This chilly piece of techno from Vitaliy Be suits the ‘summer’ we’re having in the UK.
When I accepted this track for posting I thought the artist was from Germany but it looks like Russia. Vitaliy Be is Беляков Виталий Алексеевич. Thus, first up Slava Ukraini.
The track is Elixir. An elixir can be a substance held capable of changing base metals into gold or a substance held capable of prolonging life indefinitely. Here we’re into alchemy. But the starting points of chill and Detroit techno are hardly base metals.
Elixir is from the album Amnesia (2011). It’s a lovely rippling mix of ambient chill with some deeper and darker beats. There’s an ethereal choral effect going on but that doesn’t impact things too badly.
The techno underpinning to the track gives it a depth and gravitas that avoids the chilled synths and voices drifting off into the ether. The track gets a lovely throbbing, heart beat feeling from the beats and bass kick.
Back to the old school sound today care of Alfrenk via a ProOne79 remix. You get old school tribal house mixed with a bit of tech. Neither are my usual happy places but there’s a really funky sense to this track.
Alfrenk is Alfredo Rosiello who was born in Naples. His work has a strong focus on tech house sounds. The remix is from ProOne79 is Italian based producer Gioele Cantoni. He’s from Sardinia and has been a producer since the 90s. His work focuses on house and techno. Their combination is a strong one.
The featured track is Hare Hare (ProOne79 Remix) from the Mahasaya EP on Sardinian label Area Music.
Hare Hare (ProOne79 Remix) opens with a lovely dulled bass line that occupies the centre ground of the track. There’s a bit of wood block and hi hats along side but it’s that bass that captivates. It’s deep enough to rumble but not so deep that it loses the funk. It has a twangy elasticity.
There’s a bit of chopped vocal sample but nothing to disturb things as they chug along. A bit of tribal chanting offers a different side to the track and gives it some real dance floor energy. Makes you want to stomp around in the dust shaking your thing.
A proper dance floor weapon is this hypnotic tribal stomper.
Sundays have been a gardening day for so long. Been hard this year with so much rain making grass cutting too intermittent. As a result, I’m now resting aching limbs after struggling (and failing) to tame the foot high meadow that used to be the garden. As a reward for my toil here’s some none-more-ambient from Dren McDonald and a bit of downtempo chill from ADMZ.
Dren McDonald is from the US and has a reputation for video game scores (CounterStrike Global Offensive, Ghost Recon Commander, Stranger Things VR), but he’s also written music for film, VR experiences, and theme parks. That doesn’t always translate into good music for listening rather than with visuals. Thankfully, that’s not the case here as he also has a fondness for Brian Eno that shines through on featured track Orcinus Bulla.
Orcinus Bulla is taken from his album Oceanic, to be released on 26 July. The track title is explained by Dren as “comes from: Orcinus, which is the latin name for the Orca (Killer Whale) and the Bulla is the lower part of the Orca’s jaw that is used to absorb sound waves…the equivalent of our eardrums.”
The track is a lovely beatless piece. It has deep liquid tones. It flirts with being both drone and neo classical but avoids settling in either. It’s a delightfully complex and layer set of modular synth sequences alongside manipulated guitar parts.
The sound is rich and sonorous. Synths sound like French horns and guitars. But it remains a deliciously electronic palette. Everything about this is redolent of the deep ocean. There’s a chilly, rolling, lightly menacing and dark oiliness to everything. Properly skilled Ambient.
Moving from the dark to the light and Honestly from ADMZ.
ADMZ (Adolfo Mazuecos) is an electronic artist based in Granada (Spain). He says he “creates music from influences such as Nicolas Jaar, Kiasmos, Monolink, Apparat or John Hopkins to build electronic songs of an emotional nature.”
Honestly is part of a twin track release with Mià. It opens with a drawn string tone before beats come along with piano. These two elements of melodic piano lines and minimalistic beats dominate the track. ADMZ describes the track as “serene” but it doesn’t feel like that to me.
This track with its mournful one moment and romantic the next piano is a series of suppressed but surging emotions. Strings become deep tones that give that extra resonance to the track.
This wants to be ethereal but it’s really too tear inducing for that. Where’s Mika and Lang Lang when you need them?
Cafe Del Mar is a dance classic from Energy 52. It’s been remixed a million times already but nonetheless Orbital have now had a go. It’s become a very Orbital track but with plenty of trance left in.
Confession time. I never liked the original track (see video below) at the time. It was terrible trance techno that was in love with looking moody. And most of the remixes since haven’t really changed my view. The only exception was the Michael Woods remix from the early noughties (see below).
It’s a bit of a shocker to realise that the track first featured here fifteen years ago. Anyhow, a quick summary of the origins. Energy 52 is Paul Schmitz-Moorman (Berlin), who operated also under the moniker “DJ Kid Paul” and was a popular DJ in Germany in the 90s. Collaborating with the likes of Harald Blüchel (Cosmic Baby), and recorded by Jens Woinar at the Highlights Studio in Berlin, the project produced tracks starting 1991 with the “Eternity” and “State of Mind” EPs (both 1991). But it was 1993’s Cafe Del Mar, the legendary Ibiza sunset spot, that would go stratospheric as a trance anthem that has continued to resonate thirty years later.
I’ve no insight on why Orbital decided to remix it but as to how, they said to DJ Mag, “How do you go about mixing a stone-cold classic like Café del Mar? You bring it into your world, cosy up to it, pour it a cup of tea (it is a Cafe after all) and make it your own.” And that in a nutshell is what they’ve done.
Orbital’s remix of Cafe Del Mar isn’t the companion piece to their blissed out tracks like One Perfect Sunrise. This isn’t a chillout tune. This is carrying on raving through a come down. They’ve avoided standard 4/4 by going for some surprisingly punchy breakbeats that give the track a welcome edginess.
Eventually, of course, the classic synth lines float in to give the required euphoric lift to the track. But that hand waving phase isn’t allowed to hang around before acid and hefty beats come creeping in to administer a further beating to your expectations.
There’s nothing radical going on here. But as a demonstration of how Orbital have refused to fade or comply with expectations while allowing a classic to remain recognisable it’s pretty damn good.
A beautiful evening in London today. Want something equally as uplifting for you. Here’s ANKO with some lovely light drum and bass on Dust.
ANKO is musical duo consisting of Nicolas de Ferran and Antoine F. Martin, based in Paris, France. They started to work together a few years ago by writing and producing music for primetime TV shows and documentaries. They mix electronic and organic with a dose of cinematic sound. And influences seem to include a strong dose of UK noughties chill.
Dust is part of a two track release with Love. They describe Dust as “our take on cinematic liquid drum’n’bass.” In fact, this is softer even than that. There’s nothing cutting or edgy in the beats. This has that sepia tint of fading light. A golden hour track.
Chill is very much the order of the day. The beats are lovely and kept away from anything cutting. The cinematic references mean a big dose of string wash over the track. But this is no lazy cinematic track. There’s a gently precise hand(s) at work.
Sounds ripple around. It’s all terribly hazy and sunny. And just about perfect.
Konnewitz is from Germany but I know no more than that. His work is a mix of deep techno and melodic sounds.
The featured track is Âme Amère (French for Bitter Soul). It’s a dark and melancholic track, drawing on techno, melodic techno and electro to provide a compelling piece.
The origins of Âme Amère are also dark. Konnewitz says “I started composing and producing this track in Kiev 2021. I didn’t know anyone there and was in my room myself.I had an uneasy feeling that night. It took a while to finish and it’s sad what happened in this time. Listening to it know, I can even more feel the sadness and chaos.”
Âme Amère has a lovely throbbing anticipatory air. It’s all bass notes and deep beats. It also has that echoed vocal giving it an old school or classic feel. Melodies ripple but are subsidiary to the bass kick of the track.
There’s a Spartan air to the construction of the track that add to the old school electro feeling. The uneasiness that Konnewitz talks about is the absolute underpinning here. This gives the track an impressive dynamic. It’s doesn’t quite feel to have enough heft to move a dance floor but as a headphones experience this is marvellously profound. Techno with a human touch.
Something a little different for Monday. Some Argentinian breakbeats mixed with a bit of deep house from Serval (AR).
Serval (AR) is musician, sound technician and melodic techno producer currently based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He’s a fan of 80s alt rock folk like Depeche Mode and minimalists like Richie Hawtin. His new Tinter Town EP on Distant Desires Records has this little gem on it. Departure Echoes takes breaks to a different place.
Departure Echoes has a restrained 80s feel to the reverbed break beats. That edge of 80s tinniness. But there’s also an understanding of the richness of deep house. This is breaks but delivered in an unusual way.
There’s a lovely use of synths to allow an offset to all the digital machine noises of the beats. A human touch full of wistfulness and a little chill. The production is super clean, as you’d expect from a sound technician. That allows the multiple layers to individually shine through.
A perfect piece of home listening electronica. And if you want to go for the full 80s experience there’s also a Late Night mix of the track. But the original is the one for me. Everything in perfect head nodding balance.
Ambient Sunday is going a bit IDM with Sebastian Müller in a remix from E.Terre.
Sebastian Müller is a Swiss multi-media artist living in the UK. He moved to Brighton, UK in 2013 where he studied at the University of Sussex. His musical styles range from experimental electronic to drone and ambient music. E.Terre meanwhile is the ambient, electronic project of Elliot Turnley. Last time they were here a couple of months back the roles were reversed.
The track being remixed is Copycat from Müller’s album Seraphim. The original track is a hazy, almost ambient shoegaze track. It has a shimmer and a bit of a bobble. To be honest the remix is the better track.
This is one of those remixes that travels a long way from the original material. There’s still a bit of out of focus warmth but not the full on haziness of the original. It adds some deep bass beats to give the track an IDM dance floor edge. Music for swaying rather than throwing shapes, to be clear.
The track has a lovely bloopy IDM sense and a delicate angularity. It’s all set in a dream world of rich vibrations. The drone inherent in the track gets chopped up into interesting phrases that tumble around. Classy ambient IDM.
Another Champions League over for another year. Another Real Madrid win. Relentless. A bit like tonight’s offering from Deadly Custard. Their dark electronica gets the job done and leaves you floored.
Deadly Custard is British designer and artist Jon Newton. Sounds a silly name until you realise the unique nature of custard. It’s not only a non-Newtonian liquid in its made up form but also has dangerously explosive potential in powder form. Really. Have a google.
Musically, here’s Pulse from a twin track EP with Flutter. As a track Pulse is somewhere between IDM and Electronica. It’s a moody little bugger filled with IDM darkness and angularity but retaining a relaxed and sinuous style from electronica. There’s a bit of Jon Hopkins here and I’d say some Max Cooper. They say David Holmes but that seems a bit off, unless you’re talking about his early techno work.
This is filled with reverberating sounds that edge towards distortion and then back off. There’s a lovely flexible bass line that give the track a loose limbed quality while the keyboards go off on one into epic, almost orchestral, flights of fantasy. The percussion is complex and changeable.
Theres a bit of dark psychedelia at play here. This is late night paranoid and anxious listening but with a saving grace at its heart.
Trying to ignore the variability of the English weather and focusing that summer must soon be here. It’s the longest day in three weeks time. I’m settling for some dreamy summer downtempo pop from Joaquin Crimson
Joaquin is a young Argentinian musician from the east of Buenos Aires. His biog says “Joaquín Martínez es un joven músico argentino oriundo del barrio de Castelar, zona oeste de Buenos Aires. Nació el 17 de marzo de 1993 y desde temprana edad demostró un gran interés por la música. A los 15 años comenzó a componer sus propias canciones y a tocar la guitarra y el piano, lo que le llevó a interesarse por una gran variedad de géneros musicales, desde el rock de los 70 y el jazz hasta la música electrónica actual.”
The featured track is Las Golondrinas (tr. The Swallows). It’s one of those three minute excursions into a hazy summer. It has chill writ right through the track. Music for hammocks.
The track opens with some lovely acoustic guitar chords. They have that summer lethargy about them. The beats are lofi but with a bit of organic kick.
Melodies from keyboards vie with the guitar in a deliciously languid interplay. There are hints of 70s rock here, as well as the jazz influences. But it’s all so deliciously handled that I didn’t mind a bit.
Roll on summer we have the tunes whenever you’re ready.
ACID TED 