Orcas - Orcas

Link removed

Genre: Electronic, Experimental, Ambient Pop

Label: Morr Music

Buy

Hear

The courtship of ambient music and traditional songform has been a long and tenuous one, almost to the point that their differences seem irreconcilable. Spanning decades with only a few points of obscure intersections, the occasions on which the two styles have met and crossed into the pop culture lexicon have often yielded a contrary, oil-and-water form. The abstract nature of the "ambient" genre and instant gratification of the "pop" song require deft hands for successful cohabitation, thus it's little wonder that there are so few practitioners of its delicate equilibrium.

Orcas – comprised of haze-pop auteur Benoît Pioulard and post-minimalist composer Rafael Anton Irisarri – is an imaginative return to that narrative. Theirs is a style deeply rooted in personal variations on songform and ambient craft, and as a duo they bridge the furthest outlying aspects of their previous solo work published on Kranky, Touch, Miasmah, Room40, and Ghostly International. Here song and abstraction become one entity, condensing the spaces between to generate an arching trajectory. This co-mingling of contrasts is even coded into their moniker; Pioulard and Irisarri have chosen an iconic symbol of the American Pacific Northwest, a methodical sea hunter that is also a totem of the open oceans' expanse. The so-called "wolf of the seas" that evokes a quiet, stately, yet powerful nature.

Appropriately, their music is a careful balance of chiaroscuro elements, where pop hook and spatial ambience converge. In its environs, lyricism flows as a time-distended dynamic, rising and falling, proceeding almost antithetically to pop's typical gratification ethos.

Orcas has taken an immersive, fluid vector for their passions; a resonant call like sonar from the depths.

Mirroring - Foreign Body

Down

Genre: Drone, Ambient, Folk

Label: Kranky

Grouper and Tiny Vipers make an alliance to do one of the most beautifull records of this year. Covering all the songs with layers of melancholy and gliding vocal textures they have created  six delicious compositions plenty of magical sensations. 

Lee Noble - Horrorism

Down

Genre: Experimental, Electronic, Ambient Pop

Label: Bathetic Records

Buy 

Hear

Lee Noble blends droning lullabies into an artistic stew of eerie, yet inviting melody on his debut vinyl release, Horrorism. Deeply personal and wildly humbling, Horrorism is a vast chasm of introspective churning. Conjuring the spirit of some sort of homegrown and low-pass filtered Radiohead on downers, yet sewn to the hip of modern atmospheric-champions a la Grouper and Sean McCann. 

This is entirely its own creature, caressing various spots in the brain; both abysmal and blissful. Noble has crafted a 100% viable album, a true masterpiece in its own world. With Horrorism, Noble brings his compositions to life with class and depth, molding a beautiful, emotional release.

Benoît Pioulard - 7"

Genre: Ambient Pop, Dream Pop, Folk Gaze
Label: Hall Of Owls / Stormy Records

My Space / Web

Buy

Lee features two covers, both described as old favorites by Meluch. The first is an excellent rendition of "Sundown, Sundown," originally written and performed by Lee Hazelwood with Nancy Sinatra. Meluch erases all the punchy orchestration of the original and replaces it with a hazy and sullen performance that retains the core melody and romantic tone. Meluch's spectral voice is in total contrast to Hazelwood's grittier delivery, but the subdued tone generated by Meluch's playing compliments his softer performance perfectly. The B-side is a cover of The Ink Spot's "Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat," a doo-wop song from the early '40s. Meluch maintains the simplicity of the original and puts all the focus on his vocal performance and a plodding bass line. The song's bookended by some static effects that sound like Meluch's signature more than anything else. It's a nice song, but the original doesn't appeal to me as much as Hazelwood does, so I can't get myself as excited about it.

Flocks is an 11-plus minute EP that features a dark, nearly resigned tone and more of the haunting melodies I have come to expect from Benoît Pioulard. The A-side, "Maginot," begins with the dark tolling of a bell and puts some industrial atmospheric effects to good use. These are cut off as Meluch lends his drifting voice to a choppy acoustic guitar accompanied by percussive effects, bells, and a fluid lead guitar. As the song progresses it becomes more layered and acquires an exotic, yearning character before degenerating into a sweet mess of sound effects and sustained notes. The B-side is a noise epic reminscient of the material played during his live show. "Alaskan Lashes" obliterates Meluch's angelic voice and eschews his melodic inclinations in favor of churning wheels, pressurized intensity, and grinding mayhem. It is a deep, bellowing blast of sound that broods and boils before it suddenly disappears. I hope this is a sign that Meluch has similar music on the way because both of these songs are superb.

Es - Kesämaan Lapset

Genre: Psichedelic, Drone, Electronic, Ambient
Label: Fonal

My Space

Four years on from the release of his monumental Sateenkaarisuudelma double-album, Fonal boss Sami Sanpakkila returns with a new collection of songs and soundscapes, covering an incredible range of instruments and compositional approaches. Before delving into lengthier, more involved pieces, 'Ennen Oli Huonommin' opens the set with a flourish of flamboyant analog designs. The piece is assembled from heavily modulated tones that gleam with a dazzling irridescence oveer a four minute period. It's all ver bright and major key, far away from the lo-fi forest folk preconceptions that people tend to approach Fonal material with. Next comes a cheery pop ditty: 'Kesa Ja Hymyilevat' introduces vocals and free-roaming electronics, and it's from here on that Sanpakkila really starts to stretch his legs; 'Sateet Sun Sielusta' begins with some floating, fragmented piano phrases only to ascend into a glorious cascade of drone that combines the disciplined classical minimalism of Terry Riley with the psychedelic synthesizer worship of kosmische musik. The title track takes this euphoric long-form approach even further, weaving a symphony of ambient textures from a miscellany of keyboard instruments, ghostly voices and environmental recordings, all building up to a towering crescendo. It's a hard act to follow, but Sanpakkila maintains the joyous tone for a final, pop-tinged bulletin in the shape of 'Haamut Sun Sydamesta'. It's a ear-singeing parting shot from a highly memorable album, one that merrily perforates boundaries between pop and drone music. Highly recommended.

Julianna Barwick - Florine Ep

Genre: Ambient Pop, Shoegaze, Experimental
Label: eMusic
My Space

Julianna Barwick’s music is unlike pretty much anything I’ve heard before. Sure, there are faint echoes of past artists, and I’ll get to them shortly — but this EP’s six tracks are a revelation nonetheless. Barwick’s modus operandi is to create music using effect pedals and loops of her own voice. Musical instruments rarely intrude (”Anjos” has a piano loop, possibly some synth), or if they’re there, they’re difficult to distinguish from the voice-derived sounds. It’s beautiful music, somewhere between ethereal and ambient.

At times, I’m reminded of a few different things. John Foxx’s Cathedral Oceans albums, for example, which are ambient music based around Foxx’s church music-inspired vocalizing. The odd choral sounds of Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares. Classic Harold Budd and Brian Eno ambient. Sigur Ros.

Though Barwick’s intrument is her voice, there are few discernible words or lyrics here. Her voice is used as an instrument. Only one song has an identifiable lyric — “Choose” has the words “any way you choose.”