Ambient Sunday drones on with: Calm Transmissions, and Frank Cogliano #Ambient #Drone

A couple on Ambient tracks with the emphasis on drone today, on tracks from Calm Transmissions and Frank Cogliano.

Calm Transmissions says that they, “encourage relaxation, focus, and mindfulness.” It’s a collaboration between Composer/Producer Darren Will and Visual artist Tee Vaden. But this is all about the sound.

Distant – Drone Mix is the new single. It’s four minutes of beatless slack-jawed mindfulness/mindlessness. And that’s a good thing. They say that it’s “An intricate atmosphere created with synthesizers and guitars.” There’s certainly a clever piece of composition here. It uses held tones like the slow movement of cloud but without ever feeling like it’s going nowhere or simply noodling.

Everything is oddly precise within the tones. There’s a painterly quality as to how the layers of sound are built. They say there are guitars but it’s really hard to discern within the synth layers and background ominous bass.

Find a distant object. Fix your eye there and then start this track. You will feel the better for it.

Frank Cogliano is a composer and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. He began creating multitrack experiments on tape from the age of ten and branched out from there. His music has been featured on TV and film productions and he was the guitarist in R&B supergroup Sugarbad.

From his debut vinyl LP Computers of the World comes Armada. The album has nods to his past on R&B. But they’re largely absent from the retro synth sound on Armada. There’s a wild and windswept backdrop to the synths that have an analogue feel of 70s synth pioneers, even a bit Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds.

There are times when it almost becomes proto disco but it retains enough of a downbeat sense and buzzing edge to deliver a soothing satisfying chill.

~ by acidted on February 27, 2022.