[ Hypnos Forum ]

This is incredibly sad. Gigi is one of the giants of my ambient universe. The first album of his I'd heard was not actually one of his "major" releases (The Spirals of Time, Celestial Geometries, Athlit) but Time Fragments vol. 2. I was instantly captivated, particularly with the second track, "The Last Farewell." I don't think I'd ever been moved in quite that way by ambient music before. The sense of longing was so palpable, it was almost too much.

I quickly became one of those rabid fans of whom Mike spoke. In fact, it was my need to collect all of his Umbra and Penumbra recordings that initially brought me to Hypnos. It's too bad that the Penumbra releases in particular didn't receive more positive attention. There are some fantastic gems there.

I never corresponded with Gigi personally, but it seems like he was a wonderful, generous human being. Certainly his music brought us all a little closer to the stars. May they now welcome him as he so ardently welcomed them.

Happy birthday, Andy! 

Loving Gottwood so far (only about 20 min in as of this typing); cheers for that.

Can't wait for Fractured.

Meg Bowles - her 2011 release, A Quiet Light, is one of the best fusions of space and ambient in years. To release something this excellent after a more than 10 year absence is, IMO, unprecedented.

Great call. Back in the day, it seemed she was always in the shadows of the space music giants (Demby, Stearns, Serrie, etc.), but she's really done something awesome and unique with this release, expertly traversing a very fine line between classic space music and pure ambient.

I've been enthralled by Seren Ffordd's music ever since hearing The Portal's Dreaming on my girlfriend's home theater system (ok, technically, it was her dad's) while playing Dead Space. I'd just splurged on a ton of umbra/penumbra releases and loaded them all up into the CD changer. The Portal's Dreaming came up right when I entered a particularly eerie zero-g section of the game. It all fit together just perfectly. I definitely hope The Martian Chronicles gets Andy some more exposure.

Tau Ceti also merits mention here. He's mostly known as Gigi's collaborator on Celestial Geometries, but he has some great solo releases as well. Some of his EPs are delightfully otherworldly and experimental (Achernar, Albhali, Pulsar, etc.). Achernar, in particular, is quite the trip.

Got my bundle a while back. Fantastic, haunting stuff!

Good to hear you are enjoying the music - 'fantastic' is a brilliant response....

JKN on Relaxed Machinery asked me a question about the album - see my reply at http://relaxedmachinery.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-martian-chronicles-release-on-hypnos?xg_source=activity

the thread includes some comments on a joke I made on another thread .

Very cool. It's always nice to have a peek behind the curtain on awesome projects like this.

I'd actually never been on the Relaxed Machinery forum before. I just have to say: Mad props to jkn for the Tachikoma avatar.

Addendum: the site and label ain't too bad either. 

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All my best wishes for a full and speedy recovery.

'Orcus' is indeed amazing. Even in the realms of dark ambient, it's quite unlike anything I've ever heard.

Awesome vid. Loving the Haze release as well. Lots of tasty darkness there.

Interesting. I loved the CDR release. Wonder how it was edited to get it all on one disc.

Perhaps a new thread is in order...