Ambient / Noise / Lowercase / Field Recordings / etc.

What were the most interesting bits?

I have mixed feelings about Basinski's music but his creative process is fascinating.

There was some interesting stuff about process, you be super ex what I’m he uses for source recording. There is a story about the person who inspired a song and another about finding an assistant. Also some stuff about Henry Grimes I found interesting.

Why the cold feet about his music?

i got loops when it came out on a whim and an emusic subscription, but really fell in love with Selva Oscura
 
Last edited:
There was some interesting stuff about process, you be super ex what I’m he uses for source recording. There is a story about the person who inspired a song and another about finding an assistant. Also some stuff about Henry Grimes I found interesting.

Why the cold feet about his music?

i got loops when it came out on a whim and an emusic subscription, but really fell in love with Selva Oscura
For such a very long career, too much of returning over and over to the same ideas (analog loops, decay, loss, etc.). I rarely call ambient music boring but I carve out an exception for Basinski. If you isolate any of his albums they’re quite interesting — Loops is obviously the one that gets the most attention— but I wish he explored new ideas.
 
For such a very long career, too much of returning over and over to the same ideas (analog loops, decay, loss, etc.). I rarely call ambient music boring but I carve out an exception for Basinski. If you isolate any of his albums they’re quite interesting — Loops is obviously the one that gets the most attention— but I wish he explored new ideas.
I agree. I love The Disintegration Loops and his 92982 album. That one is loops but it's a little more interesting. It seems like he has two albums out a year nowadays. I always give them the benefit of a doubt but it's more/less the same thing each time. I can easily do without them.
 
There was some interesting stuff about process, you be super ex what I’m he uses for source recording. There is a story about the person who inspired a song and another about finding an assistant. Also some stuff about Henry Grimes I found interesting.

Why the cold feet about his music?

i got loops when it came out on a whim and an emusic subscription, but really fell in love with Selva Oscura
For such a very long career, too much of returning over and over to the same ideas (analog loops, decay, loss, etc.). I rarely call ambient music boring but I carve out an exception for Basinski. If you isolate any of his albums they’re quite interesting — Loops is obviously the one that gets the most attention— but I wish he explored new ideas.

All of this, @dropsonde. I just don't care for the guy's music. Relaxing, sure. But just so fucking boring and a snoozefest from the first second to the final.
If anything, this discussion above is related to my development of a better ear for the genre and to try to find more interesting progressions in artists' musical ideas and concepts. If I were to have, say, a cube of records housing ambient albums (though I'm sure I'll have more in my ideal collection of 500 LPs as a maximum cap), I want each and every one of them to sound distinct. I don't get that with Basinski from album to album.
 
Last edited:
@dropsonde @wokeupnew

I get it, listing to a loop playing over and over again can be a little mind numbing, but the Selva album is where he really gets me. The sound on that album is so massive. for some reason i find that it is like some all encompassing presence that slowly and gradually unfolds. Like being stuck insides a star or watching humanity from a distance. I think I really get image because I was listening to it in the early morning darkness in a part of my commute where I look down on a freeway.

@Rip_City better ear? What do you think has changed about your enjoyment of ambient music?
 
@dropsonde @wokeupnew

I get it, listing to a loop playing over and over again can be a little mind numbing, but the Selva album is where he really gets me. The sound on that album is so massive. for some reason i find that it is like some all encompassing presence that slowly and gradually unfolds. Like being stuck insides a star or watching humanity from a distance. I think I really get image because I was listening to it in the early morning darkness in a part of my commute where I look down on a freeway.

@Rip_City better ear? What do you think has changed about your enjoyment of ambient music?
hmmm I've never listened to that one. It could also be because it's a collab with Lawrence English so his style has to change a little to collab.
 
@Rip_City better ear? What do you think has changed about your enjoyment of ambient music?
Variations within the same track. The ability to feel emotion with the slightest of chord changes with that can vary from being elevated and uplifting, to crushing and debilitated.
Of course, this feeling varies for all artists.
 
@dropsonde @wokeupnew

I get it, listing to a loop playing over and over again can be a little mind numbing, but the Selva album is where he really gets me. The sound on that album is so massive. for some reason i find that it is like some all encompassing presence that slowly and gradually unfolds. Like being stuck insides a star or watching humanity from a distance. I think I really get image because I was listening to it in the early morning darkness in a part of my commute where I look down on a freeway.

@Rip_City better ear? What do you think has changed about your enjoyment of ambient music?
To clarify, I can find a lot of joy in repetitive loops. It would be a challenge to enjoy ambient music otherwise. I enjoy pulling a random Basinski album out every once in a while when the mood is right. But I can't get excited about 20 years of 30 albums of revisiting the same sounds and themes. (Although I won't say that about AC/DC. ;))
 


aparently RYM is all over this and calling it the best EAI or onkyo album (basically good morning and good night but not good morning and good night because though it has the 3 people in it it doesn't sound the exact same)...
 
Quick cross-post from Preorders

Past Inside the Present's second release in their Anon series is up for orders. Two label artists on a split album, only to be revealed after the vinyl sells out. (The first one sold out pretty quick. The pairing was 36 & Isaac Helsen.)






Also at Juno for those yonder UKward.

 
I need to share about a phenomenal meditative album, The Cinder Grove, I've discovered by Oakland artist Chuck Johnson. What makes the album really interesting is his use of pedal steel guitar as the foundation of his sound palette with strings, electronics and piano. I was expecting it to sound Southwestern-y, and while it does in some passages when he lets that steel guitar wail or glide between notes, it still completely works. But really he keeps the guitar grounded in spacey, slow-moving, rich instrumental music. The album features Sarah Davachi on piano. One of my favorite ambient albums of 2021 so far. Give it a listen!

 
Last edited:
I need to share about a phenomenal meditative album, The Cinder Grove, I've discovered by Oakland artist Chuck Johnson. What makes the album really interesting is his use of pedal steel guitar as the foundation of his sound palette among strings, electronics and piano. I was expecting it to sound Southwestern-y, and while maybe it does in some passages when he lets that steel guitar wail or glide between notes, it still completely works. But really he keeps the guitar firmly grounded in spacey, slow-moving, rich instrumental music. The album features Sarah Davachi on piano. One of my favorite ambient albums of 2021 so far. Give it a listen!



Ha! I’ve been listing to this album. I’ve bought multiple records from this label. Great music, packaging and pressings. Usually in the mail the day of ordering.
 
I’ve had the hot jamz fever.

This is what I’ve ordered from the three labels that guy runs




 
@dropsonde

Not the same label, but (I think this is the only place you can get this record in the us customs free.

 
Back
Top