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Topics - Joe R

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Your scariest ambient track
« on: February 28, 2011, 08:24:14 PM »
Mine would have to be Yoga- Part 1 from Necrophorus- Gathering Composed Thoughts. I'm not positive that's the name of the track, because I haven't heard it in years. Not only is it scary, but it's disgusting. It seems that Peter Andersson taped the sounds of his dog snoring, amplified and warped it and added sound effects, to the point that it sounds like a raving and drooling demon breathing down your neck. Eeewwww! I have to admire his skill in creating such a terrifying sound, but it's so repulsive that after my initial fascination of hearing it two or three times, I never wanted to hear it again. Which is probably just what he intended. Brrrr...

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Andrew Chalk- The Cable House
« on: July 23, 2010, 06:29:00 AM »
I just bought this disc, and I am just blown away by it. It's so much different than the the usual Chalk CD in that the deliberately placed piano notes seem to lend a sense of structure that's missing from his other material. How to describe it... well, extremely minimal and muted piano, wrapped in a fog of treated piano decay, and/or synth. Very somber and introspective, very secretive...  music for hermits.  For whatever reason, the mood of this album reminds me of walking into a dense and unfamiliar forest at dusk  --beautiful, mysterious, but a little forboding too.

I suppose a point of comparison could be the Harold Budd/Eno "The Pearl" disc, but "The Pearl" is uproarious and impulsive when compared to the stillness of "The Cable House".

Anyhow, I'm endlessly impressed, and would like to know where I can get more music of a similar structure and mood. You know, the lo-fi piano, wrapped in a mysterious gauze of haze and fog... does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks for any help!

Incidently, I also just discovered the Talor Deupree/Kenneth Kirschner "Post Piano" discs. More of that awesome piano sound, treated and warped and stretched by Deupree, and surrounded by hiss and static. I love this stuff :)


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Other Ambient (and related) Music / 36- Hypersona
« on: October 16, 2009, 07:10:39 AM »
This is one of the best free ambient downloads you'll ever find. Seriously. Sad, melodic keyboards with elements of glitch/static. A very childlike, intimate recording. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Rapoon- Melancholic Songs Of The Desert
« on: August 02, 2009, 07:46:12 PM »
The samples for this new Rapoon disc sound great. Does anyone have this yet?

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Nunc Stans- Time
« on: July 25, 2009, 05:41:10 AM »
That's the title of Anthony Kirby's excellent new and free download at www.dataobscura.com

These are great, great textured drones, the way only Anthony can do 'em. It's a prelude to his upcoming CD, which ought to be a real doozy if it's anything like this stuff. 8)

So Anthony, when does the new disc come out?

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / New Oophoi Disc
« on: June 06, 2009, 02:02:15 PM »
A new Oophoi dronework will be released Monday on Glacial Movements, a collaboration with an ambient guitarist named Enrico Coniglio. They call themselves AquaDorsa, and the disc is called "Cloudlands". I haven't heard any samples yet, but I'll order it anyway, since most Oophoi discs are a hit with me.

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Konntinent- Degrees, Integers
« on: March 26, 2009, 07:11:46 PM »
Wow, I'm not even sure how to describe this ???... it's strangely beautiful, and it explores some oddly fascinating and slightly disturbing terrain. It's described in a couple of reviews as a combination of ambient and "post-rock", whatever that means. It does have slow rhythms through most of it, via bass and quiet drumming, along with synth, plucked guitar, piano, glitchy/scratchy effects, and a woman's mysterious voice. I'm not yet sure what to make of this, but I think it'll be in my music rotation for quite a while. Moody and ominous, in a gentle way.

I bought this because I enjoyed a free Konntinent download I stumbled across, but  this music is quite different from the download. Is anyone else familiar with this guy?

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Everything and Nothing / Too loud!
« on: February 11, 2009, 03:46:21 PM »
Okay, here's a problem I have never seen discussed anywhere else, but maybe someone here can offer a few insights. Or maybe I'm just nuts.

It seems that CDs are getting progressively louder, especially my ambient discs, and especially through headphones. How can this be? It's gotten to the point that I play my ambient discs on less-than-1 on a scale of ten. And at that level the volume is fine, but then unfortunately it sounds terribly compressed. I recently bought a new receiver to replace my old clunker, but that made no difference. I've finally begun re-burning my favorite CDs/CDRs a half volume to combat this problem, but that gets old, and expensive, and time-consuming after a while.

So what's up? Are musicians recording their music at increasingly higher volumes to compensate for ambient's inherent quietness? Can something be haywire with my disc player itself? Can a volume control be out of whack somewhere? ??? ??? ???

Any advice or info would be appreciated.

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Oval- Dok
« on: September 28, 2008, 11:46:33 AM »
I just received an amazing CD from a German experimental group from the 90's, called Oval.  Don't really know much about them, but I sound-sampled a few of their CDs and decided to take a chance on one called Dok- that one seemed to have a laid-back "foggy" sound that appealed to me. What a pleasant surprise! It's kind of a meandering, ambient, glitchy thing that seems to emanate from some distance away, as though you were hearing it underwater. Wonderfully dreamlike and spacious, I can't really compare it to any glitch album I've ever heard.

There's a few other Oval discs that sound interesting, but  they're also more "solid" and less atmospheric than Dok, and other discs that are definitely more noise-oriented. Does anyone know anything about these guys?

The best thing is, I bought it through Amazon for less than 7 bucks.

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Baker/Borghi- Undercurrents
« on: July 01, 2008, 07:13:32 PM »
I just got this from Matt Borghi's website, and I'm really enjoying this! Anyone else who likes dark ambient will appreciate this as well. A dense guitar fog, with a lonely piano that meanders through like a lost dog. Very haunting and mysterious...

I wonder if Aidan Baker or Matt Borghi have done anything else in this particular vein? I have a few other of Aidan's discs, but they're very different... obviously he doesn't like to repeat himself.

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Free Entia Non download
« on: May 08, 2008, 04:25:47 AM »
For anyone interested, a 37 minute Entia Non mini-album at testtube.monocromatica.com 

Haven't heard it yet, but I assume it's the same sort of spacy synth & samples collage that he does so well. Love that stuff!

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Manitou- All Points North
« on: April 12, 2008, 07:43:47 AM »
Wow, what a great disc this is! Maybe it resonates with me so deeply because I'm familiar with Detroit, or maybe just because it's great music, but this one is hard to put down. It reeks with all the desolation, yearning, and nostalgia of a broken city. Very emotional and forlorn, reminds me a bit of Vidna's Gathering in Frozen Beauty.

No wonder Alan Lockett and Bill Binkleman were raving about it!

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Hypnos Label Releases / CD release: Austere - Solyaris
« on: February 05, 2008, 04:52:15 PM »
Hey, the new Austere disc, Solyaris is now up for sale at Ye Olde Hypnos Store. 8)

I think I'll celebrate by playing their black masterpiece, Monodia.

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / Bill Evans
« on: January 13, 2008, 08:15:21 PM »
I've recently fallen in love with several "minimal" jazz albums that consist of a trio of piano, bass, and percussion. For some reason this stuff really hits the spot for me. Although I'm unfamiliar with the music of Bill Evans, I know that he played a lot of music in this very same format. So can anyone suggest a good starting point in the Bill Evans discography?

I prefer laid back jazz, with lots of spaces, and not too much melodic structure.

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Everything and Nothing / Best Friend
« on: December 16, 2007, 06:06:27 AM »
My best friend killed himself yesterday evening. He had been having marital problems, and had recently begun divorce proceedings. He leaves behind his wife and 2 children.

Right now we're feeling pretty rotten. It seems like a horrible nightmare that'll pass, but of course it won't. It's so unreal...

If you can send your prayers and positive energy this way for him, his family, and his friends, it would be greatly appreciated.

I always hear people say that God will never give you a burden greater than you can bear, but maybe that's not true. It certainly wasn't for him.

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Other Ambient (and related) Music / The Circular Ruins- Falling Into the Sky
« on: December 07, 2007, 08:48:34 AM »
Damn, this is an impressive disc! A suspension of weightless drones, no beats and no rhythm, this is easily the most atmospheric Circular Ruins to date -and as spacious as the photo that graces the CD cover. The prevailing mood here seems to be one of wistfulness and solitude, this is great music for a cloudy winter day.
A highlight among the highlights for me is Paracelsus 3, where you seem to be suspended in a stratospheric windstorm, as vaporous snatches of conversation drift past. The sound-effects in this track are incredible -some of these sounds seem to come from outside the headphones, 6 or 7 feet away. At first I was turning my head to see what the noise was. Amazing!
Of course, this is certainly among the very best discs I've heard this year, and my favorite Circular Ruins disc yet. Highly recommended.

(...I like to think that the cover photo is of Lake Huron, but I don't know that it is.)

Haven't had much time to hear the Winterhouse disc yet, but what I've heard sounds fine... but certainly more Earthbound than the Circular Ruins disc.

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