Ruheman is the monicker of Bristol-based producer Sam Bates. Today must have been a good day because bright, sweeping ambient music in the vein, ever so slightly, of Brian Eno’s “Thursday Afternoon,” with more atmospherics and a touch of field recordings, was precisely what I was looking to hear. I don’t know much about Sam’s background, but if this is his first proper EP, he has a rather good future ahead of him.
Soundscape
[Music] Janne Hanhisuanto – Ambient Collection 2020
Janne Hanhisuanto is an ambient music composer out of Finland. His soundscapes are about as bleak as his homeland. What I enjoy most about his work is that it hovers somewhere between 5 and 9 minutes, and it gives one time to really let the mind enjoy each and every pulse of this work. I’m looking forward to hearing more from Janne soon.
[Music] Max Corbacho – Echo Of Longing
Ambient music composer Max Corbacho has been producing soundscapes for 21 years now, and in this (free) release, he explores drone in a way that washes over the listener like waves in an ocean. It’s an all-encompassing release, worth your time and any contribution you can give to it financially. From Max’s Bandcamp website:
Dear friends,
After the reissue of Ars Lucis, I am glad to greet you again. My new album “Echo Of Longing” is now available for digital download exclusively from my Bandcamp store. The CD version will be ready in a few weeks, I will let you know the exact day of release later. Exceptionally and only for a short time, you can download it on offer under the option “Name your price” (pay from zero to whatever you want). After a few weeks will be available for all other online stores at full price. Download here. Thanks as always for your support! Stay tuned, more news soon.
All the best,
Max Corbacho
Hypnotic and minimalist soundscapes of an artist in constant search for authenticity and depth. In “Echo Of Longing” Max Corbacho offers three long pieces that are a distant resonance of a feeling that lives inside the human heart and constantly pushes the soul in its search for self-discovery. Through soft sound full of details, such as echoes of perception beyond words, the minimalist and repetitive structure of these subtle sound worlds creates an enveloping sea of stillness. Under a protective mantle of silky incorporeality, as dark and blurred as distant waves, the three long tracks, lasting more than 73 minutes in total, cross silent corridors of sonic energy, slowly changing but always retaining a subtle main harmonic current that continues its way underground. The piece that gives the album its title was created during the sessions for the album “Future Terrain” in 2015, so they are twin pieces that share a common origin. Successive modifications during 2019 have resulted in the piece that now appears in this album. The remaining two pieces were created during the first months of 2019. As if it were the resonance of music spreading through space and time, the cover image also reflects waves expanding in an atmosphere of stillness and deep introspection. These long cyclic waves arranged in layers of blurred sound are one of Max Corbacho’s trademarks, a constant that we can hear in all his albums as if it were another resonance suspended in time and permeating all his works.
This album is an atmospheric and ambient work suitable for listening to at a subliminal level while it gently impregnates one’s space or when listened to at a high level, one can delve deeply into gaseous soundscapes. “Echo of Longing” has been lovingly and expertly crafted by an artist now celebrating a 21-year career without any concession to the commercial or mainstream, faithful to a genre and an audience.
[Music] Wayne Robert Thomas & Isaac Helsen – RÁS
Past Inside the Present Records are churning out incredible release after incredible release. This one is a special gem, however, as guitarist and composer Wayne Robert Thomas & film composer Isaac Helsen pair upon a 30+ minute drone epic. Though the who album floats beautifully, I have no choice but to declare the first track, a tribute to former Talk Talk frontman and producer of the greatest album I have ever heard in my life, Mark Hollis, who passed away in February of this year. What a near-perfect collaboration this is!
[Music] Cousin Silas – Ballard Landscapes 5
Cousin Silas is one of the leading lights of the underground bedroom ambient scene. Like so many of these characters (whose work I highly regard), he releases a lot of music, but somehow manages to maintain a sense of purpose of each and every release. These are crafted slabs of spacey, rich music for minds to float to.
[Music] Sonologyst – Phantoms
Our friend and impresario of one of the finest experimental record labels on Earth has just released his latest project. Raffaele Pezzella’s Sonologyst continues down the road of melding experimental music and field recordings into a hazy cocktail worthy of two or three shots of absinthe. This is dream music if you’re into rough, surreal hallucinations where you’re stumbling around a crowded market.
[Music] Scanner – Lost At Sea
Musically, Scanner remains in a class by himself. The broad paintbrush of ‘experimental music’ almost covers the scope of his work, yet he could easily fit in electronic music, IDM and most anything else he wants to. This release is a touching tribute to fishermen from East Neuk who perished at sea. From Scanner’s Bandcamp site:
This unique work was created for the Big Project as part of the East Neuk Festival in Fife Scotland in summer 2018. I joined forces with pupils of Waid Academy in Anstruther to create a memorial in sound for men of the East Neuk fishing industry lost at sea. The work draws on the stories of the men out at sea, field recordings and interviews to evoke the men and their lives.
The work was premiered at Waid Academy on 28 June as a live performance but an alternative version was installed at the Scottish Fisheries Museum.
No physical memorial to these men currently exists – something that retired local fisherman, Ronnie Hughes, is campaigning for. You can hear his stories throughout the work. His mission to secure a monument in Pittenweem inspires this piece for which ENF has partnered the Scottish Fisheries Museum and Waid Academy. Listen and immerse yourself in the stories and sounds of the fishing industry.
I was delighted that on 13 May 2019 the Scottish Awards for New Music 2019 awarded Lost at Sea for Community/Education project of the year.
Sound: Scanner
Voice: Ronnie Hughes
Waid Academy students:
Jay Alsafar
Josie Bell
Mirren Bell
Ben Black
Jude Bright
Hunter Demetrius
Daniel Hesk
Ryan McIntosh
Ian McKie
Kirstin Spence
Kai Young
[Music] Sea of Åland – Extended Play Three
Sea of Åland are an experimental music band out of Cottingham, England, who have been releasing a batch of rather great albums. Though experimental music seems to be their main focus, their sound also digs deeply into post-rock, ambient and even a bit of a dark soundtrack vibe. Very impressive listening.
[Music] Félix Blume – Death in Haiti: Funeral Brass Bands & Sounds from Port au Prince
French sound artist and engineer Félix Blume produces something voyeuristic and creepy, yet engaging and life-affirming at the same time. This album is a collection of brass music played at funerals in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
According to the website, there are featured in these ‘performances’ 15 dead, 15 funerals, 16 funeral processions, 1 procession with no dead, 5 churches, 1 cemetery, 1 wake, all recorded, including the wails and sobbing of those who lost their loved ones. There is a feeling that death has been conquered and mocked, however, in the same way New Orleans funerals tend to be.
This is field recording at its most engaging, at least for me.
[Music] Maryam Sirvan – Untamed Terror
Eerie is not nearly powerful enough to describe the hellish soundscape that Maryam Sirvan produces on this record. It is as if Pierre Henry decided to do an ethnographic recording tracing Dante’s footsteps inside of Hell. Brooding, powerful soundscapes.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 