Smoky, guitar-based ambient curls around you on Christopher Alvarado ‘s Drifting Through Kingdoms. As with much of Alvarado’s work, the voyage leads through some shadowy spots, but he guides us from a lighter area and work our way in. I get swept up in the first two tracks, “Realm of Reflection” and “Borderlands,” and I don’t notice the changeover from one to the next. “Realm…” is where the guitar is at its most obvious, picked against rising pads. It’s swallowed into the blend on “Borderlands,” which has a nice, large and classic feel to it. From there, the dissonance begins to set in, and the tone glides toward a darker attitude. This is where Alvarado begins to lose me a bit, and once the album moves into the piece “Aquae,” I feel like the road has diverged a little too far. Here, Alvarado tries to shoehorn some chanting/hymnal voices over his pads and drifts, and the result is the sense that someone pushed the wrong button at the wrong time. Like two different pieces are fighting for attention, and neither wins. “Dulcet” redeems things a bit with the metallic texture of the guitars pinging of the dark pads, but there’s something to the thinness of the sound that becomes too noticeable for me. “Petra” puts me back into that immersed space I enjoyed at the beginning. Swirls of dark sound and rich low drones intertwine, and a whispery tone that runs through much the album underscores it all. Alvarado puts a good edge on this one, including the subtle use of a haunting vocal sample that slides into the mix, makes you aware of its presence, and then eases back away. This is the album’s longest offering, at 11 minutes, and it makes great use of the time. My only other quibble is the use of a distracting hiss that comes and goes on “Delicacy Above the Lambent.” It’s a little too there, and it sounds less like an element in the song and more like one ear suddenly unclogged while I was listening. It took me out of the album because I wondered if something was wrong.

I don’t feel that Drifting Through Kingdoms necessarily represents Alvarado at his best, but there are plenty of moments that reinforce why I look forward to new work from him. Grab a listen and see if this Drift is more to your liking than mine.

Available from Bandcamp.

The story behind the creation of BioSonic and Second Nature, the collaborative and thematically linked albums from Steve Roach and Robert Logan, is the stuff of young-ambient-musician dreams. Logan, a Roach fan since the age of 13 whose own work is profoundly inspired by him, began corresponding with Roach about 15 years ago. In his initial contact, he included a CD of his own music. Roach says that he found Logan’s music to be “…already emoting at a very high level that seemed well beyond his years.” The two began on some intercontinental collaboration—Logan in England, Roach in the American southwest—the results of which are expressed in these two works.

As much of a Roach fan as I am, if you just sat me down and hit play on BioSonic, I would not have identified it as his work. The mechanistic clicks, whirs, and gurgles, like some robotic boot-up coming on line,  instantly grab my attention but definitely do not shout “Steve Roach.” As it transposes itself into a pleasantly plodding rhythm and the air fills with a dizzying array of sounds, I find that it wouldn’t matter who was at the controls—it’s easy to hear from early on that this will be a good ride. After that first track, I pick up more of Roach’s work seeping into the deep mix. Chugging percussive tones and a feeling of electronic velocity on “OmniGen” bring up memories of Trance Spirit as Roach and Logan thicken and intensify a storm-swirl of sound. The wall they create is fantastically dense, and the way it unloads into the quieter environs of “Ecdysis Activation” has a sense of release to it. It may come as no surprise to Roach listeners that the shifts in tempo and tone here are absolutely fluid and organic. It’s pure flow, no pun intended, weaving from the gallop of “Primal Confluence” (where the Trance Spirit connection is even stronger) to the slow, humid churn of “Erososphere” and back up into the more energized playfulness of “The Biomechinoid Liefcycle Revealed.” That track is an ear-tickling mass of analog chirp and twitter, tiny sounds filling your head in swarms. While this whole album is a blast with headphones, this is the track that warrants putting them on in the first place. The title track follows, keeping the throttle jammed open while the duo pull an endless batch of fresh, odd sounds out of their gear and send them ricocheting around the space. Highly infectious.

Second Nature sits on the other end of the spectrum, four quiet tracks that stretch calmly outward. The title track and “Mystic Drift” are longer than the other two, given half an hour and 22 minutes, respectively, to course past. Unlike the long-distance relationship that ideated BioSonic, this was created with the artists in the studio together for the first time, finding an ideal meeting point of concept and technique. While Roach handles the electronic atmospheres, Logan takes to the grand piano and sets thoughtful notes floating. The piano is at its most forward in “Shadowspeak,” something of a nocturne played out slowly, its resonant notes forming chords in the background. On “Mystic Drift,” the song slows further, a distant dream-element calling out in a widening wash of warm ambient textures. Roach’s work on this track is remarkably soft, a head-soothing blend of tones that completely remove the listener to a very pleasant elsewhere. The title track is similar in structure and equally immersive. Touches of tension slip in at times with short-of-dissonant tones that raise up lightly in the flow, but the listener remains well within the sound for this lush half-hour ride.

These are two superb releases, and their difference in approach makes them that much more interesting. I enjoy the strong vibrancy and velocity of BioSonic and its hard, metallic edges. And I enjoy Second Nature for its slow beauty and the way it works its emotive magic at low volumes. Second Nature is bound to get a lot of looping play as listeners just allow it to fill their space. I had not realized (literally until getting to this point in my review and doing some digging) that Robert Logan formerly recorded as Sense Project—I believe I reviewed his release, The Sublime, back when it was released in 2008, and I have played his work on my podcast. I do not recall being as moved by that album as I am by these, but needless to say, Mr. Logan has my full attention now. These are must-hear albums.

Available from Projekt: BioSonic. Second Nature.

 In A Land of One Color is one of those albums I wish I liked more than I do because much of the work is quite good, but it’s also a little inconsistent. When it manages to pull me in, I really enjoy the ride. “Desire’s Last Plateau,” for example, works with a simple blend of bright, honest guitar picked and slid slowly over hushed pads. Small-kit drums, lightly played, pop a slice of jazzy percussion behind it. “Early Calm,” which follows, also catches me. There’s more slide guitar, long draws of it set against matching chords and a glimmer of wind chimes. But since it’s only 1:11 long, it’s gone before I can fully fall in. This release also has several places where the endings of songs feel a little arbitrary. “Coldlake” starts strong with a sort of dialed-down post-rock feel (and more of those chimes). A cool background textures gurgles quietly to deepen the space and then, short of 90 seconds in, it just goes away. “Stormwatch” also decides to leave the room at an odd spot, but at least it’s been given three and a half minutes to get there. But getting back to the good stuff, “Icelight” is perhaps the best track here. It builds quietly in bright, welcoming tones, then adds the shine of guitar and the warm sound of fretless bass. It’s an effortless flow that feels pleasantly longer than its actual run time. “Elusive Path” owes a slight debt of allegiance to Steven Halpern. The crystalline tones of the electric piano here are immediately recognizable, and I quite like the use of pauses on this piece, and the twirling phrases that spin off around the keys.

In A Land of One Color shows a lot of potential, but never fully engaged my attention. There’s interesting work here in spots, but between the lack of draw and those drop-offs (entirely a personal peeve, mind you), there’s too much on the minus side for me. Give it a listen and see what you think.

Available from CD Baby.

Bill Vencil, his guitar, and some wind come together to create drone-based soundscapes and quiet songs on Atmosphere, his 2015 release as Chords of Orion. The album shows a few different faces, all based in guitar, and Vencil handles the shifts nicely. Things change up enough to keep us listening while never going too far afield. The album opens in a fairly dark space with the solids drones of the title track. The sounds here are gritty and mildly unnerving, piled on each other and distorted. At the end, Vencil smooths it all out and leaves us with a long, high, clean note that fades off and deposits us in the twittering field recordings of “The Birds Are Your Parishioners.” Things get softer here, and that changeover carries nicely through the next couple of tracks. “Silence of the Seas” is classic big-pad ambient, with Vencil easing notes off the guitar and setting them into a rise-and-fade framework. It’s beautiful and calming. “Broken Proverbs and Torn Sentences,” takes us over to Vencil’s acoustic side. The warm, folksy feel of fingerstyle gets augmented with a light, swishing sound and almost unnoticeable accompaniment in the background. Nice texturing, while leaving the focus on the guitar. On “Both Tears and the Sea Are Salty Water,” the sounds get big again. Vencil draws loud wahs from his guitar, hitting points of near-feedback (and then actual feedback) and riding the edge of dissonance. It’s got a kind of slow-motion aggression to it, a strong in-your-face quality as the thickness of the sound increases—and then just drops off to leave you still feeling its potency. There are places on Atmosphere, I am told, where an acoustic guitar was set down in the open air and the wind was allowed to have its way with the strings and the sound. Where and how Vencil has worked this in, I can’t say, which I guess is a good thing—it becomes another element in a very pleasant mix of sounds and we don’t need to let the novelty of the idea get in the way.

I like the way Vencil mixes up his approaches on Atmosphere, and how well he modulates the feel of his pieces. The calm plays off against the harshness, the waving drones play off against the dancing acoustic. The only thing I could probably have done without is the raspy, whispered recitation on “Thou Hast Made Me.” It’s a bit jarring in the midst of the music, and the timbre of the voice doesn’t help. Still, a minor callout on an album I’ve dug into over and over. More great work from Chords of Orion.

Available at Bandcamp.

From its first warm, lush pads to its final touching notes, Altus’ Komorebi is an album bound to find its place alongside all of your top quiet-time and meditation albums. Once again, Mike Carss holds the tonal keys to unlock your innermost thoughts and feelings, and he gives you a full, immersive hour to get in touch with them. A review isn’t really going to do it justice. I can tell you that I distinctly feel something stirring when I’m deep in the middle of “Wander” and”Touch,” and that on any number of listens there have been places where I quite literally stop everything that I’m doing because some sound, some moment within each of these pieces has found its connection and pulled me out of what suddenly seem like far lesser concerns when all that matters right then is to listen. Aptly titled tracks like “Hypnotize” and “Slow Breath” do exactly what is required of them, and all of them together spin a quiet space around you in skeins of quite indescribable beauty. In theory, anyone could take a set of chords, hold them and release them, and let them cross and fade; but it takes a hand like Carss’ to add the almost intangible weight of real emotion to them—because there’s your difference. There’s the thing that we take hold of, and there’s the thing that lets us make an album like Komorebi more ours. We feel it, we find our own meaning in the rise and fall, we decide if those chords are sad or thoughtful or hopeful. This is the effect Komorebi has as it glides past. Warm, deep, with touches of space, and emotion to spare, it’s a release that showcases why Altus is one of the absolute best artists producing ambient right now. Get this, and get deep into it immediately.

Available from Bandcamp.

So there I am, moments after hitting play on Alessio Premoli’s Even Silence Has Gone, and I’m thinking to myself what a great acoustic guitar album this is going to be. On the opening track, “Barefoot in the Morning,” the playing is soulful and honest, the guitar lines so clean. And then like a giant flaming fist from space, this massive symphonic post-rock thing slams into the room and floors me. Hello, Alessio, you have my attention now. On his Bandcamp page, Premoli notes that the 10 songs here blend “…all that I’ve got involved with in the last two /three years (post rock, stoner, ambient, folk…)” and he delivers on that. Sometime, like “Barefoot…”, he mixes them together in cool, often unexpected ways. Then you drop into the ensemble of his acoustic guitar, sweet cello from Giulia Libertini, and gentle flute from Marco Miceli on “Hoarfrost” and you’ve landed in a spot-on early-Windham-Hill vibe.  Take that setup, let it ride for a few minutes, and then lace in out of the clear blue sky, some big, shiny Spanish-style horns from Riccardo Feroce and that would be “Untitled #1.” The first time I listened to it, I literally said, “Cool” out loud when the trumpets dropped in. A favorite. Aggressive solo guitar with a flamenco pedigree is featured on “Painted Desert.” Here Premoli assails his strings with such vehemence that I kept waiting to hear one snap. But it’s compelling in its power. “Old Tjikko” takes us in the other direction, a folk-style piece that plays out patiently and lets the reverb of the guitar hum and fade. It segues neatly into “Another Place,” a beautiful post-rock song with vocals. Premoli folds the members of his ensemble smoothly into the mix, building off the genuine feel of the acoustic and working it up into a larger thing built on nice distorted guitar and a chorus of voices. The solo on this track catches my breath—it’s got fire and feeling to spare.

Even Silence Has Gone covers ten years of Premoli’s music, featuring older tracks and unreleased pieces. Normally I would not review an album of this nature, as I prefer to deal in newer music. But, honestly? My ignorance was bliss in this case. This is an album I quite enjoy. Its misses are few (I could do without the heavy-handed “Shipwrecks in Your Eyes”) and its gentle pleasures are many. Definitely give this a listen.

Available at Bandcamp.

In the many months that Twilight Archive’s Mood Chain has been sitting in my music library waiting for me to get around to reviewing it, I have lost track of how many times a piece from it has come up in shuffle and absolutely hooked me. Kicking off with vibrato Fender Rhodes electric piano tones and smoky trumpet, “Sense Making Stops” (bonus points for the killer title) instantly grabs my attention. It says, “Hi, we’re going to mix jazz and ambient, and it’s going to absolutely infiltrate your soul, so get ready.” Then it laces in chopped vocal snips and a tempo shift, and I’m all in. The core of Twilight Archive is Chris Mancinelli and Tom Vedvik, two guys who, in my opinion, can definitely get away with referring to themselves as “an even hipper Thievery Corporation.” They lay down 10 super-slick tracks pegged with killer bass lines, an ample dose of that give-me-more trumpet, and loads of laid-back cool. And whereas it’s not chill music with jazz painted over it, but rather solid jazz bits with the temperature turned way down, it never feels forced or obvious. I latch onto the Lalo Schifrin-style themes in “Unit Blueprint,” where the muted horn is lifted straight out of a spy flick and the tight keyboard phrasing just glistens. The horns arrive in chorus on “The Divining Rod,” arcing over a patient and consistent walking bass phrase. This comes off like a handful of pure candy to a bass lover like myself. This track oozes cool, and indulges itself in a couple of drops because it knows you’ll stick around. There’s a nice small-combo vibe to this track, and whether the trumpet here is actual or synth (I can’t find who plays what, but I find Vedvik notes himself as a “synthesist” on his site), the bebop flairs that get perfectly spat out here are pretty much all the jazz credentials these guys need.  “Midnight Memento” is dark-edged stroll with the piano leaning heavily on left-hand chords. The trumpet sings beautifully here, shooting off into the night sky. The closer, “Ethereal Alibi,” owes some of its pedigree to 90s downtempo, with its rhythm track washed out just a touch with a light mist of sound. This one is soft and slow, brightened up by horn trills and the occasional sharp, high phrase on piano. 

Mood Chain is a fantastic album, start to finish, and it’s become one of those releases I pick to wind down to in the evening. It’s got its share of cool, and it’s also just a pure pleasure to have playing. The mood is relaxing, the musicianship is first rate, and thanks in part to Vedvik’s background composing for film and TV, you get a shot of narrative sensibility tucked into the mix. There’s a theme song hiding in almost all of these tracks. This is top-tier listening, particularly for folks who already groove on the name-dropped Thievery Corporation or other delicious chill/lounge stalwarts. Cue it up, grab an adult beverage, and enjoy.

Available at CD Baby.

 

Jack Hertz’s 100th release (yes, you read that correctly, and I am several more releases behind in his catalog) is Nataraja. Trippy in spots and fairly unobtrusive, it can be a cool little coast with many ear-catching moments. It has taken me a little while to warm up to it, I still find myself giving much of it a polite shrug. Hertz plays with chime-like tones on several of the tracks here, and they work in varying degrees. I like the way they clatter and bump behind the charming analog lope of “Clipping Memories.” This track features a lot of small touches, electronic swoops and hiccups that flit across your headspace chased by a jingle of bells, all set against a dream-soft wash. I think Hertz hits his stride when he slows everything down. “Ozone Rising” taps my old-school pleasure centers with its star-twinkle tones and spacey pads. Hertz runs his layers deep here, and the sound gets very big for it yet stays quite intimate. It’s a shhh moment in the album. “Gong Circle” moves with liquid ease, pulling long pads and a rich weave of rhythmic elements. I like its gentle energy—it’s meditative but feels dynamic. The slow, rocking sway of “Troubling Questions” is one of the catchiest grooves on the album. Hertz lends it a softly applied Middle Eastern touch with sitar-like tones, a percussive snap like a tabla, and a serpentine cadence. Again, the chimes sneak their way in here as a background element.

I cannot quite tell you what leaves me somewhat iffy about Nataraja. I’ve listened to it a lot, and not begrudgingly so. I pop it on, it’s there sharing my space, and when it’s over my thought is, I guess I could listen to it again. In a catalog as deep as Hertz’s, it doesn’t really stand out, but it certainly deserves at least a curiosity listen. This will shuffle into the mix well, and doesn’t do any harm to Hertz’s reputation as a prolific producer of good electronic music.

Available from Aural Films.

This is what you call a deep dive. Sanctuary is a pair of full-length long-form releases from Steve Brand, who must be setting some kind of record with the quantity and quality of the work he’s turning out.As with most of Brand’s outings, this one blends strong electronic tides with natural, organic elements and breath-based instrumentation. The first part, “Place of Honoring (Inner Temple),” gives off a kind of tribal-ambient vibe, opening in the lower registers and emerging through a swirl of aural fog. These first few steps are tenuous, built with a carefully balanced tension. Brand brings a familiar array of sounds into the mix, the percussive clatters and the dry rattle of shakers, to punctuate the slowly flowing washes. Wonderful attention is paid to the level and placement of all the sounds here, opening a space that is rich, surrounding, and darkly meditative. This gives way to a spacey drift, whispering and reaching, anchored with a strong low end. It may be a minute or two before you fully register the shift in tone; the changeover is effortless. The piece’s third expression brings in flute. I have always enjoyed Brand’s flute work. To me there is a rawness to it, a beautiful edge of simple imperfection that comes off as very human, very organic. Here he loads it with echo, letting the notes crash and entwine into a soaring mosaic. Moving toward the end, Brand steers us into a star-bright vista filled with big, sparkling pads, the far opposite of the crawling, darkened place where we began. So it’s appropriate—and, I would imagined, planned this way—that the second part, “Place of Unconditional Love and Acceptance (Valley)” opens, after a minute of quietly rumbling drone, in those shinier registers. Brand is a storyteller, and this tale gets taken up here. The slowly evolving, broad sounds laid out early in the track will draw inevitable comparisons to Steve Roach, but the patient flow is go engaging, no one’s going to mind. Your head will be too mushy. Plus, as with “Place of Honoring…” it’s just the first face of this journey. It becomes very much its own thing by the 15-minute mark, grabbing a spacemusic feel packed with high notes that almost threaten to be too harsh. The next shift brings back the flutes, and the stretch beginning around the 20-minute mark becomes a dazzling, moving knot formed by the flute and those shining notes. They coexist and play off one another in a way that sets my head spinning—but very pleasantly so. It’s like an aural endorphin rush, with all the feel-good that suggests. The next phase is underscored with a field recording of a stream, and from the moment everything falls away except the sound of water, we’re brought to a remarkably peaceful place. Breathing slows to match the relaxed cadence of well-spaced rise-and-fall pads. This is the kind of stuff that hooked me into drifting ambient in the first place, and it’s expertly done. And because balance matters to Brand, we rise up from there, with the water sounds fading, to be brought back to a more shadowed and primal locale, driven by a moan of wind and the rough call of didgeridoo. The circle closes, and we take a deep breath.

I find Sanctuary to be a stunning album, nicely balanced and perfectly dynamic. The changeovers between ideas are absolutely smooth, making for a well-managed narrative that spools out organically and with nothing to interrupt the flow. If you don’t care for the primal/tribal stuff, the beginning and end may not appeal to you, but you will likely appreciate the way Brand steps off from there (and returns to it) as a means of exploring a truly vast ambient space. And I must again mention Brand’s always-exquisite detail work. From the careful placement of rattle sounds in the mix to the decision to make the nasal inhalation of the didge’s circular-breathing technique audible and integral to the moment, his work demands your full attention and instantly rewards it.

I have given up on trying to keep pace with Steve Brand’s output, but with every release, he just seems to get even better. I could say that Sanctuary is among the best, if not the best, of his releases, but I know I’ll have to weigh it against the stuff I’m behind on. In the meantime, I cannot recommend this release highly enough. This is landmark-quality work from Steve Brand. Get this now.

Available at Bandcamp.

A storm of tiny sounds launched at high velocity in complex patterns form the basis of World Adapter, the second full collaboration between Parallel Worlds (aka Bakis Sirros) and Self Oscillate (aka Ingo Zobel). The duo began with improvisations on modular analog synths, then edited them into the ten finished products presented here. Overall there’s a strong sense of glitch throughout, meted out at differing paces. Even when things slow down, the flickering micro-elements snap by at speed. “Legend Silence,” featuring smoky vocals from frequent Parallel Worlds collaborator India Czajkowska, is a prime example. Her voice floats and coos (and may remind you a bit of Bjork) as Sirros and Zobel launch sonic tidbits into the air. A rich low end gives this track a lot of potency. “Peeled Branches” pulls off the fast-and-slow mix nicely as well. A repeating melodic phrase tucked into the jitter and flow makes for a strong anchor point. In the more uptempo songs, the real pleasure comes in slipping on the headphones and mentally watching these sounds volley across and around your head. “Day 1,” which tonally reminds me of an old Beanfield track, is loaded with tiny effects, clicks and snips at the edge of your hearing, and it’s got a volatile dynamic. “Mental Station” matches its instantly catchy beat with ethereal, science-fiction pads. There’s a nice tempo drop mid-track that the duo effortlessly shift through, coming back up a gear without a bump.

There is a great amount to listen to on World Adapter, and it takes a close listen to catch it all. But even played in the open air, its energy and deft construction are quite attention-grabbing. The melodies that Sirros and Zobel build beneath their frenetic modular expressions are soft and redolent of classic EM. The energy is unavoidably engaging. I worried that the glitchy construction would be a bit of an overload, track after track, but after many willing repeat plays, I just settle in and enjoy the quality of the work. There’s good chemistry here, and it’s a pleasure to delve into.

Available from DiN.