ProtoU - Khmaoch

Cryo Chamber: 2016

The pace some of these dark ambient artists release material, I swear. Hell, since making their debut on Cryo Chamber alone, a few are already on their fourth and fifth LPs, the wait for follow-ups short indeed. Names I only discovered this past year didn’t waste time in keeping the creative embers hot, some releasing two albums within the same twelve-month span. It makes maintaining an ear on every producer that’s caught my attention nearly impossible, even the ones that I really, really like and stuff. I’m only now just getting into the last five-CD bundle I bought, and already Simon Heath’s print has enough new material available that I’m itching for another five-CD bundle. I suppose I should be thankful that I’m this deeply intrigued by only one such label – if the likes of Ultimae or Silent Season had a schedule at this clip, I’d be financially insolvent in no time (bankrupt? never!).

As ProtoU, Sasha Cats has been one of the busier, um, cats at Cryo Chamber, four albums now under her belt. Two of those are collaborative efforts, but for the year 2016, she stuck to the solo scene, releasing both items within the span of eight months. Lost Here was a shade lighter as far as dark ambient typically goes, and rather ambiguous in ideas at that – felt more like an introspective record compared to other albums on this label with clear narratives and definitive themes being the norm. It also made it one of the easier albums for a dark ambient novice to get into, since it shared enough attributes with ambient-proper without getting lost in ultra-dense, uncomfortable head-fuckery.

If anything though, Lost Here felt like a feeling-out process for Ms. Cats. She must have been satisfied with getting that debut out of the way to not only quickly follow it with a second album, but one that has a clearer theme in mind. For those not in the know, Khmaoch is a reference to those who died from unnatural causes (suicide, murder, genocide, etc.), and, according to Southeast Asia mysticism, are now wandering as phantoms or spirits lurking about abandoned areas. At least, that’s my best assumption, the word khmaoch surprisingly sparse in Google searches when it doesn’t involve ProtoU’s album. Leave it to dark ambient muses to unearth all manner of obscure macabre folklore.

Thus Khmaoch is a bleaker, creepier outing than Lost Here. Quite a few sections where ghostly whispers, veiled cries, and haunting tones permeate the atmosphere, and that’s just the first track Bridge Of Storms. With ample amounts of shuffling stones, flowing water, and claustrophobic echoes, it feels like you’re a crypt explorer, unearthing whatever calamity created this realm filled with khmaoch memories. There are moments of distant, soothing pad work, as though the soul is easing itself into a restful slumber (Stygian Vortex, Dai Robsa Preah), but sometimes cruelly snatched away into foreboding drone just as you’re settled into a state of peace. No rest for even the innocent.

Mystica Tribe - Island Oasis

Silent Season: 2017

Of all the dubby releases Silent Season has brought us, I never expected something like this. Dub techno, sure. Ambient dub, absolutely. Even when getting away from music with a steady rhythm, going pure ambient littered with field recordings, there’s a touch of the dub resonance in all those layered timbre and effects. This one though, the debut album from Mystica Tribe titled Island Oasis, is unlike any sort of dub release I’ve heard from Silent Season thus far. Maybe I’d find something similar further back in the label’s catalog – of course I haven’t taken in everything they’ve put out – but this one, my friends, is a first.

And what sort of dub can I be talking about? Yes, what is this unprecedented, ‘brand new and good for you’ style that has gotten my head all double-taking an’ shit? Reggae dub, mang. As in, O.G. ‘70s stylee. The bare-bones production, simplistic melodic instrumentation, with the cavernous snare hits, dungeon-deep bass vibes, and echo effects emanating from the furthest reaches of Zion – all from the Book Of Tubby. Not that it’s surprising to hear throwback reggae dub nearly fifty years since its creation, as the genre’s been remarkably persistent even as new approaches and variations on its core concept continue being explored. It’s like the blues: you can do all manner of strange and different things with it, even taking it down roads that lead it into territory far removed from its original ethos, but there’s still something about returning to that vintage, uncomplicated, twelve-bar/stripped-down sound.

So that Silent Season would throw their hat into the reggae dub pot (tee-hee) is a bit of a surprise, but not totally out of left-field – probably an eventuality anyway. What’s caught me even more off-guard is the chap behind Mystica Tribe, one Taka Noda from Tokyo, Japan. Not that it should be – white folk have been making reggae dub for years now, so why wouldn’t someone from the land of the rising sun get in on that action too? From Jamaica to Britain to Japan, island nations gotta’ represent, yo’. And as Mystica Tribe, Taka’s released about a half-dozen EPs, some on SD Records, a print into techno of the acid n’ dub sort, and more recently with his own print. Those records mostly toed the dub techno line, making Island Oasis all the more surprising as a doe-eyed throwback of dub music (including an analog mixdown!).

As for the music, yeah, it’s a reggae dub album, with little in the way of surprises. The echo, reverb, and delay effects are well placed and suitably spacious, the bass has plenty of beefy resonance for your sub-whoofer needs, and there’s typically a different, though familiar, form of melodica leading in each track: organ, harmonica, piano, xylophone. It’s all stuff I’ve heard plenty times before, though interestingly, when I played it at work, one of my older co-workers remarked how strange and different it was to her. What, she never heard UB40?

Genesis - Invisible Touch

Atlantic: 1986

This past Novemeber, the third single from Genesis’ bestselling album Invisible Touch kept running through my head. Granted, Land Of Confusion is already one of those ridiculously ear-wormy pop-rock anthems of the ‘80s, but for the first time in my life, I actually found myself… relating to the lyrics? Wait, how can that be? I’ve long been suspect of the pseudo-genre of ‘Boomer Activist Arena Rock’. For all the good intentions that generation tried accomplishing throughout the ‘80s, most of it now reeks of pretentious self-righteousness, especially in lieu of little significantly having been accomplished with these songs.

Still, the video – one of the most memorable of that decade thanks to the puppetry involved – had me realizing just how eerily similar our current climate is compared to the one portrayed there. A bumbling, aging, feckless Republican President who dreams of being a hero in a scary world; celebrities believing they got the Right Stuff in banding together for Important Issues; Phil Collins looking like a muppet. Trying to make sense of it all, it really did feel like we were living in another Land Of Confusion for a new era. Who’d guess that Genesis would be prophetic three decades ago!

This got me curious about the rest of the album Land Of Confusion came on, whether there might be other prescient nuggets of foresight throughout. Never mind the reputation Invisible Touch has gained over the years as one of those ‘80s albums that absolutely reeks of the decade filled with chintzy, superfluous excess. Even looking at the cover-art, you can’t imagine it being made at any other time than when shoulder-pads, mullets, tinny production, and hall effects reigned supreme.

The album itself isn’t really all that political though – no more so than a typical pop album of the mid-‘80s. The remaining Genesis band members – singer/drummer Phil Collins, guitarist Mike Rutherford (aka: the tall bearded guy), and keyboardist Tony Banks (aka: the other guy) – had been off doing their own projects for the past few years; apparently Collins had a couple successful tunes on the radio in that time. When they reconvened for this album, they came in with no preconceived notions, no intended ideas. Just let the music flow naturally as it came to them. And yet, it still ended up sounding like a Phil Collins record. Must be that Hugh Padgham ‘invisible touch’.

So everyone knows the titular hit single (definitive ‘80s pop). Tonight, Tonight, Tonight sees the band indulge themselves a little more in their music chops, while letting Collins belt another power chorus. Anything She Does is one of those peppy jazz-funk things as done by British white guys with synths. Domino is a more ambitious rock outing at ten-minutes in length, and instrumental The Brazilian closes the album out reminding folks that Genesis once were Serious Prog Musicians too. Hard to remember that with two ballads on here, though Throwing It All Away is charming enough. In Too Deep though… yeesh.

Stormloop - Into The Void

...txt: 2016

With a name like Stormloop, I keep expecting blistering, grimy warehouse techno tools. Never mind this comes care of …txt, whom I’m darn certain specializes in ambient. Or the fact the Kev Spence alias closed out that colossal Pete Namlook tribute project Die Welt Ist Klang. Heck, even if you knew full well Stormloop is ambient, the name maybe suggests the noisy sort, more an assault of densely layered field recordings, blasts of white noise and static, and all manner of sound chaps hanging out in the noise scene getting weak in the knees over.

‘Tis not so. As Stormloop, Mr. Spence has released twenty albums over the course of a decade, the majority of which contains your traditional droning ambient. For sure there’s different ideas and themes approached throughout them all. Some explore seasonal moods (the Winter EP, Autumn & Autumn II), others the always popular cold wasteland regions (Snowbound, Nocturnal Winter, Arctic Conditions), a few dabblings into the Hearts Of Space school of New Agey ambient (Kaleidoscopic Blooms, Fragile Systems), the abstracted drone stuff (Transforms, Modulated Meditations, No True Beauty Without Decay), and my personal go-to style, space ambient (Signals, Back To Dust, Distant Star, Cluster).

Wait, did I just summarize the near-entirety of Stormloop’s discography? Well why not, since it’s at his Bandcamp anyway. In fact, Mr. Spence is pretty much strictly independent, almost all of his material solo-released. This means a near-complete lack of physical formats available of his work, and what he release on limited CDrs is absolutely snatched up at this point. So while he does make some nifty music that tickles my earlobes, the lack of physical options means I probably won’t be buying many Stormloop items in the future. May as well talk about his other stuff while I have the chance, eh?

Still, he has found distribution with a couple labels. Glacial Movements Records released one of his Snowbound* albums a few years back. A little while later, …txt came along and offered a Memory Stick deal, consolidating five of his albums into a USB stick. Huh, would that count as a physical release? I mean, technically it’s a mini-box set, but I dunno’ – kinda’ hard to impress the ladies having that on your vinyl wall.

This past year, Stormloop released another item with …txt, a fresh album called Into The Void. Though sticking to his usual assortment of droning synth timbre, it has a more grounded theme compared to his other works, a reflective ambient journey through the night (Deep Into The Dark).

Imagine you’re wandering through lonely streets (Another Drift), near empty park lands (To A Light) or suburban countryside (Night Ride), your only companion a frequently obscured Luna above (Clouds Pass Over The Moon). Insomnia keeping you from getting any rest (When Need Of Sleep), leading to some tense moments of the mind (Out Of The Dark), but all is well once the sun rises again (Into The Dawn). So, uh, what comes after Omega?

ACE TRACKS: April 2017

So I was planning on a move this past month, but things didn’t quite pan out as initially planned, so I’m staying put for the short-term future at least. Before I came to this conclusion though, I had to give my notice of leaving, which was straight forward enough, and the management company that handles my building were quick in getting my flat up on local rental sites and even showings within the first weekend. Whoa, better actually tidy the apartment up a bit!

Of course, it didn’t matter, since I realized my move wasn’t happening fairly quickly, so no need to worry about people poking about my living space while out at work (you never know who might knick that Pete Namlook tribute box set). I still managed to get a glimpse of what my pad was going for on the websites though, and my jaw nearly dropped, the price 35% above my current rent! Dayum, I knew they were gonna’ renovate with floorboards and all, but that’s quite the ridiculous hike for what I currently have. Vancouver affordability continues to be bonkers.

One benefit of postponing a move, however, is all that money you’d been saving in anticipation? Well, now you’re flush with it, anxious to spend a little extra dough. And since I didn’t really have plans to vacation anywhere at this point (because move), I went and splurged on MOAR CDs! Felt some necessary classics from back in the day were missing for too long, plus indulged in a few of those annoying ‘limited run’ labels while I had the chance. Also, I felt it's about time I tackle another round of “[DJ Mix Series] On A Budget.” Which one will it be? You’ll have to wait until I get past the ‘V’s to find out. Don’t worry, that letter’s a relative speed-bump compared to everything else. Anyhow, here are the ACE TRACKS for the month of April, 2017.




Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
The Future Sound Of London - Environment Six & 6.5
S.E.T.I. - The Guide Lockstars of Astro Myrmex

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 18%
Percentage Of Rock: 0%
Most “WTF?” Track: Gost - Reign In Hell (for ending so abruptly after a kick-ass start – sorry, the superior Dance With The Dead Remix isn’t on Spotify)

So there’s a lot of Czarface in this playlist. In fact, at current, all the Czarface, save maybe the odd tune floating about the internet ether that never made the cut on their albums. These things happen when you buy up an artist’s entire discography, though I can’t remember the last time I ever did that. ‘Tis difficult to do, especially if said artist has a long history. Was handy having Czarface being such a new project.

Aside from that, it’s all pretty standard stuff from one of my backlog treks. Ambient stuff, new Ultimae stuff, a smattering of ancient stuff, and a pinch of current stuff. A surprising lack of Cryo Chamber in this bundle though. Have I just not got much recent from the dark ambient label? Did Lustmord’s presence send them all scurry back to the shadows? Ah, no, there’s still another ‘half’ of this backlog to get through. Guess what’s hanging out down there!

EDM Weekly World News, November 2013

Writing attention currently drawn elsewhere, so here's a flash from the past, That Time a bunch of real DJs went on a murder spree of fame-whores. Don't worry though, kids, they all got better - kicked back out of both Heaven and Hell. I guess even the Afterlife can't stand their cheesy anthems.

Carbon Based Lifeforms - Interloper

Ultimae Records/Blood Music: 2010/2016

I didn’t think I’d ever get this album. Hear it at some point, sure, all of Carbon Based Lifeforms’ music available on streaming services now. Unlike their first two though, which Ultimae would re-issue in anticipation of a new CBL album coming out, Interloper only had its initial run. I’m not sure why they didn’t re-issue it with the release of CBL’s space ambient opus Twentythree - both Hydroponic Garden and World Of Sleepers were, with spiffy new cover art and everything. Maybe it was still relatively new, so hadn’t yet gone out of print like Ultimae’s older CDs? It wasn’t long before Interloper did sell out though, now commanding exorbitant prices on the open market. And since it seems unlikely Ultimae will re-issue any of their old catalog on CD again, yeah, I had resigned myself to having Interloper missing from my collection.

Then I caught wind that CBL were re-issuing their first three albums on CD anyway, plus vinyl options too. Holy shit! For sure it wasn’t Ultimae doing it, and I doubt they could afford it on their own Leftfield Records print (that’s digital anyway). Nay, they turned to a nearby Scandinavian outlet that specializes in all manner of record distribution: Blood Music. Wait, the death metal outfit that’s given synthwave poster-boy Perturbator a home? I… I mean… that is… how in…? WORLDS COLLIDING!!

So now I got myself a CD copy of Interloper (care of Blood Music. Blood Music!), and I have to say this was not the album I was expecting. Given the original foggy cover art and CBL’s ongoing drift into more minimalist songcraft, I figured this album would be the logical step between World Of Sleepers and Twentythree. Not in the slightest. If anything, Interloper just might be the most ‘pop’ album in Ultimae’s history.

The duo has had its fair share of sublime melodies - MOS 6591 from their debut undoubtedly their peak – but it isn’t their defining trait. This album, though, has ear-wormy melodies to spare. The titular opener hits you with an immediate winner; Supersede sounds like elements of Epicentre (aka: the other memorable melodic track from their debut) were repurposed for a prog-psy groover; Frog has an overwrought twee melody that could be an ambient track on a Solarstone album; M seems to have movie credits in mind; and Polyrytmi, after a lengthy, subtle build, erupts at the end in such a way that would have even Solar Fields saying, “uh, maybe tone it back a bit.”

Examples of the downtempo acid-chill CBL are known for do exist between these big moments, some with a few new wrinkles added. Right Where It Ends, with its treated vocals and unconventional rhythm, wouldn’t sound out of place on L.S.G.’s Into Deep; Init and misleadingly titled 20 Minutes adds glitchy beats; but by and large obvious melodies dominate Interloper, with a few vocals thrown in for good measure. A handy introduction to CBL for associates not so inclined to the underground side of chill-out music, this.

The Green Kingdom - Harbor

Dronarivm: 2016

I feel like I’ve seen Michael Cottone’s project somewhere before, but my memory fails me. It could simply be a case of mistakenly misplacing The Green Kingdom for any other number of ambient aliases or titles over the years, this combination of words evoking similar imagery for any open field or deep forest. Or perhaps it’s an association with the more shoegazey side of mellow indie rock. For sure the sound you find on Harbor contains some of those markers, what with mellow, gentle acoustic guitars riding along calm, floaty pad work, but this is still firmly in the ambient-Proper camps.

Scoping out what Lord Discogs has to say, I’m left blank as well. Mr. Cottone’s been releasing music as The Green Kingdom for over a decade now, but he’s as much a label journeyman as you’ll ever find - almost every release of his came out on a different, obscure print (Heldernacht, SEM Lable, Own Records, The Land Of, Nomadic Kids Republic (!), Tench). If anything, he seems to have finally settled down with Dronarivm, this and his previous album Expanses both coming out on the Russian ambient-drone home. He also provided a podcast mix for the blog A Strangely Isolated Place, thus rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ulrich Schnauss, Carbon Based Lifeforms, ASC, Bvdub, Martin Nonstatic, and a slew of other names I don’t recognize (so… many… ambient…).

Still, even this wasn’t enough to spike my memory, so I went to Last.fm to see if there was any additional info The Lord That Knows All may have missed. And holy cow, what is up with this Expanses 2 track? It’s gotten tons of plays, the rest of his music only modest scrobbles. Is it the same with Spotify streams? You bet, the track garnering over three-hundred fifty thousand plays – the next closest, from the same album, barely squeaks over the twenty-thousand mark. Dear Lord, why has that one track gotten so much atten- oh, it was in the Hotline Miami 2 soundtrack. Yep, that’ll do it for ya’. Can’t say that’s why The Green Kingdom looks familiar to me, but interesting finding this out nonetheless.

So, Harbor. The concept is simple enough, Mr. Cottone looking to guide the listener along the soothing waves of seaside shores. Surprisingly, there’s little use of wave samples, Green Kingdom instead letting the rolling drone mimic the feeling of chilling on a beach. Some tracks offer a chipper, mellow vibe with guitars leading, almost like an overdubbed version of Kruangbin (Harbor, Jade Star). Other tracks skew closer to dub techno, though with plenty of warm pads keeping the cold sterility away (Haze Layers, Morrowloops). Mostly though, we get calm, dubby pad drones with heavily treated orchestral and acoustic instruments. It all rather sounds like… wait, the opening part of Evergreen Sunset… that really sounds like… Vangelis? Creation Du Monde? Yeah, it totally does! Oh man, forget the next Miami Hotline game, get The Green Kingdom to score the next iteration of Cosmos.

S.E.T.I. - The Guide Lockstars Of Astro Myrmex

...txt: 2016

Now doesn’t this look all ultra egg-headed in concept and design. Guide Lockstars? Astro Myrmex?? S.E.T.I.??? Right, that last one’s been a staple of electronic music for ages, musicians inspired by deep space frequencies traversing the endless void in meager hopes of finding kindred intelligence. Or something better, far superior to our primitive means, that’d be pretty dope too, but we’ll take whatever the cosmos sends our way. Beggers can’t be choosers.

Honestly, I picked this up because, hey, new S.E.T.I. – gotta’ check that out, yo’! Never mind I initially wasn’t sure which S.E.T.I. I was dealing with. Like, it seemed odd that the dark, abstract ambient project of Andrew Lagowski would end up on …txt, especially since his last few releases came out on industrial-leaning print Power & Steel. That other Seti project then, that consisted of Savvas Ysatis and Taylor Deupree, they’re more up the alley of Lee Norris’ label. Then again, they haven’t been heard from since the ‘90s, so odds of this being the same group were remote. Could it be a whole new S.E.T.I.? Lord Discogs surprisingly lists few acts with such aliases, so a young cheeky producer could take it on too.

But nay, turns out it was Mr. Lagowski all along, finding a home with …txt as he takes his project into the realms of narrative concept. The Guide Lockstars of Astro Myrmex is the second of what appears to be an ongoing tale of sorts, started with The Data Logs Of Astro Myrmex, released the year prior. Little information is given on what ‘Astro Myrmex’ is, beyond something that’s travelling the cosmos. A ship captain? Interstellar cruiser? Robotic probe? Evolved light being? Something definitely advanced compared to our current technology, what with Data Logs’ liner notes mentioning ol’ Astro exploring wormholes. Lockstars offers a morsel of additional information, explaining that Myrmex’s journey was initiated by the Nibiru Cataclysm. Ah, that event, as predicted by the cover art of Public Enemy’s Fear Of A Black Planet.

The music within, such as it is, does offer the sort of space ambient you’d expect of such a hard sci-fi story. Opener Instrument Calibration spends a chunk of its early portion with distant transistor pings and other sounds you’d figure robots communicating with radio antennae would emit, accompanied by low thrums that all dark space ambient must include. This isn’t a dark piece though, spacey pads joining the effects, nicely selling a cosmic grandeur vibe.

Guide Lockstars generally alternates in tone throughout, with S.E.T.I. exploring different forms of sci-fi sounds and abstract music. Mirach, LoS Jitter Summary, Adhil, and especially Black Engines are quite dark and droning, giving me pause whether I’d accidentally thrown on a Cryo Chamber CD instead. The longer tracks of Gravity Stupor and Almach are more bleepy and benign, though still feeling isolated between the stars. Still, it’s nice hearing a hard sci-fi, space ambient album that includes both ends of the vibe spectrum. (not as famous as the electromagnetic spectrum)

Various - Greenosophy Chapter II: Collected by Mizoo

Ultimae Records: 2017

This label’s full of surprises as of late. Not only have a couple unexpected acts returned with new albums (Scann-Tec and James Murray), not only did a new live album get released on CD (necessity of said live album still up for debate), not only did some melody return to one of their releases (Eyes To the Height), but now a follow-up to Greenosophy too? Who’d have predicted that?

No, seriously, I wonder, because the original compilation came out a half-decade ago; and honestly passed with little fanfare. Mind, it didn’t do the Mizoo project many favors having its release scheduled between two Solar Fields albums. Not to mention Fahrenheit Project wrapping up the year before, plus the additional compilation of Ambrosia coming out within the same twelve-month period. Oh, and a follow-up to Oxycanta the year after probably whisked away whatever ‘Another Ultimae Compilation’ buzz Greenosophy had going for it. Timing just wasn’t the best for that particular CD, is what I’m saying, and with Ultimae moving on from festival-friendly, mellow psy into the domain of dub techno for their chill offerings, would there be a need for another Greenosophy at this point? Sure, Mizoo could adapt to the label’s current aesthetic as Nova did with Passages, but that’d just be redundant at this point.

A glance at the track list didn’t dissuade me from that assumption either. Scann-Tec’s here, Cell is here, MikTek’s here, and Aes Dana crops up twice. All musicians I like for sure, but also clearly infatuated with dub techno’s aesthetic as of late. Mizoo opens Greenosophy: Chapter II with prog-psy veteran Ovnimoon though, his track Algun Dia more a moody, mysterious ambient piece with a gentle bleep melody lazily drifting along the droning pads. A nice opener, but then we go deep into experimental dub with Claudio Prc’s Domo, the sort of ultra-minimalist track that would have been an experimental piece during Plastikman’s Consumed phase. We’re in for a bit of a trudge in this one, aren’t we?

Not in the slightest! Scann-Tec’s Parsec was one of the better tracks off his Unyt album, and we get a tasty edit of that here. Following that is Security from Cell, doing a… prog-psy thing? Whoa, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Cell up his beats this much. It’s still relatively chill and all, but definitely at a foot-moving pace. And the two Aes Dana tracks that follow (including a collab’ with Mizoo) maintain the pace, though still keeping things on that minimalist vibe he’s been infatuated with as of late. And in case you didn’t get enough melody from Murray before, here’s I Awake and Hybrid Leisureland giving us a straight-up psy-dub outing in Metaworld. Haven’t’ heard something like that from Ultimae for an age.

For the tail-end, Mystic Crock brings acidy downbeat, Ascendant provides a bleepy prog-psy track (trance!), and MikTek does his usual widescreen trip-hoppy thing. All this leaves me thinking, “Please don’t let the next Greenosophy be another half-decade in the making.”