'hycean'
Rhombus Index
See Blue Audio SBA 055

1. Elytron
2. Giiflora
3. Digital Anemone
4. Polyeme
5. Tine
6. Flotsam
7. Coastal Curve

Release date: 20 September 2024

lnk.to/SBA055

See Blue Audio: ambient / electronic / beatless / cinematic / downtempo / eclectic / introspective… Shade rather than light...

Following 'Mutual Expression', his recent collaborative project with f5point6, Rhombus Index returns with a solo album, 'hycean'. This will be his fourth release on See Blue Audio and represents a further step in the artist's musical evolution; this is a world where the interplay between the organic and the digital takes centre stage, and it has a special resonance in these days of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 'hycean' is the fifty-fifth release on See Blue Audio and, reflecting their symbiotic relationship, a new solo album from f5point6, 'A Random Sequence of Events', will also be released on the same day. An art booklet of images generated during the creation of 'hycean' is included with the album.

As an electronic artist from West Yorkshire, Rhombus Index inhabits a geographical and historical space where modern, industrial society and the power of nature collide. It's only logical, therefore, that these contradictory forces come out in his music. 'hycean' is an exploration of sounds that evoke images of organically grown digital creatures and objects. The typically enigmatic track titles, artwork and video for 'Digital Anemone' serve as a guide for the listener: imagine a future evolution of organic beings merging with digital inorganic entities to form a new kind of life.

The production tools used on 'hycean' include generative sequencers, field recordings, wavetable synthesis and rompler synthesisers, while the closing track, 'Coastal Curve', was developed using sonification of coastal path measurement data. These techniques and references to areas like video game technology are a constant thread in the work of Rhombus Index, and the natural and digital worlds are ever crashing into each other in a kind of dance.

Over the seven tracks of 'hycean', the pastoral electronic sound of Rhombus Index is in full effect. The embrace of washes of warm synth chords, beats fall like smatterings of spring rain, and that playful elegance abundantly found in nature. Faster tempos on tracks like 'Flotsam' add another dimension, while remaining essentially ambient. The artist has always drawn influences from the dancefloor and rave culture, and 'Digital Anemone' captures the kind of Balearic aura that is the essence of dance music. The beatless aesthetic of See Blue Audio is also represented on 'Elytron' and 'Polyeme'.

'Digital Anemone' was created in reverse with the video elements made first and then the music written to fit the video. The sounds of digital anemone creatures are heard in the opening minute as high pitch synth warbles. Once the track was completed, it was then fed back into the video to make it audio reactive.

The accompanying eight-page, full colour booklet contains conceptual images that were created using a generative process applied during developing the image for the cover artwork. These images could be seen as depicting the new digital flora and fauna that has evolved alongside the music. The booklet also contains fragments of data, but what these data sets mean and how they relate to the images is for the listener to figure out should they wish.

A gentle harmony runs throughout 'hycean', but this harmony is not without contrast and conflict. The album is a personal reflection on the fusing of organic and digital realities, and the journey of discovery that the introduction of generative artificial intelligence has brought into our lives. We have little idea how it will end. With its lightness of touch and moments of rare beauty, 'hycean' thoroughly deserves to be enjoyed and recognised as a richly insightful piece of work.

Image: Loui Binns.

hycean

'hycean' (preview) – Rhombus Index (See Blue Audio SBA #055)

'Vestige'
Leit Motif
See Blue Audio SBA 058

1. Aonaran
2. Seva
3. Before You and I Were Us
4. Roots and the Tree of Life
5. Welcome Home
6. Sweven
7. Anam Cara
8. Veni Vidi Amavi

Release date: 31 January 2025

https://lnk.to/SBA058

See Blue Audio: ambient / electronic / beatless / cinematic / downtempo / eclectic / introspective… Shade rather than light...

For the opening release of 2025, See Blue Audio sees the welcome return of one its artists, but with a little twist. Glaswegian electronic producer Fragile X contributed three EPs in his characteristically dramatic and atmospheric style to the early days of the label, and his musical themes of journey and inner discovery fitted perfectly within the See Blue Audio ethos. Now he assumes his Leit Motif guise with a new eight-track album, 'Vestige', that expands on earlier releases under this name to create a fully formed and immersive sonic world for the fifty-eighth release on See Blue Audio.

In fact, this is the second appearance of Leit Motif on the label; his 'Dawn Chorus' remix of Bagaski's 'Spring Prayer' was an exclusive track on the 'Shade Rather Than Light: Anthology | Two' compilation and a joyous celebration of nature. So where does Fragile X end and Leit Motif begin? It's no secret that they are one and the same artist, but to think of Leit Motif as the more ambient side of the coin would be misleading, even though it was originally conceived as a mix series, 'Microsleep', studying the relationship between music and sleep. Rather consider Leit Motif to be one branch of the musical tree that is producer, remixer, Bricolage label head and radio show host Fragile X.

The word vestige is rich in nuanced meaning: a trace, a reminder, a residue, a fragment or relic of something that has been left behind, an echo from the past perhaps. There's a time-stretching quality to this idea and things may not always be as they seem in the moment. As the artist explains, "This album is influenced by the many thousands of connections we have with so many people throughout our lives, big and small. These connections may be ephemeral and transient, or they may be long lasting and fulfilling. That all depends on the nature of the relationships we create and sustain throughout life, but either way we display a bit of ourselves in each interaction we have and leave behind a trace. A remnant. A vestige."

Across its eight tracks, this concept is explored and imagined in musical form to superb effect. The trademark Fragile X production techniques of swirling and enveloping swathes of sound punctuated by moments of calm for reflection are fully utilised to create a powerful, at times almost theatrical, depiction of our journey through life. Waves crash against the rocks, the shoreline is weather beaten and battered, but then the heavens open and the light pours down.

There's something timeless and mysterious, even mystical, about the audio landscapes of 'Vestige' as there is with life itself. This is also reflected in the track titles. At times the mood can be brooding – 'Anam Cara', for example – while at others tingling with excitement as on 'Welcome Home'. The beatless aesthetic of See Blue Audio is also well represented on tracks live 'Seva' and 'Roots and the Tree of Life'. As 'Veni Vidi Amavi' closes the album, we're left with a sense of the wonder of life and how we are all just microscopic parts in the grand cosmos of existence.

The meaning of 'leitmotif' is a recurring theme in artistic composition and one that could be associated with a particular person, place, idea or situation. This is a pulsating vein that runs throughout the body of 'Vestige', but what it refers to we can leave to our own imagination and individual life stories. As a musical offering, this album also suits the mood as we enter a new year, and one that may well be riven with change, turmoil and dissent. May it give you a little respite.

Photography: R.Cleveland Aaron.

Vestige

'Vestige' (preview) – Leit Motif (See Blue Audio SBA #058)

'Silent Observers' EP
Substak
See Blue Audio SBA 059

1. Voyage Beyond
2. Orbiting Dreams
3. Aurora
4. Nebula Drift
5. Silent Observers

Release date: 14 March 2025

https://lnk.to/SBA059

See Blue Audio: ambient / electronic / beatless / cinematic / downtempo / eclectic / introspective… Shade rather than light...

If the opening release of 2025 on See Blue Audio, 'Vestige' by Leit Motif, was an audio journey into the nature of what it is to be human in the chaos that surrounds us, its successor takes a trip into the outer reaches of space and our imagination. It also welcomes a new artist to the label in the shape of Athens-based electronic artist Substak. With the 'Silent Observers' EP, the fifty-ninth release on See Blue Audio, he invites us into his world where sound operates as a form of language.

Kostas Staikos, otherwise known as Substak, began his passion for music as a means of escape from everyday life with a commitment to creative freedom and expression. Since then, he has developed into a fabulously prolific artist on both the dub techno and ambient/drone scenes, releasing music on myriad labels too numerous to mention and from all over the world. The result is a truly impressive portfolio of work. Setting himself no limits and with an artistic vision transcending conventional boundaries, his musical compass points in multiple directions from deep and dubby techno to dark ambient and drone soundscapes. On 'Silent Observers', Kostas takes a further step with sonic explorations that plunge into the depths of space ambience.

Across five short but perfectly succinct tracks, Kostas brings his ideas into being with exquisite clarity. Beatless, shrouded in static and radio interference, and with subtle melodies that seem to almost crawl into life, the effect is soothing and dreamlike, but still demanding of our attention. At times it can be unsettling, but such is the nature of the great, mysterious universe that hovers above us. As the titles suggest, the cosmos is the central theme of 'Silent Observers' and the listener quickly becomes immersed in the Substak interpretation of travelling through endless space to unknown galaxies.

The closing title track hints at a possible alternative view: perhaps we are the observed and not the observers; it's they who are looking at us from afar and wondering who and what we are. This is their radio transmission and at times it's almost as if the signal is breaking up.

Substak has created something very special here and it's a glorious addition to the See Blue Audio catalogue. The 'Silent Observers' EP evokes a sense of reflection and is ideally suited for relaxation and meditation while still retaining a questioning tone. To paraphrase the line from a famous science fiction movie, "In space no one can hear anything at all."

Silent Observers EP

'Silent Observers' EP (preview) – Substak (See Blue Audio SBA #059)

Spring Winds

'Cartography of Sleep'
Droning Cats with NRV
See Blue Audio SBA 060

1. When Two Longitudes Overlap
2. Slumbering on a Swing
3. Dreams with Claws
4. Catastrophic
5. Dorian Tapestry

Release date: 12 December 2025

https://lnk.to/SBA060

See Blue Audio: ambient / electronic / beatless / cinematic / downtempo / eclectic / introspective… Shade rather than light...

After a short hiatus, See Blue Audio returns with a collaboration between new artists to the label, Droning Cats, and one of our most established names, NRV. In the chaotic and fraught world in which we find ourselves, this partnership has yielded a wonderful musical pause for reflection in 'Cartography of Sleep'. As the title reveals, the sixtieth release on See Blue Audio is a sonic journey through the mysterious realm of sleep. This is an invitation to drift, while still keeping your bearings, as you travel across the blurred borders between waking and dreaming.

Droning Cats are the Brussels-based duo of Christophe Calis (guitar, baritone guitar, electronics) and Jan Delannoy (modular synths), who first met as part of a trip hop band before morphing into solo ambient artists. They came together to create Droning Cats with the emphasis on creating unpredictable and spontaneous music, rather like the curious nature of cats. Their free-flowing approach to creating music is perfectly complemented by the precision and emotional delicacy of NRV, the drone/ambient project from Japanese electronic musician, producer and radio host Nerve, best known as part of the electro-pop band antennasia. NRV has already contributed two exquisite releases to See Blue Audio in 'Blue Roofs' and 'Seasons Beyond the Ashes'.

'Cartography of Sleep' is the debut release from Droning Cats with NRV and was produced entirely by long-distance file exchanges. Across its five predominantly beatless tracks, the improvisational, genre-defying soundscapes of Droning Cats elegantly merge with NRV's finely tuned sense of spacious atmospheres. Drawing on their shared love of sonic exploration, the music charts a course through dreamlike states where languid, luminous passages meet darker, ominous undercurrents, like shifting weather in a strange, imagined land. The combination of shimmering guitar textures, slow-moving drones, gentle rhythmic pulses and textural detail invites the listener to join them in a richly immersive experience where geography is fluid and time dissolves.

As 'Cartography of Sleep' unfolds, it maps out an oneiric terrain where beauty drifts into unease and stillness hides quiet cataclysms. The eloquent interplay between guitar harmonics and subtle electronica gives the music a flavour of the natural world in all its myriad forms. Each track is a stopping point on an uncharted map of dreams, from the vast expanse of the opening 'When Two Longitudes Overlap' to the shadowy elegance of 'Dreams with Claws'.

This collection has a special quality that lent itself to being represented in other artistic forms; the world of sleep and dreams is, after all, also one of images, colours, words and sensations as well as sound. Accompanying the music is a PDF booklet featuring five pieces of text written by See Blue Audio founder Matthew Duffield. Completing the release are images drawn by illustrator Swann Quach. The music, text and images were all created completely independently of each other in different time and space, but they have serendipitously come together. Swann's illustrations adorn the cover artwork of 'Cartography of Sleep' as well as alongside the text in the booklet.

'Cartography of Sleep' is a sublime listening experience and one that gently nudges us into the shapeshifting universes of sleep, dreaming and waking. Take from it what you will as the music washes over you. It's commonly agreed that we all need more – and deeper – sleep; this could help us along the way.

Mastered by Simon McCorry.

Illustration: Swann Quach.

Cartography of Sleep

'Cartography of Sleep' (preview) – Droning Cats with NRV (See Blue Audio SBA #060)

Written, Arranged, Performed, and Produced by Kyle Bolan
Art by Kyle Bolan

Lyrics:

I must have some weight
I must have some wind
To hold me down

Waving from Purgatory
The content of my soul
Let me go

I heard you had grief 
I heard you had relief
Let me carry it home

Nothing defeats a happy home
Nothing defeats me all alone

Waving from Purgatory
The content of my soul
Let me go

I must have the moon
I must have the sun
To hold me down

Nothing defeats a happy home
Nothing defeats me all alone
I hear you had relief
Let me carry it home
March 17, 2025


Waving From Purgatory

Written, Arranged, Performed, and Produced by Kyle Bolan
Art by Kyle Bolan
 Lyrics:
Band despised
or outright
Harmony in molars lied
Despite rolling motors on the home
Remaining obviance on the roam
Howard road skates like ice
Ours was a simian vice
Like lo-tecs living off rice
Sole bared this tiled piece
The soil buried the deceased
Poor animal
Awakens outside
This is his tomb and his grave, his rising tide
The populace ride
Overdressed and under weighed
Fan blood that is saved
Fan vote Jobraic
Outdoes his life
Mute media heats a knife
To saith:
"Go thou beneath me, little and afraid
Away in some dark corner to stay"
He is a hunter, not a spy
One shadow he pulls under
Poor animal, he cannot fight
There once was a widdle
who goes there for our war
Only my serpent eye
which rolled when hit the floor
Saddle recognition
Like pool like bike
Our service for this peace
Like servants all diseased
Mock of the Mandrill
Hawk of the hand - will
Wait for the stick to be thrown 
and then go after it alone
A search recommended by name
and algorithm locked
Poor animal
that is tamed
then unlocked
Oct. 29, 2025

Poor Animal

Written, Arranged, Performed, and Produced by Kyle Bolan
Art by Kyle Bolan

Lyrics:
Singers in
November dawn
Board drought forever stolen pawn
Here's a steady rhythm
Banging out over muscle
On long garden
Lawn length epistle
Evening a strike
Orange from horizontal glow
Gregorian hymn
Hers heard in an ear she doesn't know
He will stand there and wait
I am yesterday
I am cassette tape
Warmer working this muscle that is tight
Blind stories tell
of a blind night
or of the smallest glimmer
that escapes all others' sight

I am Summer/Winter
Vernal/Autumnal
You are November
Equinoctial
Nov. 18, 2025

November Solstice

Paul Amlehn - Concept, catalyst texts, titles, editing, spoken word performance, decision to remove spoken word, production
Robert Fripp - Soundscapes
Joan Jeanrenaud - Electric cello, mixing of cello and soundscapes
Gerhard Richter -  Painting

This composition is from the album Saudade.

The album was to have soundscapes by Robert Fripp (King Crimson), electric cello by Joan Jeanrenaud (Kronos Quartet), and spoken word by myself. In the end, I decided that the music said more without the spoken word, so I took my contributions off the album. However, Joan composed, in part, her cello to the poems I wrote, so the texts nonetheless remain in the compositions dissolved and woven in at a subliminal level.


Saudade

Paul Amlehn - Compositional system, catalyst texts and vocals for music generation, vocals, sonic sculpting of Jarboe's vocal, editing, mixing, production
Ulrich Krieger - Saxophone, electronics
David Van Tieghem - Vocal processing of Paul Amlehn's vocals
Jarboe - Vocal

World of Fused Beaches and Isolated Child

Paul Amlehn - Libretto and music
Paul Freeman - Voice
Unknown artist - Found photograph

Libretto:

You are my little baby
Come to me
I'll take care of you
I won't let anyone hurt you.

You have always looked for something of me in the world
And now you have found me
Here I am 
Waiting for you.

The Siren Calls

I DO NOT ACCEPT REPOST COMMUNITY REQUESTS, PLEASE DON’T WASTE MY TIME

Music composer and Soundscape designer.

Heavily influenced by Beaumont Hannant, Autechre, Brian Eno and a wealth of styles ranging from classical music through to DC Hardcore.
I love the organic feel of music and the creation of warmth within patterns.
Trying to create soundtracks to everyday life and images.


Tracks available on my YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC29fEzmTPEV69UKepjsDHxQ?view_as=subscriber

New EP available on Open Case Recordings https://www.facebook.com/1683424458553112/posts/2506179442944272/

Spring Winds

Electric Supply Station