The fifth installment in the series that showcases the different side of Thomas with his big influences of the 60s,70s, Science Fiction and anything obscure.

New album from David, inspired by Conrad Schnitzler.

Dark ambient…description forthcoming.

Lorenzo Montanà and Mick Chilllage are practically veterans across electronica’s many-splendored plains these days, as both artists have been virtually inescapable these past few years. Both FAX alumni, with additional releases scattered across a worldwide range of labels, it was almost inevitable that the two should someday join forces. Deviazioni Cosmiche is the result–eight tracks of gripping, lovely starcrush and void descent, where both artists seamlessly merge their diverse intelligentsia to yield a powerful tour de force of synth structure.

Since each musician’s back catalog has painted vivid pictures of brusque environments and alien topographies, this collaboration is no different, but what makes it a crowning achievement in their respective pantheons is the sheer dazzling display of sounds on hand. From the post-Vangelis be-bop of “Vinctos Temporis” to the spectral misty mountain climes of “Microsopic+Mechanisms+Moon”, the end result is a wonder to behold, full of towering peaks and abyssal valleys, hesitant percolations and demonstrative beatstorms. Begging for repeated listenings and multiple exposures, this one might well go down as a future classic of its form.

Following a direct path onwards from the three volumes of Crows-an-Wra with Ishq, within that same world but only barely, a chance in your journey to take a breath after so much ground covered, Alien is a warm morning album for sitting silently with friends smiling as last night still echoes faintly, lingering and fading equally.

Alien gently surrounds, holds you, oddly familiar, alien. Those echoes become like characters seen in the clouds of a vast sky, an echo from back when they Let The Power Fall, an echo from that last trip, echoes of itself, looping, shimmering, dreaming.

Mick Chillage could very well be the hardest working man in electronica, taking the reins of that position from the late Pete Namlook. What is more startling about the seemingly large quantity of work available from him in the past few years (and upcoming as well) is the high level of quality control he maintains throughout; nary a note is ill-placed, misaligned, or wasted. Chillage’s working methods are efficient to say the least, exemplary to say the most; the consummate musician, he’s not one to sit still or allow his muse to stagnate, equally at home channelling any number of sub-genres, be it fleet electro or galvanizingly intense atmospherica.

His latest for Carpe Sonum after the wonderful Saudade release finds the erstwhile sonic frontiersman alternating a beautifully involving series of tracks that deftly straddle spheres both inner and outer. (M)odes paints Chillage as introspective, questing, soul-searching; the plaintive piano chords and twinkling synths of “Nico’s Gate” suggest ancient rituals of deep contemplation, a re-examining of spiritualism as much as a vault heavenwards across the stars. The paragon of beauty that is “Midnight Mist” illustrates precisely what Chillage does best, digging down into the circuitboards of his trusty synths to exact the revealing science of gods. It’s at once splendorous and awe-inspiring to behold, (M)odes of (in)alienation as gripping as they come.

Carpe Sonum is proud to unveil the CD reissue of the 2005 LP-only recording from Multicast. First gaining notoriety via their own Obliq Recordings imprint back in the early oughts, Colorado-based electronic musicians Dave Alexander, Jeff Holland, and Nathan Jantz haven’t exactly vanished from the scene, releasing a slew of digital-only work in the interim. But their last appearance on a formal CD hasn’t been seen since the inspired and often-inspiring Further Obliq Perspectives in 2002 (itself a compendium of tracks from Multicast and other Obliq artists), so this reissue is indeed cause for celebration. Much has occurred both in, out, and around the various subphylum of electronic music during the past decade, and on Bahian Coastal Highway, Multicast make it abundantly clear that such diverse aesthetic approaches are integral to development and progression, as well as to the textural fiber binding the sinew of these densely calibrated tracks. The trio maintain that, “the feel we were shooting for was about arrival and departure, on a journey to Another Green World. There are Brazilian rhythms and chords, exotica and jungle references” with soundscapes conjuring “a new place, with new experiences met with open eyes.” At times, the Balearic, sunny environments suggested by most of these tracks seems at odds with the group’s former modus operandi, but then again, that’s precisely the point. Sidestepping pat categorical references, Multicast feel that this recording is their “most refined and resolved effort, featuring crystalline beauty amid soap-opera melodies, meeting in a sunny place. There is collaboration and interplay in the songwriting and structure that could only come from years of playing together, and through a telepathic musical connection.” Listening to Bahian Coastal Highway, an almost jarring array of sonic contradictions make themselves felt, but damn if the whole thing doesn’t still coalesce into a gorgeous whole. “Underdub”, for instance, might not conjure the ghosts of Eno past, but it’s solar-dappled synths, Hawaii-esque strings, and sputtering beats do in fact evoke imagistic landscapes sprouting forth all manners of chameleonic flora and fauna. Echoes of similarly-styled colleagues are evident throughout (Boards of Canada, Casino vs. Japan), but the aural melting pot that Multicast stir up feels far more pleasing to the palette; though recorded ten years ago, its embarassment of sonic riches remains thoroughly prescient. Though words such as ‘sublime’ tend to be casually bandied about when discussions of Multicast’s type of fleet electronica arise, in this case that description is spot on. It doesn’t come easy (what does?); the trio emphasize that though the end result is finely wrought during the editing process, “precision scalpel slicing and dicing can be a delicate thing.” In the case of Bahian Coastal Highway, Multicast’s keen attention to detail proffers us one helluva rich experience.

The mysterious entity known as Faex Optim is a relative newcomer on the scene, his representation made visible by net-only releases courtesy of the U.K.’s Kahvi Collective and via the artist’s requisite Soundcloud page. As usual, the braintrust here at Carpe Sonum are rescuing the good Faex Optim from his relative ‘obscurity’ and given him their aural blessing, as it were, in hard-media (neé CD) format with this quite beguiling debut.

Triskaidekaphobia breaks a bit from the the established label ‘house’ style, although truth be told, Carpe Sonum embraces eclectic sounds and myriad approaches to electronic music across the breadth of its catalog. But Faex Optim does exalt in being something of the anomaly regardless. Throughout the album, clever track titles illustrate a charmingly deceptive streak full of winsome IDM traceries that sport wide, cheshire-grinned palettesâ~@”classic ambient workouts this sure as heck isn’t. Faex Optim is apparently happy to let his gregarious ideas announce their intent within rather economical timeframes; these fifteen tracks don’t outstay their welcome, which makes for concentrated listening and more gratifying rewards. “Hollywood Dream Bubble”, for instance, recalls the sprightly historical footprints of Plaid, As One, Ochre, and any number of early provocative electronica storytellers. Across the five minute spread of the ironically-titled “Post Rock”, Faex Optim lets a faintly motorik beat anchor a nest of placid angles, widescreen whoosh, and timeless flutter, as the last breath of early aughts electronic ‘rock’ music is extinguished in a five minute grand gesture.

Elsewhere, Triskaidekaphobia exalts in revealing how rich indeed the last 40+ years of circuit-cracked musique has had such a profound effect on contemporary beatmakers, an effect filled with overwhelming affect. “I Look Like I’m from Space” manages to embrace its inner Cluster just as the piece kicks in its Warp driveâ~@”looking both backward and forward, the whole history of jaunty electronica is revealed in all its glory, writ meaty, beaty, big, and bouncy. Kudos to Faex Optim for making the old new again.

The first Carpe Sonum outing by Jacob Newman and Devin Underwood also has the distinction of being the first US-centric release on the label. Recorded in Colorado and Massachusetts and mastered in Colorado by Jason Corder (aka offthesky, himself a prolific experimental ambient artist), this new recording finds the pair on near equal footing with any number of their esteemed colleagues working a combined mojo of ambient drift and atmospheric toggle. The comparisons that acutely come to mind when discussing a work such as Sending the Past might well be obvious; not only does Pete Namlook’s ‘new environmental music’ explorations come to mind but also the taut-stretched horizons of Steve Roach, Eno’s delicate pastoralisms, the ambience (though not the strict instrumentation) of Russell Mills and Harold Budd, even the sacred space musics of practitioners as disparate as Ariel Kalma and Laraaji. What unites this slew of aesthetes together, Newman and Underwood included, is their love of landscape, place, total recall, and mental moving pictures. Over the course of a mere four minutes, “The Elusive” distills such phenomena in lucid, specfic detail, as a series of deliciously coaxed sonic entrails spiral out like gossamer webs, unidentifiable noises phosphoresce, and alien raindrops speckle across far-flung tundra. It’s a beguiling track that, like the finer moments on Eno’s On Land or Roach’s Structures from Silence, beckons you in to its womb-like formations and demands a suspension of time and space. Newman and Underwood’s modus operandi seems to mimic most other purveyors of contemporary ambient-space ritual, noting that like their brethren they “love to explore drones and tones, textures and spaces, as well as subtle melody.” That such nuance pervades Sending the Past is no surprise; they feel that this new recording differentiates itself somewhat from their established ‘template’, “proceeding in new directions as we continue to explore musical ideas and processing techniques”, but it’s their preternatural gift for intriguing sound design that sets the duo apart from the pack. In their case, Past makes perfect.

After a mere handful of striking releases on the Elektrolux family of labels, the enigmatic music of German trio Drøn finds a home on Carpe Sonum, and what a blazing debut it is. Mastered by the inimitable AtomTM (aka the ever-morphing Uwe Schmidt, founder of the Rather Interesting label & frequent FAX/Namlook collaborator), Comm recalls nothing less than the electrifying, halcyon days of the 90s, where were birthed the kind of mutant IDM/electro hybrids that Drøn spin ever-so-compellingly. A teeming microverse of simmering percussive patterns, randy oscillators, and hugely inventive modular synth acrobatics, Comm might well be the finest yet from a trio of unsung innovators carrying the torch of a bygone era well into the future. The members of Drøn—Christoph Abert, Frederik Dahlke, Ingo Zobel—make it abundantly clear that spontaneity is a key ingredient in successfully realizing their intricate, multi-spatial beatstorms. In a studio housing a cat’s cradle of more than 250 synth modules, they ‘conceptualize’ without actually devising a concept; for them, the font of sonic creation resides in a “dynamic process that is very mood-dependent, where nothing is planned beforehand, and ideas are allowed to process naturally and flow freely.” After considering numerous iterations, the trio insist that Comm’s end result, and it’s attendant ‘concept’, “emerges on its own” and with an identity forged from the effort “not to copy ourselves, which ensures that every album is different from the one before.” Far from understating the case, the whipsnapping tableau adorning the breadth of Comm speaks for itself. Throughout reams of juicy squelch and some of the most evocative analog arias unheard since the heyday of labels like GPR, Focus, Satamile, and, yes, Rather Interesting, Drøn have wrought what might eventually be considered a modern classic of expert knob twiddling.