Klotzsch & Krey - Through All These Years Of Trying To Belong

while i was at the cologne commons conference and music festival last weekend, i had the good fortune of meeting Simon of the 12rec netlabel and Emil Klotzsch, which gave me a good reason to revisit Emil's wonderful collaboration with Ruediger Krey, Through All These Years Of Trying To Belong. Emil's work as a sound designer for film is apparent, as this is an album of expansive audio-visual depth. subtle processed field recordings and ghostly pads loom far on the horizon.. in the middle ground, mournful piano chords.. and close in the foreground, a solo clarinet (and occasionally voice), recorded with intense intimacy, capturing every hiss, squeak, clattering sticky key and half-breathed note. a startling and original ambient work.

Gastón Arévalo - Marea

Marea from the excellent Passage Music netlabel is a beautifully austere yet deeply calm ambient LP in a style that harkens back to the golden days of the autoplate netlabel. hushed pads and occasional distant guitar notes enveloped by subdued glitches and washes of microsound field recordings evoke and atmosphere of timelessness and stillness. "perfect for a long dreamscape diving or in-depth structure research of surrounding matters."

Altus - 24 Hours

canadian producer and hiddenplace music favorite Altus has re-released his 2001 album, 24 Hours in lossless flac format- a perfect reason to revisit this beautiful work. deep, spacious drones, soft ambient pads and subtle environmental sounds make this album perfect listening for a relaxed sunny weekend.

That Black - Timelessness

i frequently throw around words like "epic" "cinematic" and "eclectic" when describing some of my favorite music, but every now and then an album comes along which completely redefines these words. not only is Timelessness by russian producer Vlad Kreymer brilliantly produced and the thrill to listen to, in my opinion it defines a new genre of eclectic ambient music. combining acoustic sounds of accordion, violin, guitar and vocals with tasteful synths, field recording mash-ups and ingenius sound design, this album is an expansive journey through nostalgic dreamscapes not easily forgotten.

Ergo Phizmiz & Friends - The Faust-Cycle

i interrupt this longer-than-expected pause of hiddenplace music posts to feature what is certainly the most astonishing piece of netaudio i have ever come across. "The Faust-Cycle or, The House of Dr Faustus" is definitively the ultimate piece of sound collage.
completed over a period of 3 years, with a playing time of more than 14 hours(!!), and featuring an long list of collaborators, voice actors and guest musicians, words like "epic" do not even begin to describe the mind-boggling expansiveness of this work.
i usually try to listen to a release several times through before writing a review, but i must admit in this case, i have not yet heard the entire piece all the way through. what i have heard so far consists of surreal, dream-like spoken word narratives, interspersed with even more bizarre sample-based "songs" enveloped in extended passages of sound collage and audio pastiche made from a dizzying array of identifiable and unidentifiable musical pieces and sound sources. the moods range from melancholic to nostalgic, insane to inane, dream-like to nightmarish, classical to common; all unfolding like an opium-induced phantasmagoria played through a dust-covered 1920s phonograph found in an eccentric retired circus performer's attic. this is probably the most inaccessible piece i have featured on hiddenplace music, but certainly a thrilling and epic(?) piece of audio art for hardcore fans of avant-garde sound design.

The Lights Galaxia - Global EP

a very nice ep came to my inbox a little while ago- global ep by The Lights Galaxia, with production support by Carl Sagan's Ghost who i featured earlier. this release marks the first output from the new netlabel Luxus-Arctica records International, and if this release is any indication, they are off to an very good start.
soft, melodic, and melancholic-- moody guitar and rhodes melodies glide over evolving soundscapes and subdued clicking rhythmic pulses. atmospheric, expansive and 'global' yet intimate and introspective at the same time. beautifully evocative music for autumn.
for a slightly more wordy and very amusing review, head on over to Catching the Waves, who were nice enough to plug this blog as well!

Frequent Sync - Familiar Fields

this morning a massive fog rolled in on the city, so i decided to go out and take some photos, as i am wont to do in the event of unusual or photogenic weather. my soundtrack while photographing the moisture-soaked trees and river was 'Familiar Fields' by Frequent Sync, a collaborative duo between Darren Harper, who's album Time Forgotten i previously featured, and Jacob Newman, who also has a release on Earth Mantra. this album perfectly evokes the otherworldly atmosphere of a landscape obscured in fog. elongated tones and a nearly motionless pace distort time and space in a most pleasantly disorienting way.
the album is published by the seedsound netlabel in high-quality mp3 and streaming, and is also available in lossless flac format on the artist's own website captured space.
UPDATE: the photos i took while listening to Familiar Fields (including the one above) can bee seen here on my flickr page

Darren Harper - Time Forgotten

Time Forgotten is a new release on Earth Mantra, one of my favorite destinations for creative commons ambient music.
floating weightless ambience-- long expansive washes of luminous tones-- distant echoes of the natural world, all mixed to perfection. deep and rich, yet minimal in approach-- ideal music for sleep, meditation, or escaping the third dimension for a time.

Brioskj - Mirror

full-length idm LPs are somewhat of a rarity in the netaudio world, but for those craving a little more than the usual 20-30 minutes of idm goodness, Mirror by Brioskj, the most recent commercial release from Kahvi is a very highly recommended purchase. 59 minutes of the finest kahvi-style ambient idm: beautiful sunny synth melodies, refreshing chillout atmospheres, light fluttering beats, and plenty of "that extra sparkle that Kahvi is famous for." perfect positive moods for bright summer weather.
the album is currently available on iTunes, emusic, Amazon and Rhapsody.

hiddenplace music mix 6: Rudy Adrian special

Download mp3 (160kbps, 85MB)

i try to always let the artists know when i feature their music on one of my mixes. when i wrote to New Zealand musician Rudy Adrian that i had featured one of his tracks on my macrocosm mix, he offered to put together a special selection of tracks for my mix series. i've thoroughly enjoyed everything i've heard from Mr Adrian, so i readily agreed. the resulting mix of tracks, taken from a few of his earlier albums, is a blend of soft organic sounds as heard on Desert Realms, well as some more rhythmic, sequencer-based spacemusic. and as a special bonus, Rudy included an exclusive live in-studio improvisation to end the mix. definitely a treat for all fans of synth-based ambient music!

tracklisting:

(00:18) Sub Antarctica from SubAntarctica
(11:57) Kinetic Flow from Kinetic Flow
(31:10) Turquoise from Kinetic Flow
(41:33) Le Songe Du Singe from Kinetic Flow
(54:57) Happy Memories from Kinetic Flow
(59:47) Ancestral Legacy from MoonWater
(63:49) greeting/introduction from Rudy Adrian
(66:30) "Unique track"

photo: Smails Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand by S. M. Stewert

Offsets - Circular Drift

a new release from the distance recordings netlabel, Circular Drift is composed of soft suspended drones, quiet guitar loops, subtle percussion and processed field recordings which dissolve into gentle breezes of blissful ambient tones. perfect music for a rainy spring morning, a warm afternoon of daydreaming or a lazy evening with the window open, the music seamlessly melding with the sounds of the outdoors.

Imachi Akira - Lycoris radiata EP

i have mentioned that quiet ambient music is very fitting to the cold dark days of winter. i have also discovered that sometimes other styles of music are equally appropriate for those rare sunnier winter days when the sun glitters off the snow and ice. the Lycoris radiata EP put out on the electronica netlabel certainly evokes such and atomsphere.
Imachi Akira skillfully blends a myriad of sounds and styles into a beautifully cohesive whole. icy ambient atmospheres, subtle filtered idm-esque rhythms, dubby echoes, acoustic jazz guitar, delicate piano malodies and airy field recordings blend together to form a perfect soundtrack to a beautiful winter's day spend in a snow-covered valley, on the shores of a frozen river bed or walking on a glacier.

Scott Sherk - Icelandic Air

one of the first podcasts i regularly listened to was One Minute Vacation from sound designer aaron ximm's website, the quiet american, which i discovered thanks to NPR. there is something very evocative about the natural sounds of an environment recorded in high quality and listened to on good headphones. the simple sound has the power to transport you to a place in a temporal way which is not communicated in photography (another favorite medium of mine).
one such collection of field recordings is Icelandic Air. Iceland is certainly a visually stunning landscape but it hadnt occurred to me that the aural environment could be so fascinating as well. the pure field recordings presented here whisk you away to the frigid coastal terrain of icy wind, mountain streams, snow-covered hills and serene lakes, with the human and animal inhabitants making brief appearances as well. a short but refreshing excursion into an exotic locale.

Alexandre Navarro - 1001 EP

i had intended to feature some groove-oriented 'summer music' at some point, but the continued cold, overcast and rainy weather of this summer has kept me in the mood for quiet ambient music. and thankfully i have found a lot of great ambient music lately to share with you, my blog readers.
i recently discovered the 1001 EP by Alexandre Navarro on the experimental/noise/field recording netlabel Mandorla ('1001' can be found under audio releases/mandorla net label 006). most of the stuff i have found on Mandorla is a little bit too abstract and 'experimental' for my tastes, but having heard some of A. Navarro's work on the spacemusic podcast, and on the archipel netlabel, i was eager to listen.
the 1001 EP presents a carefully mixed sound collage of field recordings, processed textural noise, and slow motion synths, with very subtle minimal techno influences. long sound fields fade in and out, cascading notes float and spiral above, supported by a slow pulsing undertone. quiet, rainy music for an overcast afternoon, or a damp evening where fog hangs like a ghostly shroud and streetlights become luminous orbs...

Nunc Stans - Land

i was quite pleased to discover some excellent ambient music from a new netlabel exploring abstract, ambient and experimental sounds called ping things. for his release Land, Nunc Sans draws influence from the stark, expansive landscapes of northern canada. long pad notes and subtly blended atmospheric sounds evoke a mood which is melancholy but not dark, sombre and subdued but at times hopeful. a 40-minute drift into a landscape of stillness...

gate zero - coded dream ep

the intentional use of noise is can be a powerful expressive tool when used effectively. an exceptional example of noise-based music which i recently discovered is the coded dream ep. gate zero has been a favorite artist of mine, with releases on thinner and stadtgruen, as well as other excellent releases under his other moniker, spaceTourist (such as last year summer).
his 'coded dream ep' was apparently put out on the now non-existent belladonna records. thankfully it is still available for download directly from his website (.rar download). on this release, gate zero masterfully blends layers upon layers of gentle noise beds which breathe, crackle, ebb and flow. quiet tonal elements, cutup guitar notes, contact mic sounds, and field recordings of natural environments eloquently fade in and out, holding the listener in hypnotic suspension. this is perfect music for listening to with an open window on summer evenings, when the deep noise layers blend seamlessly with the environment around you.

bubblegone - somewhere between summer and winter

in late February, the netlabel world mourned the loss of the beloved netlabel kikapu. after 100+ releases, the netlabel quietly announced its closing with a Walt Whitman poem. thankfully, their entire back catalogue is still available for free download, thanks to the wonder of the internets.
one notable release came to me by way of a recommendation from Bazooka Joe at Solipsistic NATION. 'somewhere between summer and winter' is an hypnotic, slow-motion exploration of of the interplay of field recordings and deeply reverberating electronics; layered, processed, re-processed and stretched to infinity. the experience of listening to these infinitely echoing tones while travelling through the city with headphones on makes one see the world with new eyes...