Summer begins at the AmbiEntrance with another batch of recommended listens to keep your mind off the encroaching heat/humidity... cool ambient/electronic waves work like A/C for your mind and spirit! (and other not-so-ambient works can at least distract you...) matt borghi: for running time   (b: group/ records - 2000) (8.1) Straightforward musicality meets with mild distortions in matt borghi's hands; his low-key ambient instrumentations are presented in beatless, uncluttered songs using one or two instruments per track. Over the drone of Opening (2:16), echoey acoustic guitar traipses with mellow adroitness. Several tracks are acoustic-guitar-based in fact; some (like Quite Possibly Distance) are backed by shimmering synth patterns. Perhaps the most atmospheric ambient expanses are revealed in the streaming (and, due to some equipment buzz, a bit more gritty than intended) breezes of Avalon. Trance-inducing synth cycles fill Autumnal Space (27:11) with a (too?) long rippling electronic sequence which rises and falls, rises and falls, rises and falls... Brassy synth waves and gusty subsonic rumbles roll Across the Fields, while spacious primitive woodwinds blow with the West Wind over floating electronic strata. Analog synth sounds drone and trickle in Atmosphaera. A similar keyboard-powered thrum-and-twinkle motif decorates To The Wind with a hazy serenity. Some beautifully subdued work here, though occasionally a bit buzzy in the recording quality department. But spirit ranks higher than technical issues, so for running time is a recommended DIY listen. b: group/ records promotes their music as royalty-free, and encourages sharing for sampling and re-mixing purposes. They're also looking for more like-minded artists, so check them out. fennesz: plus forty seven degrees 56' 37" minus sixteen degrees 51' 08"   (Touch - 1999) (8.4) Even when given precise geographical coordinates, this intriguingly experimental (and sometimes downright assaultive) release is hard to place... perhaps the safest bet would be to call the whole thing "noise", though that would certainly be oversimplified. Christian Fennesz has "done?" strange things to apparently ordinary sounds, yielding eight tracks of radically altered audio in 38 minutes. One can occasionally discern the soft melody beneath the granulistic chaos which permeates 010 with gritty waves and minor screeches. Microscopic blips and buzzes punctuate the faint, intermittent drone of 011, as well as semi-quiet 012. Tens of thousands of higher pitched fragments fall away from 013, which seems to be wildly sizzling in its own flames, sometimes receeding before flaring again with hyperactivity (and additional, previously-musical tones). A thick, thunderous hiss/drone continually blasts 014 (8:08); its levels of caustic force vary, jumping up a notch, then bubbling spasmodically, then muting only slightly before its abrupt cessation. Spooky crystalline deformations close the proceedings at 017 (2:02); airy soundghosts step randomly up and down almost-tonal scales. I'm having a bit of a Love/Hate relationship with this one (available from Dutch-East India) depending on my day-to-day chaos-tolerance variance... but for sheer sonic craziness alone, I can bestow an ear-and-mind-twisting 8.4. Occasionally oddly soothing, though generally not for the timid. gal: bestimmung new york   (durian records - 1999) (8.0) Having recorded 15 different voices in 15 languages, gal then reassembled (usually with radical reprocessing) the resultant speech patterns into layered compositions of "spoken" rhythms... as there are no instruments, could these be considered (very!) avant garde a cappella works? Ayako's native Japanese tongue is slowed to a subterranean rumble, as well as a frog-like croak before her natural voice is heard, often repeating in phonetic soundshapes. Hungarian phrasing from Gabriel is stratified in highs and lows over a bi-syllabic "rhythm". Shattered into several thousand shards, Arabic language from Jamila trickles like granules of sand. And so it goes... Final perceptions will vary from listener to listener; being woefully mono-linguistic, I didn't "understand" 85% of the spoken content sources, though that doesn't block my appreciation of the fascinating sound constructions wrought from voices across the global language spectrum. In fact, given that the spoken material (upon actually being able to comprehend *parts* of Suzanne's English, and a smattering of Melina's breathy German and Maria's Spanish) appears to consist mainly of counting and "I love you", not understanding it each time's probably for the better really. Definitely compelling and strange, but not something I could listen to everyday... Edward Ka-Spel: Red Letters   (Cacciocavallo - 2000) (8.4) Edward Ka-Spel's distinctive vocal delivery is at the forefront of the eight eerie tracks of Red Letters, a solo effort from the lead singer of the legendary pink dots (whose newest, a perfect mystery will be covered here next month). From the paranoic moods of opening track Radio 6, Edward's wispy Cockney intonations predominate the dreary not-exactly-pop arrangements of various keyboards, e-percussion, "attempted violin" and the flute and voice of Rachel K.. As with his dots' work, a Pink Floydish quality pervades the pyschological dramas which unfold in the contemplative lyrics. Adding to to the sense of multiple personalities crying out, occasional multi-tracking of K-Spel's vocals is utilized, as in Believe on a Breeze (which ends with a prolonged interlude of electronics and ambiance). Middle Easternish strings and belltones back Illumina 3/ The Carrier (12:44) with keys trilling out sparse baroque beauty, then segueing into a strange glitchy jazzworld where Ka-Spel's dark confessional words flatly slip from the shadows, followed by odd sonic textures and sporadic beats. The lyric-free zone of Grooovy (3:20) is awash in atmospherics and instrumental tidbits experimentally scattered about. While the abundance of lyrical material renders the disc non-ambient overall, it's still a decidedly moody undertaking, with lots of nicely bleak touches. Available from Soleilmoon. Living Under a Green Sun: Dr. Memory Vol. 1   (Doctor Memory Studios - 1999) (8.0) From Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada come the sounds of an "experimental music collective" known as Kollektiv-E (though around here, "experimental" usually means something that "normal" listeners would say "What's that noise!?"... these tracks are something most folks would call still call "music"). One Marlon Kempmann is the connecting thread through this multi-project collection, having a hand in writing every song... It's party time when Wild at Heart (Kempmann and Ken Wilds) unleash Rat Pack Boogie a driving electrobeat collage of music and spoken samples (actually, a handful of wise-alecky cracks mostly involving drinking)... a little heavy-handed, but the spirit is there. Worlds away, Lisa Turner joins to intone solemn new-agey phrases multi-tracked over the tribal-drum powered synth mix of Gentle Heaven (4:46). Kicking the jam in again, groove-heavy GO! by straddles a line between smooth electronics and grungy distorted beatiness; this is Kempmann as Nahanni... in this guise, he also delivers the multi-instrumental tour-de-force of Voices and the fun-time dance mix of Catharsis One. Long-form ambience of electronics and atmospherics (by Kempann and Wilds) is topped by Turner's spacey monotone in Primordial Seas (16:03); a fine speaking voice, but even pleasantly modulated tones (and arising rhythms) can't help sentences like "we have stepped across the veil... into fire, water, air and earth; our feet now step on the sands of time". Therefore, I prefer the "original version" which closes the disc... the one without vocals. Also remix mode, the first piece resurfaces as Rat Groove Boogie, losing the many spoken samples, though this one actually seems somewhat bare without the smart-ass remarks of the first, and Lisa Turner's Gentle Heaven gets a "Philip Glass Dance Mix" which minimizes the synth and drums of the previous version into a gauzey veil of electrons, rippling with occasional leftover thundercracks. Various Artists: War Smash Hits   (Sub Rosa/Utopian Diaries - 1996) (8.2) Not sure of the origin of this thematic multi-artist project... Kong's "earthing" blends smooth dub action with big swirls of synth strings and spoken voices of "people at the refugee center crailo" in the Netherlands. The reason I snagged the disc though was the all-star line-up of Bill Laswell's "black djinn trance" featuring Jah Wobble, Tetsu Inoue and DJ Spooky... nice stuff, of course; I can't help but wonder though... when Laswell and Wobble get together, how do they decide who plays bass? "calling n.y." (14:10) by Silk Saw drifts in a haze of symphonics, electric oscillations, disembodied voices, intermittent percussion all stirred into a generally slow groove (which is intruded upon by erupting chaos toward its end...). Operatic female voices open Laibach's "l'homme armé" (6:25) to be barraged with explosive orchestral manuevers... thunderous drums, assaultive brass, screaming strings, all of which crescendo then fade into nothingness... seven minutes later, an eight minute selection of various wartime field recordings (circa WWII, apparently) are presented in a streaming audio-collage of foreign voices, gunshots, crowd noise, machinery, general atmospherics and other not-so-readily-identifiable sources. Jah Wobble: The Inspiration of William Blake   (Thirsty Ear - 1997) (8.1) Backed by a host of fellow musicians, Jah Wobble's patented dub stylings are (sometimes incongruously) merged with the poetry of William Blake. An extended, World-flavored introduction leads to (though doesn't quite jibe with) the literary drear of Lonely London, where Wobble's gruffly emotive reading of excerpts from Proverbs in Hell is backed by a muted swirl of said intro. A cool electro-groove and dubby bass goes Bananas in an instrumental infused with wordless male and female voice. Tyger Tyger is turned into an upbeat reggae tune, overlain with spoken verses here and there. To my ears, Holy Thursday works better than some others, as the background soundscape is more subdued and in keeping with the spoken tone. Several instrumental tracks deliver bouncy Asian flavors, marked by the happily churning sounds of Clive Bell khene (an instrument heard in abundance on Wobble's newest CD, Molam Dub). Hear some beautiful piano-and-bass magic in The Angel and some very nice (though all too brief) ambient resonance in Gateway. A mixed bag overall, but one that must be given points for ambitiousness and talent. An appreciation of Blake and/or theatrical deliveries would help. Posted June 28, 2000 | 1999/2000 Overviews Index

AmbiEntrance © 2000-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).