This was the first song I made in this style and it eventually became the start of my Ämpers@nd project (although I didn't know it at the time). It almost was like it wrote itself and wanted to come out (of me). I like the sound of the cello's and the (for lack of a better word) 'hypnotic' quality and hunting atmosphere.

Slowly Getting Heavier (Faltering Eyelids)

A bit lame but this one is exactly the same as the "Faltering Eyelids" version with the exception of the ending. This one will only be on Soundcloud (for now).

Slowly Getting Heavier (Stay Awake Version)

Not the second song I made for my Ämpers@nd project but I found it fitting as a second song on the EP because of the build up and tension. It has a kind of hunting feeling to it and some finallity (or something). It's hard to put into words. Just like "Slowly Getting Heavier" this one seemed to compose itself and just poured out of me. I think the title says it all and captures the feeling it tries to convey.

Frozen Dissolution (Trapped Under Ice)

The second production I made as Ämpers@nd. Using an excerpt of Ramin Djawadi's song "Winterfell" from the Game of Thrones Season 2 Soundtrack I made this droning downtempo ambient intermezzo. I just love the soundtrack (and books and particularly the first seasons of the series) and especially this song (House Stark's Winterfell!). So I took my favourite part of the song and made an intermezzo I thought fit in the beginning of this project that gradually came to be. The title speaks more or less for itself. This one will only be on Soundcloud (for now).

Nuclear Winter Is Coming (Drones Over Winterfell)

The last track of the EP. Just chill. The most relaxing one I made (pretty fast and naturally by the way) in between the process of making the other tracks. I think this is a nice finale after such a heavy trip through my mind, thoughts and emotions (if you listened to everything in the order of the EP).

Floating Mind

This is perhaps my favourite track. This one makes me feel like I am not yet awake and still lingering in a dream about a life (my life?) I never lived. It has some nostalgic quality to it and sounds dreamy. I would like to make a video for this one. So maybe someday this one can be heard ánd seen. To me it has a beautiful sadness and it resonates with my inner self. It also makes me feel restless and I want to wake up. At the very end you can hear my wife (actual recording of my wife's voice) saying "Wake up".

Hypnopompia (Wake Up)

The last song I made and I thought it fits this Ämpers@nd project. It's pretty 'heavy' and gloomy and bears a lot of tension (just like "Frozen Dissolution"). Because it has a feeling of melancholy and the gloomy atmosphere I didn't want this to be the last track on the EP. I made this one farely quickly. To be honest I think it's just a bit to long and repetitive. On the other hand it draws you in and takes its time to develop a nice atmosphere. When I listen to it now it almost sounds like a background soundscape for a doommetal track (except for the high tingling sounds).

Dreamy Meditations

This one is made right after I tried a new method to break my ‘creative blockage’. I used numerology to find instruments in my DAW. The creative flow that came from the sounds of these instruments resulted in this piece.

Spontaneity

This is a different version of a song I did not release (yet). It’s a rendition of a song which contained me playing guitar. In the initial version I tried to play the singing of the now extinct Moho Bracatus better known as Kauai O'o on an acoustic guitar. I thought that version was okay but I wanted to do something more with it. So I added classical instruments and sounds. I still wasn’t content about it and decided to remove the guitar part and made it into a more tragic sounding slow ambient piece.

Moho Braccatus Contemplating

This is a rendition of a song I have not released (yet). I first wanted to name this piece “Search For Inner Light (Angels Singing Humanity's Dirge)” but that sounded too heavy and fatalistic. The piece consists mainly of a droning bass and voices so I made an anagram that fitted the piece; Void Encore (made of the words ‘voice’ and ‘drone’).

Search For Inner Light (Void Encore)

This one is made after I had some EMDR sessions and after attending a performance of Massive Attack in Tilburg last June. Both ‘inspired’ me to make this one. I’m still practicing with making beats. One of the reasons I started making ambient is because I’m not very good in making beats and a lot of ambient is without a beat. It takes a lot of effort to make a song that doesn’t sound muddy when I’m trying to use a beat. It doesn’t exactly sound the way I wanted and it still sounds a bit muddy but I’m still sharing this one on Soundcloud. So there you have it; a confession why I’m making ambient right now :p

Cope (Get Over It)

This song is a kind of mix of my previous songs (especially “Slowly Getting Heavier”, “Dreamy Meditations” and “Floating Mind”) and seems to come from the same dreamy subconscious place as where my favorite song “Hypnopompia (Wake Up)” comes from. It has the same dreamy quality to it but has a less melancholic sound although it still does not sound all to happy. It starts with a (distorted and reverbed) cello that almost sounds like a siren. This sound keeps on playing almost throughout the whole song. It sounds alarming but at the same time it has some kind of reassuring quality to it. Like a beacon; something to hold on to. After 2 minutes another (in my opinion cool) sound comes in and blends nicely with the rest of the surrounding sounds. This sound makes it sound more ‘spacy’. You can also hear a distant choir singing. After a while some ‘tingling’ and soothing sounds can be heard and towards the end you are eventually drifting into a relaxing dream state leaving your worries behind. All in all it’s a little dark but relaxing song with a tinge of hope. A light at the end of the tunnel.

Will I Still Be Here When I Open My Eyes

I was trying to make something that would fit with the rest of the style of my songs. This didn’t go as planned. So I decided to experiment a bit with making sound samples. I created sounds with some of my VST plugins and made them into samples. With the sounds I really liked I wanted to make something I haven’t done before. As I’ve said before I’m not particularly good with kicks and making beats but I wanted to give it another try. The last couple of years I am listening to artists that (apparently) make dubtechno. So I wanted to try and make something in that style without losing to much of my own ‘style’. It ended up not so much as a dubtechno song perse but I’m still very happy with this song. So here it is. The title is an anagram (I love playing with language) and is derived from the word “acetylcholine” (ACh). Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter which is involved in the regulation of REM sleep. Sleeping and dreaming are subjects that fascinate me and I refer to these subjects frequently in my song titles. I hope you enjoy this one!

Hectically Eon

A simple and chill sounding soundscape with bird sounds from both Greece and the Netherlands. The sounds of the birds from Greece are recorded in Meteora while walking up a path in the forest to one of the monasteries in Meteora. We stayed in a nearby village called Kastraki. The place where we slept is called Archontiko Mesohori and is surrounded by huge boulders and rock formations. We had a stunning view from our room, the balcony and the garden downside. The bird sounds from the Netherlands were recorded in a park by Castle Rosendael nearby our house in Arnhem. I find both recordings very peaceful and calming so I used them as the ‘centerpiece’ of this (to my taste) relaxing soundscape.

Monasteries In The Sky

This is the accompanying (and more electronic) successor of the first “False Awakening”. I see it as the ‘start’ of a new dream after the feeling of being awake after a false awakening. For this one I’ve used sounds from the Hainbach Spitfire Audio package “Landfill Totems”. This song makes me feel like something big, exciting and unexpecting is about to happen. I find this a fitting ending of where we left “False Awakening Part I”. While in part 1 you are not really sure if you’re waking up or still dreaming, in this second part it becomes clear that you are not awake but instead are beginning with a journey where you can be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do. To me this song has a very optimistic feel and makes me wonder about all the things and possibilities still to come in the (near) future. I hope this also comes to mind when you are listening.

False Awakening Part II (Entering A Lucid Dream)

This ominous sounding title and the song itself came to me the day after the meeting between (president) Trump and (president) Zelensky (and of course vice-president Vance) in the Oval Office. This particular meeting left me dumbfounded and baffled and I didn’t really know what to do with my thoughts and feelings so I made this song. To hear someone mention WWIII out loud left me with a lot of thoughts and at the same time gave me the idea for this song. So thank you for the inspiration. First I wanted to call this song ‘The Awful Office’ (it was a ‘regrettable meeting’ to say the least) but that was to harsh and didn’t cover the feeling I had and wanted to express with this song. The title speaks for itself I guess. The songs subtitle is ‘Hemimetabolism’ which means incomplete or partial metamorphosis. Hemimetabolism is describes the mode of development of certain insects. During this phenomenon the offspring (nymphs) of these insects resemble the adults but still have to develop to their adult form (missing their wings and reproductive organs for example). I thought this phenomenon was a nice touch to the development of this song and maybe even the world in general (except for the part about the wings and reproductive organs :p). The world is run by ‘grown ups’ considered as adults (and hopefully) wise people but the world is not run by wise people. It’s still ego’s and money that rule the world. Just look at all the conflicts around the globe right now (without naming countries or people; just read or look at the news). I think that we, the human race, are still in some sort of developmental stage to something that we cannot comprehend at this moment. Hopefully we’ll develop into something better. Song wise the meaning of hemimetabolism is as follows; the ending resembles the ominous beginning and midpart (more or less the same chords and progression) but the song changes into a more hopeful (albeit still melancholic) sound after a short silence. After listening to the ending for a while I noticed it sounded a bit like ‘October Swimmer’ by JJ72 (remember them?). This wasn’t intentional. I think I'll use this song as a closing song on my next EP or album. Anyway, here it is.

Interbellums End II (Hemimetabolism)

This one is more like (a lot of) my previous works. It is pretty long, slow and has a heavy and dark quality to it. I like artists like Abul Mogard, Alessandro Cortini and Secret Pyramid because they have made albums which contain long, slow progressing and heavy sounding songs. I like it when artists make songs that create a certain tension and give of a hunting feeling without using to much instrumentation. These kind of songs drive and thrive on the feelings that they evoke and therefore leave a lot to the imagination of the listener. When I was working on this song it did just that. There isn’t a lot happening but the sounds and the long and slow progression of the chords give of a certain heavy and dark feeling that speaks to me. The title came to me weeks (maybe months) before I even started working on this song. I have different thoughts about the title but I like to leave it to the reader and/or listener. The title can mean whatever it means and I leave that up to you.

They Are Still Here And We Have Never Left

A combination of different simple melodies (and kind of an organized chaos) turned into a short and slow song. This one is also made with the Vital VST plugin and the Dexed VST plugin. Because of the (in my ears) organized chaotic character of it all I came up with the title. It is also a reference to the micro, meso- and macro levels of (among others) social, economic and power/authority constructs we as a human species conjured up and implemented to make and control societies (and therefore people) all around the world. 

The Beautiful Chaos We Live In

This is an ethereal rendition of The Beautiful Chaos We Live In to immerse yourself in. It may seem like a cheap way to produce more songs but this version speaks more to me than the original version. I like slow undulating melodies and with this version I do exactly what I like in the works of others who make slow and chill (almost meditative) songs. I have done a similar thing on my first album. I like what Tomasz Bednarczyk produces and he also uses recurring themes (or perhaps even the same song) and slows it down to make it sound ethereal and immerse the listener with his (slow/slower) songs so I thought, “why not?". I really like how this one turned out.

The Slow Unravelment Of The Beautiful Chaos We Live In

This is by far the darkest, heaviest and most ‘grainy’ song I have made and it’s best enjoyed with a nice warm cup of extremely dark and muddy water that contains some enriched uranium :p It’s a dark sounding song with a nice little melody. I have used some sounds from a Hainbach VST package (Landfill Totems) and pushed them to their boundaries with some heavy distortion. This song doesn’t fit with any of the other songs I have made under my moniker Ämpers@nd but I really enjoyed making this one so I decided to put it on Soundcloud. I’m thinking about creating a different account for this kind of heavy creations I sometimes like to produce. If I have to put a label on the style of this song I guess it would be something like industrial/techno/dark ambient. I couldn’t resist to put some spoken samples in this one. I find numerology intriguing so I’ve put some numbers in this song. It’s (very) loosely based on songs put out by Boards of Canada. BoC is known for using particular numbers in their songs and I simply love BoC so why wouldn’t I follow their example. I consider this one as the dark sibling of another song I made; “Hectically Eon” from my first album ‘42’. I’m curious how this one will be received.

Grainy Day (23133833)

While scrolling through some files I stumbled upon some samples I once made. Some of them felt like something I could use for songs with hiphop vibes. Hiphop is not something I would normally make but I think this little experiment turned out pretty well. Well enough anyway. I especially like the dark ominous sounds that fade in and out.  For this song I have used a VST from GAIKA (War Island) by Labs (by Spitfire Audio). I really enjoy playing around with some of their VST’s and would recommend them to anyone who wants good sounding VST’s on the cheap. I have no idea where the title came from (to be honest) but one day it just popped up in my head. So nothing special about that but I think it fits the songs atmosphere. The picture is a photo I took a while ago. It is a stairs leading up to a bridge over the river Rhine which is nearby our house. 

Demolished In Silence

Before I made “Demolished In Silence” I was already working on something ‘trap-ish’/hiphop oriented. It started with some sounds from Hainbach’s VST (from Labs by Spitfire Audio.. again..). The sounds went through some grainy and delay/reverb effects (like Camel Crusher and one of my favorites; Valhalla Supermassive). I didn’t use ‘the classic’ 808 as kick but I did use is for the hihat and clap. That’s what gives it (in my opinion) an old-school feel. Because of the Hainbach sounds it is more experimental and not a typical hiphop/’trap-ish’ song. But I’m not that familiar and/or deep into the genre so I just let listeners be the judge of that. 

Neglect & Forget

The last two songs I put on Soundcloud are dark and heavy. While I was working on those two I was also working on this one. It is quite the opposite and it’s just a short relaxing and pretty uplifting song. It is hard to come up with titles for songs that are not melancholic, dark or heavy.. I tried my best. Maybe it's a bit too much but okay.  I’m still working on my beat making but this one turned out to be just fine. It all started with a sound I have found in Reaktor (Mikro Prism to be precise) and I just had to do something it. So after some tinkering I found a good use for this sound. I combined it with another VST (Carbon 2) and from there it went pretty fast. Most of the sounds come from the Mikro Prism VST. It’s a fun VST to play around with. One of my all-time favorite VST’s (Hainbach package from Labs by Spitfire Audio) complemented it all. While I was at it I also used another sound from Labs for the voices at the end. I combined those voices with (yet) another package by Labs (Yair Elazar Glotman’s “Speculative Memories”). All in all it was another great experience with all these VST’s and will be working with them in the (near) future. The beat is made entirely with the ‘classic’ 808 sound. Albeit a bit enhanced with some Camel Crusher.

Cheer For Sanguinity

There is perhaps more to tell about the title than the song itself. While making this one I found a sound that’s called ‘Light Bulb’ (by Mikro Prism which I use with Reaktor). At first it was a totally different song (and I will work on this initial idea later on I think) and found a nice melody. I went with this melody and created this. Anyway, I was thinking about a title and found out about a so called incandescent light bulb that is recognized as the oldest known operating light bulb. According to Wikipedia “[i]t was first illuminated in 1901, and has only been turned off a few brief times since. It is located at 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California, and is open to public viewing.” So that was interesting. First I wanted to make an anagram with the word ‘light bulb’ (with disappointing results) followed by an attempt to find an anagram for ‘centennial bulb’ (because these two words combined.. you know.. it just sounds a bit weird to me). I couldn’t find a nice anagram for this one either. So I ended up with this title. The picture I took during one of my flights and it just fitted the title. The distorted sound also comes from a setting from MikroPrism and it is called ‘Church Glass”. With some nice distortion of CamelCrusher it almost sounds like a guitar. I love playing guitar and like to make sounds in my DAW sound like a distorted guitar. 

Centennial Light

I tried some different beats and offbeat claps/snares/hihats in this one to make it a bit more interesting and less straightforward. The sidechain melody part seems like a total Bicep rip off but that was unintentional. I just liked the way it sounded and during the making I didn’t really notice it. I’ve used the Monomy synth plugin for this song. It’s a very nice plugin with great sounds. As for the last songs I made I again used some Hainbach “Landfill Totems” sounds by Spitfire Audio. I also used Carbon 2 with Reaktor and some strings and trumpets from Labs by Spitfire Audio. I simply can’t get away from all the nice and good sounding options Spitfire Audio offers. Off course I also had to use my one of my favourites effects; Camel Crusher and ValhallaSupermassive. All in all I liked this one enough to put it on Soundcloud. The picture is some weird cloud formation we saw from out of our bedroom and I took some photo’s of it. With some simple filters it almost looks as something out of this world.

Aged Notions

I found a sound that sounded familiar because it sounds like something I heard a couple of times in (short) video’s on social media platforms. I thought “what the heck” and in a ‘weak moment’ I decided to just jump the bandwagon. It’s a nice ominous sounding sound but at the same time mysterious and almost reassuring. I made a simple melody and put some synths and bass underneath. This sound is called “AphexTone” and comes from Carbon 2 (Reaktor library). As usual I’ve used a Spitfire Audio soundpackage. This time it’s from GAIKA’s “War Island”. I’ve also used the soundbank Ethereal Earth from Kontakt’s “Play Series Collection” and a sound from “Hypho” which is also by Kontakt. Just like in the last song I’ve posted I tried to make a guitar-sound from something that isn’t a guitar. It turned out pretty good. This song is nice and short (like a intermezzo piece) and I like to think of it like as a theme from a non-existing mysterious ‘old-school’ television series like the “X-Files” (or something like that). The title is an anagram of AphexTone. The picture is of a cuttlefish I saw near the coast of Tulamben in Bali. With some filters it looks even more alien especially with the light and the background that looks like it’s from an alien planet.

A Next Hope

Back in 2019 me and my wife were traveling through South East Asia (and eventually got ‘stuck’ in Australia because of the world famous pandemic but that’s another story) and I recorded a bamboo water tumbler (if that’s the correct word for it) in Pam Bok near Pai in Thailand. I always wanted to use the sound of the tumbler (and the small creek it was standing in) but couldn’t find the right spot for it. Now I finally found use for it in this little meditative sounding ambient song. The title is a (rough) translation of how the locals call this bamboo bridge ([Boon] Kho Ku Sui or Kho Ku So).

Bridge Of Merit

While trying some new sounds and VST’s I stumbled upon some woodwind sounds and got inspired by them. Initially I wanted to make something in the style of Forest Swords because the woodwind sounds reminded me a bit of some of his older work but then I found some classical percussion and made something resembling a slow heartbeat. This reminded me of a beautiful song by The Gathering (‘Jelena’ to be precise) and I went into another direction. I got totally lost in a flow in which I felt it wasn’t me perse who was coming up with ideas and a direction. I love that. I started to add some strings and trumpets. Now it all started to sound too much like High Plains. I don’t mind that but I wanted to make something that sounded more like me and something I would create. At this point it was still lacking something but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. So I started to manipulate some woodwind sounds. This ended up as the electronica sound which reminded me of another song I made; “Dreamy Meditations”. This was the thing that was missing and it made this song ‘whole’ (to me). It is a slow relaxing almost meditative trance inducing sounding song with some underlying melancholy and I’m really satisfied with the end result. As always I used Labs by Spitfire Audio (Originals: Epic Brass and Woodwinds & Cinematic Percussion) and on some tracks I used Valhalla Supermassive.

Cosmic Heartbeat (Are We The Only Ones Listening)

While playing around with some sounds in Vital (a fun synth plugin) and trying some delays and reverbs I came up with a simple ‘melody’ (if you can call it that). It reminded me of some ‘music’ I have heard in a video about mushrooms. In this video they showed different kinds of mushrooms that were connected to a device with moveable arms that held drumsticks. The drumstick hit some midi-keyboard that was connected to a laptop. The mushrooms seemed to be ‘playing’ music. Anyhow, that’s how I came up with the title. I unleashed the mushroom in me. As always I have used Spitfire Audio. This time it was GAIKA’s ‘War Island’. I have put some delays and reverbs on that one as well and I thought I could end the song with this sound. It has a nondescript unstable tape sound which I like. Almost like Boards of Canada. To get that sound I have used Cymatics Origin and Valhalla SuperMassive (of course).

Mycelium Brain

Some 8 or 9 months ago I worked on a piece but when I bought new plugins I found that after reinstalling everything I had lost this last project I had worked on. I couldn’t retrieve and/or find the sounds I had used for this song. Luckily I had a MP3 version somewhere because I sometimes let my sister have a listen at the things I am working on. So I have used the MP3 version in this piece and finished it. It is not noticeable on this track but I was experimenting with finding something that resembles the way Max Cooper works and sounds. Eventually it didn’t sound anything like Max Cooper but I still liked the result very much. I have got to learn something new and found some new ways of working with the tools I already have at my disposal. The title is pretty self-explanatory. 

Lost & Recovered

As Ämpers@nd I am producing (largely but not always intentionally) melancholic and dark-sounding ambient and soundscapes. Occasionally I produce chill and relaxing (almost meditative) songs and (experimental) electronic music.

All astrophotography pictures (galaxies, nebula's and stars) I have used are made (and owned) by Bob Reijnders. For more awesome pictures check his website: https://astro.bobreijnders.nl/. 
All other photo's are taken and edited by me.

Ämpers@nd

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