Currently listening, part 1

[cvac]

Steve Roach - Atmospheric Conditions, New Life Dreaming, Body Electric w/Vir Unis FLAC

All great albums of course. Picked up during the Bandcamp sale, pretty much blew my entire music budget for a little while on a lot of Steve Roach albums. Atmospheric Conditions is my favorite of the three. New Life Dreaming is very pretty and I think it fits well as a successor album to Dreamtime Return. Body Electric borders on ambient techno, maybe quite as good as the amazing Blood Machine w/Vir Unis but still great.

Michael Hoenig - Departure from the Northern Wasteland - Google Play Stream

Still getting comfortable with the idea of streaming but it's great for checking out older titles I know nothing about. This is a really good album of sequencer electronics, adding to the "to buy list".

Caul - Crucible FLAC

Darker ambient. I still prefer Caul's earlier work to the later stuff I've heard and this one is my personal favorite.
The FLAC download from his Bandcamp page has gaps between the tracks for some reason, so you'll want to try burning it to CD maybe. Foobar has a "fake gapless playback" plugin that slightly fades tracks into each other, that seems to help. I need to pull out my 3xCD set of "Golden Epiphany" soon.

Nathan Youngblood - Asunder CD

Took a chance on this from the Steve Roach section of sale CDs. This is a very, very good album if you like darker ambient with thick washes of drone. Apparently the artist never made another one, which is too bad.

Jeff Pearce - With Evening Above, Solitude: December FLAC

These are just beautiful, not much else to stay.

Brian Eno/Jon Hassell - Fourth World FLAC

The Glitterbeat reissue of this on vinyl is really nice, came with a CD also, which I ripped to FLAC. Couldn't be bothered to play the record last night, so I listened to it digitally. Every time I play this I'm struck by how weird it is. Great album though.

Alio Die - Password for Entheogenic Experience FLAC

One long track, slowing evolving, great.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Beautiful, graceful music from APK.......this cd had me from the first gentle sounds on track 1 and continued until the last piece that left me with a quiet smile.

Within this music laid in a subtle way are obscured rhythmic elements that are more suggestions that work to enhance the deep melodic structure than any marked time which peaked my interest on top of the beautiful timbres that had warmed my emotion.

The music put me in a "place" that the best of ambient music can and one that I will return to often! 

Full Circle  http://dataobscura.bandcamp.com/track/full-circle 

[cvac]

^I like Full Circle too, need to listen to more to fully sink in.

[Seren]

Steve Roach - Atmospheric Conditions, New Life Dreaming, Body Electric w/Vir Unis FLAC

All great albums of course. Picked up during the Bandcamp sale, pretty much blew my entire music budget for a little while on a lot of Steve Roach albums. Atmospheric Conditions is my favorite of the three. New Life Dreaming is very pretty and I think it fits well as a successor album to Dreamtime Return. Body Electric borders on ambient techno, maybe quite as good as the amazing Blood Machine w/Vir Unis but still great.

Michael Hoenig - Departure from the Northern Wasteland - Google Play Stream

Still getting comfortable with the idea of streaming but it's great for checking out older titles I know nothing about. This is a really good album of sequencer electronics, adding to the "to buy list".

I'm doing the same with the bandcamp offer....
Atmospheric Conditions is great, it is in one of the areas of Steve's work not explored as much in his recent releases - a sort of foggy, cavernous organic ambience.
Body Electric was the album before Blood Machine - which was followed by Core. You may also like Light Fantastic which preceded them all and merges brighter tones of ambience with the developing polyrhythms.
   I find Blood Machine has an amazing capacity to hold both stillness and rush....

Departures is an excellent album from when electronic music was getting going.

[cvac]

Steve Roach - Atmospheric Conditions, New Life Dreaming, Body Electric w/Vir Unis FLAC

All great albums of course. Picked up during the Bandcamp sale, pretty much blew my entire music budget for a little while on a lot of Steve Roach albums. Atmospheric Conditions is my favorite of the three. New Life Dreaming is very pretty and I think it fits well as a successor album to Dreamtime Return. Body Electric borders on ambient techno, maybe quite as good as the amazing Blood Machine w/Vir Unis but still great.

Michael Hoenig - Departure from the Northern Wasteland - Google Play Stream

Still getting comfortable with the idea of streaming but it's great for checking out older titles I know nothing about. This is a really good album of sequencer electronics, adding to the "to buy list".

I'm doing the same with the bandcamp offer....
Atmospheric Conditions is great, it is in one of the areas of Steve's work not explored as much in his recent releases - a sort of foggy, cavernous organic ambience.
Body Electric was the album before Blood Machine - which was followed by Core. You may also like Light Fantastic which preceded them all and merges brighter tones of ambience with the developing polyrhythms.
   I find Blood Machine has an amazing capacity to hold both stillness and rush....

Departures is an excellent album from when electronic music was getting going.

I only have a couple of Steve's recent releases, still have listened to them yet. Lots of music to digest. I don't think I fully appreciated his stuff until very recently. I do have Core, which I like a lot, but don't have Light Fantastic. That one is the on the ever-growing wantlist. Oddly enough, I think that is one of the albums that's not available through Bandcamp for some reason.

[Seren]

oho! - you may also like the more deep space music such as 'The Magnificent Void' and should investigate his albums with Vidna Obmana - such as 'well of Souls', 'Cavern of Sirens', 'Live Archive' and 'Ascension of Shadows'

[cvac]

oho! - you may also like the more deep space music such as 'The Magnificent Void' and should investigate his albums with Vidna Obmana - such as 'well of Souls', 'Cavern of Sirens', 'Live Archive' and 'Ascension of Shadows'

TMV is the album that got me into Steve Roach. After that it was the Mystic Chords 4xCD box. I don't have any of the VO collaboration albums but I do enjoy some of VO's solo work.

[Seren]

I'd not had any music for about 18 year and was given a CD - once I worked out what I was I was looking to see what sort of music was around and came across TMV and On This Planet in a hippy shop - great day that was....

[Castleview]

The Verve - A Storm In Heaven

Not ambient but I love it.

A big favorite of mine. Too bad they never made another album quite like it.

This album has a somewhat similar vibe:

http://bandcamp.sianspheric.com/album/somnium

They also never made one as consistent either. I love the style they had on A Northern Soul but there's some tracks that drag it down a bit. I actually don't mind Urban Hymns as a pop album but it's too long for its own good.

Thanks for that recommendation.

Also, you should check out Vidna Obmana's collaborations with Steve Roach if you haven't already. You really can't go wrong with any of them. Well Of Souls is a good place to start. The textures are amazing.

[cvac]

The Verve - A Storm In Heaven

Not ambient but I love it.

A big favorite of mine. Too bad they never made another album quite like it.

This album has a somewhat similar vibe:

http://bandcamp.sianspheric.com/album/somnium

They also never made one as consistent either. I love the style they had on A Northern Soul but there's some tracks that drag it down a bit. I actually don't mind Urban Hymns as a pop album but it's too long for its own good.

Thanks for that recommendation.

Also, you should check out Vidna Obmana's collaborations with Steve Roach if you haven't already. You really can't go wrong with any of them. Well Of Souls is a good place to start. The textures are amazing.

Agree about consistency. I like A Northern Soul but not too fond of Urban Hymns. The self-titled EP and No Come Down are very nice. Thanks for the Well of Souls rec. Will look into it.

[thirdsystem]

Oh Yes , Hoenig- Departure From the Northern Wasteland . Absolute classic EM masterpiece, on a similar level of importance for me as Ashra - New Age of Earth and Tangerine Dream - Rubycon (and several other Tang releases it has to be said). Will stick it on today. Looking forward to it already.

So far today;
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
David Sylvian - Brilliant Trees
And this weirdness ;



Amorphous Androgynous - Alice in Ultraland. 

Will also play some ELP and The Nice today in tribute to the keyboard maestro Mr Emmerson  :( :(

[cvac]

Circular Ruins - A Treatise on Navigation - FLAC
Nunc Stans - Stanzas From a Museum of Dreams - FLAC

Two EP length releases from DataObscura, both very good, very nice price. Also been playing "Full Circle" again, great album. Need to dive further into the label's catalog when I can.

Asmus Tietchens - In Die Nacht - LP

Another Bureau B reissue of a Sky Records LP. At this point the "electropop" stylings are starting to get a bit weird and even quirky and sinister at times. Hadn't pulled this one out in some time and forgot how good it was.

Gary Burton - Easy as Pie - LP

Had this ECM LP for awhile, thing I only listened to it once and decided I didn't like it very much. Played it again recently and it has grown on me. Still not my favorite ECM LP of the ones I have. I think side 2 is the stronger half of the album.

Erik Wollo - Nocturnes EP - FLAC

Very pretty, I can't get into everything Wollo does but I like this a lot. Only complaint is that it's too short.

Erik Wollo - Gateway - FLAC

This is pretty much like a mellow, instrumental prog-rock album, which is fine with me. Very nice.

Erik Wollo - Emotional Landscapes - Google Play Stream

Probably my favorite of the Wollo stuff I've heard so far, though I still have a lot of his catalog to investigate.

Eno/Budd - The Pearl - FLAC

Gorgeous, never gets old.

[APK]

Circular Ruins - A Treatise on Navigation - FLAC
Nunc Stans - Stanzas From a Museum of Dreams - FLAC

Two EP length releases from DataObscura, both very good, very nice price. Also been playing "Full Circle" again, great album. Need to dive further into the label's catalog when I can.

Many thanks cvac !

[APK]

Beautiful, graceful music from APK.......this cd had me from the first gentle sounds on track 1 and continued until the last piece that left me with a quiet smile.

Within this music laid in a subtle way are obscured rhythmic elements that are more suggestions that work to enhance the deep melodic structure than any marked time which peaked my interest on top of the beautiful timbres that had warmed my emotion.

The music put me in a "place" that the best of ambient music can and one that I will return to often! 

Full Circle  http://dataobscura.bandcamp.com/track/full-circle

Appreciate your comments very much, Julio.
Thanks !

[cvac]

Circular Ruins - A Treatise on Navigation - FLAC
Nunc Stans - Stanzas From a Museum of Dreams - FLAC

Two EP length releases from DataObscura, both very good, very nice price. Also been playing "Full Circle" again, great album. Need to dive further into the label's catalog when I can.

Many thanks cvac !

I honestly can't believe I was only the second person to get these. I wonder if people are not seeing them because they have to click on the tab at the top? I don't know, just a thought.

[APK]

I had only moved them to Bandcamp fairly recently. They were on the DataObscura home site before that. A lot of people would already have them from there, I suspect. Thanks for mentioning it, cvac. They are neat little collection of music, and I will be adding some more soon -- takes time to get them ready for Bandcamp.

[Seren]

Steve Roach
Future Flows, Etheric Imprints, Immersion Vortex Zone.

I really like Future Flows.

I burn all my downloads to CDr and have to adapt Steve's download artwork for jewel cases (slim line or normal for the double albums) so I have the information - track titles and times - that I like to see when playing a disc....

[chris23]

Nacht Plank - Alien
Relatively simple. And relatively strange. As thirdsystem noted elsewhere: This doesn't follow in the footsteps of Echo Ark, but it is a wonderful album for other reasons. These are the songs a robot might hum to itself as it explores a new planet.

https://carpesonum.bandcamp.com/album/alien

[cvac]

Joey Beltram - Aonox

One of the most influential techno producers around, but this is nothing like his dancefloor tracks. It's an ambient techno album with the beats slowed way down and a bit sparser than usual. Has a somewhat creepy vibe, good early 90s sound.

Gas - Nah Und Fern

Played discs 3 and 4 from the box recently. When this project was still active, I was somewhat lukewarm on it. Over time these recordings have grown on me immensely. Lots of copycats came in the wake of this of course, though they're imagining a greater dub influence than what is actually on here.

Zoviet France - Shouting at the Ground

Maybe not my favorite ZF album but it's a good one. Classic stuff. These old recordings are way overdue for reissue. Can't remember what I paid for this one a few years back but I don't think it was cheap.

Ultramarine - Every Man and Woman is a Star

Classic "chillout" ambient techno. A bit dated perhaps, but still holds up quite well.

Steve Roach/Elmar Schulte - Solitaire - Ritual Ground

Still going through my SR purchases from the sale. This is a good one. Maybe not the best SR related tribal ambient album I've heard but a very good one.

Robert Scott Thompson - To the Silent Shore

Really nice mid-90s ambient album, quite a lot of a variety, not really familiar with RST's massive catalog. Sampling some of his stuff on Bandcamp, he seems to have done a lot of varied styles.

James Johnson & Robert Scott Thompson - Forgotten Places

I liked this one a lot, the piano work on it is very pretty.

Chaos as Shelter - In the Shelter of Chaos


Hadn't played this in a while, definitely a lot noisier and experimental than I'd remembered. Interesting album, but other than the collaboration with Ruhr Hunter (excellent by the way) I don't have anything else by this artist.

Biosphere - Substrata

Another one I've not listened to in a very long time, still like it a lot and rate it highly.

[chris23]

Beautumn - Bordeaux
New release on Infraction. I like this a lot more than the previous Beautumn album. This has a minimal, isolationist feel, complete with cold, windswept sonic landscapes. 
https://infraction.bandcamp.com/album/bordeaux