Ambient Sunday with: Small Sounds, Sebastian Davidson & Cir:cle, and 10Dimensions #Ambient #Drone #Chill #IDM
A triple bill this Sunday. Small Sounds, Sebastian Davidson & Cir:cle, and 10Dimensions provide the sounds. These run the gamut from ambient, to drone, to chill, to IDM.
First up the slightly drone ambient of Small Sounds. This is the vehicle for Jacob Kemp, the lead guitarist for indie/pop band Brightline. With Small Sounds the aim is to slow things down by “creating ambient soundscapes with synths, samples and and layers upon layers of both acoustic and electric guitars.”
Back To Front is the track, taken from his Vol. II EP. It’s a subtle wash of choral nothingness alongside some delicately picked piano. It has a wandering, wasted cinematic air. Everything is that bit strung out in some sort of organic drone. It hovers part way between ambient, new age and neo-classical. Whatever genre you think it is, it really is very, very soothing.
Next, Sebastian Davidson & Cir:cle, a Dutch / German affair but one in which it’s hard not to look to Vienna for the inspiration. Whisper K&D quietly here. The track is Roses, taken from the forthcoming album. It’s a track that would sit as happily in 1996 as it would 2021. But it’s no throwback.
This is a bright, glittering, self-confident piece of chillout. It’s laid back but doesn’t quite have that blunted air that some of the ’96 tracks had. This is curious and beats are to the fore glittering away. Alongside there’s all manner of lovely strings, flutes, and warm vocals. Everything is a swirl of red silk, crimson damask and more than the slice of sultriness.
10Dimensions are an EU international duo based on the south coast of England composed of William Ulrich and Sebastian Müller. Their track Uncertainty – Pending has been remixed by maniatrix as the Still Pending Remix. It’s ambient but as IDM.
This is unashamed machine music. It wheezes and bashes as bass crescendos shake. This hisses away in a low key but otherwise disturbing manner. Hardly surprising then that maniatrix says the remix explores the “bleakness of lockdown and the sense of isolation many have been feeling over the last year.” There’s nothing redeeming here for you other than brilliantly bleak music. This is a track that looks into the void.
A track for a paranoid comedown.
ACID TED 