on the pulse ambient - #1 - all the unknown isles they believe

So this is going to be a bit different… an experiment I’ve wanted to try to a long time, and where I will try to keep the vibe as relaxed as possible. I think you all are familiar with ASMR if you’re on YouTube in any way, but for the connoisseurs out there, there will be music that’ll slip into the background across my reviews, and as much as I tried to keep things ambient, it may not be to your pleasure. So with that being said, let’s ascend On The Pulse!

Richard Batchelor - Sanctuary - Okay, we’re actually going to start this off with two albums from Patrons, this first one from instrumental producer Richard Batchelor. He’s been putting out projects across a lot of the 2010s spanning from more elaborate orchestral arrangements to minimalist pianowork to grooves that are closer to a textured hip-hop vibe. And while overall they tend to be a bit sleepy, for the most part the production and melodies are fine enough and can produce an okay vibe. So putting this album in my ambient list may be fudging things a bit, but it’s working to cultivate something close new age vibe through its Japanese plucked strings contrasting the more contemporary strings arrangements, so I can see it fitting. But the keening, sharp strings tones rarely pick up a firmer low-end tone to balance them consistently in the low-end, which makes them spike out of the mix and compromise the vibe, draw attention to the melodic compositions… which have the feel of importing classical folk chord progressions to instruments that don’t always well suit them. Maybe using them as facets of the richer well of synth, better blending so they feel more organic rather than so oddly jagged, or build to any sort of consistent flow from track to track. It feels more like trying to capture individual compositional snippets rather than build to a more cohesive whole… and it’s a shame fewer of those snippets work for me, even if there is a nested plucky intricacy I like. Doesn’t help that it runs long and fades on the back half either, even if I do think it ends pretty well when some heavier percussion comes in, so… very strong 5/10.

Patricia Taxxon - Crocus - I don’t normally cover Patricia Taxxon’s ambient albums - mostly because it’s hard to find much to say about ambient projects but also because since Cicada I’m not sure I’ve found one that captures the same spacious presence and weight. But one of my other Patrons was curious about this and… well, if you know her sound and interests, it’ll be a satisfyingly solid but not surprising listen. Slower, spacious pieces that bookend the project, burbling synth passages across the middle - including a glittery piece in ‘Crocus 3’ with some subtly brilliant syncopation that wouldn’t feel out of place off Traveller or Rainbow Road - and a sample right in the middle that provides just enough framing to subtly recontextualize the album. This time it’s pulled from an Italian neorealist film Accattone from the early 60s, where if you don’t know the sample might come across as vintage romanticism, but in reality it’s an impressively bleak film focusing on failures to extricate oneself from poverty through pimping, where the male lead finds sympathy for his prostitute, lets her go, fails at finding honest work, and then dies in an accident. And yet it’s interesting placed in contrast with the symbolic meaning of the crocus flower, which is of hope often framed in dire times - the winter will end, the flowers will bloom. So while Taxxon’s ambient albums have an understood arc by this point, at their best they can be genuinely beautiful - the first half of the album building into the layered twinkle on compositionally striking ‘Crocus 4’ is potent as hell, shame that when she tries a similar approach on ‘Crocus 6’ it doesn’t really click, but that’s more a factor of the ending being a bit weak overall. Still, it’s pretty stuff - solid 7/10, check it out.

Katia Krow - I’ve Called Off The Search I Know Exactly Where You Are - I remember having a conversation in my discord surrounding the difference between ambient and drone music, and where the former focuses on melodic progression and atmosphere, drone circles repetition, which in my experience tends to be why it’s so much slower and heavier and downbeat. And of the albums I collected here, hailing from the United Arab Emirates, Katia Krow’s full-length debut album is the darkest and bleakest. It doesn’t start that way - clear twinkles of synth ricochet off cyclical acoustic guitarlines that grow all the more hazy and lo-fi, the central melodies sinking between titanic rumbles that’ll shake the mix or dusty field recordings of machinery and roadways that evoke an even heavier sense of desolation. But even the twinkles pick up traces of a bladed edge and the sweet tunes contort or just sink ever deeper into the shuddering fuzz, for where there might have been traces of macabre beauty turns to ashen texture - the song titles indicate unceasing change… until a point of grim certainty, where you might try to evolve but if you’re stuck within the same framework you’ll wind up a forgotten casualty. They can call off the search - they know exactly where you are, unmoving amidst the rubble, and thus the half-heard vocals only amplify the haunted atmosphere… because it’s not like they’re coming to help. The progression into shuddering, droning noise on the final pieces make this one of the most dour and unnerving pieces you’ll hear… but also one so textured and layered that it makes you want to keep sifting through the rubble. It won’t be for everyone - hell, this brand of bleakness doesn’t even always work for me consistently, and the drone side of this album does mean it drags in patches - but for its progression and atmosphere, it’s impressive… and terrifying. light 8/10.

Grandbrothers - All The Unknown - now this is a German duo I was very happy to discover in this experiment - active across the latter half of the 2010s, their debut album had such a bouncy, crystalline vibrancy in how it structured melodic grooves that I found so enjoyable in a piano-driven post-rock way, and even if their 2017 follow-up lost a bit of the colour, I still was kicking myself a bit that I hadn’t found them sooner. So now on this release, for as much as their fast-paced, staccato but dreamy piano work remains the foundation of their sound, there are more acoustic flutters, splashes of glossy strings, and clicking, sandy patters of more developed percussion. There’s still something very post-rock in the crystalline build and expansive sounds they accumulate in their crescendos, but while it can often feel like it’s searching and expanding, it never overwhelms like post-rock can… mostly because for all of its intricate craftsmanship that could make this feel so cold, there’s a tasteful playfulness to its swells and jittery keys that can capture that swell I love in ambient music. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stay in this territory, especially by the final quarter - it becomes so much more cold and melancholic, the percussion becomes heavier and more trudging, an album that was yearning to venture into the unknown and then either didn’t like it found or must return home to misery. It’s also an album, that for as much melodic colour as it tries to center, can start to run together in its blurrier moments… and yet even with that, there’s still so much kinetic vibrancy that it’s difficult to dislike. Not quite surpassing the debut, but still pretty great - light 8/10.

Yu Su - Yellow River Blue - this was a debut album I had seen recommended a number of times this past month that sank into ambient textures but also explored fluttery touches of dream pop, traditional Chinese music, and even krautrock and dub… and unlike our first album where adapting neoclassical compositions into Asian-inspired instrumentals that could feel a bit sterile, Yu Su’s approach in both composition and production feels considerably more organic. The fizzy ambient swells around the thickened, rubbery basslines, spongy splashes of chirping synths, echoing vocal fragments and touches of birdsong, and prominent textured percussion gives the mix a live graininess that rewards the textural side of an ambient mix and lends more groove. It’s just a shame the flow across the project feels weirdly abortive and leaden amidst the muted soft-focus, with less emphasis on tune or swells of atmosphere, which would feel more organic if it didn’t feel like the mixes would shudder and fracture as often as they do - the album feels more comfortable leaning towards a minimalist dub palette rather than ambient, but for the background textures and overall serene vibe that place it there… or at least until you get wonky metallic cuts like ‘Klein’. But even then the sequencing feels ever so slightly askew, and the album feels shorter than it is for the wealth of ideas on display, and I found myself wishing what we got landed with more impact. So… strong 6/10, a fascinating listen that’s picked up considerable attention, just wish I found more to like.

Bicep - Isles - …I’m starting to think this might be a tenuous genre definition to base an ASMR video… especially as Bicep has always branded themselves as ‘ambient house’ or ‘ambient techno’ along with UK garage. Well, given I missed their debut breakthrough in 2017, I figured I owed myself to get into their pulsating, glossy sound and… well, the debut is fine enough. A little beholden to its influences and not quite as sticky as I was hoping, but maybe some of that would evolve on their follow-up this year? Well, I’m of a few minds on this - absolutely the most ‘accessible’ of this list courtesy of its faded vocal snippets, sharper burbling synths that rise and fall out of the ambient, chalky percussion grooves, and even a few metallic techno touches on ‘X’, ‘Fir’, and ‘Hawk’ that reflect the most passive of fleeting glances at the PC Music crew. But the tunes overall feel a more subdued, often settling into an understated vibe that makes you feel like there’s a missing climax point, or where there cavernous expanse of their mix will reveal something more. If there’s a dance to be found, it’s desolate and abandoned - which Bicep has emphasized was the point in this homebound project - but it falls in an odd uncanny valley where the ambient wistfulness feels cold and the dance floors feel more technically defined rather than truly evoking ghosts… odd, when they do have a bit more organic texture in the haunted vocals and especially the percussion. But even those house touches can feel oddly clinical, where the most propulsive moments feel desperate to make it material, but never magnetic. Just kind of sadly antiseptic by the end. 5/10, wanted to like it more.

Loathe - The Things They Believe - why am I reminded of when Bring Me The Horizon at the end of 2019 decided to slip out a glitchy electronic experiment, does Loathe think they are there already? Well, here’s the funny thing: they might already be past them in this lane, because this is a pretty credible ambient pivot for the group. The mixes crackle and swell with waves of sandy static and haunted twinkles that remind me of early 2010s Tim Hecker - especially Ravedeath, 1972, on the darker tracks that influence is flagrant - but the synth swells, touches of strings, and even introduction of some low saxophone from John Waugh who you might recognize from his work with The 1975 show a more contemporary sophistipop or even synthwave inspiration, especially for as organic as the blending turns out to be. It has the same fractured eerie side of Loathe’s experiments in metalcore whiplash - and some of the shortest, most abortive fragments of this experiment suffer as a result - but the flow is considerably stronger, allowing melodic tones to linger and unspirl across the static, echoing eerie calls that create the vibe of looking across the evening sky at a distant storm passing by, where you can feel the electricity in the air but it never overpowers you, and the touches of birdsong and static by the end perfectly encapsulate that feeling. That said, there are traces where you can tell they want to introduce more instability than they need - the percussion slipping behind ‘Black Marble’ when the offkey synth moans were plenty effective - and the album does feel oddly short even despite a terrific set of closing songs, but for a side project diversion like this, it’s better than it has any right to be and may just be one of the biggest pleasant surprises I’ve found this year. You sure you want to stay a metalcore band… because this is an extremely light 8/10, what a nice find.