James Murray & Francis M. Gri - Remote Redux

Ultimae Records: 2019

Yay, James Murray is back! Or, was back, this album having come out a few years ago now. And then, that's only in relation to Ultimae, Mr. Murray remaining a busy-body between his few appearances on the French label. He's got his own label, Slowcraft Records, to release things on, and a second home with Home Normal, a print housing names like Celer, bvdub, Chihei Hatakeyama, and Wil Bolton. It does give an impression that James didn't need to return to Ultimae, but considering his Eyes To The Height was a highlight of the label's past decade, it's nice seeing him return.

Only, I'm not sure how much of Mr. Murray's music is to be found on this particular release, Remote Redux coming off more like a Francis M. Gri joint. Mr. Gri is another in an endless amount of abstract acoustic ambient producers, often employing pianos and guitars while treating them to delay, detuning, and dubbing effects. He, too, has his own label, KrysaliSound, where he self-releases things while housing other names like øjeRum, Tropic Of Coldness, Hirotaka Shirotsubaki, and Wil Bolton. Oh, and James Murray's released an album there, which is how I assume the two crossed paths. Or maybe it was when Gri released an album on Murray's Slowcraft Records. Either or, whichever satisfies your head-canon.

Ma opens things up with a gentle build of discordant strings, subtle pads, and piano touches with delayed tones reaching far into the deepest canyons. The mood gradually escalates as the layers of timbre pile upon each other, before long the piece doing that wall-of-sound thing you might hear on the more drone orientated ambient labels out there. Though with the twitchy strings and minimalist piano, Ma feels more comfortable in a modern classical lane than traditional ambient.

Toma carries forward with similar production, though with acoustic guitar rather than piano the main melodic rudder. For as much melody as there is anyway, this piece more about the harmonic drones washing over your sense of being. Remote uses more reverse delay effects upon strings and pads, all the while maintaining some sense of forward momentum as the tones ebb and flow. These are techniques I've heard Francis use, but not so much James. In fact, aside from some pad support and electronic sprinklings, I haven't heard much out of James, leaving me wondering if he's in more of a support role to Francis. Like, James playing Eno to Francis' Budd.

Speaking of, Lotano is an utterly blissed out piece of dubbed-out modern classical (d'at analogue fuzz!), while Redux brings back the wall-of-sound washes. That's also the end of the album (plus an extended version of Toma), and with only one track out of five breaching ten minutes, relatively short all things considered. It's also unlike any Ultimae record I can recall hearing, the label seldom going this ambient, much less modern classical. Remote Redux would make perfect sense on, say, Dronarivm, but on Ultimae, it's definitely an unique item.

Sykonee's 'Sportsing' Surveys: DELERIUM / CONJURE ONE

Ah, Delerium. Some love 'em. Some hate 'em. Some loved 'em before they hated 'em. Some didn't know they existed for a decade before coming to love 'em. A great many more are probably indifferent but know at least one or two of their songs - typically in a remixed fashion. Wherever you stand on their worth, it's undeniable the group - primarily helmed by Bill Leeb, with Rhys Fulber as his frequent fellow muse, and a whole gaggle of lady vocalists in later years, have done much in the worlds of musical scenes most would deem incompatible. Are they really so?

Yes, if you were to take their very earliest industrial and dark ambient records against their most recent ethereal dance-pop outings, you'd wonder how that link ever formed. Or at least I wondered. And with wonder comes an interest in exploring an entire discography. Buckle-up, me buckos, this one's a three decades spanning dive!





























That sure was a dive that felt longer than I anticipated - probably didn't help I took on an additional discography in the process. That'd be like if I'd done all the solo albums of the original Genesis band members along with that band's primary output! Felt like I'd have done Rhys dirty if I didn't include his stuff with Leeb's though: the two remain so synced with each other after all these years, and the two projects were relatively similar overall. Ooh, does this mean I'll be tackling all the other Leeb/Rhys projects out there? Front Line Assembly does have quite the extensive discography too, not to mention other, smaller outings like Synesthasia.

Hhmm, no, I need to listen to something a bit different for a while. How does New Order sound to y'all?

Blue Hour - Reference 97

Blue Hour: 2014

Hearing honest-to-Gods, true blue trance music from that positivesource compilation naturally had me wondering, was there any more from these guys? The label may be far too new to have cultivated much of a regular roster, but surely all these artists didn't just suddenly sprout up from the ground like so many Tolkien dwarves. You bet, but that's a lot of digging through discographies, some of which may only have a few scant releases to their name. No, best to stick to labels for now, and fortunately for I, it turned out positivesource is a sub-label. Which means there's a parent label I can check out! Oh, goodie!

Sure enough, said parent label is Blue Hour. You might remember that name as one of the artists I mentioned in the positivesource 'Bundle' review (it was only a month ago). I touched on it there, but here's more details. Started by Luke Standing way back in 2013 (yes, that's 'way back' now, deal with it), the eponymous print carved out a tidy little niche in an overcrowded techno market in Germany. Maybe not the most flashy label thereabouts, but successful enough to carry on releasing a few records every year to this day. I don't have the time to sift through the label's entire catalogue to hear just how consistent the trance vibes that lured me in had been lurking throughout, but I figure scoping out some early works might give me an idea. Ah, this Reference 97 looks promising, perhaps referencing techno and trance from the year 1997?

Or maybe not. The titular opener of this single hits you immediately with the thudding, thunderous techno beats you'd associate with Ostgut Ton releases – maybe the snare action is a little vintage Detroit? But what's this? An emergent synth pad, pulsing to the rhythm as it slides along its sine wave? Yeah, that's kinda' trance, even has a little breakdown where it's just the melody doing its thing. Those big ol' beats waste no time coming back though (fuck d'em builds, yo'), keeping Reference 97 firmly in techno's domain.

Second track is called Don't Speak. Ooh, is that a reference to the No Doubt song? Right, the album it came from was released in '95, and technically had a single released in '96, but it did most of its chart damage in '97, so there could be a tie-in! Ha-hah, oh of course not, this Don't Speak a strict exercise in techno minimalism (but not mnml, thank Lord). There is a weird sound that oozes out after every eighth measure, which might be an ultra-dubbed vocal sample, which could be a clip from the No Doubt song? No, I doubt that.

Final track Moments also brings the boom in its beats, but in a broken way, boy. There's also some synth pad work in support, giving this track a real classic Artificial Intelligence vibe. Could almost appear on B12's label, if that bass kick wasn't so beefy.

Solar Fields - Red

Droneform Records/Sidereal: 2014/2018

Hah, bet you forgot I have a Solar Fields box-set to get through as well, didn't you! Right, it's not that big a box-set, containing just three CDs in all. And it's not like you can't get these coloured-titled compilations separately either, at least in their digital forms. Red / Green / Blue is only a box-set in the sense that it's a tidy consolidation of wayward collections of music, particularly for those who like having a physical medium on their shelves.

Of the three discs, Red is the most redundant to my own music collection, already having half these tracks elsewhere. In fact, three of them appeared on Fahrenheit Projects, but as Magnus was a regular contributor to that Ultimae series, it's only natural a significant chunk of track list space is taken by them. For the record: Union Light comes from Fahrenheit Project Part Four, OnFlow comes from Fahrenheit Project Part Seven, and Electric Fluid comes from Fahrenheit Project Part Two ...or does it? Wait a minute, something seems to be missing from this Red version, the bit of acid towards that track's end. Is this an early mix? *checks through Discogs* Ah, so it is, this version first appearing on a 3D Vision Relax compilation called Module 01. Huh, guess that makes the Ultimae cut, the superior cut, an exclusive to F.P.2.

Some other Ultimae exclusives include the ultra-subdued Combinations (On/Off Edit) from Oxycanta 2 (which I have), the Solar Fields At His Solar Fieldsiest Fiat Lux from Albedo (which I have), and Times Are Good (Sometimes Remix) from Imaginary Friends. I don't have that one. I don't know why I don't have that one. I guess the by-line of “audio poetry” had me thinking it some spoken word outing? Times Are Good is definitely not that, a pleasant slice of charmingly twee downtempo chill. Not the most mesmerizing Solar Fields tune out there – especially on a compilation containing Fiat Lux and OnFlow - but definitely a hint of things to come with Until We Meet The Sky.

Now the rest. Jeezlh comes from an Interchill Records compilation called Future Memories, a fairly standard bit of Solar Fields psy-chill with another winner of a melody at its peak. I'm more fascinated by Solar Fields appearing on Interchill at all though, especially rubbing shoulders with Eat Static and Phutureprimitive (Carbon Based Lifeforms and Cell also joined in). A different remix of Confusion Illusion appeared on a Suntrip Records compilation, adding operatic singing to his blissed-out chill atmosphere, while Compressed Universe goes a little more prog-psy with its uplifting vibes, which makes sense as it first appeared on a Spiral Trax CD. As for Velvet Reptile from the hopelessly obscure Stargate Recordings, it's fine as a tranquil transitional ambient piece within Red, and that's about all.

Still, a top grade compilation, Red is, with some of Solar Fields' best tracks on it. If you had to choose just one, I'd go with this (spoiler for Blue, I guess?).

Lucette Bourdin - Raven's Dream

Fantasy Enhancing: 2006/2021

We're still in 'early works' era of Ms. Bourdin with this one, Raven's Dream her third released album. Almost immediately, my 'New Age' triggers are flaring, that title the sort of thing you'd expect to be accompanied with some Arizona Native chants or Peruvian pan-flutes. And raven caws, plenty of raven caws, echoing across Grand Canyon walls, invoking images of flaming red sunsets against desert skies. Okay, I'm mostly just detailing the original cover art Lucette painted for this album, but the point stands. Naturalistic settings of ancient times is a tried and true New Age concept, and while Ms. Bourdin's brand of ambient has generally kept things on this side of the Great Eno Divide, it wouldn't take much for things to switch into saccharine either.

Opener Raven's Heart certainly makes a case for this, um, being the case. The synths are rather flowy and melancholy, less the abstract sonic padding much of Lucette's ambient has offered me thus far. There's also a lightly echoing thud in the distance, putting quite the fine point on this being the sound of a beating heart. Again, not out-and-out New Age music, though adding some typical field recordings like crickets or babbling brooks would seal the deal.

Raven's Heart is quite short, only three and a half minutes, and we're off into more familiar Lucette Bourdin territory on follow-up Airborne. Synth pads that gently weave and caress your cochlea, letting your headspace just drift above, a bit of a subdued rhythmic pulse underneath lending the piece to the realms of dub. With fourteen minutes of sonic space to just let the track play as needed, yeah, this is the vibe I've come to appreciate most from Ms. Bourdin.

Then River Song snaps us back to New Age territory, with overt, bright synths, piano and... oh, yep there it is, the field recordings I suspected would be heard. I mean, it's still a pleasant little number, just quite obvious in its presentation is all. Still, no word from the titular raven. I'm kinda' surprised we haven't heard a single caw yet.

The last two tracks are of the twenty minute-plus variety, the final one getting quite close to the thirty minute mark (still not Lucette's longest track though). Forest Lullaby does feature crickets, though the sound seems manipulated, sampled, digitized, and coerced into a steady rhythm of its own. The rest is mostly synth ambience played in a rather loose, free style, more about melodic journey than sonic wallpaper. Oh, and some random bird chatter too, but still no raven caw. Dammit, when are we gonna' hear a raven caw?

Two minutes into that last track, for the record - as it's also the titular track, I sure hope so! All kidding aside, this is another lovely, if lengthy, slice of gentle ambient music, the raven only making a sporadic cameo. Good thing too, because my Gods, have you heard how their ornery cousins, the crows, go on? I sure have.

Shuta Yasukochi & Carlos Ferreira - Quiet Reminders

Archives: 2020

A simple little release, this. Two tracks, both about fourteen and a half minutes long, and two remixes, averaging nine minutes between them. I suppose that barely constitutes this being an album proper, reaching over forty minutes in total. Still feels rather skint though, like there could have been more ideas explored over the course of its run time. So it goes with ambient, I guess.

The artists behind this album are Shuta Yasukochi, Japanese, and Carlos Ferreira, Brazilian. This is not as odd a combination of ethnicity as you'd think, Brazil having the second largest population of Japanese heritage in the world. Some hundred years ago, there was a large influx of immigration there, mostly to work coffee plantations and other agricultural enterprises. A big reason for this was the United States massively reducing the amount of Japanese immigrants within their borders, and with Japan still trying to find its way out of its post-feudal era, many went to Brazil for a better chance at life. I guess it worked out well enough, seeing as how a few million souls remains there to this day. Whether this has anything to do with Carlos and Shuta meeting each other to collaborate, I haven't a clue, but hey, always fun to divert this music blog into a history blog, right?

Both had been active making music since at least the mid-'10s, growing decent Soundcloud profiles in that time. Shuta even got his first album out on Archives half a decade ago, while Carlos was working with other artists, including some psychedelic rock thing called Ansiedaed, including a song called Drabula. It's not indicative of what he's making with Shuta.

Still, he does put his guitar skills to some use with first track Floating, even if it's just the gentlest of electric strumming. Not even strumming really, more like soft plucking, with a little effects pedal providing subtle delay. Meanwhile, Shuta provides the soft, droning synth pads, the higher layers of timbre imparting a feeling of, well, floating, like wispy clouds caressing alpine peaks. Yes, thank you, Archives, for once again giving an album the most perfect piece of cover art. Naturally, it's a piece that's not in any hurry to move along, but the lighter synths do grow steadily more pronounced as it plays out.

By contrast, An Endless Dream goes atonal, very little about it as harmonious as Floating. The drones are quite subdued, there's a layer of quiet, dubby field recordings churning in the background, and the sparsest of idiophonic instruments offer what little melody Shuta and Carlos are willing to give. I kinda' zone out on this one.

The two remixes come care of Hilyard and Archives-head Agustín, under his Warmth guise (of course). Hilyard turns Floating into more of a standard shoegazey ambient outing, but holy...! Warmth goes about as close to dark ambient drone as I think I've ever heard from this label. Now I want to check out that Darkest Place album from him.

Spicelab - Quicksand EP

Harthouse/Solieb Digital: 1992/2013

I've held off buying Oliver Lieb Bandcamp remasters for far too long. Always that niggling hope though, that maybe, just maybe, he'd release a hard copy version of his early singles across various aliases, gathering them into a compilation, as done with his L.S.G. works. And I suppose there's still a chance it will happen, but really, if it hasn't happened by now, chances are it never will ...and watch me get proven wrong by this summer.

Anyhow, the early Spicelab singles remained highest on my 'Want' list, so naturally they were the first I sprung for. The Quicksand EP in particular was a unique item in the Spicelab canon, as the titular track is among the first tunes Mr. Lieb released on the downbeat. Perhaps not as notable overall since he'd release the ambient-leaning Constellation on Recycle Or Die the following year, but for a producer who was mostly making blistering, raw acid and techno, Quicksand is a significant step in Oliver's musical evolution.

I already touched on the track as it appeared on the Harthouse Dark Hearts, Vol. 1 compilation, but I may as well re-iterate. Maintaining that experimental sci-fi bent Spicelab often enjoyed, this one opens with lengthy, spaced-out synths gliding and sliding along sine waves, all the while someone hurriedly rushes up a flight of hallway stairs. Man, I can feel my calves getting a work-out just listening to this!

Seriously though, Quicksand has most of the hallmarks of a typical trance tune of the era, just played in a far more chill way, the groove a steady, soft rhythm while all sorts of electronic sounds bubble about. It's an extremely slow build getting to a point where everything's in play, and even then, it doesn't make a big fuss about it, simply cruising along for the track's duration. For those used to the harder side of Spicelab – heck, Harthouse in general – this had to be quite the ear-opener. Small wonder it was tapped for label retrospective consideration.

On the flip, however, is where you'll find the bangers. Amorph is probably the most famous of the lot, an early example of Oliver steering German trance music into the acid techno of the day. It starts out typically of the genre in '92: noisy noises, simple rave riffs, and speedy 150 BPM beats. At the two-minute mark though, those distinct Lieb space synths emerge, flying along with simple pitch bends and squiggly electronics, sending the track into outer orbit. There were examples of these sounds in the debut Spicelab EP, but never used to this effect. The cheeky 'gabber' beats towards the end are just silly fun.

The third track on this EP is called 56387. It's got an annoying hook that sounds like a cyborg strangling a synthesizer. It's mostly just boshy acid techno with some ol' school German trance choir pads. It's not as interesting as the rest of this EP. It was just the style at the time.

So Long 2022, Oh Hi 2023

What a weird year that was.

It started out so simple, a carrying on of whatever 2021 was. Then ALL THAT happened, whatever you want to throw into your 'all that' bucket. Rergardless, as with much of online society, I couldn't help but get addicted to doomscrolling, to such a point I had to step back and reasses priorities. And wouldn't you know it, things turned out for the better, at least for yours truly. Kinda'. Okay, so updating and upgrading my life-balance made my personal debt worse, though not crippling so. If I need some quick scratch, I should just start taking paid positions at the festivals I volunteer at.

But yeah, it was nice to have things 'open' again this year (never mind if they 'should' have been yet, what with COVID still a thing, but eh, The Economy must grind on), including clubs, swimming pools and the like. Finding that motivation to get more physically active has certainly been a positive this past year, even if it kinda' cut into the amount of time I was willing to dedicate to this blog. Speaking of which, I s'pose 2022 will forever be remembered as the year I finally completed my initial project of listening to and reviewing Every. Single. Item. in my music collection, at least as it existed when I first relaunched way back in 2012. Crazy to think it's been a decade since then, eh?

Anything else? Oh, just switching music streaming services, switching social media services (or at least, weening off one), switching living environment (so many tapestries now. Just... so many). All in all, a remarkably busy year of change, mostly for the better. Some may call it 'mid-life crisis', but I prefer thinking of it as finally coming into one's own after nearly two decades of fumbling through adulthood. But as Neil Young once sang, "I still got a long way to go."

Oh yeah, and no ACE TRACKS list yet. Even though Speedy J has finally uploaded all his stuff to more streaming services, a small playlist of primarily his stuff would be overkill.

The Future Sound Of London - The Pulse EPs

Jumpin' & Pumpin': 2008

This has to be about it. There can't be anymore long-lost FSOL releases from way back that I haven't gotten. Officially released ones, at least. Like, there's still all that From The Archives material that they never seem to run out of, though I'm sure whatever was still in their ancient data banks has been expunged by now. No, wait, I'm seeing a recently released EP called Mental Cube (Original Recordings From 1990). Oof, of course there would be something like this floating about. And I suppose they could still gather up all their wayward single-purpose aliases into a compilation at some point. Aliases like Metropolis, Semi Real, Intelligent Communication, Art Science Technology, and Homeboy (2). Brian and Garry really were quite the busy-bodies back-when.

But no, I'm talking about straight-up, proper Future Sound Of London works, of which The Pulse EPs was where they first emerged. Indo Tribe too, if we're keeping count. And Smart Systems as well. Technically also Yage, as an artist and not a producer. Mental Cube though, that had already been around. Basically Garry and Brian finally just putting themselves and their Earthbeat sessions out there, seeing what stuck and what would be relegated to the dustbin of early rave jams. Four records emerged from this series, with a spiffy consolidation of them released when the duo were re-releasing a bunch of archival material on the 'net.

Things kicks off with, appropriately, Bring In The Pulse (MFK Mix), as Indo Tribe. Though Lord Discogs tells me this is the first instance of me having this track, it sure feels like I've already heard it, a fairly standard breakbeat-bleep track as heard out of the early UK rave scene. Maybe a lot of it was recycled into other tracks? Whatever, the first real item of note on the first Pulse EP is the first official FSOL track, which appeared nowhere else: Hardhead (Frothin' At The Mouth Mix)! It's... um... it's not like any other FSOL track you'll hear, just a rudimentary breakbeat tune with some sample play, a standard hook, and a freakin' rave whistle. Wow, and to think this alias would lead to such wonders as Cascade and My Kingdom. More representative is Pulse State, the groovy acid house number as heard on Accelerator.

Yeah, there isn't much else on The Pulse EPs that I haven't talked elsewhere, only two more tracks unique to this release within my collection. Mental Cube's I'm Not Gonna Let You Do It is a nice, simple, retro-future techno jam, but Smart System's Zip Code is little more than a standard rave bosher. Still, I love hearing Calcium again, even if in slightly edited form. In fact, there's a lot of 'slight edits' on here, a consequence of cramming four EPs onto a single CD. I think this is a better overall compilation of early FSOL material compared to Earthbeat, but it's not the whole story, and with a quarter of it re-appearing on Accelerator, a bit redundant to completists.

Speedy J - Pull Over

Music Man Records: 1991/2021

This has to be the dumbest thing Speedy J has ever made. Yes, even dumber than its spiritual twin sister, Something For Your Mind - at least that one has a slightly redeemable vocal? And I'm not talking about my 'good' kind of dumb, which one could argue a lot of his post-Loudboxer techno is. Y'know, that blunt, no-holds-barred kind of pummelling rhythmic action that doesn't require much in the way of insightful dissection or thought to get into. No, this is just straight up dumb, spelled with a capital 'D', 'U', and 'M'. Just how dumb is this track? When Armin van Buuren was doing his little 'updating tunes that inspired me' series, of all the Speedy J tracks he could have chosen, he chose this one. That's how dumb this track is!

Don't worry about me calling Pull Over the dumbest thing to Speedy J's name, tho'. I'm sure Jochem would agree. Despite its massive success as a cross-over hit and an early Dutch rave 'classic', he never, ever wanted to go down this route again. Heck, I wonder what compelled him to do such a tune in the first place? Peer pressure from his fellow Dutchmen, to unleash the inherited Dutchiness lurking in his lineage?

It's certainly unlike anything he'd been releasing on Plus 8 Records to that point, which admittedly hadn't been much yet. Maybe that Minimal track, if it had only focused on the rhythm. But Pull Over doesn't. Almost immediately, that utterly inane looping 'hook' makes its presence felt, just mindlessly going on its single note, with its single pitch bend. And it never, ever stops, just sucking the whole way through. No matter how many fancy little drum fills Speedy J tries to get you hype around it, the hook carries on, sucking. You might say it helped inspire hard house, but that's like saying Family Guy helped inspire The Cleveland Show.

The First Remix is almost a tad less sucky, in that the beats have a bit more momentum going for them. The Speedy One also gets a little more playful with that hook, occasionally stretching the pitch bend out so the hook almost ends up sounding like a siren, and even adding a little reverb effect. Actually, no, that makes it even worse. I don't want to hear this stupid-ass hook any more than I need to, and no amount of knob twiddling will help it.

Second Remix, then, that's where it's at. Yeah, the noise that makes up Pull Over's hook is still present, but it's reduced to nothing more than a single stab no more prominent than an off-beat bassline. This version is all about d'em beats, man, and here's the Speedy J that would go on to such bangin' classics like Kreck. Well, in a primordial form at least.

The Bandcamp re-issue also includes an Original Cassette Tape version, and it's... just Pull Over again, but slower. Hard... Pass... Over...