Ambient Sunday with Dren McDonald, and ADMZ
Sundays have been a gardening day for so long. Been hard this year with so much rain making grass cutting too intermittent. As a result, I’m now resting aching limbs after struggling (and failing) to tame the foot high meadow that used to be the garden. As a reward for my toil here’s some none-more-ambient from Dren McDonald and a bit of downtempo chill from ADMZ.
Dren McDonald is from the US and has a reputation for video game scores (CounterStrike Global Offensive, Ghost Recon Commander, Stranger Things VR), but he’s also written music for film, VR experiences, and theme parks. That doesn’t always translate into good music for listening rather than with visuals. Thankfully, that’s not the case here as he also has a fondness for Brian Eno that shines through on featured track Orcinus Bulla.
Orcinus Bulla is taken from his album Oceanic, to be released on 26 July. The track title is explained by Dren as “comes from: Orcinus, which is the latin name for the Orca (Killer Whale) and the Bulla is the lower part of the Orca’s jaw that is used to absorb sound waves…the equivalent of our eardrums.”
The track is a lovely beatless piece. It has deep liquid tones. It flirts with being both drone and neo classical but avoids settling in either. It’s a delightfully complex and layer set of modular synth sequences alongside manipulated guitar parts.
The sound is rich and sonorous. Synths sound like French horns and guitars. But it remains a deliciously electronic palette. Everything about this is redolent of the deep ocean. There’s a chilly, rolling, lightly menacing and dark oiliness to everything. Properly skilled Ambient.
Moving from the dark to the light and Honestly from ADMZ.
ADMZ (Adolfo Mazuecos) is an electronic artist based in Granada (Spain). He says he “creates music from influences such as Nicolas Jaar, Kiasmos, Monolink, Apparat or John Hopkins to build electronic songs of an emotional nature.”
Honestly is part of a twin track release with Mià. It opens with a drawn string tone before beats come along with piano. These two elements of melodic piano lines and minimalistic beats dominate the track. ADMZ describes the track as “serene” but it doesn’t feel like that to me.
This track with its mournful one moment and romantic the next piano is a series of suppressed but surging emotions. Strings become deep tones that give that extra resonance to the track.
This wants to be ethereal but it’s really too tear inducing for that. Where’s Mika and Lang Lang when you need them?
ACID TED 