Break Time

Had this post waiting to go for a while, I'm about wrapped up for the year, so I figured I'd kick back with some fittingly foodie tracks. Tracks I could have sworn were on Bandcamp or otherwise readily available... only to find out they weren't. Well, kind of, I've managed to work around it. Still, wouldn't be 2022 without some last minute disruptor to a plan would it? Let's get into it.

Ralph Goings - Coffee and Donut (2005)

Kicking off with the initial inspiration for this post, the soundtrack for Donut County. I originally wanted to post Slackers and maybe a couple others, only to find my memories of a Bandcamp release were apparently wrong. However, there IS an album of bonus cuts that is on BC that I can use instead. Bonuts carries with it the charming indie vibes of both the game and its OST - especially here, but that's no surprise as it features the other half of the OST and Game's team after all. Cruising is a little hot compared to the main OST, feeling more like an unmastered demo in parts with the bassy parts almost clipping. Still, it's a great listen, even if you're not familiar with the game, a lovely if a little short number.



I thought I'd pair some of Coffee Talk's OST with the above to keep that food theme going, but once again it seems my memories of a bandcamp release were wrong, and I had a heck of a time finding some sources for this one that weren't Youtube. Coming from that era where a YT playlist from the devs was the only way to listen to the OST outside of grabbing it from Steam or whatever. The full ost is pretty hefty, 27 tracks with an average runtime of around 6 mins a piece. It can get a little cliché in parts as well, it leans heavily on that 'lo-fi beats' angle that was again quite popular some years ago. But as with all things, there are some real nice bits here and there - thankfully I was able to find one of the tracks I had in mind on the publisher's soundcloud of all places. Tenderhearted stood out from the title alone and fast became one of the standout pieces from the OST for me, it sets a lovely, delicate ambience.

Chorus Worldwide Games · Tenderhearted - Coffee Talk OST

Stretching the food angle a little bit for this last choice, but it is a game about farming (among other things) so I'd say it counts. Stardew Valley is an indie success story, and one that's well earned. Largely made by one person over the course of many years, it's a real passion project that you can almost feel the care and love that went into it. With updates over time the OST has hit 100 tracks so there's not shortage of tracks to get into. I've gone ahead and picked a couple favourites

The first thing that springs to mind with Stardew for me is the various Mine themes due to the sheer amount of time you can spend down there. They range from beautiful ambient to more upbeat tracks like the one I've chosen. Channeling its pixel art into the audio side, Icicles starts off with some characteristically bleepy stabs, but around the 40 second mark we get a beat and bassline introduced, quite heavy considering the rest of the OST! A nice but brief little number.



Rounding off with my original choice and probably my favourite track from the entire OST, Maru's Theme. This one could have honestly gone on the previous post, it's a lovingly crafted piece that feels oh so delicate. It's been a mainstay of my ambient playlists ever since it found its way into my collection with the rest of the OST. Simply wonderful, it even channels a little bit of Vangelis' Heaven And Hell as famously used as the theme to Sagan's Cosmos to my ears - fitting, given the title and all. Brief but ever so sweet, I'll catch myself rewinding this one for just one more run whenever it comes up.



And that'll be all for today - I should be back to a fairly regular schedule now that things have all been ironed out, maybe I'll even remember to do an NYE wrap-up or other seasonal post this year. At any rate, hope you've found some tracks to enjoy here, or even the games that the audio comes from too! I didn't really talk about the games themselves too much but I had fun with them all, give 'em a look if you're after something to play this winter. Until next time - as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

November's Friday Result: Prelude

Just a quick post here before I dive into the full fat of my last Bandcamp Friday. It was a pretty big haul, more-so than usual and I'd like to take my time with a full writeup. But, I am also aware it's been a little while in my last post, so I figured why not cover all those bases (and the added bonus of troubleshootin' the old Hype Machine again) in one swoop with a little quick update? Let's go.

Sarah Morris - The Mirage (Las Vegas) (1999)

As I mentioned up top, a fairly big haul this time, a few records I've been eyeing up for a while, one of which I think may pan out into a Retro Review down the line. There were some last minute additions as well in the form of two more compilations from Touched Music, the charity label I've talked about before. I scooped their absolutely massive second entry Touched Two some months back and I've still yet to full digest the depths of it's 255 tracks. I've had a few more in my wish-list since then, including the Found Sound series, a much more 'IDM' focused set of compilations from what I'd read. The label mentioned via email that for a limited time the two of them would be 'pay what you want' as they also announced an upcoming third entry in the series too, so at the very last minute I gave both of them a spin and added them to my cart.

Much easier to get into than the big 255 tracker one, the two Found Sounds clock in at a much more readable 59 tracks. It's early doors yet so I don't have any absolute favourites to report back with as of yet, but there are plenty of contenders. From volume one I've chosen Fxmas mod DAISY CHAIN 25o [brkn rotary hesitant snr] which sounds like some of the names I give my project files. It's a playful little number that evokes that Aphex Twin vibe circa Richard D. James Album. It's been quite a while since I delved into the 'fun' side of the IDM world, my favourites tend to be a little more cold and technical feeling, so having this one come on was very refreshing indeed.



From the second entry we have something more in line with what I just mentioned, as the title Beta might give away. It's perhaps a little generic if you're fully immersed in the world of IDM, especially as the original release this track appeared on is from 1999, but it's a style of sound that I have a lot of love for. It's been quite a long time since I really sought out anything that sounds like this so I will admit some bias there as well! I just can't help but love that really specific brand of hi-tech sounds like this that was coming out around the late 90's to early 00's, which makes sense as my last real deep dive into this sound was a combination of releases on Toytronic and early net-label pioneers Monotonik. That's part of the appeal of the Touched releases for me actually, you get a whole heap of new names to check out if you dig their stuff.



One last track to round things off, I had the lone Reporter EP I talked about a while back come on - Seasonal Rhythms - which spurred me on to get some more. It's a very pretty release and I'd plain forgotten to wish-list some other Reporter releases so it served as a good reminder. I settled on the Guggenheim EP, originally released as a CDr in 2004. I must say the updated artwork is much nicer and very much suits the slick electronics contained. Each track named for a location, they really could all go here quite comfortably. I've chosen Vegas this time around - by far the darkest sounding of the bunch, it's much closer to that cold and artificial feeling I described really enjoying a few paragraphs back. Not sure it's my favourite of the lot, but you can certainly expect to see not only more of this EP, but more Reporter in general in the posts to come.



And that'll be all for today, I know I said up top I'd left it a little longer than I'd like between posts but that might not be as bad as I made out, this post felt really speedy to write! That might be due to the sheer amount of new music I got recently though come to think of it, but maybe an extra day or two isn't so bad. At any rate, I'll be back soon enough with more - a full writeup of the rest of my Friday scoops coming up next with some more from the releases mentioned here and some others that I haven't brought up as of yet. There's some public transport carnage in my neck of the woods this coming week so no doubt I'll find some time to sit and do a full writeup. Until then, as always: stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Almost There

Good news is the issues on *this* site are fixed. I think. I'm not sure how things were set up before, couldn't make heads or tails of how it was set up or what went wrong so I've gone with an alternate solution that *should* have the same outcome. I finished fixing it up a couple days ago and you shouldn't have seen any changes, bar from a brief window where I needed to fix the naked redirect, which isn't as fun as the name would imply. But enough about tech, let's talk tunes.

The Understanding has a much more surreal cover than the super clean modernist look of Melody A.M.

Seems that every year around this time I go back to Röyksopp, I'd like to say it's to synchronise with the seasons but really I think it's just I get the itch every few months or so. I have a lot of love for the Röyksopp lads, they are one of the longest serving acts in my collection after I picked up Melody A.M. sometime in the early 00's - as did many people, Melody A.M. is one of those albums that was everywhere at the time, much like Moby's Play a couple years before it, it is one of those albums that even if you think you haven't heard anything from it, you absolutely have. From advertisements to the soundtrack to the setup program for OS X Panther, it popped up everywhere.

While they have never really reached the same levels of mainstream success as that time, their output since has been consistently a highlight for me. The Understanding was the immediate follow up to Melody and a marked a subtle maturation in sound, there's a lot more acoustic elements on this album as the melancholy piano of opening track Triumphant shows off from the jump. It's not long before things take a familiar turn around the 30 second mark. Towards the end things take a bit of a turn towards the cinematic, but that's not entirely unexpected given some of the cuts on Melody A.M. I'll be posting both the Soundcloud and YT embed here just for coverage.

Röyksopp · Triumphant

Beyond just the instrumentals though there is plenty more to get stuck into, there is of course the incredible What Else Is There?. A collaboration between Röyksopp and Karin Dreijer of The Knife, it should come as no surprise to you reading that it is probably my overall favourite from the album. That melancholic streak is much more pronounced here, and backed up by Karin's incredibly powerful vocal makes it an absolute experience. It was off the heels of this and some other The Knife tracks that Karin quickly became one of my favourite vocalists, and seeing them reunite with Röyksopp again on Junior was a real treat. The success of this track no doubt amplified by the equally evocative video, it's a shame that the file hasn't been updated with a more HD version and it is stuck in its crunchy 2008 form, but even so it remains iconic.

Röyksopp · What Else Is There ?

Completing my whirlwind tour of this album we have Dead To The World, the penultimate track. It brings the album to a nice close with its dreamy vibes, it reminds me a little in parts of the more country inspired parts of Brian Eno's Apollo - Atmospheres & Soundtracks, but that could also just be a by-product of the sample from Camel's Who We Are that comes up in the mix. This track also showcases something I've not yet talked about with this LP, I believe this album is the first time that Röyksopp themselves do some of the vocals, with Melody A.M. featuring all guest vocalists. At least, on a released album as the live shows from around the time have them on vocoders if I remember right. They do a fine job, perhaps a bit mumbly and difficult to make out in parts but by no means bad, and they would only improve on later releases.

Röyksopp · Dead to the World

And that'll be all for today, the soundcloud set actually includes the 5 bonus tracks from the limited edition which are all great instrumental additions, but I think they can wait for another time, I've mentioned them in the past on here anyway. I have plenty more to write about so I will be back around soon enough, now a lot of the tech troubleshooting is out of the way it should be a little more consistent as well, but I don't think I've been delaying things too much even with that barrier in place. At any rate I'll catch you all again soon and as always: stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Right on Time Again

Two for two this year, as not only did I finally manage to post June 9th on June 9th, I've got a couple more apt tracks for today. It is the 7th of August, it is Sunday - which means it is the perfect time to post Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday) from Moby's 18. Perhaps not quite as iconic as Play but I do have a fondness for it, albeit with some criticisms here and there. I'd mention them here but I covered it in great detail in the Retro Review post I did for the album. Going to post both the Soundcloud player and the music video because it is one of those paywalled tracks on Soundcloud.

Moby · Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)

And just to make up for that as well, I'm going to post the other Moby track titled Sunday - this time it's from the Play B-Sides album, which predictably is a collection of the B-Sides from singles from that album, and there are a lot of them. It's a great companion piece, Play has been a bit overplayed over the years which makes the B-Sides album a refreshing listen, it carries the sound of that era without the baggage of overexposure. Sunday is a little more House styled than you might expect given the content of Play, but it's still a gorgeous listen.

Moby · Sunday

And that'll be all for now, I normally put together a big bumper post for mine and the blog's mutual birthday on the 8th but I'm a little busy so it might have to wait until midweek, though I'll see if I can't make a start later today. I'll be back soon enough either way, and until then, as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Digital Digging Returns

Apologies for the delay on this one, had a busy couple of days - I did manage to get some old posts republished but nothing major as I had planned to do that old republishing-as-new trick I mentioned in the past. No matter though, I've cooked up some tunes to talk about in the meantime to tide things over. Let's have a look-see.

Emilio Scanavino - Quadro (1972)

Bit of an odd one to start off with, a remix album that sort of... isn't at the same time? What we have here is an album by Komëit - Falling Into Place, only this version has been completely redone by Robert Lippok and titled Falling Into Komëit. I've liked what I've heard from Komëit so far, very much up my street being a slightly obscure electronic act from the early 00's and all. Lippok's treatment of their second LP cranks the ambient parts up to 11 and I am very much into that as well. Take I Can Tell, this reworked version coming out all skeletal and fragile - it's gorgeous stuff, the intro to this one is just lovely.



We're actually keeping that theme going next with a little bit from Roger van Lunteren, although we wouldn't find out for years after the fact. See, Lunteren originally recorded a track called M-2097 in 1996, but it didn't get released until it appeared on his album Satori a good few years later in 2016 Satori. However we actually heard an alternate, once again more ambient version back in 2000 on a compialtion from City Centre Offices called Cashier Escape Route - this version being dubbed N-2097! Which I guess technically makes that one the original and the 2016 release the alternative version. Of the two, this one is my favourite, much like the above it is lovely and suitably spacey in parts, it mostly just feels very warm and comforting in the meantime. City Centre Offices is defunct as a label now so I've had to go with a YT embed for this one, but it's at least from van Lunteren's personal channel.



Saying that, I have been pleasantly surprised what you can find on bandcamp, when I stumbled across the compilation MAS Confusion (a fitting title given the stories above!), I assumed like with so many other compilations it would have to be something I'd sail the seas for. Not true this time, the label it was originally released on has done a great job of archiving most of their releases after relaunching in January of this year - Musik Aus Strom, a creation of Funkstörung. I found this compilation on a recent-ish search for more early 00's IDM stuff and it did not disappoint, the opening salvo of tracks are all great but the opener is exactly what I was looking for when I went on that search for more of that sound. Takes me right back to those late nights working in After Effects.



And that'll be all for this time around, slightly shorter than usual. Hope you've enjoyed the tales and tunes above, I've been hanging onto them for a while now just making sure it all made sense before I wrote it up! I'll be back before long with more but until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Winter Wishing

Hitting that point of the season where I get pretty sick of it. Me and Summer don't get on, heat makes me super irritable and it's just plain uncomfortable. Figured I also owed you another quick post as I've since realised the Soundcloud players in the last post aren't available worldwide for extra annoyance. So let's take a trip down to the chill side of things, might not be cold in person but at least we can keep it cool on the audio front.

Eyvind Earle - Red Barn and Tree Trunk (1974)

Starting with another entry in the 'let's see what artists I have single tracks of from compilations are up to' - Reporter with a release that's a touch on the obscure side. Reportedly released in 2008 but there's no discogs listing for it, Seasonal Rhythms is perhaps a bit of a digital deep cut, I'm one of only 7 other people who own it. A lovely little EP that hits all of my favourite early 2000s chill notes, from the album art down to the tracks themselves. It didn't take long - from the intro of track 1, the aptly titled Winter Sunlight, I was enamoured. Think of it as a tone setter for this post, its certainly one that I've had kicking around in my head for a little while.



Dipping into ambient territory a little next with another aptly titled release - Whatever The Weather, ambient focused side project of Loraine James. I've not spent a lot of time with this album, I did almost pick it up on my last Bandcamp trip - it's been a while since I got any new ambient stuff and its a genre I have a well documented love for. It takes a brief excursion into Drum & Bass territory on 17°C, but otherwise the whole thing is very lush. I've gone with opening track 25°C, again a perfect mood setter and again an apt title. Fittingly a little bit warmer feeling than the usual ambient that I post, I recommend the full thing if you're looking for more lushness like this.



Something I've been sat on for a little while now, the upcoming Gimmik LP. Since I started following there's been no shortage of new releases coming out of the Gimmik camp - Sonic Poetry being the latest coming later next month. The title track is the only one up for preview at the moment, and it kicks off in suitably IDM fashion, no surprises there if you're at all familiar with his output over the years. Gimmik has always done a great job of hitting the exact balance between the melodic and the glitchy elements that I like when it comes to IDM style works and Sonic Poetry certainly doesn't disappoint on that front.

The waves of melody introduced around the 50 second mark are just lovely, but when they get layered up around 1:20 or so they become divine. Things get a little acidic in the latter half too to keep things fresh, couple that with an extended ambient outro and before long that 6 minute runtime has just melted away. Mark me down as quite excited for the full thing.





Swinging back around to another aptly titled example, a little more from Alucidnation. It's been a long time since I picked up Get Lost and if I'm completely honest I'm not sure why I haven't picked up more in the meantime, it's always been a good time whenever I've returned to it. My usual go-to from the track list is The Message, a firm holder of its place on my 'Coffee Shop Electronic' playlist, but really you can drop the metaphorical needle anywhere on it and have a good time it's a great downtempo record. Enter 15 Below, of the same school as the Whatever The Weather track up top, a cosy number to wrap yourself in for when the cold comes. It does cut off slightly abruptly as it mixes into the next track, but that's all the more reason to check out the whole thing if you like what you hear!



And that'll be all for this time, went a little longer than usual in order to make up for the player issues for those of you not in Europe on the last post. Just proof-reading over a preview now and I really like how all the album art for this one looks, very in keeping with the theme, I'd like to say it was intentional but I also can't complain! Hope you enjoy some of these tunes as much as I do but until next time, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

A Cosy Collection

Hey all, I was going to post today anyway but I originally had something else in mind - I managed to polish up that mixtape that's been sat on my drive for a few weeks now so that got bumped up the schedule. Same theme as always: this is a bunch of tracks that I can't find legally streaming (though that's not quite 100% true this time around!) But I'd still like to share them, and try and get a little creative at the same time.

So what's the theme this time? Well, just a selection of my comfort tunes - the kind I can come back to when I need a little bit of a break. There's no real genre limit here, but it does lean heavily on the IDM / Ambient side especially towards the end. Some of my choices didn't actually make it in so I've got a second list for a potential sequel sometime soon. Full track list and breakdown after the player!



Tracklist:
Takako Minekawa - Milk Rock (Cornelius Remix)
HASYMO - Weather
Gimmik - From A-5310 To TW2 7Q7
Console - Conti.nue
Rei Harakami - Come Here Go There
Kensuke Ushio - Fire Witch III
Agraph - Quietude
Mitsuto Suzuki - The Sheep That Lived A Million Times
Hiroshi Yoshimura - View From My Window

Like an old friend. Like a warm wraparound. Like a Sunday morning where you wake up and it's raining. We kick off with Cornelius' remix of Milk Rock, showcasing my favourite sound of his - a fusion of Shibuya-kei and quirky electronics, I can never get enough of that intro. It gets surprisingly heavy in parts with lavishings of IDM-style breakbeats, but overall a lovely and smooth mood setter. HASYMO follow, a revived line-up of the Yellow Magic Orchestra. They provided some tracks for the second Appleseed movie, which all have amazing soundtracks regardless. YMO's reputation proceeds them, having already been huge influences in the world of electronic music since the late 70's - I adore the sound that they have with Weather, it's one of the few tracks that I knew would be in this mix when I started coming up with track list ideas for it, that Swedish(?) vocal really gives it a bit of a Tangerine Dream feel too, especially tracks from Exit.

It's not long before we enter IDM territory though, with a tune I already talked about earlier - and I'm just going to paste what I said last time because it's all still applicable! If, like me, you also enjoy the Aphex Twin sound circa Richard D. James album then the album that From A-5310 To TW2 7Q7 is from - (Back To Basics) will very much appeal to you. It's much close in style to the work μ-Ziq was putting out in the late 90's on Lunatic Harness, I could live in this little microcosm of sound forever, it's very beautiful but fleeting. A more recent addition next, I fell madly in love with Console's 14 Zero Zero a while ago now, the EP its from is super solid and features the track I've chosen, Conti.nue as a B-Side. I've got a lot of love for this style of DIY skeletal chill kind of electronic, another tune that I knew would make an appearance here.

A return to more up-tempo territory with Rei Harakami. I've talked at length about how much I like Harakami's work and his signature electronic piano sound - naturally I had to go with one of my favourite examples from [Lust] with Come Here Go There. [Lust] is my overall favourite Harakami work still, but my heart will always put Pone as my all time favourite of his, a fantastic talent gone too soon. Another recent addition next with a 2-in-one deal from Kensuke Ushio, both under his real name and the Agraph alias. He seems to be using his actual name more often when making soundtracks, as is the case with my first choice - Fire Witch III from the Boogiepop 2019 OST. It was that OST that turned me onto his work, as bot his solo albums under the Agraph name have a similar style to them. I love the weaving of lush electronics with subtle glitches and other IDM-adjacent elements - which hopefully is on full show by the time we transition to Quietude.

An ambient duet to see us out, first with Mitsuto Suzuki. Better known for working on Final Fantasy OSTs, his two solo albums are a treasure trove of electronic in a similar style to the other songs in this mix - they're not all fully ambient like this one. It can be a little hard to find but I recommend seeking it out, there are odd tracks on YT such as Clear which should give a pretty good first impression. That's a big reason why I do these little mini-compilations in the first place, to shine a light on obscure and otherwise hard to find tracks! We round out with a piece from the iconic Music For Nine Post Cards from Hiroshi Yoshimura. View From My Window is a divine piece of ambient, one that embodies Yoshimura's sound philosophy around this time. Relatively short considering the vast breadths that Ambient tracks can stretch to, it's a gorgeous capstone to this selection.

And that'll be all for today, I'll be back soon enough with the post that was *supposed* to go here, but in the meantime I hope that you enjoy this selection and hopefully find some artists to check out as a result. Until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Bite-sized Bits 09

Mary Pratt - Smears of Jam, Lights of Jelly (2007)

Another reminder for myself because if I've learned anything over the past year and a bit of Bandcamp Fridays is that wishlisting something to get 'soon' is quite often a lie. Still, here we have a recent addition to that ever growing list, the solo project(s) of Ken Tanaka of Hyakkei. Hyakkei were already on my wishlist of stuff to get as I felt like dipping my toes back into the post-rock world again, and another one I was kind of surpised to find on Bandcamp actually.

Discogs is a little misleading if you go to Ken's page - it doesn't list any of his four solo albums that you can find alongside Hyakkei's works. I checked them out expecting more good post-rock stuff, just solo, and I was half-right. Stealing a line from slightly stilted press piece on the official YT upload of this single - "... a sound approach such as post-rock and electronica, what comes to mind is a nostalgic and warm Japanese Landscapes." which is pretty dead on actually.

A mixture of acoustic and electronic a la some of The Flashbulb's stuff, it's a very pleasant listen. Really the closest comparison I could make would be the similar vibe that The Knife were rocking on their debut and on some of their soundtrack work; think tracks like 'Vegetarian Restaurant' but with a little more electronics going on. As you might have guessed from the title this one is very indulgent piece, loaded with anthemic guitar licks, it just absolutley screams 'indie'. Perhaps a touch generic, but I like it enough. To use the analogy I've mentioned before: sometimes you just need a bit of comfort food, and this is the audio equivalent of that for me.



-CVF

A slow Sunday

Not to be too cliché, but me and Summer don't get on. A big part of that is northern European housing being designed to trap heat which makes the nights stifling. But it's been a lovely stormy couple of days, bringing with them a cool breeze that's much more palatable. So with that in mind I've set my sights on things much more ambient once again.

Elaine de Kooning - Sunday Afternoon (1957)

Starting with another tale from the 'recommended' pile - someone calling themselves 'Survival Spheres' who specialises as the name would suggest in ambient soundscapes inspired by the more ambient pieces from survival horror game soundtracks. It's a style I'm surprised hasn't been co-opted more often actually thinking about it now, look up any 'save room' theme from any game in the genre and you'll find plenty of comments waxing lyrical about how much people love them. If people find out they love ambient through soundtracks like that then all the power to them.

Back to the output of Spheres though. They are decent, but I have some complaints. The first would be the sheer amount of stuff there is on them, there are 3 of these compilations of their ambient work and each clocks in at around 100 tracks each which is perhaps a touch too much. Far be it from me to criticise the amount of work that has gone into each of those 300+ tracks but perhaps some curation (or even better, separating them into the specific games they're mimicking as Spheres does on YouTube) might have helped a touch. Similarly, my other complaint is the length, while they top out at around 10 minutes long I can't help but feel like some of them don't need to be stretched out that much.

Not to be exceedingly negative though, there are moments on here that are great. I've picked Channeling for my first one as I think it does a downright fantastic job of capturing that PS1-era style of sound that its going for. It's one of the Silent Hill inspired ones and it does a decent job at that too, the opening rush is very Yamaoka-esque - though it does stray a little from then on it still does a great job of nailing the overriding atmosphere it's going for. It didn't need to be 10 minutes though, it could have wrapped up in 7 like the Youtube Promo version does and not lost anything.



Moving onto something a little more befitting of stormy weather with another bit from Susumu Yokota's Sakura. It was the first album of his I checked out after finally getting around to listening to a bit of his stuff via compilations - I knew he'd done some ambient work and was interested to see how it'd shake out, especially after being exposed to his House work first. And the answer is given with the first track of Sakura, Saku. It's very different from the kind of ambient I'd normally post, not quite as melodic in the usual sense. 'Heady' would be the way I'd describe it, the contrast between those hazy pads that dominate the runtime and the little sparkling flourishes that shine through every now and then is just lovely.

It's interesting to look at this one and hear the influences come through: the hallmarks of tracks from Eno's cinematic work on Music For Films and Textures are most certainly here, as are touches of the more downtempo parts of Another Green World. Coming back to it though, I'm struck by how much it has in common with some of Daniel Lopatin's work under the Oneohtrix Point Never alias, tracks like this share a lot of structural and sound choices with the kind of stuff he was making between the original release of Rifts and Returnal - albeit more drone in OPN's case, but you can certainly hear similarities between this and Stress Waves for example. But we're straying from the point a bit there - a brilliant opening to a brilliant album.



Finally, Sachi Kobayashi. An artist I found in my little dip into the world of indie ambient on Bandcamp. when I first found the EP that caught my attention Ephemeral Beauty, the discogs page was pretty lacking and I assumed that it was perhaps their first release. It's since been populated a lot more and I have since found out about the other releases that I couldn't find as they were on different labels. I've gone way back to Moon & Sea for this post, one of her first.

Like Kobayashi's other releases there are plenty of lush soundscapes on offer here, but I've chosen one that stood out to me as a little different. There's nothing in the rules that says ambient music can't have a percussive element, rare though it may be, and I'm a firm believer in it being possible to have both. On Construction, Kobayashi does a fantastic job of showing that off - while not a 'beat' in the traditional sense, it certainly goes a way to spice things up a bit beyond your standard ambient fare. Isolated from the rest of the tracklist it sounds a little like a downtempo interstitial from a regular electronic album, but as long time readers will know they were always my favourites. Kobayashi has been consistently been releasing things since both this and her debut album last year and I will most definitely be keeping eyes on what she's releasing, just wonderful.



And so ends our little ambient jaunt for today, I don't go on them often but it's always a pleasure when I do. I didn't talk about the Yokota album as much as I would have liked but I cut it short as it was getting fairly long - it can be a bit daunting given the sheer amount of releases Yokota has available, and to complicate things even more not all of them are readily available either physically or on Bandcamp either. Sakura is a good starting point for his more ambient side though, with a brief dip into his House & Techno background with tracks like Genshi and going almost trip hop in spots for the latter half - I very much recommend checking it out.

And as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Bringing it in

Charles Sheeler - Windows (1952)

A quick and slightly eclectic selection of stuff to see in this week - One that's been on the cards for a while and potential retro review candidate is more from Ladytron. Ever since they cropped up on Bandcamp about a year ago with their then-new single and album I had crossed all my digits that their full discography might make its way over there, and I am happy to say that I have not been disappointed. Most of it is there, aside from the respective singles from each album but even then most of the stuff from them worth hearing has been compiled into the 'Remixed & Rare' companion albums for each one. I've gone with a track from Witching Hour this time - home to some of the 'Tron's most iconic tunes though decidedly less electronic than 604 and Light & Magic before it, maybe it's the nostalgia talking but International Dateline and a few others on here are absolutely soaked in that mid 00's feel with their slight indie incline.



Another surprise find this time, I first found this track on a now out of print compilation from Toytronic called Everything Is Green on one of my semi-regular treks into the world of IDM. It's a lovely little comp that has a nice amount of variety on it, as the title of the compilation might suggest it's more on the more lush and melodic side of the IDM world that I've been very into at the minute. I first thought this one was a one off oblique Autechre / Board Of Canada reference (Boc Scadet being quite close to Basscadet, one of Autechre's early works) but turns out they are an established artist with a few releases under their belt. I still reckon it's a combo reference though, but that's conjecture on my part.

Anyway, the tune itself stood out to me because much like the naming scheme it sounds an awful lot like the stuff Autechre were making on Warp in their early days, which instantly appealed to me as that is some of my favourite stuff they've done (along with all the other artists at the time making similar). It's perhaps not quite as all in on the lush electronics as some of the tracks from Everything Is Green, but even so the techier elements aren't nearly as abrasive as some other examples I could pull up. It's that kind of bleepy electronic I can (and have) listened to all day, if the rest of the EP is like this I will almost certainly be adding it to my collection sometime soon.



And finally another visit to ThorHighHeels. If I'm honest I'm not ready yet to get more from them - between the two Umurangi Generation soundtracks I picked up a little while ago along with the Positive Yellow album as well, I have more than enough to get stuck into as-is. Still, I went for a cursory look, THH often uses his own tunes in their videos and some of them are seriously catchy so I try and find a few here and there to earmark for later. I adore Positive Yellow for wearing its inspirations on its sleeve - the whole thing is a blend of 90's rave, house, breakbeat, techno and hints of UK Garage here and there but doesn't come out feeling like a trite re-tread that overly panders.

That's a trend that continues on their other releases, albeit not as pronounced as on Yellow - bits of it can still be heard on the first track of In The Rough, especially when the 808 cowbells get their moment in the spotlight but the whole thing plays out like a more conventional indie electronic tune in the style of Monk and company I posted not too long ago. That's not a complaint though, more of an observation! THH still has a great ear for sounds and this track shows that off in spades, it's full of great little touches and I can't help but smile my way through that breakdown at around 1:15. I highly recommend checking them out, even if the ironic text and eye-searing neon of the album art turns you away a bit.



And that'll do it for this time, I'm back at work now for a little while but it shouldn't slow things down too much - though having said that I am going to look through the archives and see if anything catches my eye for another Retro Review so that could take longer than expected if I end up doing another long album like Moby's 18. I'll try and make another quick one if it does come to that though! Either way stay tuned and as always: Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Leave the light on for you

Another week, another tale of me finding something on my travels around the web. This is actually one I've had down on the list for a while but I hadn't done a search to see how easy it was to come by - which is pretty much why this post exists! On paper Ghostlight aren't an act that I'd cover here - billed as Indie / Dream pop on the discogs page there, and to be honest I wasn't really expecting to make a post of it either, I just liked the sound of a couple of the tunes that made their way into my recommended.

Not to be a genre puritan or anything - I can and have posted dream pop stuff here before - but Ghostlight are unique in that from what I've heard so far they often go in hard on the electronic front. This first track I've picked isn't perhaps the best example of that, but it is the one that introduced me to them - Fantasy Complex really grabbed me from the opening, appealing to that part of me that loves the Adult Swim style hip hop stuff and the chill side of the Silent Hill Soundtracks. That last comparison is pretty apt actually, when the indie side of Ghostlight comes through in the latter half, I can't help but get the same kind of feel that I do from the more indie sounding bits of Silent Hill 3's soundtrack - like End Of Small Sanctuary, just fused with a bit of a chillwave sensibility.



And from there it was just a matter of exploring more, the second track to really get my attention was this one - one of the few that are on Spotify as I looked to add some of these tunes my to my playlists. If the two, it's much more electronic - and very, very much of that early 10's indie scene. Not quite as hazy dreamy as Fantasy Complex though the distinctly quiet vocals remain. I picked a great time of year to check out their works, Mask is full of great little flourishes that compliment the sunnier turn that's happening for those of us in the northern hemisphere at the moment. My absolute favourite of which is those gorgeous keys coming in after the break at around 1:50, deliciously sweet but not in an overly cloying way which can be a pitfall for tunes like this.



And finally, a bit of a left turn. Ghostlight have a couple of compilations too which have a whole host of their artist friends on there too. It's here that discoveries like this really shine, as I've said so many times recently I went through a couple of months of picking up compilations here and there just because they often give you a massive injection of variety in one go, and the C/C compilations are no different - going from full on Ambient and IDM numbers to stuff more in line with Ghostlight's indie style. Enter Fabric 70's Take Me Somewhere Nice which is not a cover of Mogwai despite the name. It wastes no time getting right into the thick of things and letting you know exactly what you're in for - a sparkling indie/electronic number full of glittering synths and a very obviously House-inspired beat. I'm very in love with it at the minute (and once again my bias shows with that slight autotune on sections of the vocals, of which my weakness for is well documented)



It might not be for everyone, but I've liked this little jaunt. The Fabric 70 tune in particular, introducing me to some nostalgia I didn't even know I had, giving me mad flashbacks to the poppy electro of Shinichi Osawa's The One - tracks like Dreamhunt are in that same kind of groove. Most of Ghostlight's stuff is Pay what you want on the bandcamp page, but the two C/C comps are also 100% free downloads so definitely look them up if you're feeling what I've put up here! Though it looks like they've been inactive for a while, there's plenty in their discography to look at in the meantime - I know I plan to.

And as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Gone Swimming

I'm back on my usual again, this time with a post about some compilations I haven't talked about before which is surprising as you will soon see they are supremely up my alley. Adult Swim has a long history of supporting musicians both indie and otherwise as you've seen me post about many times before - they were ahead of the game when it came to campaigns like that, before the yearly 'Singles Program' that they run now there was a couple of collaborations with the Ghostly International label that resulted in a couple of compilations that at the time you could get for free. This was around 2008 as a free download on the Adult Swim site which is where I got my copy. The official links are dead now but there are mirrors - but Ghostly also has them archived on their Bandcamp too, albeit not for $0 like it was in '08. Still, it's a great little compilation, let's quote the Bandcamp page for a bit of background:

(...) a 20-track mix (curated by label founder Sam Valenti IV) of tracks from Ghostly's avant-pop mainstays like Matthew Dear, Michna, and School of Seven Bells, alongside kindred spirits like Milosh, FLYamSAM, and Mux Mool. Ghostly Swim's best tracks embody the label's trademark mix of playful darkness and irreverence - Deastro's lurching robot-rock anthem "Light Powered," The Chap's bizarro-world pop hit "Carlos Walter Wendy Stanley," Michna's slinky-smooth "Triple Chrome Dipped" - making them an ideal accompaniment to, say, pissing in your pants over Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.

And really they couldn't have summed it up better. The whole compilation is suitably eclectic given the work of Adult Swim, where electro-industrial tracks like Kill Memory Crash's Hit + Run rub shoulders with out and out smooth as hell and drenched in talkbox funk-inspired tracks like Osborne's Wait A Minute. Much like the Singles Program that Adult Swim used to run, this is a great compilation if you're looking to get some variety injected into your collection - a real standout highlight is the pulsing house come techno number from The Reflecting Skin in Traffickers I could do an entire post on this comp but I'll curtail it for now.

By far and away the most standout tune on here though is one of the few official appearances of FLYamSAM, which as the name would imply is a collaboration between Flying Lotus and Samiyam. This is from around the Los Angeles era of FlyLo which is home to some of my favourites of his, and it really shows - The Offbeat could have easily come off one of the companion EPs for LA, while it has that slightly rough feel of FlyLo's sound of that era, the whole thing feels a lot more slick than some of the cuts from the album. That wobbly melody is sweet as hell to this day, I wasn't into FlyLo so much when I first grabbed this compilation but with hindsight it's not hard to see that the man had a real talent for production and was definitely one to watch. Not to discount the work that Samiyam also put in mind you, his influence is clear to hear as well - having produced one of my favourites from Los Angeles in RobertaFlack, the two have a shared sound philosophy that I love a whole lot.



But of course, part of the beauty of these comps is introducing artists you might have not seen otherwise, and I'd say that rings true for pretty much the rest of the tracklist here for me. Enter Mux Mool - their contribution to the compilation is also aesthetically on point when it comes to matching the general Adult Swim vibe, the cut up beat butchery of the opening on Night Court would be right at home on one of the network's commercial 'bumps' (which, coincidentally is also what FlyLo was doing with his early demos). It kinda fits into a niche subcategory within my library, this kind of jammed out hip hop stuff reminds me a lot of the likes of Gold Panda and Bibio, though the closest I think in terms of sound is what Pretty Lights was making around this time - Filling Up The City Skies carries a lot of the same style cues, though with more of a sample focused approach than here.



The downside to this is finding an artist and digging deeper only to find they didn't really do anything more - two examples of this on this compilation: Reflecting Skin as mentioned in the first paragraph and the subject of my next pick - Dark Party. Active stood out to me early on, as is so often the case with many artists I end up following, I like the style on show here and was interested to see what else they had on offer. As mentioned though, they haven't done anything under the Dark Party name since around 2010 so you can most likely consider the project defunct. But not every artist has to turn into a massive deep discography dive I suppose, given how many things I have on my wishlist I shouldn't complain! Still, if you like what you hear here, they do have one album under the name called Light Years that's in the same vein.



And that'll do it for now, this post was originally going to be one track from each of the three Ghostly Swim comps but that got a bit lost by the wayside! Always fuel for another post I suppose, the other compilations are a little different in terms of sound too, the second edition of Ghostly Swim didn't come out until 2014 so a lot of evolution and change both for the label and the electronic sphere happened in-between. Check out the rest of the comp if you've liked my selections here, it's a little more varied than my choices here would lead you to think.

And as always - Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Red Skies

Abbott Handerson Thayer - The Sky Simulated by Red Flamingoes (1909)

Back again with what I hope will be another one of those shorter posts I talked about last time. Kicking off with my latest escapist experience, Umurangi Generation, and its decidedly on-point soundtrack. The setting is a slightly cyberpunk New Zealand, and you're there to take pictures and have a chill time mainly. The soundtrack is on paper at odds with the chill aesthetic, it runs the full gamut from near dubstep and future bass to more conventional House and a whole heap of UK Garage influence too, but it works ever so well in practice. Speaking of variety, it helps that the OST is massive, the DLC soundtrack that this is from is 51 tracks, and the main game has an extra 81 on top of that - granted a lot of them are super short but still. I've yet to hear a dud from ThorHighHeels, and even if I did there's so much to get at on this album that I don't think it'd be a big deal even if.



Speaking of aesthetics, we're revisiting Mitch Murder again now. Out of all the 'Retrowave' (and it's million other umbrella terms) artists, Mitch's works always felt the most... honest, for lack of a better term. Mitch's work certainly takes a whole heap of inspiration from actual 80's music, but unlike some other artists of the synthwave persuasion, I think a lot of his work is more of a love letter to the style of old rather than just aping the overall sound and vibe. Take Frost from his latest release Then Again - it has massive echoes of Vangelis' score for Blade Runner, which I know is an incredibly cliché comparison to make but those brassy synths are almost absolutely intended to be taken that way. It's been a while since I heard Mitch tackle something so downbeat as this and I'm really digging it, it's at the top of my list to check out and scoop up come next BC Friday.



Another one from my list to round out - L'usine (or just Lusine as they go by now). I very briefly dipped my toe into their work when I was on my ambient streak a little while ago, but as is so often the case I ended up finding out they have a ton of releases under their belt, the early stuff falling under the IDM label to boot. I did a little bit of exploring, and is so often the case with me I checked a couple out based on the cover art alone, which is how I found The Waiting Room. Made the mistake of reading the reviews on discogs but they weren't useful, just full of folks lamenting that it was a house record and not like their older works, I was undeterred though and thought I should at least sample the first track.

I haven't really had time to sit down with the album properly yet, but Panoramic is nice enough, a real driving song that worked real well during my WFH periods - it actually reminds me a lot of Röyksopp in a way, I think it has some of the same structure that was on The Understanding's bonus tracks that are like the refined results of a bunch of jam sessions. It's on the ever-growing list either way, so you may be hearing more of this in the future, if not this album then certainly L'usine's other works.



Right, I think that went pretty well. A *little* bit shorter than usual but not by much I will admit. Still, my thoughts remain the same, I plan to do more of these quick-fire posts in the coming future, too many times recently I've ended up writing across multiple days which I think sometimes makes my writing a bit scatterbrained (more so than usual at least!), not to mention the extra time taken too. Anyway, that's neither here nor there, hope you enjoy these selections - I'll be back as usual with more soon enough.

And as always - Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Disconnect

Gérard Fromanger - Tirez-Tirez, Boulevard des Italiens (1971)

Lately I've been taking some time to do more just sitting and listening to my collection. For years it's played as the background to my goings-on but as of recently I couldn't shake the feeling I wasn't giving it the attention it deserved, especially some of the newer things I'd picked up that immediately get lost in the sea of shuffle as there are thousands of tracks. So, as cliche as it sounds, I've been taking a little slice of the day after I get off work to stretch out and just listen for a while with no real distractions. Here are some bits and pieces I've had a good time with as of late.

Arovane is one of those. I want to say that this is another one that I had recommended to me a bunch back in the Grooveshark days but I can't say for sure, we have come full circle though in that it does keep recommending it to me on discogs now I'm looking at a bunch of old Toytronic stuff. Tides is a lovely album, one that was distinctly more ambient in my memory than it actually is, it seems. It came into my collection when I was still riding the high of Akira Yamaoka's more trip-hop influenced stuff from the Silent Hill soundtracks, and there's a little bit of that influence here: title track Tides sounding like one of the less menacing examples from the original 4 with that hazy, heavy stumbling beat and distant acoustic backing, the same kind of atmosphere Yamaokoa was playing with comes up even more later on with some delicately placed warm pads. The final falling away of all the elements and fade into the full ambient outro is beautiful too, Tides is an early highlight of the album - but the rest is great too, if you like this one you could scoop the whole thing and enjoy it easily.



Sense came to me in a similar way, one of those artists I noted down in the past that had been recommended to me, but I put off because I assumed they'd be hard to come by like some of the older IDM stuff, but most of Sense's work is up on Bandcamp. This album sat on my Bandcamp wishlist for a while among a couple of other Sense releases - Learning To Be stood out to me from the artwork alone, I find it really striking and really evocative of the albums sound. The opening of ex t nerla carries on that warm and fuzzy trend with more lush pads and an analogue hum, with some little pitch bends and that introduce a slightly off kilter sound that's a signifier of things to come.

Learning To Be is a much more traditional IDM affair than the above, nothing super intense though, more in line with some of the stuff Casino Versus Japan or The Flashbulb have made. It's a solid opener, one that nicely sets up the rest of the album as most of the tracks follow this same kind of formula, but that's not a condemnation as it's one that works really really well. The beats can be a little on the harsh side at times, but I do love the sounds that Sense plays with on this album, and I will almost certainly be posting the gorgeous ambient drone of Human Buffer Zone at some point in the future.





Closing out is B-side to the Truant EP - Burial's Rough Sleeper which I've brought up a few times in the past. It might just eke out the top spot for my favourite thing he's ever done, it's a 13 minute masterclass in his aesthetic - though it remains a near constant beautifully lush for the entire runtime and doesn't quite dip to the tense and menacing vibes of some of his other work. Having said that though the opening sections do have some nice and thick basslines behind them, and there is usually a 2-step beat accompanying most of it, so it's not like a full on ambient piece or anything. It can be a bit daunting with it's length but its not too bad in practice: It is a continuous experience but one that's divided into clear sections, the first half is are absolutely divine and my favourite of the lot, but each one has there place and there's not a bad one among them. None of them overstay their welcome, but take that with a hint of bias as the longest sections are also my favourites of the bunch.

I only have a couple of complaints after all this time, the first one being simply the ending is super abrupt (but that's small potatoes considering the length) but the other one is a little more pressing. Here and there over the runtime, there are some intentional digital glitches put in. They are good for flavour I will admit, but they are a bit too convincing in execution (if you've ever ripped a slightly scuffed CD you'll attest to that too), to the point where I actually had to listen to the official uploads on other services to make sure it wasn't just my copy.



That's all for this time, I have a couple more things lined up for the coming posts but I might also slip another quick one that's just a blurb and some tunes like I did a little while ago (just minus the rant next time!). I found it pretty refreshing to do, and while I love to write posts like this where I get to go a bit in depth, I appreciate it does sometimes get a bit text heavy so I figure I might try it just for variety and that - might let me queue up multiple like I used to a little while ago. But anyway, hope you dig some of these choices and as always: Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

A Driving Experience

I wouldn't say I'm a car person, but I probably have more of an interest in them than the average person, it doesn't really come up much on the blog though because on paper there's not much crossover between the two. But the worlds of electronic music and cars collide quite often, just look at the aesthetics of the entire synthwave movement for one, it's full of blocky 80's sports and supercars like the Countach, Testarossa and the DeLorean. It goes beyond that too, there was that period in the early 00's where the World Rally Championship used the Chemical Brothers' Star Guitar as the theme for all their promo and commentary pieces for example. Of course there's also a whole host of Eurobeat out there that is vehicular themed, "Gasoline" being an often used words in the genre and leading to frankly amazing song titles like "Manifold Love". And that's without even mentioning all the Initial D related tracks out there - the continuous mixes of them are full of samples of tire squeals and engine revs.

ジェットブリック - Break Of Dawn on Pixiv

So why do I bring all that up? Well, I guess it's to show that there's not really a definitive genre when it comes to the music of cars, go looking and you can pretty much find any genre set to the theme and it will fit. Which brings me to the subject of this post: Takashi Kokubo. Kokubo is one of the old school ambient / new age composers from Japan, his works range from commercial releases like albums and such, to more eclectic contributions like him composing the alert sound for Japan's mobile earthquake alert system and jingles for all sorts from credit card payment sounds to actual commercials. That kind of thing isn't unheard of, remember that Brian Eno composed the Windows 95 startup sound, but I don't think I've ever seen an artist do so many of them as Kokubo - he has an album called Get At The Wave from 1987 that was made to promote Sanyo Air Conditioners - a really early version of multimedia experiences. It was recently re-issued too! (albeit with a slightly altered tracklist).

Which now brings us to the actual content of today's post, in the early 90's BMW approached Kokubo to make one of these soundtrack experiences for the then-new line of M5s. There's not a lot of info about it on the 'net sadly, I would have loved to hear what the brief was - the one whoever was in charge of getting Eno to do the Windows sound was pretty great, here's Eno's own quote on the matter:

The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 3.25 seconds long."

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.

-Brian Eno, from "Q and A With Brian Eno" by Joel Selvin in the San Franscisco Chronicle - June 2 1996

I'd like to imagine there was something similar for Kokubo, most of his ambient work is in the tens of minutes in length, the BMW piece is a bite size 3 minutes by comparison. It's dated in spots now, there are some bassy stabs in the intro that come up every now and then that are supremely early 90's. But that gives way to a pleasant new age tune where the recordings of the engine don't sound amiss at all - but I have always thought that since that Top Gear film about the Aston Martin V12 Vantage set to Brian Eno (Questionable opinions about the 'war on speed' aside). It's an aesthetic I'm surprised I haven't seen more of to be honest, but maybe it's out there and I'm just not seeing it - this record is practically vaporwave already.



Kokubo does a fantastic job of capturing that whole 'experience' that was no doubt outlined in the brief, though perhaps a romanticised one - there is no traffic congestion here, no perpetual road works interrupting the flow - it's just you, the virtual driver, and the car. The gravel sound in the second half denoting arriving 'home' is masterfully done too, if a little spoiled by the incredibly cheesy and presumptive as hell "Hi Daddy!" at the very end, but that's the pitfall of making what is essentially an advertisement for a luxury car brand in the 90's. And you too could have this experience if you buy a 1992 BMW M5! Commercialism aside, it's a lovely little piece - a novelty, maybe but an interesting one nonetheless. Don't discount this and Kokubo's other work just because of that commercial angle, the ambient stuff is very pretty indeed and if you're at all into ambient you will likely find something to enjoy in his vast discography.

And as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.
-CVF

A Certain Ambiance

This BC Friday was a little different to usual - I had planned to get even more IDM adjacent stuff after my recent trip into the archives of Toytronic, but instead I ended up getting a fair bit of another genre that's very close to my heart: Ambient. I can be a little picky when it comes to Ambient releases, I'm not huge on the drone style outside of some of Oneohtrix Point Never's side projects, but it had been a long time since I got anything pure ambient so I thought I'd see what's out there. And here are the results.

Truth be told only one of the things I'm bringing up today was new to me, the other two are things I long since wish-listed and just felt like it was right to check them out now. Starting with a small EP from Sachi Kobayashi - I don't quite remember how I came into this one, part of me thinks it could have been a 'New Ambient releases' article from BC's front page, but regardless it's been sitting in my wishlist for some time now just waiting for it's chance to shine. Title track Ephemeral Beauty, though perhaps a little cliché on the title front, is a very good embodiment of the kind of ambient I like. It strikes a nice balance between the more drone elements and hints of melody - effortlessly flowing between them. This is something which I think makes it a very good stepping stone into the genre if this post will be your intro to the genre, the relatively short length of roundabout 5 minutes also helps on this front, it can be hard to suggest Ambient sometimes when you have colossal releases like Eno's Thursday Afternoon clocking in at an hour long. Don't get me wrong though - Eno is fantastic at the genre in his own right, with Ambient I: Music For Airports being utterly essential if you are at all into the genre, but having something a little more digestible is nice too.



Moving on to a release I've been eyeing for a long long time: The perfectly titled Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980 - 1990. It's a fantastic little compilation of rarities from that era that either never made it to the west or were never repressed beyond their original runs. I've been spending a fair bit of time with it as of late and I thought I'd mention some of my favourites, there's a few (Abridged) versions of some tracks on this comp, and this is one of them. The original runtime of See The Light is a hefty 24:57 while the version on the comp is a much lighter 7-ish minutes instead. There's a few reasons this was probably done, could be a licensing thing first of all, but also it makes it easier for the actual physical release too, this compilation is already 2CDs and 3LPs as-is so including the full run of some of these tracks would only bump that number higher. There's an argument to be made that Abridging them spoils the intended experience and I can understand that, though I think Light In The Attic have done their utmost to compress it down while keeping it fairly intact. See The Light is (ironically) not as bright sounding as Ephemeral Beauty, it's much much more sedate in comparison the rising tides and lush waves of sound heard there. Evoking parts of Eno's Ambient I as mentioned above, See The Light is more about sustained tones punctuated by warm pads, and it's gorgeous.



And my other favourite from the comp, it's one I've posted before but it bears repeating. To the point where I'm pretty much going to copy/paste what I said last time. The team at Light In The Attic did a fantastic job curating the track list, and the choice of using Still Space from Satoshi Ashikawa as the opening was an almost perfect decision. If there were a sonic phrase to define the album, the opening tones would be it, an ideal distillation of not only the compilation's title - but the overriding atmosphere as well. It's a much more sparse affair than the other two examples I've posted, one that again invites comparisons to Eno's Ambient I, but once again it's a much more digestible piece at just shy of 4 minutes. It is simply wonderful and I cannot think of a better opener to set the tone for this compilation With the possible exception of another of my favourites Hiroshi Yoshimura's Time After Time. If you at all like the sound of this one, I would urge you to check out the compilation in full - especially the physical release which almost doubles the track list of the digital version.



Stepping into something more conventional this time. I will admit the things I've posted so far are very much in the deep end of Ambient - there are plenty of artists out there who make ambient that's not quite as spacey as the one's I've talked about so far. Hirotaka Shirotsubaki is normally one of those, but a few of his pieces are much more in line with something you might hear from artists like Boards Of Canada or Röyksopp. August Rain is one of those, there are a lot of field recordings in Shirotsubaki's work and the introduction of this one is no different - however after about 15 seconds this lonesome guitar chord comes into the mix and will continue to stick around for the remainder of the runtime. Something about the guitar tone reminded me a whole lot of the kind Akira Yamaoka uses on the more indie-sounding bits of the Silent Hill soundtracks, those do get pretty chill at times (and even go full on ambient in parts) but tend to dwell more in the Trip Hop side of things, where August Rain is much more skeletal in structure. In terms of establishing atmosphere it's brilliant, the warmer tones making a much more cozy experience than the cooler vibes of the rest of this post. It's a much different approach, but a welcome one.



And that'll do us for today. I think part of why I gravitated towards Ambient this time is because some of the week that's just gone has been pretty intense, and as cliché as it sounds, these kind of tunes make for good decompression music. If you're in need of a moment of calm then the selections here are a good start. And Ambient is a really good genre to binge on if it's done well - after all the whole philosophy is pretty much music that sounds just as good if it's being actively listened to or just on in the background. Keep that in mind when sampling this post, and remember that the bandcamp players will go onto the next track of the album automatically if you reach the end of one!

And as always - Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF