The Dronesphere.

Greg Davis is an american born electronic composer. He is a music graduate of the New England Conservatory and records for carpark records. He is a friend and colleague Keith Fullerton Whitman and makes similar, organic electronic compositions, often transferring traditional instrumentation to electronic sounds.

GREG DAVIS - SOMNIA

Greg Davis’ Somnia exhibits enormous restraint, employing technology in an extremely subtle way to scintillating effect. Known best for his laptop folk excursions, Somnia features Davis exploring ambient territory, the kind that only served as subtext of his previous records, Arbor and Curling Park Woods. The process on this record is fairly transparent: each track consists of a single instrument played through and processed in real-time by a computer. The tone of the source instruments – acoustic guitar, harmonica, Rhodes, magnus chord organ – determine the timbre of the pieces and, because Davis works in a dronesphere that might be significantly harshened by the severe contortion of those sounds, contribute to the record’s summery sameness. In other words, these drones are exactly as beautiful as one might expect them to be, and frequently suffer from the banality of that sort of beauty.

This is a relative 'big' release on the Kranky label but highly recommended.

Tracklist:

1. Archer

2. Clouds as edges

3. Diaphonous

4. Campestral

5. Furnace

6. Mirages

http://rapidshare.com/files/39529940/Greg_Davis_-_Somnia.rar

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Dutch opiates

The Opium Den” is a deep affair, all metallic stabs and deep padded basslines, electro triggered primarily for the head – in sharp contrast to the hyperactive machinations and adrenaline splits of so much electro from the Hague.

RA-X - THE OPIUM DEN PART I/VIII

The first and second release on Scotland's own Mighty Robot label sees Tilburg's Ra-X (Plasmek/Bunker/Kommando-6/KK Records/Angelmaker) deliver the concluding parts of his 'Opium Den' series - a twisted journey through deepest, darkest Europe, via the misty mountains of Kashmir and the seedy smoking dens of Shanghai. This time the Angelmaker is going straight for the heart with emotionally driven downtempo electro and late night electronics. Think Bitstream and the Sabres of Paradise up an alley sharing their works. Electro beats and dirty bass, static crackles, unexpected key changes and lush, textured melodies.

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Tracklist:

1. Part I

2. Part II

3. Part III

4. Part IV

5. Part V

6. Part VI

7. Part VII

8. Part VIII

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http://rapidshare.com/files/39520631/opium_denn.rar

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Four pieces each on a single note

This one is not electronic but in my opinion pretty essential if you have anything with the drone-music genre.

Giacinto Scelsi, Count of Ayala Valva (January 8, 1905 – August 9, 1988), was an Italian composer. He is best known for writing music based on only one pitch, such as Quattro Pezzi Su Una Nota Sola (Four pieces each on a single note, 1959).

Scelsi came to conceive of artistic creation as a means of communicating a higher transcendent reality to the listener. From this point of view, the artist is considered a mere intermediator. It is for this reason that he never allowed his image to be shown in connection with his music. He preferred instead to identify himself with a line under a circle, a symbol of Eastern provenance.

QUATTRO PEZZI SI UNA NOTA SOLA

The pieces on this album are quite diverse, and - as orchestral works written at the peak of his musical maturity - are unequalled as examples of his music. Quattro Pezzi was written in 1959, and in uncompromisingly radical for the time. Each of the four movements (as the subtitle implies) was written centered around a single pitch.

While this may sound quite dull, it's unbelievable what sort of variation there is within such a constricted space. But Scelsi was the master of transitions on the microscopic scale: the quartertones, glissandi, trills, and all the timbral shifts, create such a dynamic world that each piece feels like it's seething with this nascent energy.

It's almost impossible to hold your ground in these piece: you get almost totally lost in this world he creates, and get so caught up in the tiny, moment-to-moment transitions and variations, that you forget almost everything around you.

Tracklist:

1. Quattro Pezzi I

2. Quattro Pezzi II

3. Quattro Pezzi III

4. Quattro Pezzi IV

5. Anahit

6. Auxuctum I

7. Auxuctum II

8. Auxuctum III

9 Auxuctum IV

10. Auxuctum V

11. Uaxuctum VI

12. Auxuctum VII

http://rapidshare.com/files/38585563/Giacinto_Scelsi_-_Quattro_Pezzi__Anahit__Uaxuctum.rar

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Obscurity from the past.

Extra special thanx to Dirk from the Cities on fire blog for this obscurity. Dark and minimal electronics from 1981. Pretty innovative for the time, it reminds me of modern techno-music.

TOLERANCE - DIVINITY

This is a "gray area" reissue of the 2nd Tolerance album, originally issued in 1981. Their music has been described as "almost proto-Ambient Techno"Limited reissue of this amazing LP of primitive, murky minimal electronics which was originally released in 1981 on the legendary, Osaka based Vanity Records (early Sympathy Nervous, Dada, Sab, BGM, the mindblowing Music Box Set, etc..).

The labels stock-in-trade (aside from a few titles such as Aunt Sally) was raw, electronic experimentation which sounds impressively comtemporary when put up against current glitch, minimal techno and laptop artists (this experimentation included toying with ideas of fidelity [or the lack thereof as is evident on first side of this record], recording techniques [hard panning, volume and frequency drop outs], etc..). Tolerance, consisting of Junko Tanage and Masmai Yoshikawa, were the only band that released a second album on Vanity. Their first LP (Anonym, 1979) was supposedly the source for the title of the second Nurse With Wound LP, To The Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl

Tracklist:

A1 Pulse Static (Tranqillia)

A2 1 F Yuragi

A3 Misa (Gig's Tapes In "C")

B1 Sound Round

B2 Bokw Wa Zurui Robot (Stolen From Kad

B3 Sacrifice

B4 Motor Fan

B5 Tiez Rekcuz

h**p://rapidshare.com/files/38580421/tolerance_-_divin__vanity_records_1982_.rar

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Frosty ambientnoise

Ben Frost is an Australian/Icelandic producer and musician whose solo work and work with School of emotional engineering is characteristed by a persistant exploration of technology and sound, often expounding on darker, more symphonic textures; those concerning loss, alienation, and sound scapes. His work with experimental artists such as Lawrence English, Scanner and Ai Yamamoto goes hand in hand with his just as challenging but slightly more accessible work with School of emotional engineering. More recently, following the release of their self-titled album in 2004, he relocated from Melbourne to Iceland to further pursue his muse. Later work is more orchestral in nature, though intention more focused. His last album, Theorie of machines shows the majestic fury or heartbreaking gorgeousness he is capable of unleashing, often within the same song, has been heightened if anything, by his time in Iceland.

This is the second release on the fledgling Bedroom Community label, it's also the third release from Frost, and finds him pushing even further into powerful audio explorations that sounds something like Tim Hecker with occasionally punishing rhythms. He examines textures and timbres in lovely, and sometimes disturbing ways over the course of five tracks and just under forty minutes, mixing pastoral beauty with gut-churning blasts in other places.

BEN FROST - THEORY OF MACHINES

The album-titled opener "Theory Of Machines" sets the tone with a super-slow build of filtered guitar that's almost crystalline in places. Eventually, slow-morphing sludgy bass enters the mix and the track builds to a powerful climax of screaming guitars and overdriven beats about two-thirds of the way through before melting into ambience again. "Stomp" follows, and takes a slightly different direction, with programmed beat thumps banging across a more barren landscape while distance waves of noise only creep into the foreground during a crunchy ending.
"We Love You Michael Gira" conveys a similar sense of dread as many tracks on the album, and this time Frost pulls it off by again barely keeping waves of feedback under control for the first half of the track before letting loose with a repeating high tone (that resembles a medical device warning sound) and some beats that are absolutely coated in feedback and on the verge of breaking down.

A string coda at the end of the song does nothing to lighten the mood.
If the former track was barely-contained violence, then "Coda" is where things let loose with any pent up energy. The two-minute track is all scorching guitar noise, red-lined bass pulses, and hammering drums that finally blur out at the end. Given all that came before it, it seems only fitting that the closer of "Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water" takes things down a great deal to warm repeated tones, filtered drones, and some subtle strings that sound something like a more layered version of the minimal pulse-tone work that Oren Ambarchi has mastered. Even though it's a shorter album, Theory Of Machines is by no means a light listen. With several moments that will make your hair stand up on end (both for sheer beauty and dread), this is definitely worth seeking out.

Tracklisting:
1 Theory Of Machines (9:30)
2 Stomp (8:26)
3 We Love You Michael Gira (7:49)
4 Coda (1:42)

5 Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water (11:13)

Ben_Frost-Theory_of_Machines-2006-BCC.rar

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Minimalistic dronescapes.

nother one of my favourite drone-2006-albums. This one is from FFB, who is also know als vidnaObmana or the Belgian composer Dirk Serries, an industrial/noise/dark ambient pioneer. He's been active since the 1980's and he has produced many obscure records. This album is one big hypnotic soundscape, build out of minimalistic guitar drones. Again, I recommend you to take your time, while listening to this album... what seems boring can go incredibly deep, but that is just inherent to drone genre I guess. Only 500 copies of this records (no represses in the future), and I ripped for you guys to enjoy it

Fear Falls Burning - The amplifier drone

Once again a limited release by the drone artist FEAR FALLS BURNING. And as usual this LP, entitled ”The Amplifier Drone”, comes with a at least said impressive package that should every music collector jump out of joy. In contrast to other releases by FEAR FALLS BURNING it's not only Dirk Serries that is the creator of this atmospheric drone, since here the blues guitarist Paul Van Den Berg has also had the chance to put his personal touch on the soundscape that meets the listener.

The duo has loaded up with a number of amplifiers in Paul's garage to record the material and where the fascination of old transistors and amplifiers has been the driving force. This has also caused the soundscape on “The Amplifier Drone” to differ a bit from what FEAR FALLS BURNING has released in the past. The dreamlike drone has been transfered to a colder and more sterile world where the machines rule.

The guitar, or as in this case the guitars, stands still as the only source of the music, but twisted by various pedal effects in order to create the hypnotic drone effect and it's these that have gotten a much rawer and colder feel than before. This makes the whole album a bit more difficult to get into, since as a listener you don't experience quite the same peaceful atmospheric dream world as before, but instead you face a sound that is quite provoking and demands full concentration, which however in the end is very awarding. This is something that is maybe the most visible on the first side of the record, “Echoes”, while “On_Dead_Air” falls back a bit towards a softer and hypnotic soundscape, yet still with clear traces of the metallic and cold tunes.

Even though “The Amplifier Drone” isn't maybe the most enchanting release FEAR FALLS BURNING has released, it's still a really impressive drone creation. It's fascinating to see how powerful atmosphere can be summoned from the minimalistic sound that the guitars create and as a drone fan you therefore have much to appreciate on this release."

Tracklisting:
A1 Echoes 1 (5:28)
A2 Echoes 2 (9:41)
A3 Echoes 3 (4:35)
B1 On_Dead_Air 1 (8:19)
B2 On_Dead_Air 2 (11:12)

h**p://rapidshare.com/files/35276041/Fear_Falls_Burning_-_The_Amplifier_Drone__TFI001_-VLS-2006-TR.rar.html

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Italian folk meets modern drones.

This is one of my favourite 2006 drone albums. Dark, sometimes creepy drones meet traditional italian folk. A pretty unique combination that pays off pretty well in my opinion, take your time to listen to this atmospheric masterpiece.

Fabio Orsi - Osci

SmallVoices is happy to present a new Italian promising artist: Fabio Orsi. 'Osci' is a two long tracks album (remixed by Gianluca Becuzzi/Kinetix) of ambient drone music, field recordings and experimental melancholic soundcapes... Using processed folk music parts (taken during folkloristic festivals, typical of the Apulian folk tradition), Fabio creates a dreaming atmosphere crossing between balls and bellows, silence and spirituality, everyday life: at home, in a church, in the countryside, at the small-town feast.

All these sounds mixed and processed through digital machines: an encounter between modernism and tradition. Image a sort of mixture between Alio Die's ambient works, William Basinski's melancholia, Phil Niblock's experimentalism. Fabio Orsi plays: guitars, samples, field recordings, laptop. The black heavy weight vinyl was packaged in an elegant sleeve and including 3 postcards. Osci is a deep hole into the ground of the loved/hated traditional music. It is a snatch with the past, watching it from unusual perspective, with deforming lens under coloured lights. Osci never meets "Art", it is something like a hack. As the sickle relates about the man, but it's completely unconcerned with their destiny.

He speaks the speech of crickets and ants. Time no exist. Telephone are not used to ring and the bees are assembling a "flying saucers" with the elements of an old washing machine. Telephone doesn't know how to ring and voices are gliding in to the dark from mouths full of soil and cheap beer, talking about obscene love proposals. Under the Sun we reverse a big stone and the name of a girl crawls out, into the grass. Someone picks up it from the ground, and put it on the neck as an amulet. Violin's strings clasp the heart in an August night. Flames itching the flesh with pain. Finally our body shows infinite chances. Inside and outside. Every single pore is a hole. Inside is outside. A blink. We would like to shake the skin from bodies, jumping in the fire. A blink. Then we leave by car, disappearing on dusty roads. Sentenced to a slow craziness. All the rumours pushing under the scab. Where the streets are swelling as the veins and the buildings are collapsing, we plant a microphone, cold as a needle.

Tracklisting:

A Osci_1
B Osci_2

Fabio_Orsi_-_Osci__SVV006_-VLS-2006-TR.rar

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