice of this sound. Beyond snapped it up for their fourth and last volume in the Ambient Dub series, and naturally Waveform did the same, also offering them Stateside distribution of Kin.

Getting back to that ‘disparity’ I mentioned at first, folks coming to Kin expecting more Triangles would definitely be thrown for a loop by the opener Gather - on an acidy trip-hop tip, it’s small wonder Coldcut used the original version for a mix. Follow-up Drawn To A Woman is also in this vein, though sounding closer to acid jazz in this case. But yes, ambient dub be where those Sounds From The Ground come from, and the middle portion of Kin indulges in the genre a fair bit. Some of it’s fine – I can’t resist the pure dub funk of Loaf - but others are rather rambly, never going much of anywhere, seemingly content to remain wallpaper.

The last two cuts stand out as oddities as much as the first two, giving Kin a curious consistency, but not one that’ll have you reaching for a full playthrough. Where The Wild Things Were borrows elements from Gather, then throws it into a standard world beat jam. Banco de Gaia it ain’t. And finishing things off is... psy dub? That’s unexpected, and Seven Sisters is okay as a mid-‘90s example of the sound, but Simon Posford and his ilk have spoiled us with fresher takes on the genre since.

So Kin is a mixed bag, all things considered. Triangle is a great track, but it’s been whored to tons of compilations over the years - getting this album solely for it isn’t worth it. Jones and Woolfson were still discovering their sound here, which is interesting for those intrigued by their discography. It’s not an essential purchase though, most of the music on display following tropes rather than defining them.

Sounds From The Ground - High Rising

Waveform Records: 2006

Now this one, this is where one should check out Sounds From The Ground first. I can’t go so far as to say it’s the London duo’s best album, but of their Waveform releases, it’s definitely one of their most consistent LPs from front-to-back. With a title like High Rising, you might expect soaring sonics and uplifting melodies, but this is an incredibly subdued CD, executing ambient dub in ways that sounds boundless despite not venturing stylistically far. I guess Jones and Woolfson had finally got their sound… down to the ground? Ah heh… um, yeah, no.

I should make something clear right off the bat: if you've never had an ear for ambient dub, High Rising isn't likely to change your mind on the genre. Frankly, I'm unsure what sort of album would. Like so many dub variants of music, it's the sort of sound you're either into, faults and all, or figure just a bunch of mindless, middling musical-fluff only spliff heads could vibe on. This is a good album for those who enjoy the music, for sure, but if you're in need of something easier to get acquainted with, maybe start from the source in those classic Beyond Ambient Dub compilations.

Back to Sounds From The Ground, they'd been in the game for a good decade, and though occasionally exploring other forms of downtempo and chill, their bread and butter remained ambient dub. So if fans were to be treated to a full album of them doing what they did-done best, it must have been oh-so sweet catnip. Like if Oliver Lieb were to make a trance album again. Or Markus Schulz playing McProg again. Or Deltron making any music again (ooh, it’s finally here!).

Even within its relatively narrow confines, High Rising does offer some diversity of style for the discerning ambient dub head. There's the slight touch of bleepy techno on tracks like Rotorblade and Slate Grey. Viper Style has dashes of world beat, while Gaudi shows up in Palmprint for a proper reggae dub jam. As the cover art might hint at, some city-cool trip-hop action crops up in Beautiful Feeling and Blink. Finally, showing they were also clued into the growing popularity of psy dub, final tracks Speedbumps and Allsorts sound like they’d fit snuggly on an Ultimae collection.

In some ways, that the follow-up of Brightwhitelight coming off mediocre isn’t so surprising anymore. How could Jones and Woolfson top High Rising when everything on here is superbly crafted while staying true to just the essentials? (yeah yeah, I’m probably overhyping it) Small wonder they released an ‘odds-n-sods’ collection after that one, then started properly exploring different roads of downtempo with their next few albums. Those are reviews for much later though. Meanwhile, if you’ve just a passing curiosity about Sounds From The Ground, High Rising’s definitely the one to scope out first. Unless, of course, you can afford to splurge on the whole lot.

Sounds From The Ground - Brightwhitelight

Waveform Records: 2008

I’ve been buying music from Waveform Records since the label’s earliest years, but not everything they’ve ever put out – such is life when you’re younger and without ample income or ability for online shopping. These days, however, it’s no big to splurge, and while taking a look at their latest offerings, I came to a stunning conclusion: I’ve never picked up anything by Sounds From The Ground. The London duo’s been a core act of Waveform since its earliest years, having released over half-a-dozen albums through the label along with frequent compilation duty. Why have I ignored them for so long? That’d be like buying from Ultimae Records, but bypassing everything Solar Fields related. Damn, time to rectify that oversight. I should pick up a couple- no, wait, I can afford all the albums now! Well, the ones on Waveform anyway (holy cow, have they released a lot of music).

So I'm properly all caught up on Sounds From The Ground, but due to my alphabetical restrictions, ya'll only get to read about a portion of my listening labour for now. And, unlike a proper 'chronological' retrospective, we're starting way up in the currentsies, their 2008 (and seventh) album Brightwhitelight. Huh, with a title like that, maybe it's a nod to the Moontribe parties.

Oh wait, I should explain these GroundSound guys. Comprised of Elliot Jones and Nick Woolfson, they've essentially continued the ambient dub banner seminal label Beyond pioneered, so it makes sense they'd find a home on Waveform for Stateside distribution. By the time this album came out, the duo were primarily releasing exclusive material through Waveform, which given the global reach labels could achieve in the '00s, makes good sense, keeping one's discography tidy. I guess.

Not that they haven’t done other music. Just last year they released a mostly ambient LP on their own imprint called Ready Steady Slow. Going through their Waveform output, however, I’ve noticed they haven’t changed their sound much or explored other genres beyond typical dubby downtempo and chill. Brightwhitelight’s no exception, playing about as straight your ambient dub as you’re likely to find. It’s certainly well produced and pleasing to the ears, with occasional variations (psy, lounge, etc.) keeping things from getting repetitive. It’s just… there’s nothing on this album that I haven’t heard before executed with similar competence, either from similar artists or Sounds From The Ground on previous albums. I admit I’m not giving Brightwhitelight much of an opportunity to warm itself to me, but stellar albums will always stand out no matter how many others you’re plowing through, and this one unfortunately passed by my ears with little fanfare compared to the rest of the batch I picked up.

Not the best way to warm you up to this duo, I know. Any group with a large discography has at least a couple middling albums, and this blog’s silly stipulation simply brought up one such from Sounds From The Ground’s first. Better luck on the next one, then.