Demdike Stare- Elemental- Parts 1 & 2: Crysanthe & Violetta

Dirty, filthy, gritty ambient music from two British blokes (one is an avid record collector who reissues obscure music for the Finder Keeper Label, the other is a DJ/Producer on the British club scene)  who utilize sample snippets as foundations for their super-unnatural journeys. If there were a sequel to Blade Runner, Demdike Stare should be commissioned to make the soundtrack. On their last record, the auspiciously impressive Tryptych, they sampled songs from horror film soundtracks and cloaked them in a fog of analog hiss. As the title implies, Elemental has hints of naturalism interspersed throughout its industrial landscape and, in spite of its ambient nature, is patently aggressive, constantly shifting the listeners perceptions.

Buy this record if you danced your New Year's Eve away and need a Bloody Mary comedown on New Year's Day.

www.myspace.com/pookawig

Noveller- Glacial Glow

Glacial Glow centers around the guitar work of Brooklyn-based, Lafayette, LA born Sarah Lipstate, but it has a decidedly ambient, other-worldly feel. Guitar notes are doled out sparingly, serving as an anchor for cosmic blips and industrial drones. She often builds off of subtle feedback and delay then layers arpeggio runs and individually strummed higher fret notes to create these made for NOVA musical space probe explorations. It's very mood specific, don't plan on throwing it on at a backyard barbecue, but do plan on a calming and ruminative listening experience.

Buy this record if you want to know how the Mars Rover feels.

sarahlipstate.com/wordpress

Odd Nosdam & Matthewdavid- Swedish Fish

NO VIDEO AVAILABLE

Two sound collagists have patched together a split EP that's being released in cassette-only form by Leaving Records. Odd Nosdam created trippy beats as a founding member of both the rap group cLOUDDEAD and its label Anticon, and has lent his talents to The Notwist, Boards of Canada, and a host of others. Matthewdavid is an LA-based music producer who runs the Leaving Records label. Both artists have a penchant for found sounds and atmospheric pieces. The lion's share of Nosdam's contribution to Swedish Fish comes in the form of "Swedish Tapes", an 18 minute live offering, from SF's Swedish American Music Hall, full of droney, industrial mind fuck that would have served the interrogators at Guantanamo Bay well. Matthewdavid appears to be the invested artist in this project, serving up four cuts of pulsing, distorted, ambient goodness. Think Fennesz with more emphasis on overt keyboard notes, but with none of the guitar work that has marked Fennesz's later releases. Matthewdavid doesn't build his pieces to a crescendo, but rather mutates and manipulates a central theme with tape hisses, rattles, vocoded synth passages, etc. Nosdam leads you to a prison of his own making while david lets you create an otherworld of your choosing.

Buy this record if want to split the personalities.

www.leavingrecords.com

Borden, Ferraro, Godin, Halo & Lopatin- Frkwys Vol. 7

NO VIDEO AVAILABLE

Seventh release in the Frkwys series by NYC label RVNG Intl. featuring modern artists and their mentors, in this case Dan Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never and David Borden of Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co. (a band Borden started in the 60's with Bob Moog, yes that Moog). They're joined by accomplished NYC keyboardist, composer, and producer Sam Godin, as well as electronic recording artists Laurel Halo and  James Ferraro. The music has an aura of natural ambience and none of the artists step on the other's toes, leaving plenty of space for the various keyboard ebbs and flows to work into their corners and angles, gently nudging as they glide past and through each other. Laurel Halo even takes a run at Kate Bush style vocals on "Just A Little Pollution", the closest approximation to a structured piece and the only song in the set with vocals. The rest of the album contains subtle improvised mood shifts that are alternately uplifting and doleful. The six tracks on Frkwys 7 were recorded in just two days and subsequently edited down to create this final released version. It was a productive two days for sure.

Buy this record when you wake up in the desert with a drink in your hand.

www.igetrvng.com

Daniel Thomas Freeman- The Beauty Of Doubting Yourself

NO VIDEO AVAILABLE FOR THIS ARTIST


A soundtrack for the apocalypse, the theme song for a dystopian republic, London-based Freeman conjures images of a bleak and foreboding world with his ambient drones, whirling wind vacuums, and clattering chimes. He does a good job of invoking the spirit of Terry Riley on "The Might of Angels" where an Om-like cello drifts in and out as a single violin note lingers, as if on the precipice of a storm that never quite materializes. There is a lot to explore here but it's going to take patience on the listener's part.

Buy this record if you want to ponder the day with the moon in the sky.

www.descendingangel.com

Babe Rainbow- Endless Path EP

Note: Above video is from Babe Rainbow's previous Shaved EP.

From the Warp label comes another one-man ambient electronic laptop band out of Vancouver, BC. Canadians seem to be proudly insulated from any modern trends. I remember meeting a rugby team from Edmonton, Alberta in the mid-90s and they were just getting into Twisted Sister. This record reminds me of that meeting. Could easily work as library music (see my Various Artists: Space Oddities review) for sci-fi movies and it's only 6 songs long so it wasn't a big waste of my time. You may impress a few electrical engineers with this?

Buy this record if you don't like hockey but need a Canuck fix.

www.baberainbow.tumblr.com