Ambient Sunday is having a glitch with: Static Null, and William Jacobs #Glitch #IDM #Ambient #Downtempo
A couple of tracks for Ambient Sunday with a bit of glitchiness about them from Static Null, and Williams Jabobs. I’m not always one for glitching in tracks but handled well it can add a nice unexpected element to a track, as both of these prove.
Static Null is Max Anderberg from Sweden. The name is from something programming I assume. Anyhow, his work varies from the machine-made with a bit of human, to something human with a bit of machine-made. New single Tomorrow is more the latter.
Tomorrow has the feel of memories of yesterday. There’s far-off found sound. A piano tinkles mournfully. Everything is downbeat as strings saw. But there’s a real beauty here to the precision of the sound and the gentle beats. This track looks forward but can’t forget the past. It has an ache in its heart enhanced by the ethereal vocal element half-heard in the background. Tomorrow will come whether you want it to or not.
William Jacobs from Lincolnshire, England, describes himself as an, “Instrumental electronic artist from the UK. Inspired by IDM acts such as Boards of Canada, but employing the melodic sensibilities of retro video game soundtracks.” Loving the BoC reference but dubious about the retro game track reference. That’s rarely a good sign. Happily for me, on Scatter there’s no real evidence of retro game tracks but lots of the warmth of Boards of Canada but offset but a glitchy edge. A winning combination.
Scatter is a tune of the covid age. It’s a bit oppressed, in places repressed, and always slightly edgy. Never settling, this squirms nervously. William says that it, “channels the caged, anxious energy of the COVID age. It is constantly twisting and turning; trying to break free of itself and never settling in one place.”
There’s almost a harking back to tracks like Autechre’s Flutter that also have that restless edge. The beats are compressed but the keyboards are warm and expansive. Machine noises vent and hiss. But life goes on. In among the mechanistic sounds are causes for optimism. Whether or not everything will be all right, this tune makes you believe that it’s possible – probable even. And you can ask for no more than that.
ACID TED 