Ambient Sunday with: Tewksbury, Of Those Who Know, and Chroma Sea #Ambient #Drone #Downtempo #Electronic
A triple bill Ambient Sunday, from Tewksbury, Of Those Who Know, and Chroma Sea. This includes at least one that focuses on drone, a genre I largely steer clear of.
Tewksbury to me is a small market town in Gloucestershire. Not today. It’s Douglas Tewksbury, a pianist and ambient electronic musician from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
We have Viscosity from his new album Paths (available on d/l. cassette and vinyl). He says “‘Viscosity is an eight-minute ambient work of cycling phrases for synthesizers (TTSH ARP 2600 clone, ASM Hydrasynth, Sequential Prophet Rev2) and processed guitar.” That all sounds a bit complicated to me. Instead enjoy the slowly swirling oily electronic sounds. There is a viscous liquid drone air to it all. Things start but don’t end. They shift shape and form. It’s meditative but also strangely unsettling and ever so slightly ominous. Life is suspended for the eight minutes this takes. As if locked in aspic.
Moving South to the USA we have Of Those Who Know. This is David Curtis, a solo project from Nashville TN. He says of his work, “Ultimately, I want to give my audience peace and comfort, as well as introduce them to a unique textural palette to be inspired by.” And that shines through on Slanting Rays.
Slanting Rays is full of warmth and comfort. He combines “the sound of classical marimba with common Ambient/Post-rock textures.” There’s a background sense of drone that ripples around as strings saw away. But the foreground offers sweet reassuring sounds from the marimba. It speaks to the heart and says everything is going to be all right. In the end. It manages to have a lightly ethereal quality as the sounds gradually ascend into the clouds. A track to give yourself to safe in the knowledge that nothing bad will happen.
Staying in the USA but moving westwards to the coast we have Chroma Sea. This is a San Francisco-based duo (Michael Valenzuela and Paul Ouellette) who “create introspective ambient & downtempo music that evokes the coastal atmosphere.”
They say they’re inspired by Adult Swim bumps. Meant nothing to me. But seems to be footage “shown before and after each commercial break, were originally shots of senior citizens swimming and doing random pool-related activities in public pools.” All sounds a bit odd.
Anyway, here’s Reflektor from the Daze / Reflektor single from last year. It’s a hazy IDM track. Has bits of Boards of Canada’s opaque pastoral about it whilst being fully electronic. Sounds clatter and wheeze away while underlying melodies keep things gentle. Lightly trippy it does have a chiming almost hypnotic quality of waves washing to and fro. Delicious IDM downtempo. If you go down to the beach today you’re in for a lovely musical surprise.
ACID TED 