John Shima - The Empty Lands

FireScope: 2022

Seems the label B12 built has gone relatively quiet as of late. This album from Mr. Shima came out some eighteen months ago, and FireScope has only seen two more items released since. The ambient leaning Origins from Kirk Degiorgio was the lone record out from the print in 2023, itself a year ago, to say nothing of drawing a blank for this year thus far. While it feels premature assuming Steven Rutter had to scuttle FireScope or something, it can't help but seem like the label's best days are behind it, their brand of retro-future IDM and vintage, bleepy ambient techno having enjoyed its mini-revival, now done and dusted. Maybe it'll see another flurry of action again, but if not, t'was a solid run of six years.

If FireScope is truly mothballed, it feels appropriate John Shima would have one of the label's final releases. His Elements Unknown single was the first to break from the initial B12 run, even introducing the sci-fi style of cover art that was as much a part of the print's aesthetic as anything musical. I'm always for symmetry in my narratives, and even if this is mere coincidence, it's nifty seeing the FireScope saga end similarly to how it began.

Actually, listening to The Empty Lands, I kinda' hear why the label's fortunes may have diminished some. Don't get me wrong, this is still music I generally enjoy, but it cannot be denied Mr. Rutter cultivated a very specific style to his print - techno that sounds like vintage B12, for the most part. That's cool and all for a while, but when there hasn't been much evolution from that, it can grow rather samey-sounding. Save for die-hard collectors and completists, incentive to keep splurging on records lessens when it seems like you're just buying the same thing again and again.

If I were to take any of Mr. Shima's tracks from The Empty Lands and replace them with something from Elements Unknown or The Lonely Machine, would you be able to tell the difference? At their core, the sounds in play are mostly the same: crisp electro rhythms, smooth sci-fi pads, melancholic melodic leads conjuring vistas of metropolis inhabited by machinery and automatons. John's shown he can go other ways with techno on recent EP's like Tokyo Nights or CPU Modular 1. This is just the FireScope stylee, and you're gonna' get more of it.

And I'm fine with that, really I am. I like the FireScope stylee, and if this truly is about the last of it we'll get to hear, I may as well enjoy it while it's there. Kemx and Desolate have fun little echoing synths that sounds like robots singing. Depart, Desolate, and Mettle are surprisingly chipper compared to how moody the rest of The Empty Lands goes. Sayaka provides the obligatory reflective tune. All solid stuff, just stuff I've heard before, and doing little to distinguish from the rest of FireScope's catalogue. Seems a common refrain from me, lately.

Natural Life Essence - Emerged Garden

Liquid Frog Records: 2017

And back again with Mr. Giacovino. It can't help but feel a little start-stop with my current queue, doesn't it. I'll go on a mini-run of covering something outside the usual releases from N:L:E or Suntrip Records, maybe even a box-set or entirely different discography for a spell, then we're right back with the Big Two within this alphabetical run. And no matter how many additional CDs or Bandcamp releases I've added since to spice things up, here we are again, always. I guess it technically has been over a month since I last talked up anything from the Liquid Frog files, but that's more due to needing a small sabbatical a couple weeks back because... well, I'll touch upon that at a more appropriate time.

I know this makes it sound like I've grown bored by all the ambient dub or goa trance, but only from a writing perspective. Coming into each release with a unique angle is what makes this blog stand out from all the generic, A.I. driven music coverage currently flooding the interwebs (I hope!), and that gets challenging when one feels every possible angle has been covered in previous reviews. Yeah, there's the dry particulars for each item, but damn if I'm gonna' let the algorithms trawl my prose for their use without a fight. At the very least, I hope I give Gemini an alliterative aneurysm the same way Captain Kirk kills computers with logic circles.

Anyhow, let's talk up Natural Life Essence again. Emerged Garden, erm, emerged early in Juan Pablo's music career, about the point things really started ramping up for him. Not quite at the point where he adopted an acronym for the project's name, but early enough such that he was still in a feeling-out process of what the music could entail.

This is quite apparent in the opening twenty-one minute long track Echolocation, which plays about with a lot of field recordings and sample manipulations that's more reminiscent of early Orb dub jams at their noodliest. Yes, even some of the 'stoner humour', what with included bong bubbling and gurgling noises, though no quirky dialog added. The rhythm is about what I've come to expect out of N:L:E's forays into ambient dub, but again, early days, still finding that rhythm.

I honestly find the two pure ambient pieces on this four-tracker the most interesting of the lot. They send me to such a tranquil headspace, it's hard disliking them on a vibes level. Polinization also runs some twenty-plus minutes, but captures being out in a blissy garden full of sun rays and gentle winds so wonderfully, it comes quite the shocker when the pads simply cut out midway through. Like waking up from a near-complete doze, maybe from some unwelcome insect landing on your forehead. Ah well, it's gone now, back to swaying in a hammock. And now you're getting into some lucid dreamspace in closer Liberation (Flying Free). Napping never felt so needed.

Tierro Cosmico - Figments Of Wonder

Neotantra: 2022

Thus we conclude Ember Delays, Vol. 1 with another artist utterly unknown to Lord Discogs' tomes. Fortunately, Bandcamp has a smidge more info regarding them, an actual Bandcamp page not only including this album, but a new one released just this month as well (Botanical Mood). Talk about timing, eh? And yes, this is a very appropriate use of 'eh', in that Tierro Cosmico is a fellow Canadian – Toronto, in this case, but hey, Neotantra has proven nothing if not be a complete global presence. Best I can gather, a few of the tracks on this debut appeared on some tʌntrə compilations, and after letting Figments Of Wonder generate whatever buzz it could on Tierro Cosmico's own Bandcamp, was given the Neotantra bump later that year. Well, about as much of a bump appearing on an ultra-niche ambient techno label can give you these days.

We've heard a variety of ambient from the four other albums included in Ember Delays, but I can't say the same with the fifth. It has unique characteristics for sure, even if it's treading some similar territory as heard on Melancholic Gardens, Emotional Axes, and Geirþjófsfjörður, in this case ample use of field recordings and minimalist synth drones. What makes these elements stand out over the other offerings is how prominent the naturalist sounds are compared to the musical one. It mostly reminds me of Andrew Heath, though less abstract in construction, each piece played out in simple, similar fashion. And there are a lot of them, sixteen tracks total, each averaging between three to five minutes. Sweet, more music to enjoy, right? Eh, not so much, if I'm honest.

The issue isn't that what's presented is bad or trite or anything like that, each track perfectly pleasant little bite-sized morsels of tranquil ambience in a variety of coloured sprinkles. When they're this bite-sized, however, little has a chance to sink in, each piece drifting by like samplers before moving onto the next. Imagine being served numerous platters of appetizers, each small variations of similar taste, thus none really standing out from the others as part of a meal. Like, maybe I wanted to indulge in more of the New Age vibes of Somnium or Waxing Gibbous. Or the bell tones of Bardo Thodol or Dreaming Of Triptolemus. Or the layered drones of Easing Waters or La Nieve. Or the synthier explorations of Exodus or Leaving Aeterna. Or nighttime bliss of Hidden Harmony or La Nieve. Nope, once you're getting warmed up to any of these tracks, we're moving onto the next, each thematically consistent with the album's general tone, but stylistically different enough such that the previous piece is lost in your memory.

These nitpicks leaves Figments Of Wonder at the bottom of my hypothetical ranking of Ember Delays albums, but it's not like there's huge separation from the top. Each CD was enjoyable to some degree, just some more than others, a purely subjective conclusion based on what I like out of my ambient music.

Sacred Seeds - Migration

Neotantra: 2022

Sacred Seeds, then. He seems to exist between the extremes of my first two outings in this Ember Delays box-set. Not so prolific as D York, but not so unknown as Herne. Instead, he's built a tidy, respectable discography this past half-decade, even appearing on AstroPilot's label before landing on Neotantra. I suppose him being from India is something of a talking point, though not as much as some may think. Lots of musicians come from India [citation needed], a few even dabbling in music that would be considered 'Western' in style than anything local.

Or who knows, maybe Chennai has more European influences than I know of? My knowledge of that region of India is severely lacking – well, almost any region of India. I know about Goa, obviously, and West Bengal, and Punjab, and Mumbai and New Delhi, but mostly as points of interest, little of their ancient histories, much less their current ones. Most other places catch my eye entirely from how curious they appear to my anglophonic interpretation. Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Rajamahendravaram, Thiruvananthapuram, and Pune. All areas with interesting peoples and captivating cultures, I'm sure, just not ones I've spent time delving into, for obvious reasons. Still, given the fact Wasim Kozhikode does originate from that area thereabouts, it's surprising hearing absolutely no sounds or tonal scales associated with the Deccan Peninsula.

In fact, Migration has to be the most upbeat collection of ambient music in this collection of CDs. None of the melancholic reflection of Melancholic Gardens, or varied sound experiments of Emotional Axes, or the quiet contemplation of Geirþjófsfjörður. Instead, Migration opens with the gentle piano of Tinted Glass, sweeping synths soon emerging, followed by spritely arps and glistening bell tones. Upper astral beckoning, I wager. Follow-up Ambient Sequence 2 slows things down a little, but is no less chipper, while Delicate Leaves doesn't hold back on the twee feels. It's really gonna' be one of those albums, isn't it.

Well, Lunar Landscape allows for something a little more smooth and graceful, tranquility as enjoyed while stargazing and all that. Places Of Mind is similarly reflective, while closer Shapeless Clouds starts unassuming enough, though gradually builds into another heavenly climax. Not quite so overt as the titular track, mind you, that one's peak almost treading into garish levels of jaunty synth playing. Like Wasim is just so utterly happy seeing all these various animals passing by in mass exodus to climates more befitting for their habitual needs. Dang, even the Passing Moon looks like it has a big ol' goofy grin on its face as it bounces along the night sky.

Migration is a bit of an odd one for me. I don't necessarily dislike what I'm hearing – you'd have to be a hopelessly cynical grumpy-gus to not have some sort of smile listening to this. I guess I've just come to expect a different brand of ambient music from Neotantra, but hey, the label's proving nothing if not being remarkably diverse.

Futuregrapher - Geirþjófsfjörður

Neotantra: 2022

Have I mentioned that Árni is from Iceland? Oh, I probably have by this point, but just in case you somehow didn't catch on yet, the title of this album should be a dead giveaway. I don't even know how to say that. Hell, I don't know if even Google knows how to say that. The sound I had it make in Translate sounded more like Tongues or a record played in reverse. And when I actually tried to have Google translate the word, it just spat out the exact same one, but with less vowel accents. Does that mean this is a completely made-up word? I haven't a clue, needing an Icelandic linguist to confirm that for me.

That's always been the quirky thing about their Native language though, right? Just one of those ridiculously incomprehensible dialects with words stretching to obscene lengths. What else can give it competition? German? Hungarian? Welsh? Sanskirt? I'm sure there's plenty, but Icelandese always seems uniquely quirky too, in a mysterious sort of way. For the longest time, most folks didn't really know it had these ludicrously long words, thinking stuff like Reykjavík or Björk being the most bizarre it got.

Then a major eruption occurred on the island, the resulting ash fallout causing all manner of chaotic flight problems for a spell, such that global news organizations had to report on it. And oh man, the hilarity of seeing broadcasters attempt pronouncing Eyjafjallajökull? Glorious. Still, it also makes me wonder if Icelanders are just making shit up, creating these weird combinations of abstract consonants and squiggly vowels, just to mess with us Latin-based vocabulary speakers. It would certainly make more sense to me why Futuregrapher would title this Geirþjófsfjörður, a word that even Google has no clue what is. Having a bit of fun with those residing outside the northern isle's influence, right?

Not quite as fun is the album the word is based upon. Well, not so much 'unfun', just rather melancholic and reflective – seems to be a running theme with these CDs included within the Ember Delays Vol. 1 box-set. Even without a translation of the track titles, there's a real sense of isolation, quiet calm, yet graceful beauty in the ambient Árni has crafted here, a sort of wanderlust in exploring his Icelandic homeland in a solo trek across its landscapes.

As an album playthrough though, it's a little odd. The first four tracks are rather unique from each other: Einmanna heavy on field recordings and lonesome synth pads; Gufudalur featuring soft Berlin-School pulses and organ tones; Næturhvíld quite bright and shimmery, if at times overall atonal; Sálarflakk bringing guitar strums and soft, wooden rhythmic thumping. They all come off like appetizers though, Geirþjófsfjörður closing out with Tjaldur, a twenty-six minute long minimalist ambient outing of drawn out flutes, gently swishing water, occasional bird calls, and little else. Imagine just hanging out on a lakeside grassy knoll, your only company the fauna fluttering by.

Herne - Emotional Axes

Neotantra: 2022

In a coincidental twist, the next album within the Ember Delays Vol. 1 box-set is one that would have ended up slotted in my review queue at this point regardless. Somewhere hereabouts, at least, the combination of 'Em' surprisingly common for titling among musicians. Emotional, Emit, Emfire, Empire, Empyrean, and so on. Of course, not nearly as many variants of 'El', what with well over a dozen versions of 'Electr' and 'Element' in there (and three 'Elephants', somehow ...yes, my mind still boggles).

Dammit, and now that I've tugged at that bit of useless trivia, my wonky brain-matter is suddenly compelled to find out all the useless stats of such combinations within my music collection. How many albums start with 'Ex' or 'Im' or 'Lo' or 'Xp'. Or maybe go reverse on it, like how many don't start with 'Qu'? (zero, by the way – the answer to that one is zero). Such insatiable need to know things, especially that which serve no purpose other than filling statistical bupkis.

Well, that was a tangent, which means I either have little to talk about the music on hand, or little info regarding the artist crafting it. Definitely the latter than the former, this Herne having almost no Discoggian presence, and nothing else I can find elsewhere. In fact, about the only material he has to his name are frequent contributions to Neotantra compilations, first appearing all the way back on tʌntrə V. He made relatively steady appearances after for the next couple years, then was finally given the album go-ahead with this here Emotional Axes. Then following that, not a peep. Maybe whoever Herne is started working on other stuff under a different name, but again, no idea of that with the information I have available to me. For all I know, it's another Lee Norris side project.

Anyhow, Emotional Axes. This was a bit of an odd one, in that it started one way, then kinda' morphed into something else by album's end. Yeah, we're still dealing with ambient music, but as I hope I've made abundantly clear over the years, there's a lot of variety within the genre, even when focusing on the more subtle, calming side of things.

For instance, the first few tracks quite remind me of the sort of lowercase minimalism I frequently heard on Andrew Heath's albums. Maybe not quite as abstract, the quiet use of field recordings and simple flowing pads rather straight-forward and obvious - when a track called Concentration invokes feelings of gentle reflection, you know the artist is on point in their musical intent. Yet while the minimalism does carry through, Herne's execution starts varying as the album plays out. Some tracks start layering atonal pads into a wall of sound, while others (especially towards LP's end) abandon musicality altogether, settling into experimental bleeps and ultra-quiet dark drones. I can't say I was as fond of these pieces, somewhat ruining the tranquil mood the earlier portions of Emotional Axes offered.

D York - Melancholic Gardens

Neotantra: 2022

So I got another box-set.

The collection is called Ember Delays Vol 1, which gathered five digital albums released under the Neotantra banner, and gave them a spiffy physical upgrade. Had I ripped those individual CDs rather than download the Bandcamp version for listening purposes, where they were all bundled within the same folder, I'd be reviewing them in their orderly alphabetical sequence instead. I didn't though, hence why it'll appear we're jumping all over the place for the next week. I'm technically reviewing a compilation called Ember Delays, but unique, previously-released albums within its slim casing.

But yeah, one of the reasons I sprung for this set was for the CDs, in that Neotantra doesn't really release them anymore. Ever since the label abandoned the gradient colour cover art, it's been almost entirely digital, which I'm sure is more convenient on the expenses front (no coincidence this switch occurred right around peak pandemic years). Not that I'd be greedily gobbling up all such releases if they did – it was difficult enough keeping pace with their Phase 1 material, even with a thematic scheme that triggers one's OCD. Still, given the abundance of material Neotantra releases on the regular, it's nice having a few of them properly sitting on the CD shelves.

Interestingly, D York is one of the few artists to have a physical option from the label in recent years, with the album Airport Meditations. I assume it's a sublime slice of ambient music – the cover art certainly deserves some extra shine outside the confines of computer screens – but the chap's got a lot of material in his discography, so I've no way of confirming it's top-tier among his releases.

Yeah, Mr. York (I can't find info on his real name) has released a lot of material, mostly while in isolation during lockdown – his first album was called Covidium, in case you're wondering where his inspiration lies. Lots of long-form drone pieces, a series titled Music For Long Attention Spans being his most fruitful assortment of works. He's mostly stuck to self-release options, but got chummy with the Neotantra folks with a couple contributions to their Tantra compilations, and was finally given the go-ahead with a full-length album for them with this here Melancholic Gardens. No guesses on how this one's gonna' go.

Yeah, expect lots of languid, layered ambient synths, richly textured field recordings, reflective moods and a general sense of calm as you casually stroll through urban green spaces. The music does feel open, yet somehow constrained too, always that sense of suffocating humanity just around the corner from the naturalist setting you're currently inhabiting. Most of the tracks follow this pattern, though a couple break form: The Pines mostly focuses on gentle glass tones, digital-only Cloudburst gets a little Berlin-School towards its end. Overall though, Melancholic Gardens is about as I expect from Neotantra: lush ambient music from a label that never seems to run out of it.

Cypress Hill - Elephants On Acid

BMG: 2018

This is an album that didn't need to exist, but oh are we ever so blessed that it does. The Cypress Hill brand could rest easy on their past achievements, and indeed that seemed to be the case as the 2010s took form. The prior decade hadn't been terrible for the group or anything, but it was clear their best days were behind them, DJ Muggs in particular seeing more critical plaudits in his solo ventures than anything he was doing with B-Real and Sen Dog anymore. And they were fine with that, Mr. Real content in establishing his own studio should he get the music bug, while he and Mr. Dog continued successful tours replaying the old hits. If Til Death Do Us Part was indeed the last of classic Cypress Hill, no one would feel shame in that, a legacy firmly enshrined in hip-hop history.

Which is what makes Elephants On Acid all the more remarkable. Yes, it's a dope-ass album of psychedelic rap music, possibly one of the greatest records of the genre in the past decade – from a highly recognizable name, at the very least. To even have the gumption to go all in with it though? That's some pachyderm-sized balls, mang'.

In fact, there was little sign it was even in their systems to go this deep into the trippy weeds. Cypress Hill music would sometimes side-glance into the realms of Gothic horror and psychedelic dreams, but almost always as flavouring while rapping about gang bangin' and marijuana consumption (and certainly less of it following their go with nu-metal). Here, it's like the script got flipped, more emphasis placed on just how twisted Muggs' music can go, with the usual street and grass references more of an afterthought, like visions of a past life while exploring LSD adventures. Which may not be far from the truth, this record apparently more the brain child of Muggs than anything B-Real or Sen Dog envisioned. The abundance of instrumental interludes, where Muggs is clearly indulging himself with whatever strikes his fancy (you're darn right Elephant Acid sounds like an elephant on acid), pretty much confirms such a theory.

Even better-better, it's a modern rap album that almost entirely eschews modern rap tropes. Some pitched vocals here, a female led chorus there, and that's about it. No cheap-ass trap beats, everything rhythm gritty, booming, and filled with rich instrumentation from across the globe. Want some choirs? Here's Jesus Was A Stoner. A little Latin swing? Here's Oh Na Na. Twitchy street vibes? Here's Pass The Knife. A sing-a-long anthem with heavy trumpets? Here's Reefer Man, though good luck keeping pitch with just how warbly B-Real and Sen Dog get with their “la la-la-la la”s. The only thing really missing from Elephants On Acid from being a true Cypress Hill classic is that one all-timer tune with Sen Dog on an ear-wormy call-and-response chorus. Granted, this isn't that kind of record, but just imagine if they somehow pulled that off this deep into their careers?

God's Groove - Elements Of Nature

Logic Records: 1994

How on Mother Earth does this album exist with hardly a soul knowing about it? Like, I understand why it would get lost in the shuffle three decades ago. The music on here just doesn't tidily fit into any conventional genre of the era, liberally cribbing from its surrounding scenes, existing outside of time, sounding retro and contemporary. Okay, maybe not ultra-modern or anything, but boy does it ever predict a certain segment of dance music in the years to come.

It's not like God's Groove went out of their way to create some ageless, timeless masterwork that was unfairly neglected, oh no. I sense this was one of those happy coincidences, Misters Gauder and Herz just stumbling into this quite by accident. They never parlayed this project into huge things, God's Groove dutifully appearing on the requisite eurodance and trance compilations for a few years in the '90s (though nothing on this side of the pond), the players then moving onto other, more lucrative things. It's like they immediately hit a creative dead-end because in a sense, they did. Where could they even go from this album? They sure couldn't double-down with more of the same, because they seemingly layed everything out on their opening hand. When you start this high, there's only down after.

Am I overselling Elements Of Nature? You're damn right I am! When you stumble upon something this unexpected, you can't help but feel giddy about it, relishing in all its attributes that, on paper, should utterly fail. There's cheese on here - good Lord is there ever cheese - but such succulent cheddar, leaving you craving for bite after bite. There's eurodance, there's German trance, there's epic house, there's pan-pipes, there's New Age bollocks, there's proto-goa, there's women belting choruses like they're Tori Amos. There's melodies ripped from vintage Jarre and segments ripped from Enigma interstitials. And holy cow, if that titular cut isn't a direct style-bite of Jam & Spoon: moody, trancey lead-in with tweaky acid, then the biggest PLUR-goo breakdown you'll ever hear in the before times of Dutch trance nonsense, followed by a big ol' race to the finish that'll have all the candy kids melting. Yet, somehow not a happy hardcore track? How can this project be this extra yet credible?

Again, it's that timeframe. Had Elements Of Nature come out in 2009 or 2004 or 1997, I'd totally buy that. As mentioned, it kinda' does foretell where the sillier aspects of vocal trance would end up. Yet here it is, right in the middle of trance and eurodance's classic era, fitting in neither scene all the while feeling like it should be part of the other. How could God's Groove be credited with influencing anything when nothing off here gets name-dropped after the fact?

I've no idea if Elements Of Nature will find a new audience, its 1994-ness obvious and bare. If you've even a small inclining for that year of trance music though, this is definitely worth a listen.

Dub_Connected - Electronic Music

Liquid Audio Soundz: 2001

Amazingly, astoundingly, incredulously, this is the first electronic music album I've gotten that's simply titled Electronic Music. You'd think with a music collection of some two-thousand plus items, it'd have come up more often. Yet I've far more records simply titled Genesis than I do Electronic Music. Hell, in the 'E's, I have eight variations of Earth, three Eternals, three Everythings, and somehow three Elephants. I'll grant an electronic music artist titling their album Electronic Music may be a little too on the nose – even as early as the '70s, synth wizard Synergy had the good sense to name his debut Electronic Realizations For Rock Orchestra. And who knows, maybe there are several out there that I simply haven't stumbled upon. Some early-ass compilation series, right? I dunno', just figured it would have come up at some in my music gathering endeavours than another collection of dubby techno tracks from a Gabriel Le Mar side-project.

In case you missed my first Dub_Connected review, here's the recap: ol' Gab' was gettin' real busy at the turn of the century, releasing mucho music across several aliases and collaborations. Saafi Brothers was probably the most well recognized of the lot, having an all-star cast of artists on hand, but he was making inroads on all forms of dubby jams among other works too. Dub_Connected was the one that went just a little more techno than others, with a compilation of works released in Vol. 1 – Mind The Gab! This is the follow-up, billed as a proper album since its all fresh material mostly exclusive to this release.

That said, a good chunk of Electronic Music does sound like the leftover tracks from those earlier sessions. Not so much opener The Soul Takes A Flight, a brisk, smooth groover with a little vocoder action, the sort of track I could see Swayzak playing at peak hours back in the day. Following that though, we're deep in that gritty, dirty, dubby techno stylee folks would sooner associate with Bandulu or Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia, though with heavier emphasis on dub music's Jamaican roots. Which hey, I'm all for – it's what got me into those acts in the first place, and given the utter dearth of such jams out there, I'm glad Mr. le Mar had his stab at it too.

Then things get really interesting. No Vemba practically sheds all roots influence and aims straight for the streets of MegaCity District Detroit. After that, Tribal Sunset gets deep in the thumping minimal techno vibe while throwing some extra stank on d'at bassline, while Auto Mobilee gets as minimal as I'm sure Gabriel could ever allow. And just in case this hasn't been Detroit enough for you, closer Something Happened Here Last Night takes us out in fine electro or a moonlight setting fashion.

So an album of two halves, where despite coming in wanting the first, I left more satisfied with the second. As a good LP should.