Canopy Of Stars - Darkness And Light

Databloem: 2022

I do wonder what Databloem's legacy is at this point. What felt sort of like a proving ground for up and coming ambient, glitch, and chill techno producers has been supplanted by many more upstarts in the decades since the label's birth (a hefty chunk managed by Lee Norris, no less). You didn't need an album on Databloem to get prominent recognition in the scene at large, but it sure was a nifty feather in the cap for many producers. Yet though their output hasn't waned by any stretch, I sense there hasn't been as much of a rush to push product out since they finally surpassed one-hundred releases (only took twenty years). They've basically proven whatever it was that Dennis Knopper set out to prove (giving Anthony Kerby a place to shine when nowhere else would? Original manifesto seems fuzzy now), so every year is another victory lap.

That don't mean some ambient folks wouldn't like having their music on the label though. Indeed for some, it may still serve as something of a big break. While by no means an utter unknown, Christian Wheeldon mostly settled on self-releasing his Canopy Of Stars material for much of the alias' early career. He did get a tune or two on some reputable compilations from Touched and ...txt, and even provided a remix for an Autumn Of Communion track. Dream Sequence was his first album out on a label not of his own making though, Databloem giving him the green light to do so (including a green coloured cover!). This here Darkness And Light is his follow-up for the label.

There's no denying we're in for a space ambient excursion with this album, but what if I told you it was some real retro space ambient? Like, '80s era space ambient? Heck, maybe even '70s style, though Mr. Wheeldon's synths are far more refined than what you'd hear out of ol' school Vangelis. Nay, I hear more of that Hearts Of Space stylee in his work, bright and shimmery as the best of Kevin Braheny could provide. And opulent, oh my God is this stuff ever overflowing with the kosmiche grande. Some tracks, like the titular cut (and longest at a dozen minutes), are almost mini-albums in themselves, going through multiple movements as though a megamix of various themes from a planetarium show.

All well and nifty for genre connoisseurs, but what pushes this album just a little extra for me are the sporadic Orbital nods. Okay, I'm probably the only one hearing little Hartnoll Brothers riffs in tracks like Mist On The Water and Shinjuku Sunset. Wouldn't surprise me if Christian had more influence from ELO than Orbital in those cases (you can sure hear it in On My Way). Either way, it gives Darkness And Light enough pizzazz keeping it from being a strict exercise in '80s space synth. And quite an exceptional body of music compared to the more minimalist stuff I recently purchased from Databloem.

H:U:M - Dark Matter

Liquid Frog Records: 2021

Back in the summer of '21, Juan Pablo Giacovino released a pair of H:U:M releases simply titled Dark Matter. Only, he didn't title each one distinctly from the other (like Dark Matter II, or such as), creating a glitch in my music library sorting. Thus both Dark Matters ended up in the same 'album' folder, despite being separate sessions.

Or maybe they were all the same session, and Mr. Giacovino sold them separately? Even though each track is numerically titled, it's clear they all flow into each other. Yes, there's a fade between them, but that's more a consequence of the annoying streaming service handicap that doesn't allow for smooth, uninterrupted playthroughs between digital files. You either offer up a single, long track, or do light fades between so they don't abruptly start or end.

And I get that this is a bit of a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation. Not everyone wants to hear a thirty-to-sixty minute session of music in one go, sometimes content skipping to preferred sections. It's the sort of feature even Pete Namlook realized was a nice point of convenience for the listener, many of his older, hour-long ambient jams broken up for easy CD indexing. That simply isn't doable with digital files though, always that micro-second gap lurking between tracks. Hence, all the fades. (note to producers: it's very annoying when that digital file fade makes its way to a CD copy, just sayin').

So I assume it went with Juan Pablo's Dark Matter session. He ended up crafting an hour-plus long piece, but figured folks wouldn't be interested in a whole outing, so split things up into ten-to-eleven minute chunks. Why split them into two separate releases though? Or maybe there was just the first one, and he carried on with another shortly after? I mean, the fade between Dark Matter 3 and Dark Matter 4 isn't so noticeable – indeed, doze and you'll miss it. And the music of Dark Matter 4, 5, and 6 is distinct enough from 1, 2, and 3 such that they could be considered two separate half-hour tracks. Why am I micro-analyzing such things anyway? I dunno', just find it interesting how artists present their art, especially in the fickle environment that is streaming services.

Anyhow, Dark Matter 1-3 is the most ambient of the lot, mostly spacious pads gently floating along for all your stargazing needs. The whispiest of effects gradually emerge in 2, while twinkling synths finally add a little rhythmic momentum in 3. If you are listening to all six parts in one shot, you'll definitely hear a tonal shift in 4, with slightly busier elements coming and going throughout 5 and 6. Oh, and be prepared for a vocal sample that will rudely knock you out of whatever state of bliss you're feeling, so abrupt and piercing compared to the general tranquility as it is. Also doesn't help it always seems to appear when you're least expecting it.

Sphäre Sechs - Beta Pictoris

Cryo Chamber: 2021

Silent Universe may be my go-to cosmic drone artist, but this project from Misters Stritzel and Stürtzer definitely intrigued me enough to scope out future releases, should they release more. A few more since Particle Void, their debut on Cryo Chamber, yes. Heck, I may even go back to their Malignant Records material – that Enceladus record looks intriguing, a glimmering pearl among all the sonic filth and industrial decay that makes up that label's existence. With such charming artists like Dissecting Table, Steel Hook Prostheses, Sewer Goddess, The Vomit Arsonist, Teeth Engraved With The Names Of The Dead, and Gnawed, how could one resist?

Sphäre Sechs felt different though. Yeah, they still indulged in the dark and the bleak, but there was a calming undercurrent beneath their drones too. Like, the stillness of a desolate realm easing one's chaotic thoughts into perfect serenity. Okay, so that serenity comes at the cost of the living, but hey, if you're experiencing serenity, then you're experiencing conscious thought, and therefore you must be alive, right? Ah, cosmology and existentialism, forever intertwined.

So while I'm all for hearing dark ambient relishing in extra-solar emptiness, I was hoping for something a little more, well, warm out of Beta Pictoris. For one thing, the cover art isn't so cold as most Cryo ambient can go, blazing orange and all. Granted, whatever space phenomenon is occuring in the background can't be healthy for one's DNA structure, but as any astrophysicist well tell you, the redder a cosmic body is, the 'cooler' it generally is – blue is the hotter, deadlier objects, yo'. Also, there's a space station in the foreground, perhaps a research facility studying whatever the phenomenon is. Or did it just appear out of nowhere, threatening its inhabitants? Whatever the case, it suggests some sort of story behind the scenery, and narrative-driven dark ambient is always more fascinating to indulge than strict sonic drone for its own sake.

And yeah, there's only a hinted such story here, but I'm running with it. The first few tracks, while not necessarily 'warm', certainly impart a sense of the grand, the sort of space ambient that lets you just sit in awe of all that lays beyond. Planetesimal Debris may sound forlorn in the destruction of what once was, yet there's grace and beauty in the floating bodies against a cosmic backdrop too. Things only grow tense by fourth track Collapsing Cloud, as though eminent danger looms, even if our feeble monkey brains have no comprehension as to why. In fact, follow-up Infrared Emission suggests we're positively enraptured by what we're witnessing. Should we not be staring to transfixed by the destructive elegance before us? Perhaps not, as concluding Exosolar and Unstable Orbit imply a not-so gentle end for our viewpoint characters.

Yeah, I liked Beta Pictoris a great deal. It continues Cryo Chambers dabblings in ambient that doesn't go so dark as often, but leaves enough room for the macabre twist ending.

H:U:M - Universal Code

Liquid Frog Records: 2022

The good news is it didn't take me long to talk up a different project from Juan Pablo Giacovino as I sift through his Natural Life Essence catalogue. The bad news is... wait, is there bad news? Like, I wouldn't call having to add this to Lord Discogs' tomes as awful or anything, and given how this item is only a year old (almost to the day!), I'm not surprised it hadn't been yet added. According to the Bandcamp stats, only eighteen other folks have purchased this mini-album in that time, and odds are fairly high that I'm the only one OCD enough to do the entry. Unless one of them also has a blog where they're reviewing Every. Single. Item. within their collection. And if so... hey, send a link over my way, yo'!

Would be nice if Juan added this to the Discoggian database himself, but I'm sure he's a busy man. Honestly, very few artists have the time to worry about what gets added to internet archives, typically relying on dedicated fandoms to do that sort of thing on their behalf. I imagine the Natural Life Essence brand is still a tad too new to have developed such a thing, though with luck, that exposure on Neotantra has given it a deserved boost. Hell, I know of at least one such chap where it worked out.

Anyhow, H:U:M is the alias Mr. Giacovino adopted when he wanted to specifically focus on space themed ambient music away from his Natural Life Essence moniker. Not that he hadn't done so in the past, indeed the three-part Space Caravan series released early on in N:L:E's lifespan. I guess he felt it somewhat limiting to lump all his muses under one banner, so time to spread things out some, for those fans that prefer certain sounds over others.

Universal Code features four tracks, but really it's two: one thirty-minute excursion with different sections flowing into the next, and one twelve-minute coda. Can I just pause this review a moment and mention my one gripe with Bandcamp, how there's always a pause between tracks? It's especially egregious on re-uploads of albums that I know are meant to be seamless, and thank God some include that option with the download. But yeah, having that digital break throws so many a listening experience off. Okay, gripe over.

Universal Code 1° is the standard ambient lead-in, rhythm only hinted at with the gently pulsing synths as spacey pads and dubby effects ease us in. As we *pause* slide into Universal Code 2°, a soft ambient techno beat joins, and some punctual synths build to something of a mini-climax. The track then fades off again, leading us *pause* into Universal Code 3°, something of a reinterpretation of sounds already heard. Meanwhile, Universal Code 4° goes pure space ambience, a few trace melodies from earlier gently bobbing about in the background before coming forth with its own downbeat peak. A pleasant outing, all 'round.

Silent Universe - Stellar Winds

Ignis Fatum: 2015

Pavel finally released a new Silent Universe album! Naturally, I'm currently reviewing his first Silent Universe album, released back in 2015. Because if there's anything you can count on with this blog, it's never being timely in covering new releases. Unless you apply some Theory Of Relativity science behind it, I guess.

Like, from a certain vantage point, Stellar Winds is actually brand-spankin' new, and is the only Silent Universe in existence! What vantage point, you ask? Erm, from the Sirius star system's vantage point, I guess. It's only 8.6 light years away, which is just a little further than the distance Stellar Winds would have travelled had it been broadcast in that direction upon its release date. That's either incredibly awesome or mind-meltingly daunting, depending on your stance. Given that we are dealing with a dark ambient album here, I'm gonna' go with the 'reduces one's sense of being to cosmic mush' option.

But yes, having spent the first half of the '10s exploring all manner of frigid wastelands as Ugasanie, Mr. Malyshkin started branching out with side-projects that didn't quite fit that mould. Polterngeist got in on some occult themes, while Silent Universe set its sights among the stars. Or the nothingness between the stars. Or the Lovecraftian horrors that dwell within dead stars. There's potentially a lot of things to explore out there, is what I'm saying, even if it appears to be a whole lotta' nothing getting there.

I think that's what struck me about Stellar Winds, more a sense of journey in this album compared to his latter offerings. That may be a case of dabbling in various aspects of cosmic drone rather than creating a singular mood, but it cannot be denied Pavel's provided a little journey of sorts. Peering Into The Sky is about as neutral a piece of dark ambient drone can be in this context, letting the overhanging black wash upon you, seeing just how deep into the cosmos we really can peer, whether we should or not.

Oh, this doesn't seem so bad. Nebulas And Clusters offers a little harmonic tone for you, letting the grandeur of these massive, parsec-spanning forms gently flow among an unfathomable void. Speaking of, this piece kinda' reminds me of the opening track from The Infinity Coordinates, if a little more minimalist in execution.

That's about the end of 'tranquility' offered by Stellar Winds. Silent Of Stars is a lengthy drone with the pitch slowly lowerering, as though descending into the abyss. And what do we find on the other side? Pure desolation with Zodiacal Light and Terminator, while In The Meteor Shower has us... wait, is this mechanical breathing I hear? Have I been in a stasis pod all this time? Goodness, I never would have thought I'd have feelings of claustrophobia in an album designed to feel open isolation. There's even a trailing bit of melancholic tone towards the end, implying this grand journey has always been within the mind. Seems about right.

AstroPilot - Solar Walk IV. YOUniverse

Blue Tunes Chillout/AstroPilot Music: 2016/2017

You'd think it'd take me less than... *squints* seven years to nab a copy of this. Indeed, when I did take the AstroPilot plunge, I grabbed every one of the Solar Walk albums, plus the remix outing Star Walk. So should another edition come to light, absolutely I'd be there ready to slap down some coinage for it.

As it turned out, this was about the tail-end of his tenure with Altar Records, shortly after setting up his own eponymous digital label to self-release material. And as a means to kick things off, he launched the label with Solar Walk IV. YOUniverse. Like, it's just good marketing sense when establishing your own print, dropping with the ambient series you're best known for. Perhaps somewhat foolishly, I assumed a hard-copy edition would drop as well, so held out on it. And held... and held... and held... It was only after checking back in on AstroPilot's Discogs page that I realized, “Hmm, there isn't gonna' be a CD of Solar Walk IV, is there.” Fortunately, digital albums never run out of copies, so it was simple t'ings finally get one for myself.

While previous Solar Walk albums explored the grandeur of the cosmos, the subtitle of IV implies we're in for a journey of inner space. Or that you are the universe, made manifest, so here's some music to get to know yourself better. Wait, that sounded kinkier than intended. Um, 'when you stare into the cosmic abyss, it stares back at you'? Nope, that ain't it, Solar Walk IV far too uplifting for such a bleak concept. Okay, I admit, YOUniverse comes off a tad hokey as a title, but whatever, it's the music that counts, and once again Dmitriy brings the opulent psy-chill and space ambient goods.

We're certainly dropped into the big, emotional feels with Our Second Sun, picking right up where most Solar Walks left off. What's this though? Some light groove to go along with the densely layered synth tones? Gosh, might YOUniverse forego the pure ambient pieces for something more on a steady prog-psy tip? Second track Balance certainly suggests so, offering it's own light rhythm in support of the usual cascade of bright pads. Third track Desolate Spaces scales things back though, a beatless affair and much less overbearing in its use of layered drones.

Solar Walk IV mostly alternates from there, with a gradual ease down to more reflective, contemplative pieces over the 'space symphony' tracks of the first half. There's even a touch of melancholy in Through The Veil and Frozen Time, though with synth harmonies this bright and bold, even the downtempo moments are grand.

Which has always been par for the course with these Solar Walks: music for epic feels, stupendous stargazing, and all that fun stuff that makes watching documentaries about cosmic splendour all the more addictive. It may not be as subtle as some space ambient goes, but if you wanted that, there's always Silent Universe.

Ikjoyce - Cosmonaut

Neotantra: 2019

I didn't think it'd take me this long in returning to Neotantra, given how many of their releases I've bought since reviewing Wurrm's album. The offshoot of Fantasy Enhacing (itself an offshoot Neo Ouija) recently celebrated its twenty-fifth album, and a pattern of intent has definitely formed. A colourful pattern, wherein one must get them all, lest the gradient's purity be diminished. Erm, not that I'm implying some psychological manipulation in Neotantra's marketing, but I cannot deny it is a tad triggering for OCD types. *cough* *scratch of head* *tug of collar*

But no, the pattern I've seen form with Neotantra is in their choice of talent exposure. For sure you have the usual suspects within Lee Norris' orbit (Mick Chillage, Ambidextrous, Futuregrapher), but many new and unknown names too. Well, maybe not unknown to the savviest of heads out there, but certainly those with scant Discoggian presence, some of which are getting a nice little visibility bump by being on Neotantra.

That isn't to say this here Ikjoyce lacks for material within Lord Discogs' tomes. Dude's been highly prolific this past half-decade, over twenty albums to his name, plus another dozen assorted EPs and whatnot. Aside from the album Selene and this here Cosmonaut, it's almost entirely been self-released by Mr. Joyce, which is cool if you don't mind the hustle, but does limit how much exposure you can get. He was a frequent contributor to Electronic Music Philosphy's series of 'challenge compilations', where producers were tasked with creating a track with specific features (ie: Short Drones, Plunderphonics, You Can't Have Too Much Reverb, 808 Cowbell). I did fire up Ikjoyce's Spotify for a quick dive, and despite dozing off for seven hours after starting it, the streaming service still hadn't cycled through all that he has there.

I guess that's my roundabout way of saying that, despite 'trying' to take in his body of work, I'm still coming into Cosmonaut a little cold, unsure how this stacks up to the greater Ikjoyce discography. What I can say is this album has a bit of an old school, drone ambient vibe going for it, which is at times lovely, but also rather dithering, depending on the track.

The opener A Warm Embrace, and longest piece at over thirteen minutes goes mostly atonal and metallic, gradually letting the harmonious 'warmth' in. The subsequent tracks are more minimalist, though All Is Calm is quite tranquil in its sparse tones. It's not until track four, the first of two titular parts on Cosmonaut, that we get into some 'planetarium' ambient vibes, a lovely ten-minute piece that makes all the lead-up worth the wait.

The remaining tracks maintain that spacey vibe, Orbital Manoeuvres and Interception even getting a rhythmic pulse in their synth work. Cosmonaut ends on another blissy titular rendition, clearly making this album one of two halves. I quite liked the second, but some may prefer the more experimental first. Or like the little Mexican girl says, why not both?

Sphäre Sechs - Particle Void

Cryo Chamber: 2018

Seems I'm once again on a little space theme run with the current clutch of reviews, which wouldn't be complete without the good ol' dark ambient contingent cropping up for their say. You can't talk space music without bringing up the potential bleakness of it all. Yeah, it's nice to be awestruck by nebulae beauty and mesmerized by astrophysics ballet, but there's a whole lot of nothing out there too. Empty, soul-crushing desolation, wondrous worlds impossibly far and distant, such that there's no hope of ever seeing them up close and personal. Never mind even attempting to get there would involve navigating among molecule-shredding radiation and Cthulhu knows what in the form of exotica erupting from mega death black holes. No hope, no hope at all.

Sphäre Sechs is the work of two chaps, Martin Stürtzer and Christian Stritzel (sounds like a German comedy duo). Martin has been quite active in dark ambient circles for a decade and a half now, primarily releasing material under the alias of Phelios. Much of it is of the droning sort, with occasional modern classical flourishes here and there, of various themes and ideas explored. More recently he's been releasing material under his own name under his own Echo Elberfeld label. Ooh, I spy something called The Omarion Nebula (only DS9 dorks will get that).

Mr. Stritzel has far less Discoggian presence, only appearing in collaboration with Mr. Stürtzer, a modified Theremin his primary 'instrument' in the group. The duo goes as far back as 2007's Klang Ist Ewig, but half a decade later, they adopted the Sphäre Sechs project handle, releasing Tiefschlaf on Malignant Records. Fast forward a little later, and they've brought their cosmic soundscapes to Cryo Chamber, debuting on the label with this here Particle Void. Tale as old as time.

As an album, Particle Void is straight-forward enough. Eight tracks, most hovering in the five-to-six minute range, offering varying tones of drone while holding a general mood of cosmic emptiness. While a low thrum is maintained throughout each piece, droning sounds and pads ebb and flow as though in a trance-inducing meditative breath. Sometimes there's a sense of awe in the surroundings, as in Multiverse and Transference. Other times abject fear, as though bearing witness to it all is simply too much for the human brain to handle (Temporal Transition, Achernar). And gosh, is that a touch of the melancholy I hear in Cepheid? Sadness at forever being trapped in our corporeal forms, unable to traverse into theoretical inter-dimensional portals without our atoms getting speghettified across the cosmos? Or maybe that's what's going on in final track Radiation Phase, a slowly building drone piece that includes the subtlest of rhythmic pulses.

By the way, where's the Theremin? I don't hear anything on this album that reminds me of pulpy sci-fi of the '50s. Is Christian's manipulations of the quirky electronic instrument so extreme that it sound alien to that which we know? Seems about right for an album like this.

Si Matthews - Across The Ether

Carpe Sonum Records: 2018

Been an age since I last talked up Si Matthews. Chap seemed like one of those promising new talents the current era of Fax+ influenced artists who were gonna' lead us into a post-Namlook era. He's taken a 'slow and steady' approach to his release rate though, settling on about an album a year rather than the twenty-dozen items some of his peers churn out. Slow and steady wins the race, I guess, but what are we racing for? Can making music be considered a race, against the limited time we have to create all that our muses allow us to express? Can the sonic soul even be sated, when there's infinite possibilities before us, countless that which have yet to be discovered? Just some thoughts as I stare into the Pillars Of Creation for the umpteenth time.

I felt Si's sophomore album, Aurora, was a good enough follow-up to his applauded debut Tales Of Ten Worlds, if a bit slight in content compared to the richness offered in the former. No chance of similar feelings with his next album, Across The Ether, a whopping double-LP outing from Mr. Matthews! Interestingly, this is one of the few times Carpe Sonum Records has ever released a 2CD album, and remained a lone example of the format until just this year's release of Sven Kössler's Bck t· Lvng. Coincidentally, Si and Sven have been working together this past year, though their release on Fantasy Enhancing wasn't a double-LP, so I can only imagine should they also cook up something for Carpe Sonum, it'll be nothing less than a 4CD box-set! Maybe wait until they can nab the impossible catalogue number SEIZE-XXL though. (yes, I find it hilarious that the first Carpe Sonum double-LP release is SEIZE-XL)

CD1 is subtitled Ambient, and that's what you're gonna' get, by g'ar. Nine tracks of spaced-out, cosmic synth pads with occasional splashes of soft rhythms. Real planetarium stuff, in other words, which shouldn't be of any surprise with the head of the Eagle Nebula plastered across the cover art. Admittedly it can get rather samey throughout, though folks diving into this style of ambient music aren't looking for much variation either, so it works out. Except for In Stone, a minimalist bleepy ambient techno track that sounds like it drifted in from the FireScope label.

I initially thought it had drifted in from CD2 though, what with its subtitle being Beats and all. And yeah, th'ar be beats here, though not of the IDM-leaning variety B12's print is known for. I mean, this is still a Fax+ influenced artist releasing music on a Fax+ inspired label, so the rhythms are mostly in service of gentle, spacey pad melodies with light dubby effects. And that's fine, another serving of familiar sounds that release the exact amount of endorphins I hope to get from cover art like this. Across The Ether is ambient techno that goes down like a nice cup of hot chocolate. In SPACE!

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.

Various - Alien Ambient Galaxy

Hypnotic: 1996

When did I first discover Bill Laswell? This CD right here, which is funny, because it's not indicative of his larger, massive, ginormous body of work. I mean, only one track of the featured eight even has much of his distinct bass playing – it's a super long track, but still, just one. I probably heard him prior, but had no clue he existed, if that makes sense. You can hear some musicians – especially sessions musicians – in a multitude of songs without ever knowing who they are. Sure, one could study liner notes of every booklet and Discogs entry to know every performer ever, but man, who'd want to?

Had little choice with Alien Ambient Galaxy though, the only credits offering nothing but liner notes. Hell, the back cover just lists all the players involved, with no attribution to the list of tracks. For all you'd know, everyone performed together as one big conglomerate. Bill Laswell, Jah Wobble, Jeff Bova, Alex Hass, Pete Namlook, Liu Sola, Buckethead (yes, that Buckethead), Robert Musso, Mick Harris, and Nicky Skopelitis are... Alien Ambient Galaxy!

But no, that's not the case. In fact, only three projects actually make up this compilation, all of which Laswell had some hand in, care of his short-lived Subharmonic print. Most prominently featured is Divination, a world music, ambient drone project that could be considered a proper conglomerate of musicians. There's four tracks of the group here, but they're mostly subtle, droning pieces, serving more as transitional tracks between the other ones. I'll talk about them more at a later date, but again, I must give a flustered name-drop in seeing Buckethead's there.

A few other tracks are from Cypher 7, a duo consisting of Hass and Bova, with Laswell performing “navigation & ground control”. These are more interesting, giving Alien Ambient Galaxy some needed diversity and flair. Conspiracy Of Silence opens the CD with mysterious, ominous tones, feeding into alien paranoia that was so popular in the '90s, while The Suspicious Shamen does an upbeat ambient dub thing with piano flourishes. Nothing Lasts, meanwhile, features a bouncy beat while French actress Jeanne Moreau drunkenly laments about lost passion. Not sure how it ties into an alien ambient concept, but it's a cool sounding tune nonetheless.

And finally, clocking in at over thirty-eight minutes, is one of Bill and Pete's Psychonavigation outings – the lengthy track with the lengthy title of Psychic And UFO Revelations In The Last Days. It features Laswell's bass, Namlook's space pads, a simple dubby rhythm, a lot of dithering passages of music interspersed with sci-fi effects, and strangely hypnotic throughout its runtime. Plus, it contains dialog from the DS9 episode Emissary, so instant awesome right there.

Strange presentation aside, Alien Ambient Galaxy is a nifty little collection of tunes if you like your ambient on the mysterious side of things. Even with the amount of Laswellian music I've since heard, this still remains a remarkably unique offering of what he's made within his vast discography.

Autumn Of Communion - Polydeuces

...txt: 2016

Oh ho, another album I got a digital version of due to over-inflated out-of-print CD scarcity? Nah, fam', I actually did take the Discogs Marketplace route with this one, the alluring cover art of Saturn constantly drawing me to its page for a lovingly glance, all the while scoping for a chance 'discount' opportunity. And lo', one did emerge, for a 'reasonable' €25 - still a tad over what I would normally pay for a CD, but about as good as I figured I'd ever get on the used market. Besides, the seller was Mick Chillage himself, and seeing as how he likely never saw a single penny for those records I bought from Psychonavigation Records, I guess it's fair he receives a little extra financial compensation on this one.

So, Polydeuces, the first album Autumn Of Communion (Chillage and Lee Norris, in case you're just tuning in) released after all their prior albums had been numerical self-titled outings. It also marked the start of the duo's more freeform approach to songcraft, going in with little preconceived notion of what music they'd make, what sounds they'd build, what gear they'd utilize. They'd go full-tilt with the concept in the following Broken Apart... series, but here it sounds as though they're still in a feeling-out process, figuring out just how in-sync their musical synergy truly was when they're simply letting things flow as they go. Mind, I still only have Autumn Of Communion 4 as a base of comparison with their older material, their other albums just as out-of-print as this one. Except for that massive box-set they released, which I skipped on because, eh, I already have four of their albums now. Seemed redundant to get them again, y'know, especially having just sprung for this one on the Discogs Marketplace. Hmm, the timing on that, now that I think about it...

Anyhow, five main tracks are contained within Polydeuces, most hovering in the ten-to-thirteen minute mark, with a tiny three-minute stinger at the end. With titles like Oort Cloud and Cassini Spacecraft (squeee!), you bet we're on some space-age vibes here. Um, there's also tracks called Tectonics and Sikhote-Alin Mountains, about as earthly of concepts as you can get. And finally, a pair of tracks called Cathode Memory and Kolbe Reaction, which brings things down to the microscopic realms. Is it any surprise these tracks are conceptually arranged from 'bigness' to 'smallness'?

Naturally, we're mostly in ambient's domain here. Some tracks come off like long-lost compositions for a Hearts Of Space planetarium score, others edging closer to the realms of ambient techno, often within the same track. For a supposed freeform approach to creating these pieces, each track never feels like it's just randomly dawdling about, and Tectonics even offers a bit of an ear-wormy hook, in that understated ambient techno sort of way. I doubt Polydeuces will convert anyone to Autumn Of Communion's charms, but at seven albums deep, Mick and Lee deserved a little creative indulgence.

Silent Universe - The Infinity Coordinates

Cryo Chamber: 2017

Apparently the frigid wastes of our planet's polar regions weren't cold enough for Ugasanie. Nay, nothing but the absolute-zero temperatures of deep space will do now, or at least for the purposes of a side-project. Surely he needn't go that far so soon? Ol' mother Earth may be warming up to such a degree that we will no longer have cold poles, but there's still plenty of frozen clime's within our own solar system. Europa and Enceladus might make for some nifty cold conceptual drone music, what with the possibility of other organisms with hearing capabilities residing on suspected sub-surface oceans. Or go straight for the outer regions of our neighbourhood, music for 'chillin' on Pluto or Eris (ho-ho-ho). Heck, how about the regions between galaxies - now that's some impossible nothingness to reside in. Unless you're 'dark matter', I guess.

Mr. Malyshkin first launched this Silent Universe side-project back in 2015, debuting with a couple digital albums with the short-lived Belarus print Ignis Fatum - I assume 'short-lived', as they haven't released anything new in a couple years now. Always eager to fill out the Cryo Chamber coffers with fresh material, Simon Heath gave Pavel a new home for the project, The Infinity Coordinates the result. And hoo, boy was I hyped to hear this one! Dark cosmic ambient is already one of my vices, Mr. Heath's own Sabled Sun the initial lure into his label, while Pavel's various works as Ugasanie has done wonders in transplanting my mindspace into realms my puny human body has no business being. To hear these two concepts merged, having myself set adrift on desolate ...well, not bliss, but for those who don't have access to a deprivation chamber, lost in the infinite black with nothing but cosmic radiation your companion will suffice.

So I obviously personally hyped this album up based on the cover art alone, though really, what should I have been expecting of this? Space drone is among some of the droniest drone that will ever drone, and while some super narrative or journey would have tickled my fancy, I wasn't about to delude myself into thinking I'd get that in The Infinite Coordinates. At five tracks long – the shortest seven and a half minutes, the longest sixteen – there isn't much, erm, space, to tell much of a story anyway.

And whoa, what's this in the opener Spiral Space? Melodic tones? Mood befitting the cosmiche grande? Yeah, there's still that distinct, impossibly distant desolation Pavel's quite adept at, but he also captures a sense of wonderment too, that you can't help but be swept in the grandeur of endless emptiness. And while the album does descend into absolute isolation drone by the end (who knew faint radio tweets of Pulsar could be so comforting?), one can't help but feel some melancholy about it all too. Dang it, I wasn't expecting getting the feels in this excursion to the outer reaches of all and nothing.

Ishqamatics - Spacebound

...txt: 2013

Finally focusing on two projects for the first time, for the price of one! ...kind of. Lee Norris, I've obviously talked up plenty now, but haven't gotten into the alias that started it all for him: Metamatics. Maybe I will at some point – it's not like he's put it into mothballs – but dude's got so much music out there, I gotta' prioritize a little. As I've only 'discovered' Mr. Norris a couple years ago, of course his recent projects get my attention first. As for Ishq, I've heard a track or two over the years, have seen the name dropped in many familiar labels and compilations. The main guy behind the project, Matt Hillier, was something of a journeyman in the early '90s before breaking out with Ishq, and has had a rather productive career ever since.

So, Ishqamatics, yet another Norris pairing from that fruitful year of 2013, when he was hooking up with nearly everyone for some collaborative work if they released music on his ...txt print. That included Ishq, so naturally Lee looked over in Matt's direction and said, “That's a mighty fine sound you have there – wanna' connect?” So they did, even contributing a track to the indispensable Pete Namlook tribute set Die Welt Ist Klang (it always comes back to that, doesn't it). By the end of 2013, two albums resulted from the Ishqamatics sessions, one for the label Anodize (Earthbound), and another for ...txt, Spacebound. The latter sold out quickly, because of course it did, but demand was so high that another run of copies was manufactured. Hurrah, I could get me a copy as well! I mean, I ought to check it out, what with it being the default music on the ...txt homepage and all. Must be Very Important Music for such an honour.

Well, it's space ambient, that much is sure, which is something of a surprise where Ishq is concerned, having built a rep' for Earthly zen music and all. Hillier's tones do come through often, contrasting quite nicely with Norris' more frigid electronics. Sometimes the Ishq stylee dominates, as in the lengthy Bound To Earth featuring sitar drones for much of its duration (whoa, getting Shaikh flashbacks). Lots of noodly, droney, spacey ambient follows that track, field recordings coming and going before being sent back out into the cosmos. Sometimes there's glitched-up radio chatter, and a little jazz ditty plays from an overhead speaker in Round The Ringstone, but if I'm honest, there's little to detail, droning synth tones and minute melodies the name of the game here.

Spacebound is alluring, engaging, and flowing as an album, always leaving me like I'm drifting out in space while remaining tethered to terra firma. At the same time though, not much really leaped out at me either. It's an odd one, where everything I hear is exactly what I like to hear, but imprinting little upon my brain afterwards. Maybe there's something to be said for the unexpected.

Alphaxone & ProtoU - Stardust

Cryo Chamber: 2017

Now this is a pairing I wouldn’t have expected. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t have expected Alphaxone to pair up with anyone, beyond the now-obligatory yearly Cyro Chamber ‘Old Ones Tribute’ jamboree. He’s worked in conjunction with other dark ambient folks on thematic compilation albums, specifically Tomb Of Empires and Tomb Of Seers, but those are still solo outings from Mr. Saleh, merely contributing a piece of music for those particular projects. Lord Discogs tells me this is his first true collaborative effort though; across any alias he’s had this past half-decade. Maybe he’s done others even The Lord That Knows All doesn’t know about, but I kinda’ like Stardust being his first for a simple reason: it fits a narrative!

In case you missed all those Alphaxone reviews I did last year, there’s been a slow, steady conceptual migration in his works from terra firma to the great beyond above. Well, after leaving some alternate dimensions filled with graylands and some-such. However, it’s lonely in space [citation needed], so now that he’s finally out among the stars, perhaps a little company was called for. Enter ProtoU, fresh off her work exploring Southeast Asian crypts, joining in on a little solar surfing. I’m not sure how Ms. Cats knows Mr. Saleh, but I imagine after those Cryo Chamber Collaboration epics, a few emails were exchanged for future reference.

As the name implies, Stardust is a space ambient outing, and surprisingly not so bleak as the dark practitioners of this sub-genre go. For sure it’s got its fair share of isolationist drone, tracks like Sub Signal, Consumed, and Observing Quasars doing the ‘cosmic emptiness’ thing you’ll typically hear in this field. It’s tempered with subtle melodic passages though, plus a surprising amount of field recordings lurking just out of hearing range. Even the latter two tracks of the ones I just listed provide some synthy tonal counter-balance to the atonal nature of space drone, music that feels just as in awe of its surroundings as it does meek and insignificant. Nicely captures the whole ‘we’re all star-stuff’ notion, despite so often confounded by such implications.

If anything, this album feels less about exploring the cosmos at large (something of a daunting task), and rather chilling out on some fringe of civilization, far from contact but not impossibly alone. There’s still star-gazing going down, but more like being at an outpost, or remote colony, pushing the boundaries of our cosmic influence. Hence a track like Planemo Dreams, a lonely track with rainfall/static for sure, wiling the time away on some far-flung dwarf or rogue planet. Counter to that is Versus, which features the cosmic drone, yet also has tweeting birds, and an almost positive twist by track’s end. Then at the conclusion of Stardust, Alignments goes synthy old-school, and Returned’s drone gradually turns into brighter pad washes before fading out into static. Whatever this mission was, it’s safe to assume it’s accomplished. How remarkably upbeat for a dark ambient release.

ASC - No Stars Without Darkness

Silent Season: 2016

I guess if I wanted to know what an ASC album on Cryo Chamber would sound like, I now have my answer. Or maybe …txt, No Stars Without Darkness not exactly a dark ambient album. It sure is lonesome though, feelings of stark melancholy permeating the mood as one looks upon an endless night sky, feeling hopelessly remote from every grand tapestry the cosmos closely guards behind an opaque veil. It’s not a vibe I’m accustomed to hearing with Silent Season, is what I’m getting at. Passages of reflection, sure; dubbed-out drone is part of the label’s manifesto, and few things get you lost up in your own brainpan better than infinite layers of pad and timbre. I seldom get a sense of suffocating isolationism though. Like, it’s fine to take a solo hike through damp, coastal old-growth, but Van-City remains a few kliks away.

This one though, there’s just a little more isolationism, a little more bleakness in the void ASC is painting here, even going by track titles alone. Idyll Of Sorrow, All Come To Ruin, Nothing More To Give, Elegy For An Empty Shell …not the most cheering of themes here, and the music doesn’t liven the mood either.

Sorrow features mournful pads and down-trodden melodies as impossibly distant whispers penetrate the somber tone. A Moment Alone does the abstract, cosmic drone thing that wouldn’t sound out of place on an Alphaxone album. Ruin treads closer to a calming ambient vibe, though is so drenched in overdubs, it’s about as soothing as the stuff Aphex Twin offered on SAW II. Silence and Waning Hours add minute melodic content, acoustic guitar strums penetrating the desolation. And after eight tracks of oppressive drone, The Promise In Your Lies opts for a quieter piece to finish on, though no less spacious and vast in soundcraft, like you cannot help but forever keep staring upward in the futile hopes of seeing more stars in the infinite black above.

No, seriously, it can’t be done. I know what you’re thinking: it’s paradoxical that we can’t see all the stars if they’re all up there, right? That’s the crux behind Olbers’ Paradox, after all. Well, there’s a reason space appears as black as it does. First off, the universe is big [citation needed], light taking time to reach us, some stars so distant that their photons will never strike our planet. This is due to the universe’s expansion, such light typically red-shifted across the electromagnetic spectrum from our vantage point, much of which is shifted so far, it’s beyond our visible range of sight. Interestingly, at the longest wavelengths (microwaves), the cosmos does light up as though it was filled with infinite stars – it’s called the Cosmic Microwave Background. With our limited visibility though, we’re stuck seeing only the closest stars (cosmic dust doesn’t help either), universal expansion blinking ever more out of our view. At some point, there won’t even be stars in the darkness. And that gives the sads.

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Touch: 2016

It’s improper of me starting an inexplicable dark ambient collection without gathering up releases from some of the agreed-upon legends of the scene. That’d be like getting into trance without checking out Oliver Lieb, or house music without copping Frankie Knuckles. Not to mention digging techno while ignoring the Belleville Three, or taking in jungle without a single Goldie single – my lone copy of Inner City Life on a Canadian compilation saves me such indignity.

So Lustmord was an obligatory purchase sooner rather than later, and to be honest, I’ve had my eye on the chap’s material for a while. His earliest material was in the vein of experimental stuff industrial artists were doing in the ‘80s, but along the way he adopted the lengthy drones of ambient composers, plus a fascination for the haunting emptiness of ancient caverns and the cosmos itself. He probably wasn’t the first to do it, but his 1994 album The Place Where The Black Stars Hang is widely regarded as the definitive example of space dark ambient, an LP frequently namedropped by all those who came after. You bet it’s on my list of “One Day, Eventually” albums I must own!

For now though, I’ll take in something more current, and it just so happens Lustmord returned to the realm of universal drone this past year, with Dark Matter. The concept is familiar enough with anyone that’s followed this style of dark ambient: take the natural, electromagnetic sounds of the cosmos – from the smallest molecules and charged particles, to the largest solar flares and quasars - and do as you will with them. Sampling these sounds is practically part of space ambient’s gene code now, especially ever since the Jet Propulsion Laboratory released their Symphonies Of The Planets series, recordings of planetary electromagnetic signals captured by the passing Voyager probes. These recordings are such a staple now, they’re almost cliché. Perhaps that’s why it took Lustmord this long to fully explore its potential - he felt it a classic case of “it’s been done.”

Or he was waiting to have complete, unfettered access to all the N.A.S.A. audio archives rather than those few commercially released ones. A man with his standing would definitely get that eventually, thus Lustmord finally gives us a full taste of cosmic drone, complete and utter in its various sources. And… I can’t really explain much more beyond this, can I? Folks familiar with electromagnetic sound experiments will be enthralled in the journey Lustmord takes with them, while the rest won’t have much inclining of what’s going on.

Of the three tracks here (each breaching twenty minutes apiece, though the first nabs a hefty seven extra for itself), only Subspace offers anything resembling music, and that’s soon subsumed by the cosmic drone too. There’s an ever-present deep thrum of drone, as though the universe is breathing, and sounds proper-huge when you crank your stereo. Your neighbors will wonder if there’s a black-hole core in the building.

Alphaxone - Echoes From Outer Silence

Cryo Chamber: 2016

And now we return to Alphaxone, with his fourth album in half as many years. Man, when some chaps find that stroke of inspiration, they don’t hold back, though obviously we’re not dealing with Merzbow levels of ‘creativity’. Mr. Saleh generally comes in with a clear concept in mind with each album, even if the music within goes incredibly abstract, allowing more creative expression on his part. Thus one can keep knocking ‘em out if you’re not limited by conventional songcraft restrictions. Yes, even dark ambient has its notable markers and canonical concepts – like, I doubt we’ll ever hear an album based on My Little Pony in this scene that wasn’t a deliberate macabre parody.

On Echoes From Outer Silence, Alphaxone turns his muse further towards the unending black speckled with stars, a natural progression considering the trajectory of his album on Cryo Chamber. First it was living in a gray land – bleak perhaps, but still rooted in terra firma of a sort. Altered Dimensions explored sounds and moods of a possible outworld, or mayhaps a world within, parallel to our own; dimensional travel’s confusing that way. Following that, Absence Of Motion found us suspended within the ether between solid ground and space, so it follows that gravity’s relinquished its domain over us just a little more. Damn, am I ever feeling loquacious today.

Actually, the concept behind this album is less about traveling to the cosmic realm, instead hearing the faint murmurs from above. The droning thrum of the cosmos itself, whispers of ancient galactic civilizations, and all that good stuff. Hey, wait… might some of those implied ‘echoes’ from outer silence be actually ‘signals’? Like, obviously Sabled Sun is a post-apocalyptic tale of Earth, and I’m assuming Alphaxone loosely bases his work on the presumption of an earthly starting point, but how cool would it be if Echoes Of Outer Silence was in some way linked to a greater overall narrative within Cryo Chamber’s roster of artists? It’d take the label’s collaborative ideas to a whole extra level, where instead of a pile of ‘em build upon one album’s worth of ideas, they keep adding to a growing arc through a series of albums! Holy cow, that’d be one of the boldest things I’ve ever seen in electronic music, though probably not terribly commercially viable.

Echoes From Outer Silence is the most melodic album I’ve heard from Alphaxone yet, though that’s honestly not saying much considering it’s mostly his drone work for Cryo Chamber I’ve consumed. Still, after a two minute opener of field recordings, second track Resistance offers synth tones ebbing in and out as the cosmic hum dominates the ambience. Elsewhere, Departure presents a melancholic mood within its droning dub tones, and Altered Xone has a mysterious dirge echo off ancient halls. The rest of this album plays as you’d expect of dark space drone, where the sounds are sci-fi, the reverb distant, and the timbre infinite. Nothing like feeling lost in eternal emptiness, amirite?

Carbon Based Lifeforms - Twentythree

Ultimae Records: 2011

Considering how often I big-up Carbon Based Lifeforms as one of Ultimae Records’ key acts, I sure don’t talk about their actual albums much. In fact, this is only the second full-length from the duo I’ve gotten to, the first being their debut Hydroponic Garden a whopping three years ago now! Still, it’s not like they have a vast discography compared to other famed Ultimae alum’, Twentythree just their fourth album in a decade – Solar Fields released about twice that amount in the same period of time. After this, all that’s left in CBL’s catalog is Interloper and World Of Sleepers, one of which I don’t have (no points for guessing which one). Oh, and companion piece to this album, VLA, though as that’s a digital-only release, odds are that’s gonna’ remain absent from this blog for the foreseeable future. Then again, I hadn’t counted on still being at this back when I did Hydroponic Garden either. The future: as mysterious as the infinite black above.

Just as we remain lonely in the cosmos, Twentythree stands isolated among its Ultimae peers, the label’s lone drone ambient full-length. For sure there’s examples of such works scattered throughout Ultimae’s catalog – Asura’s last LP for them, Radio Universe, was about half drone alone. Hybrid Leisureland, Cell, and CBL member Daniel Ringström (as Sync24) can get downright minimalistic in their songcraft. To go an entire CD runtime with barely a beat or hint of a rhythm though, it just hadn’t been done on Ultimae before or since. Guess that’s at least one necessary ambient sub-genre off the bucket list.

Naturally, recommending yet another drone ambient album is a tough task for yours truly, but CBL bring their subtle skill with acid to this peace-out party. Opener Arecibo does the standard layered pad work you’d expect of blissful, expansive space music, but with a touch of the TB-303 bubbling in the background, the track retains enough of a distinct sound such that it’s not lost in the slush of yearly drone. Indeed, the subtle acid remains a common attribute throughout Twentythree, even if only as faint as a radio signal from deep space. Follow-up pieces have other minute features, should you be in the mood for a studious playback. System is eerie and dark, with distant, spritely dub effects. Melancholic Somewhere In Russia makes use of field recordings, prog-rock guitar tones find their way into Terpene, Inertia harkens to a primeval time, and VLA (edit) gets proper dark in a way that Cryo Chamber would approve.

Through it all, Twentythree truly sucks you in, such that when the heavy use of earthly field recordings and dubbed-out wind chimes of Kensington Gardens hits, it feels as though you’ve returned to this planet we call home after a long, lonely sojourn of the stars. What more fitting note to end on then, than the ghostly, melodic space ambience of Held Together By Gravity, astro-chatter echoing from a distant place we’ll never see with our own eyes.

Claude Young - Celestial Bodies

Fountain Music: 2013

Most times when dealing with a DJ or producer for the first time, the additional information Lord Discogs provides doesn’t tempt me into much further digging. So I was figuring the case for Claude Young when initially tackling his DJ-Kicks CD. T’was cool and all learning about his history, his legacy, and who he’s worked with in the past, but he’s been all over the map with his releases too. And I mean that literally, his records scattered on labels from across the globe, and undoubtedly super obscure or wallet-scorching expensive to procure. Fair enough, thought I, figuring Mr. Young would be yet another class Detroit techno guy that I’d have to sacrifice my attention in favor of several other worthy acts. It’s just the nature of Detroit techno consumption, tons of mint material only cultivated and heralded by the truly hardcore connoisseur of the genre. They wouldn’t have it any other way.

And yet, what’s this in Claude’s albums cache? A recent album released on Fountain Music in Japan called Celestial Bodies. Ooh, pretty blue nebula on the cover. Kinda’ reminds me of Model 500’s Deep Space. Quite a few astronomical titles in the track list too. The sample track, Hawking Radiation has a bumpin’ groove going for it. Is this a ‘Detroit techno guy making funky space music’ then? Mang, this just might be the Model 500 album we were all hoping for last year, but didn’t get in lieu of the retro-leaning Digital Solutions instead. Oh man, screw the Pacific import fees, time to get on this one before all the CD copies are snatched up!

That Celestial Bodies is not, in fact, a ‘Detroit techno guy making funky space music’ may come as a shock then. Mr. Young doesn’t produce much at all anymore, and when he does, his muse seems more drawn to ambient techno’s more experimental pastures. Not such a bad thing either, but man, was I not counting on a nearly full-on space ambient excursion with Celestial Bodies. Has Claude been hanging around planetariums?

There isn’t a whiff of a techno beat until the sixth track, and Domain Wall doesn’t even hit the two-minute mark. Prior to that there’s soft, harmonic tones of Exodus Earth, space drone of Observing The Kuiper Belt (Namlook legacy in the house, yo’), looping sonic doodle of Delta Cephei, spritely melodic pulses of Signals From Amor, and string pads accompanying punches of dub in Nysa. Only Observing and Signals reach any significant length, though even when the tracks get extra meat on their bones in the second half, we’re still mostly dealing with excursions into ambient. Sedna 90377 has some Detroit shuffle going for it, but is more about Claude’s old-school synth jams. Meanwhile, Cyrosleep Dreams is a lovely lullaby for our ventures to the cosmos, while Messier 86 (NGC 4406) is all ominous and creepy. Damn right it should be, the blue-shifted Virgo Cluster resident heading right for us! Projections for collision in a quadrillion years.