Hammock - Complete

Nevertheless

You Get So Far Away

Requiem for Johan

Without Which Nothing

In Distance Pavilion

Through Nameless Air

Breath Inside Your Breath

Traces Disappear

hi, is this your cat?

slow, warm

Mysterious echoes drift through cinematic shadows by instagram.com/cremesongs

listen now: https://go.ambiqo.nl/c-eeeeeee

eeeeeee (speed up)

saddenex & andipper - bygone

🔗 Listen & support:
Spotify · Bandcamp · YouTube · more → linktr.ee/amb1Matt3r

🎧 Music for:
sleep · deep focus · meditation · inner drift · slow time · space dreaming

📎 Tags:
#ambient #drone #granular #spacemusic #sleepmusic #darkambient #soundscape

Fragments of Eternity pt.V.

California-based r beny appeared on my radar late last year, with his beautifully crafted opus fashioned from modular and hardware synthesizers entitled cascade symmetry. Kicking of 2018, now on Dauw label from Ghent (Belgium), this mysterious composer returns with a cassette (and digital) album, titled saudade, which is now available for pre-order. The sparkling synth bits are back, shimmering in a sunlight of the San Jose beaches, bathed in light winds of tape hiss and lo-fi textural treatments. “Saudade” is a Portuguese word, referencing to a melancholic state of mind, and its loose translation perfectly captures the mood of longing for someone with a repressed knowledge that they may never return. The opening track, “fernwood”, which we are proud to premiere for you today, is a beautiful and fragile prelude to an emotional journey.

Pre-order

TRACK PREMIERE : r beny - fernwood

Stream / Download: https://smarturl.it/elskavon-nerves

Nerves / Familiarity is the first official start to Elskavon’s next album era, and it’s a representation not only of composer Chris Bartels’ sound over the years, but also a metaphorical look inside his mind. That is, one of contrast.

With Elskavon’s sound, there’s always been a contrast, and marriage, of grandeur and intimacy. Nerves / Familiarity is no exception.

While it starts out quiet, the listener can immediately feel the enormity of Nerves. The sustained sound is that of Bartels slowly drawing a string of yarn across his old spinet piano’s strings. Only a minute and half in, the sound is thick and full, layered with falsetto vocals fed through modular synthesizers. It hasn’t taken long to be engulfed in the grandeur. 

However, as quickly as it arrives, there’s a departure. An intimate and rhythmic cassette texture, signaled by a slow tonic modulation, foreshadows a look at the second track - the contrast.

Familiarity begins with a bed of introspective notes and textures - mostly that of high piano notes and chopped up Rhodes improvisations. There’s a certain closeness with this sound, and a contrast to the large reverb-soaked fabric that leads Nerves. Then halfway through the song, there is a short build - an encore, if you will, to the grandeur of the first track.

Much like these songs and past Elskavon albums, there is a journey of contrasts with every creative turn for Bartels, finding himself deep in a whirlwind of excitement and fear, anticipation and anxiety, inspiration and frustration. And while being fully aware of the negative sides of that whirlwind, there’s an indescribable beauty and hope in the choice to keep writing, to keep moving. And to not simply run from the negatives, but to allow them to inspire, to motivate.

A creative journey should never be easy or comfortable. If it is, the other side will most certainly be lacking in the beauty and depth it so desires.

With this next album era, Bartels is choosing to embrace the contrast.

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Stream/Buy

Familiarity

I want to die, but I’ve got chores to do

You Get So Far Away

Hammock

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