‘Temper Of The Age’ by Villages

A billowing canvas membrane is set aglow with images from old Super 8 movies in this nostalgic new video from Ross Gentry’s minimal/drone project Villages; the scenes so saturated in golden light it’s as if we were trapped inside fossilised amber, watching the world go by at a flickering pace.

The amalgam of sonorous dust crackle and psychic journeys through memory is a thematic staple of the ambient genre, one which takes advantage of the seamless, shape-shifting sounds that invite us to glide anchorless through time and project our own personal histories onto the blank canvases and negative spaces the artist provides. Gentry, however, makes a simple alteration to his two-dimensional visual that adds literal and figurative depth, putting the viewer not squarely in front of his projected image, but almost at ground level looking up. From here the picture seems to be receding away from us, and with it the many details, scenes and faces that at one time may have been distinguishable. The billowing, the canvas grain, and the distance, are all tactile reminders of the fragility of memory, and as the images fade to grey in the final few moments, pointing towards their fragmentary deterioration and inevitable loss, “Temper Of The Age” crests to a stirring, palpable sadness.

‘The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire’ by Jim Jarmusch & Jozef Van Wissem

A balletic exercise in contrasts, this joint effort between idiosyncratic filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and Dutch composer Jozef van Wissem finds zen-like equilibrium amidst a stormy collision of dulcet lute and growling drone. That each instrument retains its voice without comprise, yet still finds harmony in the other, well, therein lies the beauty. The duo’s second album collaboration will be released on Sacred Bones in November, following Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity, which was only released in February. The song title seems to be taken from a novel by the 18th century Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg, which has the equally grandiloquent title: Angelic Wisdom Concerning The Divine Love And The Divine Wisdom.

‘Headwound/What’s Real’ by Chasms

Like some kind of abridged soundtrack to Bergman’s Persona pared down to its abstract purity, this ten minute mood piece charts a psychic journey through dissolution and restructure, opening with a searing purge of the sonic palate, only to find itself wading through the aftermath’s fog of disarray. Taking cues from the likes of Mazzy Star, Happy New Year and Grouper, the San Francisco duo immerse themselves in a narcotic mixture of sensuality and obliqueness, mostly leaving meaning and catharsis to hover just out of reach while an ominous air of gloom takes hold.

(via Sonic Masala)

‘Fell Sound’ by Mirrorring

Mirrorring may be a collaboration between drone heavyweights Liz Harris of Grouper and Jesy Fortino of Tiny Vipers, but the atmospheric din of Fell Sound leans more towards Harris’ abstract end of the ambient spectrum — keyboards murmur beneath hushed voices; the details all wash into one pure azure. Its form is blissfully simple too, endlessly vacillating between just two subdued chords in a sort of hypnotic sway. If you’re a Grouper fanboy like me, you’ll find this new stuff invaluable.

boyattractions:

Clearing – “Blank”

No Kings honcho and impeccable soundsmith Lee Noble lifted some of our SOPA blackout blues this morning with a newly-minted vid by Geoffrey Sexton, who’s previously helmed clips for the likes of Pink Priest and Sparkling Wide Pressure. This time around he’s teamed up with Clearing (Police Academy 6/Skylines’ Joseph Volmer), who recently hit up NK with the coyly-named No Titles cassette. Sexton’s refreshingly crisp (read: not Archive.org) collage pairs unsettlingly well with Volmer’s slow drones, which Noble compares to “Baraka-soundtrack-era Dead Can Dance and Philip Glass”. 

Related: I never had a chance to properly gush about it due to my September-December hiatus from BA, but Lee Noble’s Horrorism is (still) an absolute killer of a record, and one that ranked high on my theoretical best-of-2011 list. Bathetic is unfortunately sold out of the goods, but you can still snag a digital copy from the good folks at Boomkat.

Geoffrey Sexton operates like Brakhage-on-ambien, focusing on dense layers of texture that juxtapose the gritty, sprawling patterns of mineral decay with 21st century dot-matrixes and luminance.

Fun Fact that I coincidentally looked up the other day: The sequel to Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson’s 1992 Koyaanisqatsi-cousin Baraka, this time titled Samsara, sees it’s release this year, and is the first feature film in over a decade to be shot entirely in 70 mm!

‘Under The Yew Tree Shade’ by Roof Light

Much like fellow British composer Caretaker, most of Roof Light’s ambient output captures something cinematic. Here swells of piano and violin dance and intertwine amidst a climate of thick rain, seemingly held in a state of uncertainty and atonality. It’s simultaneously haunting and alluring in a way that’s hard to shake.

‘Cloud Bank’ by Harmonizer

Their captivating new EP is as much an imagined geographical study of an alien planet as it is a collection of songs. Far from projecting a future-world so digital and cold, tracks like Derbera and World Complete detail the the beat of factory and the hiss of steam, while opener Landline builds on foundations of tribal drum and communal handclaps.

Only on Cloud Bank do we get an aerial view of the land where details blur into palettes of colour, which then forms a map, and then a record cover.

(via Altered Zones)

‘BLEU NUIT’ by Sabrina Ratté

Bleu Nuit is made using video feedbacks as basic material. Through various processes of image manipulations, colors emerged from electronic light to create improbable landscapes.

Some of the prettiest analogue tape effects I’ve seen. Ms. Ratté is slowly becoming my favourite circuit manipulator. via her blog DIAMOND VARIATIONS

‘Ends’ by Noveller

Even more pedal loops and strings, here set against sublime oceanscapes and Sarah Lipstate’s solitary figure.

(via Stereogum)

‘Drome Zone’ by Chelsey Hoff

Amazing!

(via Jamie Harley)

futurecalm:

‘Drift 3’ by The Away Team

(via ROSE QUARTZ)

‘Our time is brief’ by Ian Berenger

Great new perspective on something we all are familiar with.

Fullscreen + HD for maximum effect.