Sykonee's 'Sportsing' Surveys: PAUL VAN DYK

For a time, Mister Mattias Paul stradled between two worlds within trance's domain, somehow existing at the crossroad between UK progressive elite and Dutch ultra-melodic bombast. It made him one of the scene's most popular producers and DJs, one I even fell sway to in his late '90s / early '00s heyday. As my interests wandered elsewhere, I lost touch with Paul van Dyk's output, but that didn't mean I hadn't kept tabs. Hell, some of TranceCritic's earliest internet infamy involved his projects! Still, his career trajectory didn't seem to be one I wanted to follow, so let him be.

Then he had his near-fatal stage accident, which I can't say personally shook me or anything, but did 'reconnect' me after a fashion, as shortly after, I heard he'd 'reconnected' with trance music as well. Well that's interesting, thought I, but was I really that curious to hear such a comeback? Not initially, but every so often, I'd replay some of his old music from 45 RPM and Seven Ways, leaving me to wonder, did I do myself a disservice in dismissing so much of his discography? Like, I hadn't heard Out There And Back since it came out, and never even gave Reflections a chance. Hmm, albums both new and old I should be checking out? Sounds like a prime candidate for a 'sportsing survey' to me!





















Looking back on this, I'm surprised how many times I name-dropped ATB. Is it because I did a survey of him as well, so he's just the freshest in my mind in referencing popular eurotrance producers? Maybe, though I noticed the Wonky Angle dude was making similar comparisons too. Not to mention Paul and Andre seemed to occupy the same space within DJMag's poll, no matter how high or low they placed. Methinks the two Germans should collaborate. I'm serious!

As for who's next, I'm going back to a poll on Mastodon before deciding. I've a good feeling I know who'll win it, but then I was totally wrong in who'd win in the last one. No way I could have predicted Cypress Hill and Paul van Dyk would tie!

Chihei Hatakeyama / Dirk Serries - The Storm Of Silence

Glacial Movements Records: 2016

It's been a spell since I last talked up Chihei Hatakeyama, and not for a lack of desire. He's simply one of those ambient artists that has hardly any filter, a discography that keeps ballooning to ever greater proportions with each year. It's been six cycles since I first reviewed an item of his (holy cow!), and Lord Discogs lists some forty more items added to his catalogue in that time (holy cow!!). Even if I wanted to jump back in at some point, where do I even begin? I only scoped out Above The Desert because it happened to be among Dronarivm's newer releases at the time. Maybe I should do the same with another trusted label, then? Yeah, Glacial Movement Records, you'll do.

Even better though, this particular release is a pairing with another ambient artist I've long wanted to dive into, if not for an even more daunting discography behind him. Dirk Serries is his real name, but many know him as Vidna Obmana, one of the earlier ambient drone artists that leaned into the dark ambient side of things. Once again, it's that industrial background, caustic noise and sonic experiments eventually morphing into music more contemplative and reflective. He's worked with many prominent names of that scene, including Steve Roach, Alio Die, Robert Rich, and Asmus Tietchens. And like many of his brethren, his nearly four decade old discography lists some one-hundred items on Lord Discogs. That's not even getting into his more recent works as Fear Falls Burning, plus another hundred items under his own name. Where does one start with a catalogue so vast, but I repeat myself.

Sadly, this is hardly the best album to glean a comprehensive conclusion on either man's work. Honestly, even a twenty CD box-set would be lacking, but if you were looking for a definitive work from Chihei or Dirk in The Storm Of Silence, this probably isn't it. I mean, it's only four tracks long! How can any forty-year spanning oeuvre be summed in a mere forty-two minutes? For all I know, this is Misters Hatakeyama and Serries just going through the motions, elder ambient statesmen making music for its own sake, to Hell with challenging the genre, or something. Not that I dislike what I hear, oh no! It'll simply be a lo-o-o-ong while before I come to any sort of judgment on their works, is all.

Anyhow, this is a fairly typical collection of droning ambient as I'd expect from the players involved. Well, maybe not so much Glacial Movements, The Storm Of Silence not quite so cold and foreboding as I've heard from the label. Heck, I'd even call opener Kulde 'warm', in that the minimalist synth pads are rather soothing, wrapping you in a comforting embrace. Each subsequent piece, averaging around eleven-minutes each, gradually ramps up dissonant harmonic tones, but never in a confrontational way. And it's over before you realize it, but this wasn't the last time these two paired up, nosiree.

Lucette Bourdin - Stories From The City

Dark Duck Records/Fantasy Enhancing: 2007/2021

Enough of these cosmic adventures, time to get back home, within the warm embrace of concrete towers, endless glow of street lights, and soothing sounds of sheering steel and burning rubber. What, you don't have all that in your city? Pft, then you haven't truly experience proper urban living. There's nothing like wandering one block, the subtle scent of cherry blossom trees wafting in the air, turning a corner, and receiving the odorous whiplash of street-dweller piss. Haha, just kidding. It's actually the mix of plastic and feces coming from a construction site porta-potty you'll come into contact with, at least in the Vancouver neighbourhoods I roam.

Anyhow, another month, another Lucette Bourdin album. This is one of her earlier albums, her second on Dark Duck Records. It also appears to be another one that uses the original artwork as found on the CD release of this, which leaves me wondering how many others I may have missed after all. Don't get me wrong, some are clearly unique between original and Retrospective Box Set (2005 – 2017). It just seems like I've been on a run where that's not the case anymore. Maybe it's just something unique to the 'S' titled albums? Guess we'll find out whenever I get to the few remaining offerings following this one.

Stories From The City is a simple enough concept, capturing moods and tones I'm sure Lucette felt inspired by when travelling abroad within larger metropolitan areas. Thing is, I didn't really get that sense while playing the album. It's the lack of field recordings. I'm so inundated with ambient artists including all manner of urban street sounds that I just naturally assume any composition drawing influence from such settings will have them in abundance, even if ever-so subtly playing them in the background. I'm seventeen CDs deep into her discography now, and if there's one thing I've noticed Ms. Bourdin seldom utilized, it's field recordings. It's just not her lane. Even when it would totally fit the theme of a particular piece, it's used sparingly (seriously, so few caws in Raven's Dream ...just, so few...)

So we have opener Night Sun, a suitably moody little drone piece that gradually ebbs into something more tranquil and charming, plus an additional effect of stuttering sounds in the background. It's a nice piece of evolving ambient, rather typical of Lucette's sound to this point, but does it impart a feeling of being in the city? Not particularly, no. Like, I could imagine some urban-scape visuals or art supporting the dronier pieces like High Noon or City Interlude, but just about any imagery could when it comes to ambient as artfully abstract as Ms. Bourdin's goes.

Don't take this to mean I'm coming away from Stories From The City disappointed or anything. Lucette had found her ambient groove by this point, and this is another pleasant outing of lovely moods and tones. As I said though, at seventeen CDs deep, that's just my base expectation from her now.

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.

36 & zakè - Stasis Sounds For Long-Distance Space Travel

Past Inside The Present: 2020

Another album from Mr. Huddleston with a cosmic theme? Well damn, you already got all my money for that, but what's this? A collaboration with 'zakè'? Oh my, this is a new wrinkle. Indeed, for much of his career, 36 seldom paired up with other producers, perhaps because much of his muse feels rather intimate, inspiration that may get lost when allowing another being into his musical headspace. Just as well, then, that one of his first collaborations comes with one Zack Frizzell, an ambient artist of some note these days. Huh, how important can he be if this is my first crossing of him, eh?

Well, he's released tons of material in but half a decade, plus many more collaborative works with prominent ambient artists (Black Swan, ASC, Warmth, aural imbalance, bvdub, Joachim Spieth... so many more). He's also appeared on many labels, including Headphone Commute and Kompakt – ah, that would explain how even Pitchfork's Philip F'n Sherburne knows about him. Cool and all, but how's his Bandcamp game- oh...! Oh dear. Look at those labels he runs, each available for a mere fifty Canadian dollars. God damn it...

Anyhow, it is on zakè's most prominent label, Past Inside The Present, that we find his pairing with 36. Dennis has been releasing a few such items on PItP in recent years, but as Mr. Frizzell is always up for a project or two, may as well do a little cross-promotional music in the process. And hoo, is this ever a a humdinger of a concept: nothing less than the soothing serenade of sounds as possibly heard in cryosleep during interstellar travel. Truly, pure fantasy, as being in a near-death state shouldn't make any sort of sonics perceivable. So, maybe more like being in a coma, your senses being fed subtle stimuli mimicking daily, Earthly routines such that you don't even notice the passage of time? For sure I've many dreams where it feels like I've lived entire lifespans entirely independent of my real world experiences. Who's to say we couldn't generate such perceptions for lengthy voyages to the stars, maintaining a healthily active brain while keeping the body inert? Ah, the wonderful realm of sci-fi.

Anyhow, this album is essentially three EPs in one. The first portion, subtitled Stage 1- 4, is where the actual collaboration between Dennis and Zack takes place. The second, subtitled Extended Hypersleep Program, is primarily a 36 joint, while the final section, subtitled Reduction, is zakè. Of the three, I find 36's solo section the most interesting, in that it utilizes ample amounts of field recordings, including rainfall and city life. If I was gonna' be put into an interstellar stasis chamber for an ungodly length of time, I think hearing familiar sounds as found on terra firma would be quite soothing indeed – yes, even the grinding of transit bus breaks. Meanwhile, zakè has a twenty-minute drone piece to close us out, a near-perfect lullaby for the final switch-off of the synapses.

Richard Stonefield - Stardust Aventure

AstroPilot Music: 2021

At first I thought I was dealing with another utterly unknown entity. Richard Stonefield has barely any presence on Discogs, this particular album not even submitted despite being nearly two years old now. I kinda' expect that when dealing with some random synthwave artist, but this came out on AstroPilot Music, a label that, while perhaps not among the upper echelons of psy-chill outlets, at least carries AstroPilot's pedigree. That Stardust Adventure would go unnoticed for such a length of time that I had to submit it to Discogs seemed odd indeed.

Fortunately, I dug a little deeper – say, Bandcamp deeper – and found Richard Stonefield is actually Richárd Kőteleki. Now, that name also appears on Richard Stonefield's main page, but provides nary a link to anything else. So deeper into Discogs I dug, and found a bevy of material! Oodles of singles as Ricardo Piedra, a hefty amount of collaborations with Krisztián Horváth as Quasar, and other assorted works released over the past two decades. And here I thought 'Stonefield' was just some plucky new guy with a heck of a sophomore album of prog-psy.

Nitpicks first, then? Sure, let's get those out of the way. Um, the mastering isn't up to snuff compared to, say, Ultimae Records quality? What's it take to get Aes Dana's touch at the console, huh? Okay, that one's totally unfair. I suppose there's a bit of a plastic sheen to everything, not quite as beefy as some of Altar Records' releases could sound, but I shouldn't go comparing the music released on Astropilot's label to the music Astropilot released on other labels, should I?

Besides, this may have more to do with the fact most of his chosen sounds are rather stock, the sort of things I've heard plenty in prog-psy for well over a decade now. Not that it's a deal-breaker for me, as I like these rubbery acid lines, rubbery psy rhythms, and the usual assortment of soaring synths and twee trance melodies. Richard writes prog-psy just as capably as AstroPilot, and I'm all for hearing more of it.

In fact, maybe there's too much of it? Stardust Adventure does offer some variety at the start, opener Arrakis getting in on that psy-dub action, while follow-up Realizer sounds like an attempt at something a little more dubsteppy, just without the 'wub-wubs'. Third track Here I Am rather reminds me of Banco de Gaia at his most sentimental, in a psy-chill sort of way, and laying it on rather thick, what with nearly eleven minutes to do so. Given the prog-psy adventure kicks in right after with the titular cut and lasts until album's end, these three tracks feel a bit out of sorts overall.

Maybe it's because the whole thing lasts ninety-five minutes, and would have likely been left on the b-sides floor had Stardust Adventure been released as a common CD album. What, cut some of the prog-psy tracks instead? But... they're so good!

Spicelab - Spice Is A Fulltime Occupation

Harthouse/Solieb Digital: 1994/2014

The writing was on the wall. Hard acid techno that marked much of Oliver Lieb's early Spicelab work was quickly coming off dated, new sounds and genre cross-pollination emerging within the halls of Harthouse. You could either start dabbling in the more experimental side of techno, or hop on the trance bandwagon gaining momentum about Frankfurt. Well, Lieb already had established an alias for that, called L.S.G., so the experimental side it would be. Like, he'd been pushing that as Spicelab already, at least as far as you could while blistering out the 303 action at 160bpm. Some tracks though, like Quicksand, showed he could do more with the project than sci-fi pulp bosh. Eh, that's just not what the label wants from him? Okay, fine, let's take Spicelab into proper trance territory too.

Thus we have Spice Is A Fulltime Occupation, the in-between EP released during this transition. You can definitely hear stray elements of older Spicelab still lurking, but it's clear ol' Oliver was evolving his sound into the progressive house DJ friendly material as heard in his L.S.G. material (to say nothing about singles from A Day On Our Planet). Changing tides and all that.

Retaining the pulp vibe is opener Pigs In Spice, a nod to the Muppet skit, no doubt. Eh, you say it's actually Pyrospice that's the opener? That can't be right, this Bandcamp remaster I got clearly shows Pigs In Spice as track one, Pyrospice the third. Ah, the original vinyl had them switched around, that's it. Well, I'm gonna' go with how they're sequenced for the re-issue – I assume it's the order Mr. Lieb prefers it.

And right Pigs In Spice should the be opener, Lieb stretching his experimental side much in the same manner as the Quicksand EP. While not so chill as that track went, this one isn't in much hurry to lay the beats out either, letting Oliver's usual array of sci-fi synths, space opera choirs, and bleepy electronics play out. Brisk hi-hats and cymbal crashes seems to impart a sense of urgency in the track, but the soft pitter-patter of the beat never lets Pigs In Spice ratchet up into higher gear. Besides, that's for the titular centre-piece.

Yeah, if you thought Amorph was dope but just a little too boshy for a trance cut, Spice Is A Fulltime Occupation refines everything into peak classic trance perfection. The beats are fast, but not stupidly so. The acid is subtle, serving as the rhythmic propellant the little TB-303 machine always intended it to be. And the synths. My God, the synths! Epic and grand in all the best ways sci-fi pulp ever envisioned.

Pyrospice can only be something of a comedown following that. Well, in vibes, if not in tempo, getting right back to the hyper-fast techno of older Spicelab. Yeah, it's basically more of the hard acid bosh, though a bit more intuitive compared to some of Lieb's other hard acid bosh. It got a synth breakdown, yo'!

G-Prod - Space Time's Bubbles LP

Intellitronic Bubble: 2020

What's it take for an aspiring pair of French brothers making Detroit techno to get noticed, huh? Misters David and Nicolas Gaugain have been in the game for a decade now, and have many singles out across many labels. It wasn't until getting a lone track featured on an R & S Records EP (RV Trax) that they finally seemed to break out of digital-only obscurity. And right they should, D-Light a lovely slice of vintage, floaty Detroit techno. Was it enough to finally get recognized by the larger techno audience though? Eh, well, the folks at Móatún 7 sure seemed to take a liking to them. And if Futurgrapher takes a liking, you can bet you have an in with Lee Norris as well, and opportunities for all manner of releases across his labels. Or, in a pinch, a shared double-LP on Intellitronic Bubble.

And I don't know what's feels sadder: that I.B. continues to release such dope music without much fanfare, or the debut albums that artists released on said label go unnoticed. Had G-Prod's Space Time's Bubble LP come out on some Very Important Detroit label – or heck, maybe even FireScope Records – I'd likely find more hype surrounding it and this duo. Seriously, I can't be the only one giving Intellitronic Bubble any semi-proper coverage to this point, am I? *checks Google* Son of a...

Well, whatever. It's clear techno has its niche audiences even within its niche interests. With so much being available everywhere all at once, getting noticed by any reputable rag is simply a luck of the draw now (much less a rambly blogger). If G-Prod's Space Time's Bubbles LP gonna' go down as one of those retro-classics future collectors will beat themselves over for not finding it sooner, so be it!

Wait, am I over-hyping this album a bit much? I think not. Opener 2mass gets us right into the proper Artificial Intelligence ambient techno groove, so expertly crafted that you'll wonder how the Brothers Gaugain didn't release on FireScope after all. Follow up Air Miles gets us into a steadier groove, constantly evolving over the course of its runtime in that oh-so sweet the best techno jams do. It's like... it's like... Gosh, am I ever getting some ol' school Laurent Garnier vibes here. Guess there just is a certain vibe to the French Touch.

And while the general tone of G-Prod's album doesn't vary much, they offer enough variety between tracks keeping you engaged. The more menacing electro cuts (IPS Cells, Space Muffin's), the techno workouts (NGC's 1300 and 6188), and that one extra-long ambient techno excursion that never gets old throughout its eleven minutes runtime (Le Cycle de la Vie). Yep, Space Time's Bubbles LP has everything a purported disciple of Detroit techno should love and praise, and hardly a single soul seems to know about it. Maybe if it got released as a quadruple vinyl box-set instead of CD, folks would take it more seriously.

ILUITEQ - Soundtracks For Winter Departures

...txt: 2018

You know how some cover art just speaks to you, recalling moments experienced over and over again? Glancing at this grayscale image and thinking, “Yeah, I've driven that highway.” It's apparently somewhere in Norway, but given how similar the country's coastline mimics mine, you bet your bottom kroner I get all the nostalgia feels from it. So many drives surrounded by misty mountains, looming over your sense of being as you cruise by dense, northern rainforest foliage, just so many... Soundtracks For Winter Departures certainly was high on my 'must get' list of ...txt releases, whenever I perchance'd a purchase there again, which happened sometime around 'pandemic time'. Yep, it's taken me this long to get to it.

In fact, given the name of this project, I initially thought it some producer based out of British Columbia. It certainly sounds like a word that may have come from one of the original languages that dotted the region: Tsimshian, Gitxsan, or maybe one of the smaller ones, like Haida or Kwakiutl. But nay, ILUITEQ comes from a pair of Italians, Sergio Calzoni and Andrea Bellucci. No, not the blind opera singer, that's Andrea Bocelli. Big difference there, my anglophonic friends. Believe me, as an individual with an Italian last name that's seen centuries of variants (since the days of Odysseus!), those two couldn't be further apart in pronunciation.

Anyhow, Andrea Bellucci has been active for some time now, making sporadic records of various genres since the mid-'90s. He had a little success with techno as Red Sector A, which he dusted off for a 2014 record on Italian ambient label Silentes. I'm assuming this is how he fell into the orbit of Mr. Calzoni, who was starting his own ambient explorations as Orghanon at the time. A few years later, the two teamed up to formed ILUITEQ, releasing this here Soundtracks For Winter Departures, where they've maintained a tidy pace of album output ever since.

As befitting an album with such a title and cover art, Misters Bellucci and Calzoni make contemplative, moody ambient music, with melancholic tones and reflective drones. Some pieces even dip into more modern classical territory, such as the strings of In Every Place and piano of Springtime Return, but by and large, we're dealing with traditional synth pads ebbing and flowing throughout each composition. Subtle glitch effects add a bit of spice to each track, and nothing lasts longer than six minutes in length. It don't do much more than what you'd expect, but it do it quite nicely while it do it.

And that kinda' leaves me a bit underwhelmed, if I'm honest. My expectations for ambient music is such that when a pair of competent composers provide a perfectly adequate collection of rainy day drone pieces, I'm left with little else to write about it. I like Soundtracks For Winter Departures as it plays, but were it not for the nostalgia triggering cover art, I wouldn't be able to ID it out of my ambient pile either.

Bålsam - Soul Offerings

Neotantra: 2019

It cannot be denied: the ambient scene is filled with hippies. No, I'm not talking about anarchist crusty-punks you might see at 'free tekno' parties, though there is some bleed when it comes to the psy side of things. I'm referring to the more New Age sort, who are about yoga, granola diets, herbal remedies, and naturalistic life-styles. All the calm, meditative tones that comes with many forms of ambient music, it's a natural lure for those who fancy themselves living on the mystical side of counter-culture existence. I cannot deny also retaining some minor attributes of this, but nor do I delude myself into thinking I've unplugged from society at large – I'm very much a willing participant of the rat-race. How else can I afford to constantly buy music, after all?

This here Bålsam (Anthony Asher-Yates to the Minnesota census board) is one such person who has managed to get off-grid, so to speak. Inspired by his travels through South America, he decided it was best for his life to retreat to the mountains of Columbia where he could spend his days debugging his soul from the trials modern society had wrought upon him. There, he could indulge in all the healing activities denied him by Western culture – the spiritual ceremonies, the ritualistic music performances, the horticultural medications, and such as. Y'know, real hippie shit.

Okay, I tease – do what works for you, right? I guess I just find it funny how, for a label that's got 'tantra' right in its title and even features a running, free compilation series named as such, it's mostly cultivated the more arty side of ambient musicians. Bålsam is one of the few who could be considered a full-blown hippie among its roster, at least that I've come across.

And what sort of ambient music does Mr. Asher-Yates create? Little in the way of actual music, turns out, heavily reliant upon field recordings with accompanying harmonic tones. Makes sense, feeling inspired by his natural settings, wishing to share the feelings of being immersed within tropical rainforests. It's not all wind through palm leaves and birds of paradise singing Amazon songs though, an ample amount of urban recordings finding their way into his pieces as well. Or at least, it sounds like I'm wondering some city streets, what with heavy use of echo and reverb used in his sampling.

Come to think of it, Soul Offerings doesn't so much have me imagining wandering about dense tropical foliage, but rather within a gigantic biodome containing said environment. It's the way all the natural sounds seemingly echo, sounding like they're bouncing off enclosed concrete walls and glass ceilings. I assume this is a result of Anthony's manipulations of said field recordings, leaving things sounding less 'real' than their source. Was this his intent in crafting these pieces? Or just a happy accident? Whatever the case, Soul Offerings does bring a unique angle to an admittedly over-saturated genre of tropical ambient music.