Texas Producer TAXXESS dropped this dense industrial-cyberpunk project back in December – It’s packed full of harsh buzzing drones, big beats and bizarre sonic abnormalities. Even with the diverse palette of destroyed sounds, there is a beautiful rhythm to each track, encouraging you to get lost inside….
Engram Recordings (Berlin, Germany) burst onto the scene at the end of March this year, treating us to a 20-track compilation project of lush drone experimentation.
The Happiness Cage itself is a massive sound collage, focused around a central swirling ball of noisy energy that permeates outward through the participants – each harnessing and interpreting it in their own unique ways.
The bulk of the release meanders through experimental ambient sound art. Some producers take a more rhythmic approach, while others harness harsh white noise cast into the void. It all lends itself to the feeling that Engram Recordings is proudly experimental in nature.
As I enjoyed this collection of songs over the past month, a few have stood out and become favorites, such as doktorb – Konnektiv Hellscaep , ░▒▓█₳§ᗐM̶R̳█▓▒░ – Mixed Reality and Shalyzer – Squeezing Speech . The only time I found myself not immersed in enjoyment was the track Rudolf Eb.er – Blä , which seems more like a ASMR endurance test than anything, but I will chock that up to personal taste! The overall vibe of the compilation is pure quality abstraction, and an interesting and rewarding listen!
Since the compilation has dropped, Engram Recordings have also released a 6-track EP from Japanese experimental composer ysk – and it appears more goodies are incoming, so give them a follow + stay tuned!
Nonconnah – the continuing sonic explorations of dynamic duo Denny Wilkerson Corsa and Zachary Corsa – together with their enlisted army of experimental musicians – presents us with an incredible full-length project “Dead Roses, Digged Up Zombies, Broken Pieces of Diamonds, Live Cats” and boy is it a doozy!!
Rocking a hefty 21-track playlist, nonconnah proves yet again that this team is hardly short on ideas and inspiration, even with a wake of outstanding previous releases and projects (I have long been a fan of Lost Trail) it manages to be something special.
From the word go – the album has a very subtle but powerful energy. Tracks like Path Of Totality/Rapture Drugs or Half-Built Future Homes introduce lush and fuzzy psychedelic drones, lending beautiful contrast to the rounded beauty of more ambient selections like Treading Unhallowed Ground.
During my listens found it easy to imagine myself wandering a mysterious countryside – with each track being a spontaneous road to turn down – a new adventure to experience. Discovering hidden lakes, abandoned factories, forgotten occult churches and pow-wows of anthropomorphic farm machinery.
Personal favorite track has got to be Ceiling To Ceiling Transmission Antenna – but chances are that is on account of my own undying love for the tone of a Clarinet – lending this track such a pure and wholesome vibe.
With over 20 tracks to tell the tale, Nonconnah really deliver with this full length – providing a listen that is truly rewarding and only improves on repeat 👍
Follow Nonconnah Online
http://www.nonconnahdrone.com/
http://www.soundcloud.com/nonconnah
http://www.twitter.com/nonconnahdrone
http://www.facebook.com/nonconnah
http://www.vimeo.com/nonconnah
Excerpt taken from Bandcamp relaese page.
Sitting, trying to study I looped a sample I had been working on in my DAW. This sample stayed playing for approximately 30 minutes – on repeat. I stumbled upon ‘Moontides’, named after the complicated interplay between moon and tides. Rhythmically massive, the relationship is nevertheless tangible and can be seen at work on any coastline.In this work I have taken sounds and stretched and manipulated them, warping tempo and rhythmic structure. All of the samples start at the same time, but due to their differing lengths they never ‘complete’ together. Combined with volume automation this allows for a release of constraint. Take, for instance, traffic noises in the early morning mingling with the sound of birds outside your window. The two sounds merge, relate to one another. They are not pre-planned, but are rather rhythmically spontaneous – the rhythm emerging as it becomes. This symbiosis, this rhythmic chance, is allowed to develop in the repeated playing of samples.
There exists, nevertheless, a structure. The song ‘wraps around’ as a bar (or a complete rhythmic unit) as the piece finishes. Therefore, each element never sits parallel, but rather its position to other elements shifts continually. Frankenstein’s monster, a complete butchery of beauty. Notes, preludes, sonatas and other flotsam and jetsam. It came out of an idea (an attempt) to do away with scales and notation and see what happened. All of the keys and scales are by ear, elements are pitched according to feeling, not rule. Tones clash, do battle and drift apart falling into harmony then dissaray.
Doing away with working within a Western theoretical understanding of music is not novel, and I do not pretend it is. This is purely a piece of pretentious imagination. However, the musical bastard – as I have so named this project – exists and is out here for your pleasure or pardon
– Jonah Hebron aka Mzungu
Here is some weirdness for you fam! I won’t waste your time – enjoy the listen!
Torontos Legendary Entertainment bring us an interesting new project from producer DR00 – Guitar Samples. An experimental 9 track tape that is, according to the creator, made entirely of guitar samples, sans a few bits of percussion on a track or two. The result is a very organic and interesting listen. The vibe is solid whether the track is pulsing with rhythms like the remixed Oak, or simply blissing out over the possibilities of sonic manipulation on tracks such as Beyond Recognition.
You can grab a CD of the project from Legendary Entertainment, there is also a Cassette release available via Æescape Sounds, but either way you will be doing yourself a favor picking this up!
Colorado label Community Radio Tapes presents us with this beautiful little oddity by Heart Eyes, Whatever it is, Whenever you feel like it is a 6 track tape of glazed bedroom ambience with plenty of emotion.
The tape is quite pleasant with some interesting ideas, though there is a lot of weirdness going on it always remains a comfortable weirdness. The kind that you know won’t harm you. However there is an anxiety to some of the tracks, a looming melancholy that sits really heavy! Do not panic however, it’s a very nice listen and ends on a high note.
You can download the album via bandcamp or purchase a cassette copy from the same page!
Good for
Favorite Track: I am crying, I can’t talk
Incoming drone goodness via collaborative project Glowing Swords, consisting of Zachary Corsa (Nonconnah, ex Lost Trail) and Scott Cortez (Astrobrite, Lovesliescrushing). The Autumn Elegy brings us 10 tracks of soaring, fuzzy noisescapes that are both lush and withering. A thick haze forms over each track, at some points obscuring the senses entirely in pieces such as Calrn which seem to be performed in some otherworldly etherial cavern, then broadcast to the countryside over AM radio. It’s musty and dusty and I love it.
What really grips me about this album is the hidden melodies my brain finds. There is a very therapeutic and rewarding quality to the blissed-out leads that seem to drift in and out of the mix. It’s often right when I am beginning to succumb to the world the track is building, the moment disbelief is suspended, that these melodies creep onto the canvas and introduce a whole new vibe! These gems are what make this album a good repeat listen in my opinion; being an album that can be enjoyed both subliminally and intellectually.
You can download the album via Bandcamp or purchase a Deluxe CD edition via Wist Records which looks so cool! It’s got tons of additional goodies
The Gloom & The Glowing is the first full-length album from the prolific ambient duo now known as Nonconnah ( Lost Trail ). Though on the surface, TG&TG might seem quite similar to the duos former work, but within the folds there are greater forces at work.
The title alone alludes to a theme many people can relate to in these strange times; darkness and light, good and evil, joy and despair. The expressive depths and heights achieved within TG&TG is nothing short of astonishing. The moment when music surpasses mental satisfaction and achieves spiritual satisfaction is both uplifting and grounding.
The album itself is a solid 13 tracks. Throughout, synths churn and bellow between one-another, providing a near constant motion within the drone. The effect is an engaging and easy listen, with songs moving past beautifully like unknown towns through your car window. Tones evoke nostalgia, melancholy, humble warmth and old wisdom. A delicate balance of pain and purity, wistfully guiding the listener in a tour of emotion.
Listening to The Gloom & The Glowing was a rich and satisfying experience for me several times through, and I honestly look forward to enjoying it again many times again. You can have a listen yourself via Bandcamp, or do your stereo a favor and purchase a CD!
Brilliant new ambience from Japanese Producer Chihei Hatakeyama, owner of White Paddy Mountain Label. Void XII is quite a meditating experience, representing the essence of relaxing yet captivating drone. Grab the digital download via Bandcamp.
Void XII is new songs of chihei hatakeyama.Chihei Hatakeyama is a sound artist , an organizer and mastering engineer who was born in 1978, and lives in the Tokyo. He has performed for years under his given name and also as one half of the electroacoustic duo Opitope, along with Tomoyoshi Date. Hatakeyama got involved in playing music through strumming a electric guitar in a few rock-oriented bands in his teenage years. Subsequently a laptop computer superseded his bands as his main platform. Hatakeyama polychromes memory- evoking soundscapes with various recorded materials of acoustic instruments such as guitars, vibraphone, and piano; mostly played by hand and processed time and time again via laptop. His first album Minima Moralia was commissioned for release by the Chicago-based label kranky in early 2006.
Since then his many album was released by Room 40, Under The Spire, Hibernate Records, Magic Book Records, Home Nomal, OwnRecords, Spekk, Dronarivm, Constellation Tatsu, Glacial Move- ments Records and his own label White Paddy Mountain. In 2013 Hatakeyama founded the record label White Paddy Montain, which since then has released over 40 recordings by some of the most accomplished musicians and modern ambient musicians, Shoegazer and folk musicians in Japan.
Recent years Hatakeyama continues to evolve his sound by analog synthesizer, modular synthesizer and compact guitar effector. Hatakeyama approaches some modular synthesizer and electric guitar drone project with an expectation of new directions.
www.chihei.org chihei-mastering.comreleased May 9, 2017Mix and Mastering by Chihei Hatakeyama
Eternity Tree 