Alan's Free [Prog.] Electronic Blog

Pineal Origins by Quartz Safari is remarkably complex compared to a lot of other ambient-type electronic recordings that I've heard. Rather than just choosing a few notes to drone over the duration of 10+ minutes and then call it a day, these recordings take serene field recordings (birds, water, etc.), heavily digitized electronic manipulations, and very light post-rock sounding guitar recordings and pack them into very dense ambient soundscapes that are some of the best I've heard since Tim Hecker released Ravedeath, 1972 earlier this year (admittedly, not a very long time, but still...). Definitely a great overseas collaboration (US to Norway) that shouldn't go unheard for fans of dense ambient electronic music.

I'd also like to use this post to recommend some decent upbeat techno music. Tecra's music is generally just okay, but their free EP Pitch Mode includes a song called "Winter of 95's Trance" which I think is quite good, even if it is the only track on the EP that isn't mostly annoying. But just look at that sweet anime rack, dude.

Thanks for reading!

:D

Fraciscus Rebro, under the pseudonym Fennel, is a minimalist composer who works with piano, electronics, and field recordings. This album, Resuming the Trail, is mainly field recordings taken from various places (I'm not sure where, but I'm assuming cities as well as local parks) which are intermittently narrated by a lonely, moody piano. Most of this album reminds me of walking on an abandoned earth, where everything is familiar and homey but unsettlling in its stark emptiness. But, there are human voices present in some portions of Resuming the Trail, even if they have no true context within the sound of the music besides just being recorded organisms caught by chance. All of the elements present on this album make me think of the way legitimately depressed people perceive the world: there is life everywhere and everything is active as always, but everything somehow feels empty or hollow. The lonely, sad, narrative piano acts as the only intermittent glimpse of actual or imagined beauty that compels us to continue, day after day, in what seems to be utter pointlessness.

Also, I'd like to mention that Vompatti has recently released a new recording titled Golden Cliffs Overhang Murmuring Seas, which I along with many others believe is his best work yet. It can be found right here.

I hope you enjoy the music.