RoomDark & Aortha’s minimal ambient mind massage

Haze 130 EP cover: RoomDark & Aortha - Tree

[HAZE130] RoomDark, Aortha – Tree

It starts with RoomDark’s “SeeTree” — where a machine is caught snoring like a cyborg dragon in REM-stage sleep. The tune steadily evolves into a chaotic web of sticky, metallic filaments of sound. By the middle of the 10-minute long opening track, sustained single synth notes punctuate the textured noise and bring the tune into an organic bliss.

In comparison, RoomDark’s next track “EarthTree” is more rhythmic, more percussive, but more boring. While still minimal, it actually gets tiring with its repetitive motif and drums. No change makes a track dull.

Aortha’s 14-minute “Cholotrope” takes something that sounds like wind blown into a microphone and morphs that into a rhythmic collage of feedback and breathy machinegun stutters, before a ping-ponging synth bounces into the foreground and a basic drum pattern begins a tribal dance in your mind. Too bad it ends so abruptly.

Sadly, Aortha’s next track “A One” is a menacing, heavy beast, all belching and bleeping, and not much else.

SUMMARY:
These two Belarus-based producers RoomDark and Aortha manipulate their field recordings and turn them into intricate organisms of sound. And because of the beauty of tracks 1 and 2, this EP is a keeper. It’s a relaxing foray into minimal ambient and field sound that doesn’t hurt the ears, but rather massages the mind.

DETAILS
EP DOWNLOAD LINK: http://h-a-z-e.org/archives/476
More releases from Aortha
More releases from RoomDark

INFO:

Cat: #130
Artist: RoomDark, Aortha
Album: Tree
Country: Belarus
Genre: Minimal, Ambient, Field Recordings

Tracklist:
01. RoomDark – SeeTree
02. Aortha – Cholotrope
03. RoomDark – EarthTree
04. Aortha – A One

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

Joe Frawley’s mystery in “Ritual Research”

Joe Frawley – Ritual Research [ca195]

Mystery is sublime. It won’t hit you in the face but will rather sneak up on you while working at the cubicle and make you exclaim in surprise at the depth of the universe gaping at you from out of your headphones. Joe Frawley’s “Ritual Research” is such a release. The composer and musician makes an audio quilt from his piano, various vocal and music samples, repeating pizzicato string motifs, and lots of effects (primarily reverb and delay). The tracks are both ambient and textural sound art. Even in its abstraction, there is some form of melody. Even in its lack of direction, there is a point that the artist is giving us.

Taken in its entirety, Ritual Research is a unified release that must be listened to as one unit, because it is made up of the same elements and adds up to only one message anyway: that there are worlds beyond your reach, often attainable only through art. This is one research output that has definitely produced noteworthy results.

6 MP3s encoded at 320 kbps 44.1 kHz stereo.

Download details:
Download all files in one zip. (53 MB)
Download page on netlabel Clinical Archives.

Joe Frawley’s bio on his Artist Page.

Love in Athens: We’re Always Just About To Leave (EP)

Love in Athens – We’re Always Just About To Leave

Love In Athens is the solo instrumental project of Philippine musician Francis Maria (of the band Caitlyn Bailey) who offers in this EP, three easy listening electro-acoustic tunes that would make a perfect soundtrack to some indie film about teen angst and daydreaming. The MIDI programming is simple and to-the-point, the layering of melodies using mostly keyboards and pads is more complicated — juxtaposing rhythms that are often contradictory to one another, and the mastering of all three tracks could use some work as some portions are clipping. But overall, this EP carries an honest emotion rarely found in other keyboard-heavy work. Too bad it only lasts 11 minutes all in all, and is encoded at a low-res 128 kbps.

As the title suggests, nothing lasts for very long before farewells. Not even emotionally riveting instrumental EPs.

Track Details:
3 MP3s encoded at 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz stereo.

Download Link:
Via Mediafire download page.

Release page on the Puro Ka Indie Collective website.