Last Days – The Safety of the North

posted by Unctuous

Last Days is the alias of Graham Richardson. With solemn, melancholic melodies brought out through acoustic guitars and piano, the atmosphere is very nostalgic, as if remembering a better time than the present. The album begins slowly, like waking up gently from a deep sleep. The sound of rain outside guides your attention away as a voice reassures that you “will be there soon, in the safety of the north.” Almost like a fleeting memory, or saying a final goodbye before looking ahead to the future. But something tells you all is not lost, and the future is hopeful and will get better.

The album’s folk and post-rock influences work beautifully with the ambient background. Guitars put on extreme reverb draw out tensions and movement.

The music traverses many different landscapes, and is incredibly detailed with images From mountains, to soft, rolling plains, to forests and even the animals living in it. There is nothing direct, or upfront about the music; everything is reserved, calm, yet concrete and unwavering. This aspect creates rich layers that are each acting independently and telling their own piece of a story.

This album is like taking a breath of fresh air surrounded by nature after living in a congested city. The air fills and cleanses your body, but in this peace you are able to think clearly, without distraction. In this calm moment you are able to reflect, look ahead, like time has stopped and you are the only thing still in motion. You might ask yourself “Am I happy? Is this what I want?” There might be regrets, or things that have not been accomplished. In these moments lie the answers to happiness, although often we are so often absorbed in the little events that we completely miss how our actions will affect our lives on a grander scale.

There are times to feel sorry, but in the end what matters is what we do to make ourselves a stronger being on a deeper level than just the outside. Nobody will do this for you, so the choice is ultimately up to the individual, but with the right outlook and a proper focus your life can be as fulfilling or shallow as you desire. This is the message “The Safety of the North” told me.

More info at:

– Last Days official site

– Last.fm

– Discogs

Buy this release at:

– n5md Records

Download.

Bitcrush – In Distance

posted by Unctuous

Bitcrush is the ambient/downtempo/post-rock project of former Gridlock member Mike Cadoo. Stepping away from his earlier work of darker, more experimental IDM, and industrial, Cadoo brings together solemn melodies, ambient backgrounds, and hollow sounding drums, “In Distance” is a beautiful, calm and reserved piece of music. Melodies tend to be light, and airy coupled with with reverbed, slightly distorted acoustic drums. Lovely piano parts also drift in and out, adding colorful textures over slightly busier drum arrangements that glitch and stutter.

“Colder” shares with us a simple, yet prominent melody that starts slowly, and calmly, until bursting into an almost dissaray of chaotic, whiney guitars and deep, piercing snares. The song has a very barren and empty feeling to it exactly as the album cover depicts; a forest in the dead of winter. Frost lines the ground and snow is dusted upon leafless tree branches. The skies are grey for miles with hardly a hint of sunlight, and all is still and peaceful.

The bleak ambience of the music compliments the more solid rhythms quite well. Great attention was paid to detail in terms of the arrangements of the waves of ambient synths that glide effortlessly to create a serene atmosphere that really touches the deepest emotions. This album is full of surprises and creative innovations that blur the lines of IDM and post-rock and results in a sound that is rich in emotions.

More information at:

– Last.fm

– n5MD

– Discogs

Buy this release at:

– n5MD

– Amazon

Download.

port-royal – Dying in Time

Dying in Time is the fifth studio album (including the split LP with Absent Without Leave) from Italy-based port-royal (all lowercase) signed to n5md. The band tastefully blends elements reminiscent of shoegaze; specifically, long-winded, submerged vocals drowned out in a sea of traditional instrumentation. The vocals are treated as another instrument, with a variety of telling effects being carefully and artfully mixed in with the music, only adding to its dream-like quality.

With this release, the band dips its toes into shoegaze waters while keeping to the core ambient sounds that port-royal is so loved for. The album opener, a song entitled, “Hva (Failed Revolutions)“, articulately expresses to the listener what direction the remainder of this nearly hour and fifteen minute record is going in. Crisp vocals emerge naturally into place as the song unfolds into its more instinctive state.

The album explosively bounces back and forth between an upbeat ambient style married with influences of post-rock (and even a bit of synth-pop) and sounds of a more a melancholy and downtempo variety. It’s a very naturally flowing album, almost like a poem without any words, or a book without text. Where Flares left off, Dying in Time begins.

I could give no higher praise for this album. It is very well thought out, tasteful in its presentation, fantastic mastering, and most important of all, it is the natural step in the exciting evolution of port-royal’s music. Highlight tracks include Hva (Failed Revolutions), Anna Ustinova, and the three part Hermitage series. Album of the year material. Highly recommended.

For more information about this album, check out the band’s n5MD’s profile page. You can listen to extended previews from that link as well. The record is slated for release 10.05.09. Pre-order here. This is an essential purchase.

Yet more information:

– Last.fm

– Discogs

– MySpace

Support the artist. If you like what you hear, buy it at:

– N5MD webshop ($11.25 USD)

posted by admin

Lights Out Asia’s Eyes Like Brontide

Slightly similar to Subheim (many more post-rock influences in this), Lights Out Asia is a post-rock band from Wisconsin, USA. They take a lot of hints from the ambient music scene and fuse them into their records (dark, cinematic opening layers of orchestral-ish sounds, something characteristic of a lot of dark/ambient). I’ve listened to a lot of post-rock in the past and I still feel this is one of the better records ever recorded in this genre. Male vocals are present in some tracks; they manage to accomplish that quite well. In a lot of post-rock that sport vocals, a lot of it just feels half-assed, or the lyrics are unnecessarily shoddy, or they are mixed to low, etc., in which case just leads me to believe that the vocals in these bands don’t really belong to begin with. But these guys do this very well and then some and for that, this album has propelled itself to “highly recommended” status, which is very much deserved. As a side note: there is tons of delay and reverb applied throughout this album. It’s awesome.

Tracklist:

1. A Day Towards Other Days
2. Radars Over The Ghosts Of Chernobyl
3. X-33
4. Psiu! Puxa!
5. The Wrong Message Could End You
6. MIR
7. If I Die, I Wish You A Horrible Death (that’s not very nice, is it?)
8. Six Points Of Fire

My personal favorite songs out of these are Radars Over The Ghosts Of Chernobyl, Psiu! Puxa!, and The Wrong Message Could End You.

The Wrong Message Could End You starts out with a sequence of radio communication between several officers and a police station. Apparently, they are out in the field near a building responding to a hostage situation. From just listening to it, I think one of the officers accidentally shot a hostage. The music gradually and slowly overtakes the communication between the officers on the ground, but the recording itself still interweaves in and out of the music providing hints to the attentive listener as the song progresses. At the tailend of this, I’m able to catch a bit of communication again between two(?) officers and base command, informing base that the captors have taken two hostages;  they proceed on a lengthy car chase requesting backup. At least this is what I gathered from it; pretty cool nevertheless.

There are eight tracks on this CD with the total duration running just under 55 minutes. You can listen to previews here on n5MD. The album is available to purchase at that same link. The download is $10 while CD format is $11.25.

More information:

– Last.fm

– Discogs

– MySpace

– n5MD album/order link.

posted by admin.

port-royal’s Flares

I wanted to post about Italy-based port-royal’s Flares in anticipation of their new record Dying in Time, to be released on 10.05.09; however, pre-orders will ship September 24th (I ordered it).  $11.25 USD. You can listen to some brilliant previews here. Really, really, cool; the natural next step in port-royal’s music.

Two years have past in all our lives since the release of the port-royal’s “afraid to dance” (Resonant) but the royals have been keeping very busy with writing, recording, touring the EU and Russia, as well as creating remixes for the likes of Ladytron and Felix Da Housecat. For “Dying in time” port-royal have expanded their sound to encompass the more electronically skewed perspectives of synth-pop and even techno while still holding steadfast to their roots and original core sound that has always laid somewhere between shoegaze and emotively soaring ambient. As the title may suggest there is an undercurrent of aching melancholy to the album, as if the band are expressing the feelings they have for the temporality of life’s situations and feelings.

I feel that Dying in Time will be as big of a hit in the electronic music community as Flares is. Here’s a music video of “Jeka” from the aforementioned album (though the “Zobione” series is lovely! Search them on Youtube).

Flares combines lots of shoegaze and post-rock elements with ambient. One of my all time favorite records. Recommended for those who like Hammock and Epic45.

For more information:

– Last.fm

– Discogs

– MySpace

Download.

posted by admin.