BotN #15 || Oval - 94 Diskont

Okay, so first post in my amazing "Best of the 90's"-series thingy (BotN = Best of the Nineties). It's taken a while to get going, I know; mostly because I've forgot, but frankly also because I am very lazy. As you might have noticed in the title, this is the album No. 15 out of 15 (meaning the least awesome of the 15).

Now that the boring informative stuff is out of the way, let us get to the actual music:

A groundbreaking album by a not-so-silly man with a silly name (but that's just my opinion), Markus Popp released this album with his group Oval in 1995 and in the process practically created a new sub-genre of electronic music in the process.

So called glitch music has since then grown pretty popular and terms such as IDM and glitch are thrown around whenever some dude on Warp releases a new single.

Most stuff that gets called glitch is in actuality not what I would call glitch. This, however, is undisputably delicious glitchy ambient.

The album is centered around the 24 minute masterpiece Do While, which was composed from short clips and sonic fragments from scratched and mutilated CDs, sampled and rhythmically organized into a single flowing, (surprisingly) organic and melodic drone. It's so watery and constantly mutating, hypnotizing and with subtle percussion it still manages to retain the true spirit of ambient as Eno meant it to be; background music.

Sure, the other songs are great too. But none are as mesmerizingly beautiful as Do While.

94 Diskont is one of those albums that has become so hugely influential, but was largely ignored at the time of its release, like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (practically single-handedly created noise music).

This might not be the best nineties album, but it sure is one of them.

7/10

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Nyseius - Militiae

Alright! First post of the fall, first post of "the comeback".

And it's a black metal album, perfect for the cold, grim winter ahead of us. Now, some of you might not like black metal. But as you probably know, I post a wide variety of music here and if this isn't your cup of tea, maybe the next one will be (or the one after that).

Enough smalltalk, let's get down to business. I very recently stumbled across this brand new album by obscure French black metal act Nyseius. I haven't listened to Peste Noire (shame on me), but I imagine they sound something like this; i.e. awesome.

Putting this record on for the first time was a pleasantly surprising experience as the production is unbelievably good for a black metal album. If you're at all interested in black metal you probably know that it's somewhat of a tradition to make it sound like the whole album was recorded with one of those karaoke mics, burned to a CD which is then scratched with rough sandpaper, ripped back to digital form, burned to a new CD and then sent to mastering.

Such is not the case here. This actually sounds good.

The instrumentation is really nice; great riffs, great drumming and great vocals. It is a short album, but that's probably because there's no filler. It sounds like they've put a lot of work into each and every song to create a hauntingly dark atmosphere with short dark ambient pieces and long black metal epics clocking in at around 8 minutes.

This is a start-to-finish blacktastic metal fest.

7/10

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Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol.1

What up peeps? (This is how cool people talk, right?) It's been a laawwwng time since I posted anything worthwhile now. So here it is; on the 1st of July, a new beginning (sorta).

The blog has been on a bit of an (is it 'an' or 'a'?) hiatus for a while now, mainly because I've been really, really busy doing nothing.

Okay! So, Alva Noto is this German (or something; look it up yourselves, jeez) dude who's real name is Carsten Nicolai, which actually sounds a whole lot cooler than Alva Noto in my opinion.

I found out about him by browsing through the artists last.fm deemed similar to Pan Sonic (Fun Fact: The spectrogram in the background is from an excerpt of their song Maa, off of A. Really great album, maybe I'll post it some time).

Considering how Pan Sonic's music sounds, I expected this to be minimalistic, experimental and atonal electronic music as well, but boy was I in for a treat! Sure, Alva Noto is pretty minimalistic and experimental too, but he sure as hell doesn't make atonal music. Xerrox Vol.1 features (to my great surprise) some of the most beatifully melodic ambient I've ever heard. It kind of sounds like Oval's legendary 94 Diskont meets 90's Autechre.

Either it was Oval and Autechre who was very avant-garde, or Alva Noto's music is just heavily influenced by 90's experimental electronic music (Xerrox Vol.1 was released in 2007).

What's important though is the music, and it is a-fuckin'-mazing. If glitchy, minimalistic ambient is your thing, that is.

TRANSFER ALBUM TO YOUR COMPUTER *BEEP-BOOP-BEEP*

ATTN: I seem to have accidentally written "Xerrrox Vol.1" to the ID3 tags instead of "Xerrox Vol.1", so it's mistagged. Just noticed it yesterday, not a big deal but you may want to fix that yourselves (especially if you scrobble to last.fm).

Motohiro Nakashima - We Hum On The Way Home

Hey. I haven't posted in a while, and I think I'm gonna keep it this way from now on; not posting every day, but every once in a while when I have time and feel like it. Hope that's okay with you.

Anyway, this album I accidentally found when I stumbled over this guy's website and I really liked the music in the video on the drip sessions page, which was by Motohiro Nakashima. So I checked him out and downloaded this album. I'm glad I did.

This album is seriously the most beautiful album I've heard. It's like some sort of acoustic ambient or something (post-classical?). Amazing melodies and incredible soundscapes created by tons of instruments, including acoustic guitar, piano, brass instruments, and more surround you at all times.

He succeeds to constantly create the same atmosphere and evoke the same feelings that Boards Of Canada's songs do, but in a more cheerful and happy mood.

He's just one of those artists which you think it is a pity that they're not more famous.

Download this and listen to it. Then buy some of his stuff (if you like it, which you probably will) or support him in some other way.

This dude makes the most awesome music ever.

NOTE: The last song is missing, and I can't find anywhere so you'll have to do without that one I'm afraid.

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Aether - Artifacts

Hey there. Today I have some really awesome music for you, as always. Aether (real name is this dude who makes awesome trip-hop and this is probably his best work. There seems to be a large ambient influence as many of the songs are really calm and downtempo, like Selected Ambient Works 85-92, but with a hip-hop beat (might not be as good as Aphex Twin's masterpiece, but still). This guy is really talented and doesn't seem to get the attention he deserves, so give him a listen (also records under the moniker A.M Architect).All in all, Artifacts is a great collection of chilled-out, laid-back beats and with a distinct ambient sound, 38 minutes of pure trip-hop genius. So if you're in the mood for some really chill music that never gets boring (like some ambient), then this is your album.

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Teargas & Plateglass - Black Triage

What's up? Today I'm posting two albums, this will be the first one (obviously). Teargas & Plateglass' Black Triage is a pretty sad, depressing album but awesome nonetheless. It's sounds like, oh I don't know.....Industrial Trip-Hop perhaps? Either way it's really cool, nice hip-hop beats with a dark, industrial and scary soundscape. Kind of dark ambienty. Check it out, peace!

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