Ambient music is enjoying something of a heyday. During lockdown many artists took a turn towards it, the restrictions of that time preventing people from meeting and possibly also some were sharing spaces where other members of their households were working from home meant that making quieter music was necessary. Ambient sounds, synth drones and long gentle pieces seemed to fit the unreality of lockdown too. Richard Norris had already begun making ambient music/ deep listening as part of his Music For Healing series, music designed to aid concentration, contemplation and mental health and his ambient series thrived during 2020/ 2021 and is still going strong today. Ambient music as therapy. Ambient music to replace tinnitus. Ambient music to aid relaxation. His latest monthly long ambient track, Patterns 5, came out a few days ago. It's here.
There's an elemental aspect to ambient music too, a sense that it is connected to nature, that it can be a response to or soundtrack too the natural world. In his book Monolithic Undertow Harry Sword traces the long history of drone music, from Neolithic burial chambers in Malta to 20th century Ladbroke Grove and beyond. The drone is a central part of ambient and its appearance and reappearance throughout human history adds to this feeling that ambient music is not just elemental but a core part of the human musical experience. Brian Eno's conception of ambient music was formed while recovering from an accident, bedbound, and had been given a album of harp music. He put the record on the stereo and hobbled back to bed and then realised he'd left the volume too low. He was too tired to get out of bed and turn the volume knob and as he lay in his bed he tuned in to a new way of listening to music- low volume and a part of the household sounds, internal and external, rain falling and pattering on the window, the letterbox rattling, a dog barking down the street. Music that blended in and became the background to life. When recovered he went on to record a number of landmark ambient albums. This is from Ambient 4: On Land from 1982.
Another spur to the creation of ambient music is the recent availability of cheap technology- copies vintage synthesisers and new machines at accessible prices means that buying a couple of synths and recording the sounds is easy. Making something interesting that other people want to listen to is maybe more difficult but the old punk instruction 'here's a chord, here's another, here's a third, now form a band!' is rewritten for ambient experimentation and musicians- 'here's a synth, here's another, here's a digital recorder, now make an ambient album!'.
All of this is a long winded preamble to two new ambient albums that are worthy of your attention.
Yulyseus is a Glaswegian ambient/ drone artist with a new album out today, Nothing Under Heaven. Ringing drones, layers of synth noise, the sound of a violin bow, field recordings, rand falling melodies that soar and swell, almost in sync with whatever you're doing- walking with headphones in, lying on the sofa and scrolling on your phone, washing up, driving, staring at the sun as it sets behind the trees in the park. It works as Eno's background music but is also totally rewarding when listened to closely. Yulyseus says that the album 'reflects an ongoing search for clarity and meaning in uncertain times' and it can definitely accompany that feeling even if the uncertain times are still there when the album is over. You can listen to or buy Nothing Under Heaven at Bandcamp.
From Glasgow to Leicester. Harvey Sharman- Dunn's newest album is an ambient work called The River At Ælla's Stone, seven tracks recorded using a variety of analogue synths that trace a journey from the flood plain of the Soar Valley to the south coast of Malta and a Neolithic site called the Megalithic Temples, a site that predates Stonehenge, the world's oldest free standing stone buildings. Harvey has sequenced the seven tracks as a vinyl album, the first side starting with The River, bubbling synths and water droplets, leading into The Packhorse Bridge and then the heavier drones of Ælla's Stone, seven minutes of slowness. Side two ends with Mnajdra, an ambient response to the Neolithic temples of Malta (the starting point of Harry Sword's book). It's easy to imagine the drones and oscillations of Mnajdra as music created by our ancestors five thousand years ago. You can hear and/ or buy The River At Ælla's Stone at Bandcamp.
No comments:
Post a Comment