A Sense of Doubt blog post #1235 - - Fragile Melodies, Broken Stones, and Dark Territory - Musical Monday for 1807.09
So, here we are.
This is the first ever Musical Monday post that is not a "Hey Mom" post.
Feels weird.
I will not share about my life too much as I will do that Thursday. For now, I will just discuss the music.
Prepare for various kinds of ambient music.
The theme is "music that is pretty" except the dark stuff.
Cold Cold Heart describes its music as percussion-less, post-rock, ambient. The vibe is a good one a light. There's some great lilting guitar work. The music features many rising crescendos that remind me of the quieter moments by Sigur Rós because all of these crescendos step down to silence rather than up to the blast waves of Sigur Rós. It's pretty stuff, which might be why several tracks are named for women.
I have written about and shared Slow Dancing Society stuff before. Here's a new album, which continues the excellent ambient explorations of an artist who I learned lives in the same state as I do.
The Bandcamp page for the High Skies album Sounds of Earth describes its music as Blade Runner meets Voyager: I assume Star Trek Voyager, but no, it means NASA's Voyager and a soundtrack for its journey. Not sure where and how Blade Runner fits but the music is groovy. Okay, wait, I found the Blade Runner sounding stuff. The last track -- "Sounds of Earth" -- has definite influence from the music of Vangelis used for that movie.
The Sorrow album Under Yew Possessed presents some strange, mythic, folky pagan pop music. It's very pretty with warm vocals and a British late 1960s vibe.
Dark ambient best describes Vortex from the Cyclic Law label out of Berlin that specializes in "Industrial Ambient Soundscapes." The album As Gods Fall would make a great soundtrack for a a dark and moody movie about the angel Lucifer Morningstar, maybe one based on the comic book!!
I may have shared this album before, but I am too lazy to go searching for it.
Fragile Melodies by Valotihkuu comes from the experimental label Whitelabrecs from the UK that A Closer Listen chose as one of the best labels of 2017.
One track in particular -- "Awakening of the Forest" -- would be a great morning, wake up track, which is literally what it is.
Pretty stuff, which is my interest these days: pretty music.
The description text for this piece is extensive, so I am just going to share it:
Valotihkuu is Denis Davydov who is from the industrial Russian city of Cherepovets, with previous releases appearing on Russian independent labels such as Ветер в Ивах and Unline. Denis has been active since 2010 and has amassed a discography which also includes several self-released projects available by his Bandcamp page.
We fell in love with 2017’s ‘Spring and All’ and urged Denis to produce something for Whitelabrecs; he kindly obliged by sending us ‘Fragile Melodies’.
Denis tends to start his recording process by searching for interesting or unusual sounds whether this be background noise or the sounds of outdoors. He then marries these with musical instrument, tape and digital sampler experiments with plenty of resampling and layering as part of the process influenced by dreams, the natural world, stargazing and childhood memories.
In Fragile Melodies, we’re pleased to present a record that could be described as both frail and serene, with Denis having spent a great deal of time editing previously recorded samples of musical instruments. These include bells, lap harp, music box and guitar and he strived to manipulate the sounds so that they could tell a story separately without adding new elements, harmonies and melodic lines. The sounds transform in a unique way, as a sort of scent which floats into the air before you and each time you try to capture this, it dissolves. During the period that this album was created, Denis would walk a lot, listening and thinking about the fragments of sound he had been concocting, trying to reflect on how these could be presented as a light but elusive set of textures. With each walk, he’d be aware of the intangible nature of his own childhood memories as they flickered into focus for a fleeting second. He decided to use Fragile Melodies as a means to transfer such delicacy through sounds, textures and melodies.
And lastly, the cut I am sharing first, from Foie (or Foie Gras) and a powerful track called "In Hargaven Territory Without a Knife." There are deep, dark spaces in this track. It rolls like a thunderhead across a barren field in the twilight and augurs threats without names and powers without forms, all of which are older than the crust on the earth and the oldest bones in the dankest caves.
From Foie Gras' bandcamp page: Foie Gras is unabashedly loud and mystic, gentle and soft. Guitar driven, she lives at the intersections of secure drone and reimagined Americana, as if Brian Eno and Patsy Cline have committed themselves to an endless and passionate love affair. Wake up, this is where your daughters have wandered off to."
From what I can see, "In Hargaven Territory Without a Knife" was only released on Sound Cloud.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1807.09 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1101 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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