Amniotic’s Abstract Liquid Guitar with Vocal Textures

More sound art than commercial audio product, this album which Amniotic describes as “lo-fi sounds from the Seaford Underground” combines liquid guitars and bass with improvisational vocals that are often barely discernible. Sometimes it’s a quick stitch of melody, or spoken word poetry or lo-fidelity recordings of a disconnected, discordant tune. And then from time to time, you get actual melodic lines and lyrics such as those on “The Valley of Wine” and “The Message is Clear” (although to be honest, it wasn’t all that clear to me).

There are no drums, no overt beats, no loops. Instead, the minimal instrumentation uses sound as a texture, weaving vaguely surreal field recordings and stringed instruments into a bizarre experience straddling the line between art and chaos, between reality and nightmare.

These questions occur to me while listening to the massive, 17-track album Let the Dogs Erode: Is this the ghost of melodies past? Is this a packaged product or a drug? And on songs like “Soliel,” is this the sung melancholia of a million aborted fetuses who once swam in amniotic fluids?

The artist name actually makes sense in a strange way. If amniotic fluid or liquor amnii is the nourishing and protecting liquid contained by the amniotic sac of a pregnant woman, then this music is the nourishing, flowing water of your subconscious which feeds nightmares and slow-motion dream sequences.

It’s tender, it’s unsettling, it’s fragile, it’s awash in reverb, and yet sometimes it’s just what the doctor ordered. Who knew field recordings plus guitar music could produce something so dangerous?

Artist’s Self Description:
Started improvising with a whole heart in 2006 on modified guitars and a home-made drum kit (made by my collaborator – Carl Henderson).
Began recording and editing jam sessions.
Began recording solo work in the beginning of 2010.
Collated works into double album in 2011.
Studying at the University of Brighton currently.

Details:

• Amniotic’s album on Bandcamp
• Caul-Imprint, the artist’s blog.

Electronic Encounters – a New Soundtrack to Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind

The album’s name says it all: Electronic Encounters – Music inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K). A group of various musicians came together and wrote music inspired by the 1977 Steven Spielberg film, most even included the 5-tone “motif” used to communicate with the aliens. What this is then is a homage and a new soundtrack — made for those who enjoyed the movie and for those yet to realize how much of a contributing factor the movie was to pop culture, specifically The X-Files and Fringe.

But what about the tracks themselves? Mostly ambient, mostly introspective shoegazing electronic meanderings, but also some almost pop-like gems. Some with beats, others with spoken word samples. All containing elements of mystery and awe necessary for an extra-terrestrial experience.

Moving from the dreamy shivering pop of Golau Glau’s “Seeing this Shape” to Neil Fellowes’ new age reworking of the alien motif in “Encounter” to the swirly ambient dub of Pye Corner Audio’s “Are We There Yet?” to the glamorous 80s-style electro of Black Cat Clap Clap’s “Manor Park 1983″ to the abstract spoken word sound art of Dolly Dolly’s “Mr. Taylor’s Trousers,” the whole album is surprise after surprise of the eerie and enjoyable.

The anchor that holds the 13-song album together is atmosphere. They all have it. They all drown in it. Immerse yourself into their atmosphere as if in a good dream, and relive the excitement of seeing silvery aliens for the first time.

Details

• Album: free download on Bandcamp http://electronicencounters.bandcamp.com/
• The Electronic Encounters Blog
• Everything you always wanted to know about CE3K

Stream This Release:

Capac’s downtempo shoegazing live electronics

Capac - EP sampler

Capac is Gary Salomon, Stu Cook and Joshua Davenport — a three-person live electronica act based in Liverpool, England. Formerly known as the group A Cup Of Tea,  they concoct their sound from primarily organic sources – using these as starting points for their unique blend of progressive live electronica. And they raise the “live” banner  high, in opposition to acts who press play and dance onstage.

Their free 2 track sampler EP available on their bandcamp website showcases how they put together expansive instrumental pieces using a minimal sonic palette, but are able to tweak effects and note parameters for variation. “Imagine This Was All Purple” is a downtempo track which flows from a clean sterile beat to all-out fuzzy white noise chaos by the 4-minute mark. “Palindrome” is the equivalent of a high-flying guitar solo, complete with wall-to-wall delay and reverb effects, except using keyboards and very live-sounding drum patterns.  Shoegazing electronica? Minimal live downtempo? Whatever pigeonhole you want to tag their music as, Capac will make your ears happy.

Their full EP is due in early 2010 on Ontheshelf Records.

DETAILS

Download their 2-track EP sampler via their bandcamp site.
Capac on MySpace.

Capac playing live

Portabot’s liberating wall of noise

Artist: Portabot |   Album: There Must Be a Sunrise In Every Ending | Netlabel: 12rec.net

Just like the most basic tenets of life aren’t self-evident until you’re only peripherally conscious of them, some music won’t make sense until you forget you’re listening.  Portabot’s 44-minute album of maniacally-sliced-and-diced guitar samples, drones, FX, noise, atmosphere and glitches is one example  of what I’m talking about. Listen to it at work and let your consciousness fade in and out as you concentrate on whatever humdrum task you’re doing at your tiny cubicle in the middle of the corporate machinebeast’s belly. And pretty soon Portabot will make an awful amount of sense. Portabot (aka César Pesquera, a Spain-born graphic designer, director and musician who lives and works in London and Barcelon) is on a mission to free your mind from the repetitious transactions you deal with and expose you to the radiation of his granular synthesis and sample distortion. 

There is noise out there. And the noise in your headphones will drown out the noise around you. Wave upon wave upon wave of building noise grows in your ear canal. When the album finally ends there is release and the silence becomes a sad affair. In that sense, Portabot’s album is the muzak that sets you free.

DETAILS: 

12 MP3s encoded at 256 kbps 44.1 kHz stereo. Album’s zip file is 106 MB in size. Total runtime: 44:52

Download the entire album as a zip file from their netlabel release page on 12rec.net (which includes the music video for track 12: “Lladro”). 

http://www.12rec.net/Release_Portabot_055.htm

Artist website: http://www.portabot.net/

Just like the most basic tenets of life aren’t self-evident until you’re only peripherally conscious of them, some music won’t make sense until you forget you’re listening.  Portabot’s 44-minute album of maniacally-sliced-and-diced guitar samples, drones, FX, noise, atmosphere and glitches is one example  of what I’m talking about. Listen to it at work and let your consciousness fade in and out as you concentrate on whatever humdrum task you’re doing at your tiny cubicle in the middle of the corporate machinebeast’s belly. And pretty soon Portabot will make an awful amount of sense. Portabot (aka César Pesquera, a Spain-born graphic designer, director and musician who lives and works in London and Barcelona) is on a mission to free your mind from the repetitious transactions you deal with and expose you to the radiation of his granular synthesis and sample distortion. 

There is noise out there. And the noise in your headphones will drown out the noise around you. Wave upon wave upon wave of building noise grows in your ear canal. When the album finally ends there is release and the silence becomes a sad affair. In that sense, Portabot’s album is the muzak that sets you free.

DETAILS: 

12 MP3s encoded at 256 kbps 44.1 kHz stereo. Album’s zip file is 106 MB in size. Total runtime: 44:52

Download the entire album as a zip file from their netlabel release page on 12rec.net (which includes the 18 MB music video for track 12: “Lladro”). 

Artist website: http://www.portabot.net/

Atomic Skunk’s Got Atmosphere

Atomic Skunk - Binary Scenes

Artist: Atomic Skunk
Release: Binary Scenes

It doesn’t take much talent to hammer out an electronic track with drums and put a melody behind it. It takes much more effort to layer textures onto an ambient track with no obvert beats, but still give it a sense of movement and growth. Atomic Skunk (aka San Francisco Bay Area-based musician Rich Brodsky) does this in spades with “Binary Scenes” an 8-song album coming in at around 52 MB in size and worth more than that in content.

The album begins with the mesmerizing bells and pads of “Chronoswamp,” a zen-like reflective tune that oozes with warmth. “Liquid Dharma” adds the drama of rain and Indian tabla percussion with violin to the mix for a tropical rainforest experience, complete with female chant vocals. “Winter’s Gift (The Chamber)” is a sound narrative about one man’s trudge through snow into a warm room with a magic musicbox and a fire. “Frozen Neptune” is a cold, broad atmospheric piece built from windy sound effects and chimes. The only odd ball in the release is the humorous “Flying Spiders of Babylon” with its 1950′s science fiction kitsch, its skittering spider sounds, and its driving rhythm.

Overall, this sounds like something you might hear at a day spa while getting your back pounded by Helga the viking masseuse. Except that it’s not cheesy, not predictable, and is probably more complex and intricate than a normal spa-goer would like. Which makes it a verified hit in our book– perfect for end-of-workday relaxation, or simply the drive home.  It’s subtle, complex, and cerebral ambient music which thrills because it is able to exude such humanity. Download it and keep it!

DETAILS:
Download entire album for free (multiple bitrates available) from the Atomic Skunk website.
Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/atomicskunk
Facebook:  http://facebook.atomicskunk.com