Tag: Dark Ambient

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O Yuki Conjugate – A Tension of Opposites Vols 3 & 4

O Yuki Conjugate are among the top-tier post-Industrial/experimental projects of the past 40 years, and it’s been an amazing experience going over their catalog over the past few weeks in my personal collection.  This is archival material and a complement to A Tension of Opposites Vols 1 & 2.  From the band’s Bandcamp site:

“Two years after the first two volumes of A Tension of Opposites (ATOO) were issued OYC return to the form they created to house their looser more exploratory works. ATOO allows them to expand their musical horizons and release their music more expediently.

The original ATOO was born out of 2020’s virus state where both OYC members were left working in isolation. Two types of music emerged spontaneously, and rather than try to combine them OYC decided to present the results separately, two sides of a contrasting whole.

In need of a suitable format and frustrated by their usual lengthy release schedules, OYC returned to the quick and dirty compact cassette – the place they started back in the 80s.

ATOO is ‘Dirty Ambient’, a phrase coined by OYC for the process of working quickly and instinctively, embracing errors and honouring imperfections. It’s also a jibe at what is sometimes a hideously manicured genre.”

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1414E08 vs The Last American Poet – Necronomicon

Harold Bertram, a sound designer out of Germany who works under the name 1414E08 collaborates with The Last American Poet, Shane Beck.  Shane’s calming voice and choice of subject matter, the infamous American horror-meister H. P. Lovecraft are expertly couched by Bertram’s horror-drone soundtrack.  Remarkable.

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Eromoscape (مشهد قحل) – Underwater Breathing

Eromoscape is an ambient artist from Syria, but not the kind who implements pulses (as opposed to beats, which is, as I understand it, against the original principle of ambient music) which are dark, somewhat foreboding, and thoroughly enjoyable.

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Siavash Amini & Eugene Thacker – Songs for Sad Poets

Siavash Amini, an Iranian sound artist and composer, collaborates on this album with author and poet Eugene Thacker on Songs for Sad Poets, though I hear no vocals on this disc.  What is on offer, however, are incredibly bleak soundscapes that range from engaging dark ambient music which settles well in headphones to abrasive post-Industrial music which tears at the eardrums in a most pleasant way.  From the pair’s Bandcamp site for this release:

The collection of eight pieces draws its inspiration from the legacy of the so-called cursed poets (»poètes maudits«) as well as the German-language tradition of song cycles and expands the structure of the classic art song through a process of lyric abstraction. Amini is no stranger to interdisciplinary collaboration, as seen in »A Mimesis of Nothingness,« his 2020 collaboration with photographer Nooshin Shafiee, also released through the Swiss Hallow Ground label. But whereas in Amini’s previous collaborations music and other media are set in dialogue, with »Songs for Sad Poets«, Thacker’s poems and Amini’s soundscapes are deeply enmeshed with each other. In fact, none of the words printed in the record’s booklet are being said out loud on this double LP, but rather made tangible through the use of sound. Poetry and music do not so much correspond with each other as they conspire together—as songs without words, words without song.

I’m impressed at the direction Amini is going.  He’ll be making a profound impact on sound art for years to come.

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Various Artists – Anthology Of Contemporary Music From Greece

Our dear friends at Unexplained Sounds Group in Italy continue to delight us at MYNTH!  This is yet another collection of the best of ambient music from around the world – this time concentrating in Greece.  Artists such as Costis Drygianakis, Savvas Metaxas and adarcah lead the way, but every artist in this comp contribute to avant-garde music mightily, and it is again that we thank our friend Raffaele Pezzella for bringing us such amazing and challenging music from all corners of the Earth.

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Various Artists – Paroxysm: A Benefit Compilation For Leslie Keffer

Paroxysm: A Benefit Compilation For Leslie Keffer

Unfortunately, there is no way to embed into the website in the normal way, so please click on the link above to get a taste of some of the bands contributing to this noble cause.  From our friends at No Part Of It Records:
Leslie Keffer began making noise music with radios and vocals in 2003. Since then she has toured a good amount, and collaborated with key figures. Activity had to slow down when Keffer’s symptoms of epilepsy accelerated to the point of her being unable to work. She has been trying to get on disability for over five years. This is a benefit compilation to help ease some of that financial tension. If you would like to donate outside of Bandcamp, feel free to use the contact function on this site and get in touch.
If you have spare funds, and I know it’s difficult to give these days, it would be going to help ease the suffering of a good artist.
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Various Artists – Nyarlathotep – A Tribute To Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Eighth Tower Records never disappoints!  Each compilation they put out is so well put-together that the themes fit the subject material perfectly!  This one is, of course, no exception.  It is a paean to H. P. Lovecraft, perhaps America’s foremost horror and science-fiction writers.  At least to my taste, Lovecraft is second only to Edgar Allan Poe.

The comp features artists like Kirlian Camera, Gerstein and T.A.C., so rest assured that the quality is exceptional.

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Ophtalmologist – Julius Vernus Explorator

It’s quite a rare thing for music titles, especially instrumental tracks, to actually match the music produced.  A case in point was a four-album noise release whose name I happily forgot trying to reference a classic of literature.  No need to embarrass the artist or the writer, but it seemed that the choice of subject wasn’t appropriate for the music (at least to my humble ears).  This is not such a case.  Ophtalmologist is the artistic name of Theodoros Hernandez, a Greek-Mexican composer who might be working out of France. He specializes in what I would assume is ambient drone, but it’s a rather vigorous and seaworthy.  Yes, you read that right!

The title of the album references one of my favorite writers of my childhood, the ever-magnificent Jules Verne.  I wasn’t quite sure of what to expect, but after playing the track Meridiani Planum, I felt the immediate need to go 20,000 leagues under the sea.  The album as a whole is filled with fine drone, but it is not run-of-the-mill.  Something special is happening, at least in the first half, of this album.  It becomes more comfortable and familiar after track 3, but this is not to say I lost interest.  It is a solid listen all the way through, and that magnificent beginning hooked my attention for the rest of the album.

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Yamila – Visions

Mexican composer Yamila produces music similar to Rock-In-Opposition legends like Art Zoyd, Univers Zéro and fellow countrymen Decibel. The music is heavy, brooding, and dense. From her label, Umor Rex’s Bandcamp site:

“Her voice and music –sometimes torn and others buoyant– could resemble the score for a biblical passage (ie. visions of the Apocalypse), for they are overflowing with physical ecstasy and sounds that one can touch. Visions is composed of different forms and rhythms. Pieces like “Visions V” evolve intensely with sharp and systematized hits ––powerful layers that bring us closer to Alessando Cortini’s Forse era. “Visions II”, for its part, shares intensity and power with flamenco ritual patterns, as if it were an old Andalusian scene dripping with oscillations and electric shocks. Yet there are luminous vocal pieces such as “Visions I” (featuring Rafael Anton Irisarri), inspired by Manuel de Falla’s Suite Española composed in 1922. Here, an aural chiaroscuro with beautiful voices and choirs is deeply fused with daring drones. And it is in the ensemble of moments of Visions where Yamila’s conceptual axis is rendered solid. Pain and glory, lacerating religiosity, feminism cauterized by power, and hallucinations as a source (or pretext/tool) to be heard.

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Various Artists – The Dystopian World of J​.​ G​.​Ballard

Our dear friend Raffaelle Pellezza has curated another masterful compilation of dark ambient music focused on the British writer J. G. Ballard.  From the release’s Bandcamp site:

“In April 2009, J. G. Ballard died at the age of 78. By the end of his life he was recognized as one of the greatest British writers of the latter half of the twentieth century. The acclaim his work has garnered stems from its unsettling ability to describe the present in collision with near but unexpected futures. His narratives operate according to the temporalities of car crashes, epidemics, and physiological shocks. The word ‘Ballardian’ has entered the Collins Dictionary as a term denoting ‘dystopian modernity’.

The fiction of J. G. Ballard delves deep into the human psyche, not only by exploring the relationships between its characters, but also by conveying the cityscape in terms of the mind. Either real or imaginary, the urban spaces reflect and are reflected by the minds of the protagonists. Influenced by the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, the Jungian model of the psyche, the experiments in anti-psychiatry initiated by R.D. Laing, as well as the technological advancements of the new millennium, Ballard proposes a new type of fiction. The aim of his pursuit is to answer some of the pressing issues that the self is confronted with in an urban milieu which is gradually becoming more dehumanized and impersonal.“