Visions - Summoning The Void

Cyclic Law: 2010

I've dabbled in a few items from Cyclic Law, but haven't gotten much into the founder of the dark ambient label, Frédéric Arbour. That's because, unlike Simon Heath and his multitudes of Cryo Chamber works, Mr. Arbour only dabbles in the producer's console. He has a few different projects to his name, including this one as Visions, but only scant releases under any of them. Seems he's far more comfortable playing the role of music curator, bringing others into the Cyclic Law fold, giving their releases his mastering touch while consulting on cover art. Cannot deny he does provide a unique aesthetic in the dark ambient lexicon, a faded, gritty look that hints at the fantastical, but seldom ever implicitly confirms it. Always about what your senses don't reveal, this scene is.

Visions is Frédéric's most fruitful project, though at four releases total (so sayeth Lord Discogs), that's not saying much. In fact, he only added his fourth just this year, a collaborative project with Phurpa called Monad, and which marked Cyclic Law's one-hundredth release at that. Hey, it's only fitting one take their label's milestone for themselves, right? His first Visions album, however, came out way back in 2005 (Lapse), with Summoning The Void released half a decade after. Far as I can glean, this project has more of a space theme, but perhaps all the various cover art of Rorschach nebulae is deceiving me.

Like, opener Dawning does have that desolate, empty, impossibly vast space drone going for it, but it also has clanging bell tones echoing off the far reaches of the cosmic cathedral. Then, is that chanting I hear emanating from the void, as though summoning an Old One from the blackest pitch of the darkest hole of the unholiest realm? Are we lost in space, or did we hitch a ride on the Event Horizon? Which is worse? And speaking of voids, the titular piece lays out droning tones as though they're the horns of Azatoth, with layers of timbre almost suffocating your senses as wailing pads worm and snake about – and dearest me, is that actually an almost hopeful harmony fighting its way through the oppressive atmosphere? Tread not where hope ends in decay and death, o' ye' traveller of the forbidden realms.

The remaining three tracks follow in suite with the openers: lots of thick timbre and echoing drones, with spare musical elements piercing the murk throughout. Overall, I get more of a sense of ritualistic entrancement than sensory deprivation, especially so with closing piece Invocation (its full of stars). I come away from Summoning the Void not with a sense of fear and wonderment of the impossible emptiness that surrounds our little speck of mud, but of being beaten down by all that there is and more that we cannot see or begin to understand. Or maybe it's some handy Halloween music to play when doling out treats for the kiddies. That'll work in a pinch too.

Sleep Research Facility - Stealth

Cold Spring: 2012

Now here's an alias up my alley! I like good sleep, but sometimes I feel I'm not getting the best sleep all the time. What the most efficient hours are, whether going down for huge blocks of time or interspersing it in shorter, nappier chunks is better. Should I keep milking those REM dreams or cut them off once they get too surreal. What I should take before lying down. What I shouldn't take before lying down! Sleep is one of the most natural things every complex organism does on this planet, yet it still remains one of the oddest things we don't fully understand. When did it become practical for a living being to simply shut down its higher functions for a period of time? Was consumable energy really in such scarcity in the primordial Earth that they had no other recourse than to hibernate for a while, preferably when the sunlight wasn't out and about? So strange, and we cannot fight it, no matter how many stimulants we may pump our bodies with. That there are research facilities dedicated to discovering these secrets is a-ok in my books.

All this has precious little to do with the album I'm reviewing today. Far as I can tell, Sleep Research Facility is simply a cool sounding handle Kevin Doherty adopted for making his dark dronescapes. His first album was called Nostromo, which yeah, featured some hibernating space-truckers (and gestating body horrors) but nothing involving researching their sleeping habits. He also has an album called Deep_Friez, something about the encroaching slumber of hypothermia, which I'm sure makes for fascinating study, but kinda' difficult to report your findings once you've turned into an Antarctic Popsicle.

Finally, we have his (thus far) final album, Stealth, which has nothing to do with sleep at all. Or maybe a little, those sleak, black killers of the sky moving as quietly as my computer in hibernation mode. I'm sure the B2 bomber has its own 'sleep mode' during its runs too, making sure its as invisible as possible from any observer. Remarkable feat of engineering, that plane. I'm not surprised folks find some inspiration in its aesthetic and design, even to create music based on it. This album though, has to be a first. Or at least a very unique interpretation.

For you see, Mr. Doherty posited the question: what would it be like as a stealth bomber? No, seriously, that's the vibe I get off this album! Unsurprisingly, this is a very minimalist drone album, almost entirely composed of electronic tweeting, chirping, whirring, and other assorted field recordings, all the while an ever present engine hum envelops you - it's like you're inside the machine, that you are part of the machine. Every so often the monotony is broken up by radio chatter, orders being relayed, information being sorted. I imagine if a B2 bomber had thoughts, Stealth is what its sensory A.I. perceives as reality. Or you're a hapless maintenance guy stuck in the landing gear.

Scott Grooves - Key Statements - The Beginning: The Soiree Collection 1992-1995

Soiree Records International: 2017

Yes, the beginning. The start of it all. The alpha happening. The prime, um, kickoff. Whatever you want to call it, these are the tracks Scott Grooves initially got his groove on with, a smattering of singles and remixes for Detroit based Soiree Records International. He'd shortly after get a deal with Soma Quality Recordings, which led to the single A New Day, the album Pieces Of A Dream, and we already know all this because I just talked about it in the Pure Mixin' It retrospective. So let's give a quick rundown on Soiree instead.

Not a major print by any stretch, but they've been in operation since 1990, releasing a few records every year to this day. I honestly don't recognize anyone on this label, but there must be enough love for acts like Glenn Vernon, Pleasure Device, Drivetrain, and CloudMasterWeed to have kept the lights on for nearly three decades now. Nothing can stop the Motor City deep house machine!

Yeah, we're in house's house, and really, if you clicked on a review for a guy called Scott Grooves and weren't expecting house of some sort, let me be the first to welcome you to our planet - please take your litter with you when you leave. This American house though, it's in that weird transitional era from the classic Chicago sound of the decade before, and the full-on loopin', disco n' funk revival that would define the latter half of the '90s. At this point, the deeper, bumpin' New York and Miami style was dominating the clubs, producers like Masters At Work and labels like Strictly Rhythm large and in charge. Scott Grooves may have hailed from Detroit, but that don't mean he wasn't heavily influenced by that sound either, much of the music here fitting comfortably snug within clubs out on the east coast. It'd be a few more years before Detroit musicians stopped fighting their natural inclination to put the 'tech' into their house.

Despite some ultra-tight drum programming that's just part of any Detroit producer's DNA, Scott Grooves doesn't do much here distinguishing him from the deep, eastcoast bump 'n grind vibe. Which is fair, the chap undoubtedly still learning the ropes of production while DJing remained his main focus.

His two Key Statements cuts work a sparse groove just fine, with that punctual squarewave bassline bobbin' about as a soul sista' or piano/organ/saxaphone/xylophone improvises between the vocals. His remixes for Pam Vernon, Sweet B, Lawanda, and Kiata generally follow the same formula, though the production's got a deeper, richer atmosphere to them – less stiff than the Key Statements cuts. The collection ends on a couple unreleased items - On My Way and Anything 4 You - and it's here Scott's Detroit lineage peaks through, tunes sounding far more futurist and 'techy' than anything New York was churning out, but still on that deep house vibe nonetheless. Dang, why'd it take this long to revive these, yo'?

Jacob Newman & Devin Underwood - Sending The Past

Carpe Sonum Records: 2015

Man, another pure ambient album from Carpe Sonum Records so soon? Don't I review anything else? Hey now, it hasn't been that short a turnaround. I reviewed Bubble's OI only [checks notes]... Um, only... [re-checks notes, checks actual blog]... Holy cow, it's been nearly a month? Doesn't feel a day past Thanksgiving. Point is, I've covered plenty else in the meanwhile such that it shouldn't feel like I'm getting into a repetitive rut. Stuff like dark ambient, or piano ambient, and, um, ambient techno. Ooh, look, there's some house and synthwave in that mix, plus a few glitchy items too (erm, care of Patreon Requests), so what rut be th'ar, ask I?

This particular album comes care of a duo, Jacob Newman and Devin Underwood. They also make music together under the alias Gapfield, which Carpe Sonum has actually attributed to the digital version of this release, but since it's their names and not the alias on the cover art, I'm sticking with that (Lord Discogs approves). The two also have respectable solo careers, Jacob releasing under his own name, while Devin taking on a Specta Ciera handle. And gosh, rummaging through their respective discographies, I've noticed they too have music out on that dataObscura print. It... it's a sign, that I've noticed this label two reviews in a row. Must... now... buy... from...

Where was I? As far as ambient music goes, Sending The Past plays things fairly conventionally. It's got the spacious drones, the subtle melodies, the soothing atmosphere, though whereas most ambient composers find a lane and stick with it, these two seem to take on a few different schools on a track-to-track basis. Compositions like Light Point, Sequester, and The Elusive has me reminded of all those Andrew Heath albums I've covered, where the ambience is very minimalist as stray sounds and tones permeate the empty, echoing spaces between, whether of piano, strings, field recordings, or those little bloopy sounds from a radio transistor. Mind, Misters Newman and Underwood fill their spaces with more pad work than Heath, but the craft remains similar enough for me to do the name-drop. I'm sure there's other names I could have dropped, but with all those Heath albums behind me now, his style has kinda' imprinted upon me above all others.

Other tracks, however, go more for that traditional long-drone form, though we're never getting into obscene lengths here. The longest pieces - Mist Field and Day Stretch - don't even break the double-digit mark, and Rotations even comes in at a snug two-and-a-half. Overall, I'm getting that planetarium ambient vibe from Sending The Past, what with twee melodies sprinkled about like twinkling starlight. Yet the omnipresent pad drone keeps things relatively obscured and submerged. So, like, I'm watching stars, but from under water. Or starlight shimmering across the blackened waters of a harbour at night. No, wait, those are just squiddies coming up to the surface for their mating dance. Calamari tonight, boys!

Pleq & Segue - The Seed

Databloem: 2010

For as much as I've name-dropped Databloem, I sure haven't gathered much of their discography, a lone double-LP from Mick Chillage the only release to have entered my coffers. Time to remedy that, said I, and wouldn't you know it, they too offer some bulk rates of their catalogue. Sweet deal, that means I can round out a few discographies of artists I already- no, wait, I should use the opportunity to explore new artists, ones I've never heard before! Like, who knows what wonderful artists I've yet to discover, names like Skua Atlantic or James Shain or The Circular Ruins or Mnnsk. I mean, it worked with another pseudo-ambient label that started in the early '00s, before going completely tits-up. Somehow though, I figure Databloem has some longevity behind it. Call it a hunch.

Anyhow, I'm not going into this one totally ear-blind, as one of the players involved I do know: Segue. Most folks these days know him for his contributions to the Silent Season catalogue, his Pacifica in particular hailed as among that label's best works (eye-grabbing cover art helps). This was released before that though, when he was doing a little collaborative work with a chap named Bartosz Dziadosz, but you can call him Pleq. Now this dude, he's got himself an extensive discography, releasing a few dozen items this past decade on such labels like Crazy Language, Impulsive Art, Dronarivm, Chemical Tapes, and vu-us, vu-us. As he mostly plies a minimalist glitch ambience with modern classical leanings, I should have stumbled upon him sooner, but no, this collaboration with Segue is the fist time Pleq's graced my ears. That Our Words Are Frozen on dataObscura looks intriguing though.

As the Pleq genre-drop implies, we're in minimalist glitch territory here, though I wasn't expecting things to be this loopy and spacious. The Seed isn't a full-on collaboration between Pleq and Segue, only a couple tracks billed as such (The Piano, The Seed, The Mornings Begin Chilly). Pleq crafts two pieces on his own (Lulled By The Rhythmic Creaking, Calm Coolness), Segue gets a solo outing of his own (Late April), and both trade remixes on two tracks apiece.

If this seems confusing, don't worry, you won't tell much difference between the artists within the music itself. This is an album with lots of fuzzy static, clicky-poppy glitch, and minute looping melodies wrapped in a soft blanket of white noise. Melancholy headphone music, to the extreme!

Okay, it's not extreme, but it is very ambient, in that modern glitchy sort of way. I find things are more interesting when there is some form of melody leading things, whether pad work, piano work, or string work – the pure drone-gltich works like Calm Coolness and No Sky evaporate in my brainpan too easily. Overall, I feel like Pleq's aesthetic dominates over Segue's, but as I've only taken in a couple Segue albums, and none of Pleq's (yet), take that conclusion with a pound of sodium carbonate.

Spacetime Continuum - Sea Biscuit

Astralwerks: 1994

It shouldn't have taken me this long to pick up Sea Biscuit. It never occurred to me that I could though. When I first heard Spacetime Continuum, it was as part of Coldcut's Tone Tales From Tomorrow Too, a mix CD that sounded so strange, so leftfield ...so alien to my virgin raver ears. I concluded the tracks within were so underground that I'd have no hope of ever finding them in my trips to the Vancouver shops, much less in my Canadian hinterland homestead.

Then along came a Lord by the name of Discogs, showing me the light – these tracks do exist beyond the unknowable realms of the deepest crates, some even care of familiar labels (that Namlook fella' was part of Alien Community? Go figure!). That didn't mean I could now rush out and buy 'em all up though, oh no! Tone Tales was more than a half-decade old by that point, ages where electronic music was concerned in those days. Surely items off there were long out of print and impossible to find for a college student on a minimal income just learning the wonders of Amazon shopping. Little did I know that one tune was always easily accessible, the Astralwerks label among the most prominent electronic music prints in North America. No ridiculous import fees, no inflated collector's market prices, no dodgy bootleg deals; just a nice, simple used-shop cost, plenty available no matter what your Amazon preference be. Yep, no reason to not get the Astralwerks version of Sea Biscuit if you want this album (from Astralwerks). No reason at all.

Jonah Sharp's debut album as Spacetime Continuum is oft hailed a classic of ambient techno, though I sometimes feel every ambient techno album released between 1991-1995 is hailed as such. It's definitely got a lot of things going for it that tickle my earbuds proper-like. Pressure, the tune that appeared on Tone Tales Too, is all retro-future sci-fi electro bliss. Subway gets in on that dubby ambient-bleep action that has my Higher Intelligence Agency triggers flaring (squee!). Ping Pong wouldn't sound out of place in a Mixmaster Morris set of the time. Q 11 isn't much removed from the sort of stuff FSOL were producing on their Lifeforms singles. Plus, we get a couple lengthy noodly ambient outings in Voice Of The Earth and A Low Frequency Inversion Field, which puts Sharp quite comfortably within the larger Fax+ canon. Can't be part of the Namlook legacy if you don't have at least one endless track of relaxing pads and minimalist sonic doodling.

So I like Sea Biscuit, but it's more for Sharp utilizing familiar tropes of dubby ambient techno than anything unique to his sound. Aside from Pressure, which hints towards his future leanings into techno-proper, there isn't much here that I couldn't find on other releases from that year. Still, if you're looking for another addition to such a collection, it remains an easy album to find on the used market.

Islands Of Light - Ruebke

Home Normal: 2014

It's always nice whenever I get a timely album to review, and there's no better time than now if I'm gonna' write about music inspired by the autumn falls. The local Vancouver fauna is in full colourful decay now, with leaves shedding all that energy-producing chlorophyll as they hunker down for a bitter West Coast winter (bottoming out at -5 degrees Celsius; brutal!). Most trees in my neighbourhood settle for the yellows and oranges and browns, but there's a few in other areas with a blazing red foliage, nearly blinding my eyes as sunlight reflects off them.

Eventually though, they'll all fall into the streets, forming huge piles that will never, ever be taken away by municipality services. The rains will come, washing the leaf piles onto all the sewer drains, clogging them. Giant ponds – curb lakes, as some call them – will form, as the rains won't stop, and the drains won't get unclogged. Meanwhile, the huge leaf piles on the streets that aren't washed away will start rotting, congealing into festering lumps of slimy biomass, occasionally freezing overnight if the rains let up and the temperature drops low enough. After a time, the city will take the lumps of rot and decay away, but not without leaving a smear upon the pavement, from which will never leave until the spring sun warms and bakes the residue away. I'm not reviewing more dark ambient here, I swear!

I doubt Dino Spiluttini had all that in mind when crafting Ruebke, an album centred around the change of summer to fall, even releasing it on the autumn equinox of 2014. Sure, the shortening days and chillier temperature can bring a sombre vibe to our daily going-ons, but ooh, pretty leaf colours, yo'!

Much of Dino's work entails modern classical with droning overtones, often maintaining a melancholic mood throughout, so an autumn-themed album makes sense within his discography. However, he felt an itch to explore something more piano based, and thus created this alternate alias of Islands Of Light to do so. Yes, in a bizarre coincidence, I got myself another piano album on that Ultimae Records Shop splurge. It was never my intent, but lo', such interesting cover arts, these piano ambient albums have.

It isn't all piano music either, Mr. Spiluttini's classical drone finding its way into pieces like Honung, Heisternest, and Heimfeld. And while gentle, quiet, reflective keyboard playing is the main mood throughout Ruebke, there are a couple chipper pieces too – like busy squirrels rummaging about looking for fallen hazelnuts. Meummelmannsberg in particular sounds like he's using piano strings and even the frame as a form of percussion, and even settles into a string drone before returning with the clanking piano. Why yes this is the most interesting track on the album.

Overall, Ruebke feels like an album best served gazing out into a brisk autumn evening, a cool mist oozing through the firework displays of trees prepping for seasonal twilight. Through a window, that is.

Miami Beach Force - The Revenge

Werkstatt Recordings: 2014

This is about as peak synthwave as you're gonna' find, isn't it? Like, I'm hesitant calling it cliche, because part of the scene's modus operani is taking the cliches we associate with '80s synth music and art, and relishing in them. No Carpenter movie untouched, no hard-boiled cop show with pastel suits left un-homage'd. True, this title's lacking anything pulp sci-fi or purple vector grid based, but when we think of the most Cannon of films out there, it's always cheap, direct-to-VHS action movie sequels involving some form of revenge, typically undertaken by an action force, and half the time set in Miami. Or Los Angeles, if the film crew is really cheaping out on location shoots.

What I find funny about billing yourself as Miami Beach Force is, depending on the era, you could have been a completely different type of music. Obviously if an M.B.F. posse had existed in the Actual Eighties, they'd have been a freestyle act, rockin' the Planet Rock break as everyone from Miami was (or lift it direct from the Kraftwerk's Numbers break, they weren't picky). Flash forward to the Nineties, however, and an act going by the nom de plume of Miami Beach Force could have been anything from Florida breaks to trunk-rattling audio bass to even some Latin infused dance music (reggaeton, maybe? It had started its migration by then). What it definitely would not have been, however, was anything retro-synth related, such sounds utterly unhip and dead throughout that decade. The '00s are trickier to nail, all manner of scenes likely contenders for drumming up a Miami Beach Force handle: electro house, a crunk crew, even an insufferably ironic emo punk band!

In this case though, Miami Beach Force are in fact a pair of Swedish brothers (I'm assuming brothers, what with both having last names of Ekman), and have mostly plied their synthwave sounds through Soundcloud streams. Werkstatt Recordings gave them their first taste of proper label distribution with this particular EP, which was kinda-sorta their second release...? They had enough prior tunes on their Soundcloud to make up an album's worth, but I'm not seeing any other outlets curating them into such (and lord knows Lord Discogs remains indignant with these streaming synthwavers). They've eked out a little career since the release of The Revenge, even appearing on that hip New York City synthwave label NewRetroWave, but that's neither here nor there (what a strange phrase, that).

I wish I had more to say about The Revenge, but I'm still quite synthwave'd out right now, and Miami Beach Force aren't doing anything here that distances them from the pack. It's got a couple moody numbers, a couple high-octane cuts, and it all sounds very vintage and deserving of a mini-movie staring tough, mullety cops out on the beat, serving up justice in a neon-soaked glow. Stylishly. Sexily. While ducking for cover behind white brick walls. And dammit, they really could use a shave. That perpetual 5am shadow must be itchy.

Plaid - Reachy Prints

Warp Records: 2014

I've gotten the Most Important Plaid album (Not For Threes) and the latest (because it was there), but there's a hefty clutch of material between those two points, not much of which gets talked about. You'd think Warp Records would be more generous in promoting the Plaid discography, veterans of their label and all, but then it's not like the duo have the same clout other IDM wonks on the print. Everyone with a passing familiarity with electronic music knows of Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Squarepusher (because journalists keep name-dropping them as bases of comparison... *cough*), but poor Plaid gets lost in the shuffle.

On the other hand, the duo didn't do themselves many favours following the turn of the millennium. Most of their '00s was spent getting into the soundtrack gig, leading some to wonder whether they'd given up on regular Plaid output. An album called Scintilli eventually popped up in 2011, but folks didn't hear much on there that lit their world on fire, plus the duo almost immediately went back to work on another score, so things looked dicey for the Plaid-Heads of the world. I don't know what a hardcore Plaid fan is called. A Flaid?

Scintilli had some supporters, mind you, but it seems with Reachy Prints, the global Flaid brigade finally got the album they'd been waiting on for over a decade, a return to form for the purveyors of clever beatcraft, charming melodies, and all the things Flaids enjoy from Plaid. There are a couple nods to contemporary trends (glitchy rhythms, etc.) but seeing as how Plaid were doing contemporary trends long before they were trendy or contemporary, things fit quite snugly within their larger discography while sounding not a touch out of time. Except maybe Liverpool St, the obligatory orchestral tune that sounds better served in a soundtrack. Just can't shake that itch, I guess. All said, Reachy Prints is a lovely little album, if rather short, but is a nice entry point for those who haven't been swayed by Plaids muse yet, even if they still aren't doing that 'super-serious challenging IDM' stuff their Warp Records brethren are known for.

And that's when it finally hit me as to why Plaid never seemed to get the same name-drops as the Aphexes and Autechres, despite hailing from the same ambient techno lineage: their brand of IDM isn't 'challenging' enough for the true critics and connoisseurs of this scene. You know the ones, who are very serious about how they listen to music, and can only accept it if it's actively fighting the brain's natural biases and disposition towards rhythm and melody. Plaid's music ain't like that, at least to not the same extreme, so of course all the Very Important Talkers aren't always talking 'bout them. Me though, I'm not very important at all, so have no problem talking Plaid, and I'm talking up Reachy Prints if you need a nice, easy, tasty primer into their work.

Scott Grooves - Pure Mixin' It: A Decade Of Natural Midi 2007-2017

Natural Midi: 2017

It's Bandcamp's fault my music collection's ballooned to its current size. Take Scott Grooves, a dude most know from his hit Mothership Reconnection of two decades past, and perhaps only the Daft Punk rub at that. It certainly was about the extent of my knowledge of the man, but in scoping out his Discogs page while Adding Pieces Of A Dream To [my] Collection, I couldn't help but check out that Bandcamp link as well. To satisfy my curiosity, see, of the sort of swag Mr. Grooves may have available. And while most of it featured your usual digital releases, vinyl releases, and assorted t-shirts and slipmats, a CD compilation of older material couldn't pass me by. That's not what I'm digging into here though, but rather a bonus CDr Mr. Grooves threw in with my purchase. Only, this too has a proper release, just not the version I got, which looks more like a demo. I've made this sound more confusing than it is. Point is, because of Bandcamp, where I intended to buy one CD, I somehow ended up with two. No wonder I'm already in need of more wall-mounted shelves.

Soma Quality Recordings may have been instrumental in giving Scott Grooves his biggest breakout, but the man from Detroit has generally been a strict student of Detroit Independence, setting up his own labels to release his own music, screw whatever promotional push a bigger print affords. Thus after the Soma experiment ended, he retreated back to his own devices, initially starting up the From The Studio Of Scott Grooves print. That one is still technically in operation, but hasn't offered much material since its inception beyond reissues and 7” vinyl. Seems the other label he set up after, Natural Midi, has received more of his attention, singles released at a steady clip since 2007. As the title of this CD states, it's had ten years of operation, and what better time than last year to whip up a little celebratory mix of your tunes. None better time, says I.

Naturally, I hadn't a clue what sort of music Scott Grooves had been releasing on Natural Midi. Like, I assumed it would be house, because that's been his breaded butter since the early '90s, but I wasn't expecting house music so stripped down and retro, especially after the slickly produced and polished Pieces Of A Dream. Right, that album came out a decade before the first Natural Midi single (A'round Midnight, for the record, though nothing from that record appears on here), plenty of time for Scott to feel that classic Detroit itch to return to the basics of house and techno. Plus, y'know, 'minimal' was trendy in 2007, so a stripped-down sound wouldn't be out of place anyway.

And despite the retro production, Groove's namesake still carries through all of these tracks, that unmistakable, ever-present, deep Motor City funk no matter how simple these tunes get. An acquired taste, for sure, but one that remains timeless.