Author: dave

Faex Optim is an immigrant from another dimension, beamed in on fairyland constructs made up of colorful light beams and intoxicating aural spirits. On his second album for Carpe Sonum, he trades in a particularly bedeviled skein of pastoral electronica defined by equal parts hauntological menace and gothic whimsy. Tracks often deploy a cascading array of disembodied voices rented from a myriad of astral planes; rhythms, née pulses, whip agitatedly across the stereo field like sprites caught in gargantuan whirlpools; tentative piano notes look for peaceful climes to tether their forlorn cries to. Imagine a cross between the dandelion-wine landscapes of Boards of Canada and various artists spread across early sides from Morr Music and some of today’s Ghost Box contingent and you’re about halfway there. But truth be told, Faex Optim’s sound is not one born from derivative measures but rather a culmination of all the shift-hop strides and quakebasket morning trills that once were common coin amongst contemplative 90s electronica. But now the birds have come home to roost, and the sublime, kaleidoscopic dots and loops so favored by their ancestors have found a home in the becalming, clever motifs eked out so splendidly by Faex Optim.

Many often lament the lack of ‘humanism’ in electronic music, citing its often cold sterility and inorganic elements, sounds created by robots for robots. The very nature of ‘electronic’ music means that this is usually an occupational hazard; in other words, you want warmth, go to the tropics. Well, Jacob Newman’s newest recording is here to tell you that you don’t have to travel far to bask in the sunshine and that electronic music can indeed illuminate the soul in all the right places. Newman’s past work has, in fact, embraced the human condition with true aplomb, a method he lets spring full force this time around, connecting the fragility of our surrounding ecosphere with our own desire to harness nature, in this case via a devastating arsenal of supple, coaxing keys, and some of the lushest digitalia this side of the fourth world. Tracks such as “Six Legs & Wings”, “Forest Floor, Springtime”, and “Creature Loops” finds Newman teasing our ears in a phantasmagorical sonic diorama, replete with agile, unidentifiable fauna sprinting amidst vivid riots of reds, greens, and yellows. How he manages to bring these electronic sprites & landscapes to life remains a mystery, but for us, the benefactors, such ambiguity works beautifully in our favor.
credits

Lee Norris aka Metamatics, Norken and one half of Autumn of Communion. Nemmit Con was made in the autumn and early winter of 2017. The last track Unreadable was finished in the last days of December. Only analogue synthesizers and step sequencers were used on this collection of tracks. Nemmit Con is dedicated to Conrad Schnitzler and Edgar Froese.

Ishq morphs into Indigo Egg whilst evaporating Ringo Starr with a laser gun in favour of Miles Davis style drumatronics to create an album of eqyptronica and psytropic tripped beats, sounds and vortextural anomalies.

A spaceship ride across Noospheric dimensions.

Channeled directly from the mind’s eye of Sun Ra on for this momentous occasion, Indigo Egg creates an album of deep moods, heartwarming novelty and the sound of tropical sunrises on distance planets + a hint of the extraterrestrial DNA we all know and love.

It’s in us all, it’s music from another dimension designed to take you back in time to a future we have yet to behold.

Limited to 150 copies.

Alio Die is considered one of the precursors of ambient music in Europe. His music can be described as a very spacious, experimental ambient, combined with many electro-acoustic elements. This album was recorded at the Kalisz Ambient Festiwal in Poland. A beautiful journey from start to finish. Limited to just 150 copies.

An electrifying stratosphere of vibrant realms and enchanting tonalities evolves with every breath of Martin Nonstatic’s hand-crafted synthscapes. Gently progressing into a waterfall of mind-massaging oscillations, Ligand is an ambient downpour of dramatic euphoria.

Hauting, soulful minimalism is engraved within the atmospheric frequencies that paint these melancholy walls, a downtempo outcry of distant, mechanical pads and dystopian melodies crawling against an auditory horizon. The experience of a voyage to the core of your emotions.

Krystian Shek released a number of superb and still underrated albums on Namlook’s FAX imprint over the years; his first Carpe Sonum offering, 2014’s Sometimes Not, was a bracing return to form, and al-Qāhirah is the follow-up, and it’s a dandy, a longform slice of far-flung ethnotronica that speaks within dub’s mother tongue but jettisons the lockstep rhythmic underpinning. In so doing, Shek’s augured quite a brilliant thing: digidub that is all languid pools of sound, froth, reverberation, and echo, plunging the listener into a vast abyssal chamber whose sounds mimic the detritus found in long-abandoned sensory deprivation tanks. Yet the whole experience is becalming, welcoming, and thoroughly non-isolationist: throughout the fifteen-minute excursion of the title track, we are treated to a rainbow coalition of thrillingly sculpted shimmers lighting up a desert night sky like some man-made aurora borealis. Shek’s skill lies in his ability to showcase works of ‘ambience’ that are leagues removed from Eno’s hoary old definition—this is a music of flares and fanfare, bursting with light, drunk on the absinthe of nature.

Near:Glow is a long form elaboration of the track on the same name from Steve’s 2017 Near Series trilogy. The piece was chosen because of it’s particular cinematic atmosphere where the shadow of clouds roll over vast dark pine forests. Afternoon rain tumbles down mountain rapids and at times the utter silence can feel like pressure on your body. Near:Glow is an astute study of the elements that blends nature and humanity through your speakers.

Dark Entries returns to the New Jersey basement studio of SMERSH to unearth an 18-minute jam session from 1989, backed with two contemporary remixes. Smersh was the duo of Mike Mangino and Chris Shepard from Piscataway, NJ who began making music together in 1978. They were uninterested in traditional notions of songwriting or live performance. Between 1981 and 1993 they released over 40 cassette albums on their own Atlas King imprint. As these tapes traded their way across continents, Smersh developed a devoted following in places far beyond New Jersey, leading to releases on dozens of other labels from around the globe. “Sideways” was taken from a cassette titled 100, which refers to a 100-minute jam session the band recorded to tape on June 12, 1989 in Piscataway. The track was composed and performed by Mike, utilizing a Roland TB-303, TR-606, SH-09 and an ARP 2600. A frenetic hybrid of techno and acid with driving EBM style beats, “Sideways” weaves intricate industrial noises with synth melodies that drift in and out of phase. On the flip are two fresh remixes by different aliases of prolific Ann Arbor producer TADD MULLINIX. As JTC, he expands the sound palette, adding organ stabs and lush pads, drawing on Detroit deep house and UK garage. The CHARLES MANIER remix features chanted vocals on top of an array of pulsating synths, stark percussion, and post-punky guitar effects. Includes an oversized postcard with notes.