Copyright © Somehow Recordings 2010 - a UK ambient music site
Copyright © Somehow Recordings 2010 - a UK ambient music site
Privacy Policy Terms Of Use
Many thanks to Textura for the following reviews
Saito Koji: Wave - MaCu : Vol 4 - Shaula: Non_rem_sleeps
Established by the father-and-son team of Tim David Brice and Nico Brice in mid-2010
in support of ambient, drone, and field recordings, Somehow Recordings has rapidly
attracted some well-respected artists to the label as an outlet for their work Fukushima,
Japan-born Saito Koji, for one, whose Wave recording is a natural follow-up to the
Ocean album issued on SEM in 2009. The overall approach to the new release echoes
the one before, as Wave, like Ocean, unspools without haste across a seemingingly
limitless expanse and builds loop-based material into an enveloping, droning mass.
Lodged at a single pitch, a central chord hums without interruption throughout Wave
while an immense roar rises and falls just as incessantly. As a result, one's impression
of the piece will depend to some degree on the attitude and expectations one brings
to it: regarded as ambient music designed to merge with the environment, Wave certainly
succeeds credibly enough in that regard; if, on the other hand, one comes to it anticipating
some modicum of development or narrative arc, one will come away disappointed and
conclude that, at an hour in length, the piece, being so static, is too long. In
Koji's defence, the fault here perhaps lies more with the listener who brings to
this thoroughly ambient material expectations about development or narrative arc
that aren't appropriate to it.
The two other Somehow Recordings releases can be recommended without reservation,
however. Japan-based Shaula, who's been issuing music under the name since 2009,
makes a very strong impression with an eight-track suite of transporting settings
titled Non_rem_sleeps. Working with a modest palette of guitar, piano, and electronics,
Shaula produces meditations of fragile and melancholy character. In particular, the
guitar, generally the most prominent instrument in the pieces, is liberally subjected
to treatments, with it shuddering, looping, phase-shifting, and turning liquidy as
a result. During the plangent Macula, a central synthetic episode is framed by
delicate filaments of electric guitar, while ghostly guitar figures and piano whistle
softly amidst tiny pops of static in Origin of Mirage. During Opaque, the guitar
filigrees and electronics meld into a lulling waltz, the material breathing as gently
as a classic Eno ambient piece. Spreading its wings for ten shimmering minutes,
Lepido alternates between billowing clouds of guitar textures and the repeated voicing
of a theme that's as melancholy as it is lovely. Throughout Shaula's splendid, fifty-minute
release, hazy mists rise off of dreamscapes that are filled with spindly curlicues
and plaintive melodies ambient soundscaping at its most entrancing.
Lest anyone naively think that one ambient release is the same as another, MaCu's
Vol 4 is a different creature altogether from Shaula's, even if the sixth album by
MaCu (Austria-based Susanne Hafenscher) was created using some of the same kind of
gear guitar, vocals, field recordings, and sound processing, in this instance. Hafenscher
collects six moodscapes under the two-part Fall title, with the album's dark ambient
material oozing portent from its every pore. Hers is a plunge into the underworld
that stays true to its venomous self for forty-three wholly immersive minutes. The
rain-soaked opener cultivates a doom-laden mood via ominous rumblings and eerie atmospherics
as hushed voices and machine rhythms emerge from the murk. Cavernous echo blankets
her soft wordless voice during the second track, and the scratchy noises that punctuate
the gloom call to mind a diseased creature deep within a darkened pit relentlessly
picking at scabs covering its body. The level of violence escalates in the third
piece as blasts appear alongside the low-pitched shudder of her voice, while in the
fourth guitar elements are heard drifting through a thick cloud of fog. The final
track brings us full circle as we find ourselves once again running for cover from
a thunderstorm whose intensity is bolstered by a grainy choral wail that drones ghoulishly
throughout. Despite the aggressive tone of that closing piece, the album, while suffused
with dread, ends up being a more soothing than nightmarish listen, perhaps because
Hafenscher, to her credit, chooses to keep the material at an even keel rather than
have it alternate between immense dynamic divides.
Shaula: Yona Nobuto Suda: Modest Calm
Shaula and Nobuto Suda return with their second releases for the Somehow Recordings
imprint and both reward one's attention. Yona, Shaula's follow-up to last year's
Non_rem_sleeps, finds the Japan-based producer entrancing the ears once again, this
time with seventy minutes of immersive material. Shaula's music is calming and time-suspending
in the extreme, so one is advised to put everything else aside while listening to
it and simply surrender to the experience. Within a given setting, simple melodic
figures repeat over and over and in so doing lull the listener into a state of peaceful
meditation. Delicate settings of shimmering haze and drift, Shaula's long-form dreamscapes
are generated from treated guitars, bass, piano, and electronics, and t he low-level
flow of guitar plucks, sparse tonal accents, and willowy atmospheres makes the album's
pieces ( Night and Green Grass, Deer in the Stalactite, and the thirteen-minute
outro White good illustrations of the form) feel like middle-of-the-night reveries.
On Modest Calm, Nobuto Suda graces our ears with fifty more minutes of sweeping ambient
material built from layers of guitars and field recordings. Having issued five recordings
in 2010 on Rural Colours, Somehow Recordings, and three on Tobira Records (the label
Suda co-manages with Hakobune), the Kyoto, Japan-based sound artist is gearing up
for an equally productive 2011 with the taâlem release of Twilight Garden to go along
with this Somehow Recordings sequel to last year's Ecotone. Suda's ethereal epics
are suffused with melancholy and consequently exert an emotional pull on the listener
that can make other ambient productions sound merely pretty or even static by comparison.
In the opening piece (track titles weren't available), Suda creates something akin
to orchestral ambient, with dense formations of mournful foghorn-like tones overlapping
in slow-motion. The second opts for ambient splendour, as if one is high above the
clouds with the sounds of humanity reduced to faint traces barely audible amidst
the hazy hum of the immediate surround. Suda wisely mixes things up as the recording
unfolds: the third is dominated by purer guitar-generated streams, while field recordings
of the natural outdoors are more prominently featured in the fourth. And while the
opening pieces are clearly epic in character, the sixth points in the entirely opposite
direction by ending the recording with a lovely setting of delicate, guitar-generated
quietude. It's such moments that make one return to Modest Calm for repeat listens.
Mark Hakonen-Meddings - Vapaa Reviewed by NORMAN RECORDS
More lovely, ultra soothing audio here beginning with some gorgeous piano keys on
'Viiva' and then wandering into more mysterious, highly evocative territory with
'Vilja' as enveloping ambient sounds swirl and fill the air with the overall effect
being both comforting yet ever so slightly un-nerving This track is really building
a sense of tension. 'Virta' has deep rumbling drones like tectonic plates creating
friction over molten lava while subtle processed electronic sounds shift around the
soundfield. 'Veri' heads into slow motion almost ambient dub mode (minus the bass)
as decaying chords wash over me. The set closes with 'Voima' which has some striking
guitar complement the wispy, ghostly atmospherics. I'm getting a wee bit of a David
lynch feel from this tune. Lovely stuff throughout.
Savaran - The Wintering Land Reviewed by NORMAN RECORDS
This label are churning them out right now yet are retaining high quality control
and it is quickly becoming thee boutique label for ones ambient fix. These five recordings
by Mark Walters were recorded during the exceptionally harsh UK winter of 2010-2011
and are soundscapes inspired by the effects of the weather on the countryside landscape.
I'm fairly sure one of the sounds on opener "Autumnal' is a recording of footsteps
squashing through snow. To be honest this past winter for me was a bummer in many
ways, my commute proved a nightmare for some time. However one day I was stranded
for two and a half hours with zero public transport yet armed with my ipod filled
with stuff on the Infraction label, I got through it and was a peaceful solitary
time. What that did though, was make me appreciate ambient music more in terms of
really tuning into the sounds outdoors and appreciating the weather while listening.
These sublime sounds take me back to that day making me reflect on just how gorgeous
the world looks under a blanket of snow. Now as far as I am aware this is the first
release from Savaran and the sonics show a most promising artist at work. This is
stuff you can just totally lose yourself in, always with several layers of gently
evolving tones and lush textures. 'Meltwaters' is superb and really quite dramatic.
Again this label has it's ears directed straight at emerging and fresh talent from
the underground.
Nobuto Suda s Ecotone Reviewed by AGNIWORLD
Released on Somehow Recordings, starts with transparent and sparkling sound of
Ecotone , which entitled the whole album. You hear some water babble, and spreading,
sweet drone; the next track Connected Place , as if continuing to create the fresh
and light atmosphere, contains the damped version of the water sounds. Fluidity
is too, a nice, radiant piece of Nobuto s music, presumably made of some wind section
instruments, may be processed flutes or something else it is difficult to make
it clear, what was the initial and base source of that sound. Abundant is serene
and unobtrusive. Pulsating Fragment Of The Sun is so radiant, as if some part
of the day star was processed and transformed into the sound. Somewhere with its
semantic feeling of indefiniteness of location, favours the listener with the terminal
brushstroke of the artist, with its tender brids tweet and airy ambient melody.
In the whole, this album represents a specimen of natural music, which is closely
connected with trees, the sky, animals, elements, by accurate addition of music components
into the field recordings. So, make a drift to Somewhere with Nobuto Suda s Ecotone
.
Saito Koji Dreamers Reviewed by NORMAN RECORDS
According to the press release Saito Koji recorded this two part drone epic during
a time of 'horrendous stress' in Fukushima which I'm assuming must allude to the
nuclear power station accident/s there over the past month or so. Having read that,
it's incredibly difficult not to let the notion completely influence your listening
experience of the 40 minute piece. I personally find that drone releases often rely
quite heavily on elements that are sometimes seen as relatively peripheral aspects
of music, ie song titles and artwork, to provide some sort of context and colour
for the minimal tones that are emanating from the speaker so when those aspects are
as strong as those suggested here it naturally makes the whole thing very affecting
indeed.. It's hard not to feel a very strong sense of melancholy from these undulating,
accordian-like waves.
Alonefold Last Roadpost And Alone Reviewed by AGNIWORLD
The wraparound, mild and cosy music of the Australian musician Scott Beardow (also
known as Alonefold) and at the same time a recent release from Somehow Recordings,
is now to be discussed. The album opens with airy raga-like Moving On Wind Signals
, resembling to some extent low drones of sitar, followed by Signs At Midpoint
Dawn Return , a regular and balanced piece, with indistinct, deeply hidden ambient
melody, that unhurriedly goes through the whole composition, resembling long and
vast tides of sound. Forgiven Drifts again represents the same technic, however,
it has some other shade of mood, with measured and assured flow of waves. Merging
And Still Alive is a slightly trembling just in some kind of microscopic and subtle
manner, while the concluding track Standing And Adrift is deep penetrating and
totally relaxing. I don t know much about the initial author s concept to the full,
however, I could assume, that this album is much connected with such notions, as
water , wind , coast , proceeding from the title of the tracks. If to go
further, than the titles of the tracks, I could confidently say, that Last Roadpost
And Alone is a logical result of an observant and poetic man s activity all these
magic ambiences are a definite product of long walks, spending much time in the open
air and a lot of time, spent in deep reflections and meditaions. Also, it is an achievment,
that Alonefold s music can transmit the author s feelings and experiences through
the sound, directly to the listener. So, have a fresh breeze from the Australian
continent with Alonefold s album Last Roadpost And Alone .
Alonefold: Last Roadpost and Alone
Mark Hakonen-Meddings: Vapaa
Savaran: The Wintering Land
Ambient music is sometimes referred to as aural wallpaper, a term that while not
entirely inaccurate nevertheless contains a whiff of negativity, as if to suggest
that the music's as bland and invisible as a shy wallflower at a dance. Perhaps a
better way of thinking about ambient music is to think of it as sonic tinting,
as sound that inhabits an environment in the same way that an enticing scent fills
a room in ways unbeknownst to its inhabitants while at the same time surreptitiously
influencing their moods. Somehow Recordings' music often has this effect on the listener,
as exemplified by some of its latest releases.
Operating under the Alonefold alias, Australian-based ambient composer Scott Beardow
namechecks Stars of the Lid, Steve Reich, Brian Eno, and Biosphere as influences,
which offers a pretty clear hint as to the character of the music presented on Last
Roadpost and Alone. The full-length, which follows on the heels of the Signpost Horizons
EP that Rural Colours issued last summer, features soothing. ambient-drone settings
easily capable of transporting the receptive listener to faraway realms, even if
the trip is purely imaginary. Beardow demonstrates a level of control and patience
in the music's execution that reflects the seasoned mark of someone with more than
eight years of audio and music production study and a particular focus on synthesizers
and effects programming. Signs at Midpoint Dawn Return exudes that meditative,
hymnal quality so beloved by Stars of the Lid devotees, while Forgiven Drifts
exhibits a similarly placid quality in its becalmed, organ-like unfurl. The album
ends with two long-form settings, the first of which, Merging and Still Alive,
could as easily pass for a seductive serenade by Slow Dancing Society piece as by
Alonefold. The recording's tracks flow into one another without interruption, making
Last Roadpost and Alone seem less like a collection of five tracks and more a deeply
absorbing, forty-three-minute travelogue of subtly shifting moods.
Vapaa, Mark Hakonen-Meddings' first release for the Somehow label, covers a broad
swath in its thirty-six minutes, with everything from ambient dub to guitar-based
atmospherics on offer. The five-track release begins dramatically with Viiva,
an electro-acoustic exercise featuring piano playing that explores extreme pitch
contrasts between the opposite ends of the keyboard. During the almost ten-minute
piece, Hakonen-Meddings sprinkles acoustic piano chords across a blurry icescape,
the sparse acoustic accents generously separated from one another to allow the ambient
material to assert itself all the more conspicuously. Track two, Vilja, moves
us into Glacial Movements territory with an ice-cold flow of swirls and subterranean
rumbles that's warmed by the presence of what sound like heavily processed choral
exhalations. The deep freeze continues when Virta brings with it even deeper rumblings
suggestive of elemental underground movements. Muffled chords lend Veri an ambient
dub-like quality, before Voima closes the disc with subtle guitar figures sparse
plucks and a pretty theme wrapped in soft ambient swirls.
At twenty-four minutes, Mark Walters' Savaran recording, The Wintering Land, might
be EP-length, but it's an engrossing and immersive listen nonetheless. Laid down
by the Shrewsbury-based Walters during the winter of 2010-11, the five soundscapes
take their inspiration from the weather-beaten countryside. Fittingly, then, one
hears the sound of footsteps clumping through leaf-covered trails during Autumnal
as droning wisps of willowy ambient tones murmur alongside. Under Snow manages
to seem both wintry and warm at the same time, an effect perhaps explainable because
its softly wavering tones envelop the listener so invitingly. A slightly different
wrinkle surfaces during the brief closer, Awakening, when the icy electronic elements
are joined by the ruminative meander of acoustic piano playing. The journey's not
a long one, but there are enough fluttering textures in the recording's five tracks
to make the trip worthwhile.
In contrast to the other releases (the Alonefold and Savaran especially),Yamaoka's
Warm Colors merges with the environment to a considerably lesser degree, as its eight
pieces are much more extroverted and bold closer in spirit to kosmische musik than
ambient per se, it turns out. Tom, for instance, careens through the far reaches
of space, its echoing, hot-wired keyboard patterns evading a constant battery of
meteor fragments as it does so. Neon-lit patterns rise and fall in waves, generating
a psychedelic effect that carries over into the even more animated, even agitated
F-point. Keyboards provide the primary source for the tracks' glimmering motifs,
though guitar loops form the basis for Tap (a chattering drum machine even turns
up during Ceramic ostensibly turning the piece into a techno workout). Generally
speaking, the material pulsates in a way that recalls 70s-era Tangerine Dream (
SAN and Clock-wise, with their burbling keyboard patterns, two cases in point)
and the music is at times less soothing than unsettling. In those moments where it
moves into electronica-IDM territory, Yamaoka's music also would be a natural fit
for labels like U-cover and Hibernate.
Review for Shaula - Tochka can be found here
Somehow Recordings has been rated the best label of 2011 on
gacougnol.