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.

Darren McClure - On Opposites

Neotantra: 2019

I've mentioned before that Darren McClure is something of a label journeyman, almost never releasing more than one item on any given print. The only exception Lord Discogs lists is an EP and a collaborative album with José Soberanes on Éter Editions. So it continues with Neotantra, as obvious a label he'd find his way on as any these days. 'Cause when you're down with the Lee Norris fam', you get all the sweet label bumps. Seriously, someone really ought to create an interconnecting chart with Mr. Norris at the centre of it all, just to discover how far reaching his influence stretches. Like, it wouldn't be Brian Eno levels of convolution, but at least on par with a top tier hip-hop producer.

Anyhow, On Opposites is Mr. McClure's contribution to Neotantra, and I cannot deny, there's little I've heard like how this one plays out. Yeah, yeah, I say that often, but seriously, there's something remarkably unique about this album. Even when I think there's some other producer's influence sneaking in (Strange Slip In Time had my John Beltram triggers flaring), I struggle placing this album in any tidy compartment.

Part of it is there's such diversity going on here, I sometimes forget this is all the work of one man as things play out. Many artists show off musical variety within their LPs, but they typically have a specific aesthetic tying everything together. Darren practically pulls a one-eighty with each track here, a pleasant melodic number followed upon by an experimental dark drone piece. Opposites indeed.

If there's any unifying theme with On Opposites, it's sonic exploration in unknown territory. Not that the sounds Darren uses are terribly unique, but it does feel like I'm excavating some future-shock archaeological discovery. Otaru Box and Strange Slip In Time are bright and spritely, like benign reflections of what once was. Meanwhile, Reflecting and Charmonia feature a low, thrumming pulses, like ancient machinery breathing, as distant airy synth pads paint pictures of a lost civilization farther advanced than we could comprehend. To say nothing of the straight-up field recordings of Snow Lapse, where something is literally being excavated (Geir Jenssen would approve). Elsewhere, Darren shows off his more experimental side, but never indulges things for long, serving more as sonic respites. Yes, even the six-minute long Slow Juno, essentially nothing more than perpetually layering synth drone, and unlike anything else on this album.

Are all of Mr. McClure's albums like this? The couple I've taken in were collaborations (with Porya Hatami and Lee Norris as Memex), so I don't have the strongest frame of reference there. I did dabble some samples of his other releases, but clearly it didn't leave the same impression as On Opposites has. I'm almost afraid to check them out, unsure if they could top the weird, captivating journey this one took me on. While not every track is a winner, it certainly kept my interest in whatever different turn it might take me on.

Motionfield - Luftrum

Carpe Sonum Records: 2015

Then suddenly, Motionfield. Without listening to anything more than a few snippets, I now have four of his albums within my CD collection. Yet I still can't be bothered springing for even one Orbital record, darn it all.

Is Petter Friberg's project some revelatory new talent lighting the ambient world up? A dope underground prodigy only a select in-the-know are keeping to themselves? Ask some folks, and I'm sure they'd say that, but I cannot front. The reason I've gotten four Motionfield albums before even listening to one is because they're being released on labels like Neotantra and ...txt. You know, those prints that print such limited runs of CDs, they sell out fast, so you gotta' get in while the gettin's good, b'gar. Still, I'm fairly certain they'll turn out good. Fairly certain...

Motionfield did kinda'-sorta' pop up out of nowhere though. He spent much of the '00s releasing and self-releasing music on various ambient net labels, even getting a CD release out on the short-lived Somnia print. Eventually he landed a deal with Carpe Sonum Records, this particular Luftrum the result. Ah, so he was undoubtedly a contributor to that label's immense, indispensable Pete Namlook tribute box-set Die Welt Ist Klang, helping him gain a larger presence within the contemporary ambient world? Nope! Surprisingly, Motionfield came into the Carpe Sonum family the old fashioned way (if the old fashioned way is luck and pluck), Luftrum essentially a debut. Or re-debut, if you'd been following his career prior. Given that he's since appeared on all the Very Important modern ambient techno labels, I'd say it was a very successful (re)debut indeed.

And I'll give Petter this: he definitely has a unique sound. Luftrum doesn't waste time getting things going, the first track (they're all eponymous) instantly hitting you with a filtered, sweeping backing pad that sounds like ancient machinery breathing, all the while a simple, crisp trip-hop beat plays. I almost want to make a Boards Of Canada comparison, but the more I listen, the less apt it sounds. It's not really dubby either, at least in the traditional warm way ambient dub goes, yet just as relaxing. A Moogy jingle joins later, and if you don't want to find yourself swaying in a summer breeze, dozing in a hammock, I guess this just ain't the music for you.

The album carries on with subdued twee melodies, sparse field recordings, floaty radio sampling, gentle pastoral chill, subtle glitchy sounds, and all that good stuff. In fact, there's almost too much spacious downtime on Luftrum, which makes sense given the title, but does leave one's attention drifting at times. And I can't say Luftrum 8's attempt at a more rhythmic tension builder is effective at shaking things up, that whirring pad and clicky glitch comparatively annoying compared to the album's general tranquility. Knocked me out of some pleasant dozes, it did.

It that's the extent of my quibbles, however, then I can't wait to hear my remaining stockpiled Motionfield albums.

HIA & Biosphere - Birmingham Frequencies

Headphone: 2000/2019

Bobby Bird had tagged with Geir Jenssen to the Norwegian's remote hometown for the Polar Sequences performance, which creatively turned out quite well for the two. I'm assuming, then, that the man behind HIA told the man behind Biosphere that should he ever find himself in his own Birmingham hood, he should check out his crib for another collaborative project. Two years after that Tromsø trip, Geir indeed found himself in the birthplace of ambient dub, so off with Bobby he went for another session of field recordings trips and music making magic.

Only... what sort of sounds would Mr. Jenssen gather? Birmingham is a rather stark contrast of location compared to the cold tundras that had come to define Biosphere's realm of sonic influence. Heck, even for a British town, Birmingham doesn't seem terribly interesting. I looked for it on a map, finding it stuck between where all the cool music locations are (to its north, the Big Three cities of the midlands; London to its south-east). I'm sure there's been a few famed names from there (Steve Lawler, Duran Duran, ELO ...UB40? Erm, no), but judging by the Google Earth images of industrial, brutalist architecture, it doesn't surprise me that budding musicians fled the city as fast as they could. Which makes the fact something like the ambient dub scene of the early '90s could even blossom in such a place all the more remarkable.

So out and about Birmingham Bird and Jenssen went, collecting samples and sounds such as geese in a river, building alarms, the reverb and echo of channel tunnels, and... Okay, what exactly are they doing in Augusta Road? It sounds like they grabbed a large stick and dragged it along wooden planks, which is amusing for a little, but did I really need to hear it to the extent we do here? Still, the sound of rummaging through brush, with it being manipulated in such a way that it becomes almost like white noise static, is a nifty little sonic trick. Plus, this track has one of the best examples of the two's unique styles playing off each other, an ultra-minimalist outing where Biosphere's echoing dub pulses serves as the rudder for HIA's playful dub bleeps to ride, and that's all. Just a shame about that obnoxiously loud tree-branch thingy.

There's only six proper tracks here (Daddylonglegs is but a pure field recordings interlude), wherein two apiece offer differing examples of music making. The aforementioned Augusta Road and Narrowboat do the minimalist thing, whereas Gas Street Basin and Midpoint have brisk HIA rhythms, with less featured samples driving things along. Cannon Hill and The Rotunda, on the other hand, sound more organic, especially with jazzier percussion in the latter and gentle acoustic guitar strums in the former. In fact, given how urban and claustrophobic much of Birmingham Frequencies comes across, Cannon Hill in contrast almost sounds pastoral. Well, until HIA's clickity rhythms enter. Gotta' let ol' Bobby get his stuff in, amirite?

Jacob Newman - Biospherica

Carpe Sonum Records: 2016/2018

I've talked about Jacob Newman before, but not specifically. My prior exposure to him came paired with Devin Underwood, whom I've touched upon individually as Specta Ciera. Seems only fair I finally give the other half of Gapfield a look-see, though he doesn't have quite so robust a discography as Devin. It's a respectable collection of music, but not a touch on his collaborator's body of work. What's weird is despite the two having done solo work and pairings with other artists, I can't shake the notion of Jacob and Devin forever tied at the occipital lobe. Is it because my first exposure was their contribution to that megazord-sized Pete Namlook tribute box-set Die Welt Ist Klang? Or that Sending The Past was really that good? Sure, let's go with those.

Mr. Newman's story seems typical of most ambient artists of the modern age. He started out with a few albums on netlabel Earth Mantra, which I can't help but suspect got lost in the shuffle. Oh yes, they were one of those 'release all the things!' ambient netlabels, almost two-hundred items in their half-decade lifespan. Mr. Underwood had also put out a Specta Ciera album there, which is how I assume the two crossed paths to start collaborating for dataObscura and other assorted self-release options. Jacob kept making his own music though, self-releasing nearly a dozen digital EPs. This particular album on Carpe Sonum Records was apparently produced around the same time. Or at least, was gathering many of his field recordings, before committing them to a concept album. Biospherica thus became his first full-length solo work since the Earth Mantra years, half a decade on.

And upon seeing that title, along with 'field recordings', I'm sure you can't help but wonder if there's any Geir Jenssen influence here. A tiny bit perhaps, if only that Geir's approach to 'field recording ambient' was so genre defining, everything after couldn't help but be influenced by it to some degree. But no, if there's any name I'd drop in comparison here, it'd be Andrew Heath's spacious, 'lowercase' minimalism, and even then that's only for a couple tracks. Or maybe Lars Leonhard? There's certainly a lot of dubby warmth in Biospherica, which makes sense as Jacob's intent is to invoke feelings of spring and summer, lifeforms blooming into activity as the winter slumber ebbs away. Perhaps I should just discuss the music, and not keep trying to make comparisons. Oh, but it's so much easier doing that.

Actually, I think I've discussed all that needs to be said here. Nine tracks make up Biospherica, most hovering in an unfussy six-to-nine minute range (the lone 'short' track, three-minute long Humidity Dub, comes off quite slight as a result). Some go for more of a mysterious vibe (Bats At Dusk, Fade To Night), but we're generally in a tranquil setting here, with gentle pad work, soft spritely melodies, and sounds of nature burbling underneath it all. Recommended for beating back the frost-bitten doldrums.

Eximia - Visitors

Cryo Chamber: 2018

Dark ambient covers quite a few topics within its bleak oeuvre, but alien invasion isn't very common. While I'm sure there are examples floating about, I've seldom stumbled upon them. This genre would rather crush your sense of being with dronescapes of a universe utterly devoid of life, an empty realm where conscious beings are more a fluke of incidental chemical reactions than part of a grand design. Where man may scream into the void all he wants, but there's no one to hear him, no one to respond back. Having aliens in your dark ambient, even hostile ones, defeats that concept.

Still, Cryo Chamber has never let a concept go untapped, and they found a worthy contender to explore an alien invasion album in Eximia. Lord Discogs doesn't list much of anything from the project, this here Visitors essentially a debut for Dominik Ragancík. The Slovakian has been busy elsewhere though, something of a sound designer and engineer for many other forms of media. Last-dot-FM lists previous credits such as car commercials and video games, including the Mass Effect series. Hmm, isn't that the one where an ancient Eldritch horror of a robotic space-faring race called The Reapers goes around exterminating all biological life, a purging of all organics from the cosmos? Sounds right up dark ambient's alley, that one.

So what kind of music is a sound designer inclined to make? None what so ever! There's barely a hint of any melody or even atonal drone throughout this album. Not until near the end of final track World Without End do we hear any sort of instrumentation, and it's discordant strings at that, not exactly the most cheerful of sounds.

Nay, Eximia has taken Cryo Chamber's 'cinematic drone' manifesto to its most extreme end, the bulk of Visitors consisting of sound effects and field recordings. There's little room for interpretation here, though plenty to tickle the imagination should you sit back with your eyes closed. Like, the opening track, Day One. Wide open spaces, shuffling feet in empty buildings, an eerie wind on the distant horizon, when a low, feral growl echoes upon the air, thunder crackling across the sky... Then, an ominous thrum pierces the atmosphere, a sound so strange, so foreign, so alien, it sets off all your primitive warning signals. Descending from on high, unknown and foreboding. What images play out in your mind as this unfolds will likely depend on what sci-fi you've consumed over the years.

So First Contact cranks the creep-out factor before seemingly going tits-up - guess Amy Adams didn't have much luck in this scenario. Abyss goes even further into the murk, sounding like you're stuck in some specimen vat while hearing horrors carry on from beyond. And if mankind's fate wasn't already clear, Extinction features the ghostly wails of a species in its last throes, muted sirens marking the end of everything. Well, it was a good run, while it lasted. So, which of you tripods has the tea?

Wurrm - Apotropaic

Neotantra: 2019

Going into this one, I figured I had a complete blank to work with where the artist is concerned. There is absolutely no info regarding Wurrm within Lord Discogs' archives, this album the lone entry. The liner notes gives no details or links either, nor does the associated Bandcamp source (from which I got this from). A total and utter mystery, this Wurrm. So I thinks, I thinks to myself, as I'm dealing with a totally new label as well, I could wax the bull some about that before diving into the actual music within. Because believe you me, I have some things to say about Lee Norris' latest label Neotantra. Nothing harsh or anything, just a little nit to pick about how its presented itself since launching as a sublabel of Fantasy Enhancing earlier this year.

Still, on a hunch, I took an extra Soundcloud dive into this Wurrm fella', just to be certain I hadn't overlooked anything. And wouldn't you know it, I discovered a massive amount of material associated with the name, leaving me stumped as to how none of it is represented on Discogs beyond this lone item. At first I thought perhaps there were just a lot of different Wurrms (that Discogs had somehow overlooked, leading to this one being the first), but turns out it's all the same dude, dabbling in all manner of ambient, dub techno, and future garage. And that's not even getting into his other projects like High Jon The Conqueror (reggae dub) and partnership with DJ Nico Demus as Rukus (a pile of UK garage and grime influenced stuff). High Jon (is that his real name?) has apparently released plenty of material across plenty of micro-labels, yet none of it is on Discogs. I'm starting to wonder whether that claim that Lord Discogs is the Lord That Knows All doesn't know as much as it claims.

Anyhow, Apotropaic. This is definitely an ambient album, though kinda' scattershot in presentation. It's got the tranquil, layered synth-drone pieces (Half Remembered Dreams, Winter Solstice, Bridge). It's got the compositions heavy on the field recordings (Castle Park, Tape Feed, Commute). There's the tracks that submerge you in dubby domains (Degrees Of Seperation, Activated Partials), and even darker, menacing experimental outings (Village Rituals, End Times). If you're looking for some unifying theme to all these tracks, however, I fail to really hear one, Apotropaic coming off more like a collection of various ambient ideas and sketches Wurrm had crafted, and presenting them as is for a full-length on Neotrantra.

And that's what kinda' boggles my mind about this project. The label's mostly featured the usual assortment of Lee Norris associates thus far, which isn't surprising given his myriad connections. How did a guy making hay in a completely removed scene from the ambient techno world get hooked up here? For sure Wurrm's provided some worthy contributions to the Neotantra canon, but it sure is quite the leap from The Sword Of The Morning.

ProtoU & Hilyard - Alpine Respire

Cryo Chamber: 2017

Uh oh, another Cryo Chamber album already? Does this mean that CD bundle I bought is gonna' be stupidly front-loaded in the next round of reviews? Heh, no, 'tis but a coincidence of alphabetical sorting. It shall be a long while before I return to this label, but hey, feels like I'm making up for lost time, having gone so many months without an obligatory look-in to what was shaking with Simon Heath's print.

Of all the items I grabbed in my recent splurge, this may be the oldest of the lot. In fact, Alpine Respire could have been included in my prior Cryo bundle, but that ten CD limit had to cap out somewhere. Albums from God Body Disconnect and Flowers For Bodysnatchers were of higher priority to me at the time, but when I came back to the Chamber for more dronescapes, this was gonna' be top of the pile, by g'ar. Can never get enough of those ashen vistas of cascade mountains at dusk. With molten lava rivers seeping out their sides like open, bloody wounds. Look, we have real volcanoes 'round these here parts, it's not impossible!

Sasha Cats (ProtoU) hasn't been too busy since we last glanced at her output here, a couple albums worth of material materializing in that time. She also officially paired up with partner Dronny Darko as Hivetribe, whom released a collaborative album with Purl (yes, that Purl), and ...two psy-trance albums? No, that's gotta' be a different Hivetribe. Crazy coincidence in the timing of releases though. As for the other half of this album's particular pairing, Bryan Hilyard is another relative dronescape scene floater, self-releasing some items while finding a home on Stereoscenic for others. As being on a label with that sort of name, his is the widescreen variety of dense ambient drone, with occasional field recordings treatments, and not so dark as the Cryo Chamber brand goes. Yet he not only found his way there in this pairing with ProtoU, but even released a solo album on the print this past year too. Ooh, that one's got galaxies on the cover. Will likely nab that, whenever I go on another Cryo splurge.

Alpine Respire is about as typical of the Chamber's output as you'd expect given the cover art. There's a loose theme built around traversing an inhospitable clime', taking in the field recordings scenery as moody tones blanket you in chilly atmosphere. There's the requisite suffocating gloom of tracks like Blood Grass Soujourn and Elwha Snowfinger, but other pieces (Cave Lights On The Bay Of Bengal, Final Refugium) provide something of a tranquil respite from the harsh elements beating down on you. Seems no matter how menacing or melancholic the music, throwing in the sounds of crashing surf never fails to bring about as sense of ease. Man, no wonder so little dark ambient sets itself along beach fronts. You'd think shores with tall cliffs and jagged rocks could harbour some sort of sonic malice.

Ezdanitoff - We Bring Light

Silentes Minimal Editions: 2011

This was included in Databloem's 'mystery bundle', and did it ever cement my suspicion the offer was little more than a dumping ground of dead stock. No fault of the contents within, mind you, but cover art such as this hardly inspires impulse buys. Maybe if the photo was washed-out, adding aged grit and grime, you might convince a passer-by of it being some Boards Of Canada knock-off. As it stands though, your first impression is either an utterly twee electro-pop outing, or an incomprehensible experimental collection, using charming family photos as an ironic contrast to the anti-sounds you're about to experience.

If you're at all familiar with the players involved with this one-off project, you'd know it to be the latter case. One half is Wouter Jaspers, who hasn't done much beyond collaborations here and there, his work with Steffan de Turck as Preliminary Saturation probably the most fruitful of his pairings. The other half of Ezdanitoff, however, is Frans de Waard, who's been making experimental music as Kapotte Muziek since, gosh, the '80s? A very long time, to say the least, with around a dozen more aliases and group projects to his name. Not to mention running a handful of labels such as Bake Records, Korm Plastics, and ...Plinkity Plonk Records? Haha, and that was established in the late '90s too? Not that I'm saying he could have predicted such a term becoming synonymous with the worst of minimal-tech, but leave it to an experimental outfit coining it well before the curve.

We Bring Light first emerged on Waard's My Own Little Label print as a mini-album, but was expanded to a full-length LP with three additional tracks a year later. Some of them are welcome additions, others... well, it is an experimental album, featuring a pair of chaps quite enamoured with field recordings and transistor tweets.

Opener Gentle Men starts innocuously enough, with gentle bleepy noises, rushed footsteps, and children playing, but man, do those harsh 'melodies' ever grate at the end. The titular follow-up features what sounds like someone sucking and blowing through a straw into a glass or bowl of... I want to say water, but really, it could be any sort of liquid. Maybe I don't want to know.

I was almost ready to write this album off when third track First Circle offers an actual, true-blue warbly melody that almost brings to mind the 'hauntology' vibes you might have expected from the cover art. The rest of the album kinda' flits between abstract sound experiments and twitchy-analogue melodies, which at least maintains the weirdo atmosphere of the whole thing. Then, in the final five seconds, you hear the beeping of an alarm clock, shaking you out of whatever bizarre, lucid dreamstate you've endured for the past little while, leaving you wondering if you even experienced it at all. Can't deny it's an effective way of wrapping We Bring Light up, almost making it worth your while to listen to the album in full. Almost.

SiJ - Vale Of Forgotten Sounds

Ancient Language Records/Reverse Alignment: 2013/2015

Why raid a label for just one SiJ album when you can get two? Probably because you've gotten all the remaining hard copies of his albums, digital version the only option left for older ones. And because you've some bizarre hate-boner against ever buying digital when physical versions exist, you skip the other albums, forever denying yourself music you know you'll enjoy irrespective of format its played from. Boy, it sure is a good thing I'm not like that! Such a person sounds a right bellend to be around. (*cough*)

Thus, in my last round of Reverse Alignment purchases, I figured it was as good as any time to round out my my collection of albums SiJ released through the label. Vale Of Forgotten Sounds was the first that did, and among the earliest of the dark ambient print's releases. So small wonder its initial, uncertain fifty copies run sold out, despite not being that far into the past. Nice of Reverse Alignment to up their limited runs to at least triple-digits worth now, thus avoiding selling out all too soon with future releases. You can never be too certain of which artists or albums may turn into must-have dark ambient classics, fetching ungodly mark-ups on the collector's market.

Vale Of Forgotten Sounds may have been SiJ's debut with Reverse Alignment, but the album actually came out a couple years prior, digitally released on Ancient Language Records. Not one to let an album languish solely in the domain of ones and zeroes, Mr. Sikach self-released a CDr option, which included a few more tracks not on the original one. Huh, a CD having more tunes than the digital version. As it should be. Anyhow, that was reason enough, out of all his prior works, for Reverse Alignment to choose this particular album for a proper CD re-issue. And now here I am resorting to the digital version of this re-issue, because the CD all sold out. Something seems askew.

As for what sort of inspiration SiJ was drawing from in creating Vale Of Forgotten Sounds, apparently these pieces were made for the 2014 Ambient Music Festival held in Sevastopol. That would why the first few tracks are of a more calming, relaxing nature for a supposed dark ambient release. Yeah, SiJ has often flitted with the melancholy side of the genre, but tracks like Serenity and Forgotten Skramell are very pleasant pieces of gentle pads and timbre – could easily fit within Databloem's catalogue. Even the more mysterious, melancholy compositions like Hysjer and Springtide don't come off so suffocating as other examples of this style go.

But then Path Through The Swamp comes in with all manner of choking, abrasive field recordings and tones, Le Temps des Cathedrales lays the oppressive tones thick, and you're abruptly reminded that, yeah, this is still a dark ambient release. Still, Vale Of Forgotten Sounds offers a nice variety of the various forms it can take, even the softer variants.

Anduin - Stolen Years

SMTG Limited: 2012

When I saw this in an online shop, I knew I had to get it sight-unheard. That cardboard border, the artful picture, the unrecognizable musician with post-rock ties... it must be a new Slaapwel Records release! Never mind the label's only released one (1) new item in the two years I first discovered them.

But nay, 'tis not an unearthed Slaapwel Records album. That there's a whopping eight tracks is proof alone, much less the fact they all average around four to six minutes in length. It is an interesting item I've stumbled upon though, and once again I have nothing but my over-eager, hunter-gatherer purchasing instinct to thank for it. Seldom have I been led astray by such impulsive actions, and it was nice of Anduin to keep the faith alive a little longer.

Not to be confused with the Matthew Dear project Audion – because I know your brain has been doing that from the moment you saw the header – Anduin is the brainchild of Jonathan Lee, a chap who's floated about various rock bands these past couple decades. Some were punk, some were post, and some were whatever eclectic ideas were flowing freely in a given jam session. This naturally led Mr. Lee to explore the instrumental, abstract side of his muse, giving rise to Anduin, a project that lasted about half a decade, seemingly mothballed since 2015. Stolen Years was the last full-length record released under the guise.

With absolutely no idea of what to expect going in, I wasn't even sure I'd ended up with a 'music' record as Behind The Voyeur's Wall Of Glass started. So quiet, so subdued, and are those sounds of children playing coming from the track, or the park across from my apartment? Also, someone get WD-40 on that squeaky door stat, why don't ya'? A moody synth tone burbles in and out, a kick that sounds like someone bouncing a basketball emerges, and a lonely saxophone jam adds a creaky blues vibe. It's all rather bleak, but in a melancholic sort of way, like reflecting on one's decrepit life from the confines of a weathered, abandoned flat.

Much of Stolen Years plays out like that: prominent looping field recordings placing you within a vivid setting (so much dirt and grit), sinewy synth pads crafting lonesome moods and tones, and collaborator Jimmy Graphery providing saxophone or flute solos adding human soul to the proceedings. Only final track Irene breaks the mould, shooting for an opulent wall-of-sound ambient outing for closure.

What I find so interesting about Stolen Years is despite the rather simple elements in play, it's extremely difficult pinpointing exactly what kind of music this is. The closest comparison I can come up with is the dark ambient jazz of Phonothek, but not so oppressive and bleak as that duo goes. Stolen Years feels much too intimate to be dark ambient, yet not so lost up its rectum to be jazz. A curious, addictive one, this.

Kwook - Skywave

Blue Oasis: 2008

dataObscura began as a sister label to Databloem before branching off onto its own. Naturally, a label with such origins must produce offspring in a similar fashion, which resulted in Blue Oasis, a sister label to dataObscura. Sadly, this strange form of mitosis resulted in something of a stillborn, Blue Oasis managing but four releases before succumbing to inactivity. The first two were Anthony Kerby projects, because of course they were. A compilation called Perceived Distances also came out, but not before a third and final album under the print emerged, this here Skywave from Kwook. Still, one can find these items as dataObscura releases, rendering the original life of Blue Oasis but a mote of memory within Lord Discogs' archives.

Anyhow, Kwook. One Simon Bennett to the Perth partitioners (is that a thing?), he released his first album Unidentified Feathered Object with the early dataObscura, added a digital EP Immiscible to his catalogue, then finished off with Skywave before moving on to joining the Japanese band Wiggle (so sayeth Lord Discogs). Is... that really the same guy? There is a 'Simon' listed in the band's 'Members' blurb, but... really? Really?? There's a few more items on his Bandcamp though, so it must be so.

As is clear from the loving photo of a radio dish, Skywave is all about the love of those wonderful frequencies broadcast on the longer wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, especially those as utilized by humans. As expected, there's ample use of radio static fuzz throughout this album, but it doesn't dominate, mostly relegated to sonic textures and padding for whatever musical ideas Kwook's muse takes him. A very charming, playful place, turns out, many of these tracks sounding like they could have appeared as backing scores to some old-timey PBS documentary about radio waves. And I do mean old, clear influences from the '70s synth wizards on display (you know the namedrops).

Some pieces have a sense of awe about them (Stationary Waves, Aurora, Deep Space Receiver), some dance about like a chipper waltz (Heterodyne, Calling All Stations 2), while others cozy close to the domain of ambient techno (Sunspots, Signal To Noise, the latter entirely too short).

Then things get conceptually interesting, a three-part titular minimalist closer that explores some of the stranger sounds one might discover on some bandwidths. It rather reminds me of Gas 0095 in its singular fascination for the scientifically minute, with calming ambient melodies to match that focus. There's quite the glowing write-up in the liner notes about some of these things, among them recordings of “numbers stations”.

These strange transmissions have long been suspected to be cryptic codes for spy networks, some broadcasting instructions for agents no longer even in service. In fact, some may be automated hold-outs relaying numbers from cut-off bunkers without every catching up on modern times, like World War II Japanese soldiers stationed on lonesome islands. Yeah, probably not, but think of the alt-fiction, man!

HIA | Biosphere - Polar Sequences

Beyond/Biophon Records: 1996/2019

I'm not sure which I figured would be more difficult to attain, this or The Fires Of Ork. For sure almost any Biosphere collaborative project seemed elusive to my isolated eyes, but I always had a sense that maybe, just maybe, I'd land me a copy of Geir's team-up with Bobby Bird. The label that initially released Polar Sequences was Beyond, they of the seminal O.G. Ambient Dub series, and I'd landed myself a couple of those CDs, not to mention later albums via domestic distribution. Logically then, odds were good that this would see a domestic release. Unfortunately, Beyond's time was up, and only a few thousand copies of Polar Sequences were made, a rather small amount back in those days. Mind, not so limited as Fires Of Ork initially ran, but that saw a number of re-issues down the road, whereas this saw but one when Bobby Bird tried launching his own label, Headphone. It didn't pan out so well. Too ahead of his time, mayhaps? I mean, it's not like Geir's Biophon Records is much different in concept, and man, what a roll he's been on with the reissues, eh?

In a strange way, it's only fitting that HIA and Biosphere would team-up. During the rise of bleep-affected ambient techno, these two were odd men out, name-dropped as part of the Artificial Intelligence contingent, but never signing deals with Warp Records. It likely helped them carve out distinct voices within that scene, but nothing to suggest they'd mesh in any significant way. Which makes Polar Sequences all the more strange. Yeah, bringing Geir back to his homeland for a musical performance was a given, but Bobby too? What could he contribute to the Polar Music Festival? Maybe they were just vibing at the time, and Mr. Jenssen wouldn't do the gig without Bird in tow.

So to Tromsø they headed, about as remote a location in Norway as one can get without crossing significant Arctic waters. They took a little cable-car to the top of a mountain, recording things and sounds along the way to be used in their performance. Once there, and with small contingents of Nor-folk funnelling into the little hilltop cabin, HIA and Biosphere fused their muses into a suitably cold, brisk collection of dubby electronics, brittle melodies, and cavernous field recordings. And hoo, I could never have imagined their styles would mesh so fluidly.

Bird mostly handles the rhythm end of the music, which is great because HIA's beatcraft was forever on point for downtempo tunes. That leaves Biosphere the atmospherics, where his icy dronescapes have ample breathing room within Bird's dubby electro. As with Fires Of Ork, there are clear sections where one producer's style dominates over the other, but always in service of the particular composition being performed. That Meltwater though, holy cow, is that ever pure Geir, almost entirely field recordings of being trapped by a trickling stream inside a collapsing glacial cavern. The germination of Substrata definitely starts here.

B°TONG - The Long Journey

Reverse Alignment: 2017

This is probably the first album I should have gotten from Chris Sigdell. I'd certainly wouldn't have burnt through as much word count on figuring out how to pronounce this project's name. In fact, the EMC jury's still out on that, though until I've confirmation on something specific, I've settled on “b'TONG”. Doesn't mean I won't keep alternating cases though! I giggle it could be either B°TONG or b°tong, for all intents based on the phases of the moon.

While I touched on the particulars of Mr. Sigdell's career, and the various labels he's taken B°TONG to, I didn't dive too deep into his discography. It's certainly an intriguing assortment of titles among his twenty-something releases: Microsleep, Hostile Environments, The Soul Eater, The Great Desintegrator, Prostration Before Infinity, Ascending In The Light Of an Alien Sun, I See Dead People Walking Around Like Regular People. What interests me the most about all these albums is his impeccable ability to sell you on the setting, whatever that theme may be. Yeah, I know, that should be par for the course where dark ambient is concerned, above all else atmospheric mood music as it soundtracks the macabre and perverse. You'd be surprised how often artists only pay lip-service to their concepts though, thinking pure abstraction is enough to coax imagery out of your imagination. And who knows, maybe the extended b°tong catalogue falls into this pattern as well – I've really only taken in a couple of his albums, hardly enough to gauge a full body of work. Still, if what I have heard is anything to go by, then I definitely gotta' hear what the deal is with that elf and 'haarp'.

What struck me most about The Long Journey is how it flew in the face of what I was expecting. You look at the cover, read the liner notes, and it all seems straight-forward enough. Giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy, spitting out intense energy at regular intervals, except for that one time when a really big burst was expunged from the galactic core. So, some deep space drone, with intermittent chaotic radio static, right? Except, a cacophony of noise hits you right out the gate of opener AX J1745.6-2900 (Sgr. A*)! Geez'it, I'm used to more lead-in than that. Even more confounding is all the racket is by way of earthly field recordings, like stepping out into a busy street. The track does lull you into a serene sense of drone for the remaining dozen minutes though, almost making you forget it smacked you across the face so harshly out the gate. And then he does it again with second track 2004 MN4 (impact risk- 1-300)!

The two remaining tracks are shorter and more conventional of this sort of dark drone, though even Hybris-MM threw me for a loop by again opening within the confines of our planetary realm. Rainfall and forlorn piano playing, eventually giving way to weirdo krautrock electronics. Rather old-school, that.

Skare - Grader

Reverse Alignment: 2015

Yet another indulgence of mine in breaking the chains of digital purchases. Not a huge one, mind, and looking back now, it seems odd that I'd do so with an item out on Reverse Alignment from an act I knew nothing about. Even the cover art, while still invoking that frigid-blue alpine clime' I'm strangely drawn towards, isn't that terribly unique among such things. Maybe just in the context of Reverse Alignment releases, hence it leaping out at me when browsing for more things from SiJ and b°tong? Certainly more than the one with the ruins in a mouldy green, or the one with an obscured dark symbol, or the one with the vampiress in the the red dress, or the one with... y'know, I haven't a clue what's going on with Stratvm Terror's This Is My Own Hell. Something un-right, that's for sure.

Skare is a pairing of Mathias Josefson and Per Åhlund, who've done various works while living around the Stockholm region. Mr. Josefson appears the busier of the two, a discography stretching back to the turn of the millennium, even releasing a few solo items on Reverse Alignment as Moljebka Pvlse (plus other labels like Cold Meat Industry, Greytone, Isoramra, Gears Of Sand, and AudioTONG ...hehe, go on, say that one out loud, I know you can't resist). Some time during the late '00s, the two crossed paths and released a collaborative album as Skare on Glacial Movements Records. Huh, that's an interesting name, I wonder what they have? Ooh, I see there's Rapoon, BVDub, Stormloop... oh my, a CD bundle deal on their Bandcamp too? *sigh* Another one for the bookmark folder.

Grader isn't so much a follow-up to the 2009 album Solstice City, but a gathering of live performances done before the release of their debut. Um, just two of them. Look, Solstice City only had three tracks on it, so it's not like they had a wide catalogue to pull from. And that's beside the point, as the two compositions here are original pieces, bumping the entire Skare discography to five tracks. That's at least one more than a fly-by-night, anonymous synthwave alias!

-5° is a fairly empty track, but that's kinda' the point. Muted clicks, distant drones, and what sounds like someone scraping metal across a violin string about make up the bulk of it's first half. Then things go real deep into the minimalist drone, discordant timbre, barren field recordings, and sparse piano tones, eventually layering to an atonal crescendo. I imagine this is the dread mountain climbers feel when they see an incoming squall barrelling down on their former tranquil setting. -30°, meanwhile, comes off as though we're surveying the aftermath, haunting drones painting a setting of everything turned to a ghostly frozen waste, the screams of the dead ensconced within icy prisons. Man, mountain climbing's some scary shit. Like, I already get nasty vertigo in open heights, but when the weather is just as deadly as the gravity, well...

Wanderwelle - Gathering Of The Ancient Spirits

Silent Season: 2018

The release of Wanderwelle's debut album Lost In The Sea Of Trees was something of a turning point for Silent Season. While not the first foray into vinyl for the label, it was the first time the format was the lone hard-copy option for a long-player, skipping out on a CD version entirely (erm, and hence why I skipped on it as well ...if I must, I can wait forever on snagging a digital copy). More prominently though, it was the first time Silent Season went with something other than a picturesque photo of local scenery for cover art, instead offering an image out of a children's fairy-tale book. As the chaps behind Wanderwelle claimed the music was inspired by the pagan tribes of ancient Europe, I suppose slapping the usual misty mountains or Pacific rainforest fauna overtop wouldn't do the concept justice. (oh, and the album was wonderful; will definitely spring for a digital copy, eventually)

A year later, and the Dutch duo have come forth with their second album, Gathering Of The Ancient Spirits. Sweet, more European paganism? Nah, guy, misters Bartels and van Dulm opting for something a little more tribal here. Or tropical. French Polynesian, if we must be specific, which at least keeps with the 'Silent Season represents music inspired by the Pacific Ocean' thing. Just, y'know, the literal opposite corner from their usual haunt of the planet's largest body of water. And even then, it's not so much being inspired by Tahiti, but by the “ultrasavage” artwork of French artist Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, who's own paintings were more an idealized depiction of the region and cultures residing there. I feel like I'm falling into some deep inception levels of inspiration here.

This tribal-tropical-Polynesian motif has generated one of Silent Season's more unique offerings. For sure such ideas have been explored before, though typically in the context of rainforests (equatorial or taigan). To say nothing of how often we hear coastal ambient dub and aqua techno from the label (new genre alerts? Oh God, no!). Gathering Of The Ancient Spirits combines these ideas into something quite soft and haunting, tapping into that same well-spring of primitive vibes that reminds me of TUU. Just in a dub techno-y sort of way.

That said, I honestly don't have much to detail on a track by track basis. Absolutely some compositions have things that prominently leap out – d'at bassline in The Seed Of The Areoi! Different forms of percussion are featured in various tracks, while the ample use of field recordings remain diverse enough such that I never feel like I'm hearing the same croaking crickets, twittering tucans, or bubbly brooks. Still, the general tone blends together into a singular overpowering mood. It all feels like I'm lazing about a tiki lounge at some resort surrounded by palm trees, but being encroached upon by the recesses of a passing culture, long since eradicated save some weathered artifacts. There's mischievous spirits on them islands, I reckon.

The Fires Of Ork - The Fires Of Ork

Fax +49-69/450464/Biophon Records: 1993/2000/2018

Hot damn, Geir's gone and done it! Like, I saw no reason why he couldn't if he wanted to, as the Namlook estate's been quite generous in sharing music rights with previous collaborators of Mr. Kaulmann. For some reason though, I felt The Fires Of Ork was the holy grail of Biosphere projects, the original album released between Microgravity and Patashnik, when Geir still had an inclination towards techno's rhythmic pulse. He was so swift in moving on from music with a little dancefloor groove, it's clear it wasn't a sound he was terribly fond of revisiting, even in a reissued format.

Even the whole Fires Of Ork project seemed nothing more than a one-off pairing, Pete Namlook and Biosphere heading off in rather different paths shortly after. Pete had found his niche (relentless work-rate, endless collaborations, label management), Geir had found his (icy minimalist ambient with expansive field recordings), and that was that, The Fires Of Ork just another of the multitude of very interesting projects to have passed through the Fax+ studios.

And an interesting album The Fires Of Ork is, if for no other reason to hear just how much each performer's style meshes, mashes, and mixes with the other. The titular opener and closer does the ambient 'bleep' techno thing that you'd associate with Phase 1 Biosphere, but has that spacey trancey vibe so distinct of early-era Namlook (plus: ear-wormy Blade Runner sample – dude loved him some Blade Runner samples). Meanwhile, Gebirge attempts a vintage twenty-minute Fax+ ambient excursion, but Pete and Geir's sounds and arrangements are so minimalist, it doesn't feel like it goes much of anywhere. Faring better is the straight-forward light trance of Talk To The Stars, and the eighteen-minute chill-out session of The Facts Of Life, where the distinct sounds of each player actually complement each other as though hearing two musicians feeding off their contributions.

While The Fires Of Ork was interesting for what it added to the Fax+ legacy, it was a small surprise that Pete and Geir teamed-up again in the year 2000 for The Fires Of Ork 2. Though not incompatible, it was clear from The Fires Of Ork there wasn't much room for music exploration between their differing ambient styles. Half a decade on, and both definitely having evolved since the early '90s, where would their muses meet for another session?

Leaving the 'bleep techno' well behind, that's for certain. Compared to the paranoid sci-fi tone of the first album, The Fires Of Ork 2 is very mellow, Biosphere's open, minimalist approach mostly dominating. Pete works in some nice pad work in In Heaven, while Sky Lounge sounds like we're chilling near an Ibizan shore with the rings of Saturn hovering over the shoreline, but we're in pure mood music territory with this album. Well, except Nouvelles Machines, which has a weird dubby, clicky noise with sparse electronic bleepy-beeps befitting a retro sci-fi movie. Can't shake those 'bleep techno' roots, I guess.

Ajna - An Era Of Torment

Reverse Alignment: 2017

When I first picked this up, I didn't think I was getting an Ajna album, even though his name is right there on the cover. Truth is, as I browsed through Reverse Alignment's catalogue during another label splurge, I had my eye out for SiJ, whose collaborative album Queer Reminiscence with Item Caligo had also appeared on the dark ambient print. I knew there were other albums from him on Reverse Alignment (specifically The Lost World ...more on that at a later date), which is the only reason I can give for how I'd mistake Ajna for SiJ. Okay, there's a 'J' in both their aliases too, but geez, they don't even share the same amount of syllables. I suppose I also recognized the name 'Ajna' from somewhere before, and with SiJ most prominently on my mind at the time, my brain did one of those lazy word association thingies it likes to do.

Turns out I did review an Ajna release – or rather, a collaborative album with Dronny Darko, Black Monolith. I... honestly feel kinda' bad that I forgot about Ajna's participation in that project, especially as I did a decent write-up of his background there. I've not much more to add here either, in that his output's slowed down some since that release. This particular album was the follow-up to Black Monolith, and he put out another LP with Cyclic Law the next year (Lucid Intrusion), which entices me to claim all he needs to complete a dark ambient super-label hat-trick is something out on Cryo Chamber. That would be silly to claim though, as I have no idea whether Reverse Alignment, Cyclic Law, and Cryo Chamber actually do make up some unholy trinity of top-tier dark ambient output. They're just the three most prominent ones I know.

If you've somehow forgotten the Ajna stylee as described in the Black Monolith review, the quick refresher blurb is he's mostly about those wide-screen soundscapes and drones, making you feel detached and isolated from your immediate meatspace. You could be sitting in the middle of a bustling park in the middle of a summer afternoon, but with Ajna's compositions playing on headphones, you'll swear you're as alone as the last human on Earth.

Thus introspection is the name of the game in An Era Of Torment, where crippling anxiety and senseless self-doubt can create lifetime prisons within our own psyches. Ajna spends six tracks exploring this theme, mostly through melancholy pads permeating layers of whispy timbre. It can sound desolate at times, but never so empty as a lot of this sort of drone goes. Field recordings like shuffling feet and spoken dialog help retain some sense of comfort, and the album does end on the subtlest of uplifting tones. Ajna sure makes you earn any positive feels though, which seems appropriate given the subject matter. Best save An Era Of Torment for those evenings when you don't mind walking endless distances in the dark of a cool night.

Flowers For Bodysnatchers - Asylum Beyond

Cryo Chambers: 2017

I had a couple angle ideas going into this album from Flowers For Bodysnatchers. A brief recap on the project from where we'd left off. Something about the history of messed-up asylum stories. A quip about how it's been so long since I last wrote anything about Cryo Chamber. As I sat down to commit fingers to keyboard though, I got an email notice informing me that Duncan Ritchie is set to release a brand new Flowers For Bodysnatchers album in a week or two. Well that's cool, thinks I, Alive With Scars perhaps providing me with some additional tidbits of info I can use for this review.

I scope out the Bandcamp link, intrigued by the picture of an upright human nervous system seemingly wandering an abandoned Victorian garden. Definitely something I've never seen before, making me wonder what the concept behind the album is. Multiple Sclerosis is the concept, the PR blurb informs, a wasting away of one's body by its own immune system. A condition Duncan has lived with for the past decade. Oh. Oh my!

Suddenly making an album about 'the Suicide Forest' takes on a whole other light. Not that this has much to do with Asylum Beyond, but it's difficult shaking all that from my head. Must move on for now though, lest I use up any talking points for whenever I do get around to discussing Alive With Scars proper-like.

Asylum Beyond has plenty 'nuff material to dig into, a 'ripped from the headlines' tale of antique shop keepers, occult rituals, lunatic hospitals, and mass murders. Fairly traditional horror fiction topics, all told, but something of a departure for Mr. Ritchie, who's albums tend to deal with mood music and psychological depression. With its ample field recordings and sparse ambience, Asylum Beyond comes off one part film soundtrack, and one part radio drama, though lacking much dialog beyond your requisite Latin chanting; can't deal with the occult without that Latin chant.

And thus I've come to yet another dark ambient album conundrum, wherein talking about it seems a futile effort. Sure, I could detail all the creepy things that go on, like heavy, echoing footsteps in abandoned warehouses in Midnight My Dearest Midnight, or discordant string swells in Ravenfield (the asylum's name), or the cheeky sample of an old-timey symphony recording at the end Phantasma, but my detailing lacks context without hearing it as part of the album's narrative whole. Asylum Beyond is bookended by creepy piano pieces, but without taking the journey of deepening madness from beginning to end, they lack the poignancy Duncan's tale offers.

Dark ambient isn't generally the most musically inclined of genres out there, usually settling for mood and atmospherics. Strangely, it's even rarer to hear an album that's this detailed in its storytelling. Simon Heath definitely indulges it with his Atrium Carceri and Sabled Sun projects, and I'm sure there's others, but it's a treat to hear another take the challenge on just the same.

The Angling Loser - Arena Of Apprehension

...txt: 2016

That's another Lee Norris project ticked off the list. Yet, I'm still barely half-way through 'em all, and who knows if I'll ever find a copy of Orphic Signals' Sounds Of The Neutron, or Tone Language's Patience Is the Key.This one's a little more involved than just another pairing with a producer for a singular jam session though. Nay, The Angling Loser is a conglomerate of musicians Lee happens to know and are all over for a jam. Sir Cliff is here! Porya Hatami is here! Shintaro Aoki is here! Martin Hirsch is here! Wil Bolton is here! Or might be here, depending on the album. Maybe they only all appeared in the first 2013 album, Author Of The Twilight, because I don't see all those names in Arena Of Apprehension's liner notes. Eh, who are all these names? Oh c'mon, I've reviewed a couple of them already. Porya for sure. Uh... Bolton, maybe? No? Hmm.

Anyway, that initial session must have worked out well enough for most of the players involved, as Lee, Porya, Shintaro, and Sir (Gordon Jones) reconvened a few years later for another. Not a huge one, mind you, Arena Of Apprehension running just five tracks long, averaging between eight and ten minutes in length. That's only forty-four minutes total, an astonishingly low number for guys making ambient and modern classical. Surely there were a few extra drone-scapes lurking in their minds. Were they all only available for a single day? Hey, it's possible, the scheduling of artists from various locales conflicting with one another; places to be, gigs to perform, families to care, other jobs needing attention. It was probably a small effort just to get enough of the O.G. Angling Loser posse in for at least one more outing under the project name.

So, of all the myriad Norris ambient projects I've taken in, what differentiates The Angling Loser, beyond the increased performers? At first ear-glance, acoustic guitar, as played by Gordon “Sir Cliff” Jones. Ain't heard no six-stringer strumming on Memex or Moss Garden, that's for sure. Maybe on an Autumn Of Communion album, but I haven't heard all those yet (no box-set of that duo for me, thanks). Along with the usual minimalist ambient pads and textures you hear in almost everything Lee's a part of, there's also piano, field recordings, and crackly treatments giving the music a lived-in, rustic, pastoral vibe.

Which makes sense, given that the whole idea behind The Angling Loser is capturing the mood of solitude out in the wilderness, nothing better to do than lounge by a small river, the futile hope of capturing rainbow trout the extent of your worries. There's even some cheeky instructional dialog towards the end of Rain For The Oblivious pointing out the inherent silliness of it all. Still, given the cover art, I must quibble that the music is almost too summery and tranquil. Ain't no way you'd hear so many chirping birds in the middle of a slushy snowfall.