Volume VIII: Danbient

In Volume 8, I am taking a bit of a departure from our common base of experience in popular music. Ambient music is something which has been on the periphery of my artistic universe for some time, but to which I had a sudden, intense awakening in Uptown’s The Tea Room, last summer. I then started exploring a little at work, via internet radio. Others who have the benefit of being able to listen to music at work may have run into the difficulty in trying to simultaneously concentrate on work and music. Not so with ambient. As a non-demanding background aural soundscape, the internet radio stations I listen to glide seamlessly from song to song while I plug away during the day, only occasionally piquing my interest to the level where I am jolted out of my here-and-now enough to say, "Hey, now that’s a nice groove!" The nice thing about ambient music is quite probably the thing that is most likely to bring a maelstrom of criticism down upon me: it is not very demanding to the listener, neither his/her musical ear nor his/her intellect. Brian Eno had a great quote about the style:

"Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."

Does this lack of lyrical message or prototypical song structure (verse, chorus, verse progression) make it less valid of a musical form? An intersting topic for debate; I suspect I’ll have some idea of where each of you falls in the debate by the time the comments for this collection shake out. For my part, I do find the songs on this collection immensely enjoyable; they have swung so far from the realm of "ignorable" so as to move me to purchase them. These songs I find "cool" and they definitely put me into some kind of funky, chilled-out mood where I just want to lean back and groove. The world of electronica is a wild one with few rules. It’s hard to know when one style (anything from trance to downtempo to dub, etc.) is a sub-genre of another, if and how it is related, or if they are just two terms for essentially the same thing. Songs draw from a near-limitless array of styles, influences, and beats. Ambient artists rarely achieve even a moderate level of success in the business (I often refer to the prototypical band as "two French guys in one of their mothers’ basement"), which makes tracking down actual copies of songs I’ve come across very spotty, at best. Roughly half the songs I hear on ambient radio are still commercially available in any form whatsoever, based on my personal experience in trying to aquire some. Having listened to this style quite a bit over the past year or so, a definite couple of simple truths have become quite clear: these guys love outer space and, while they’re not particularly fond of putting a human voice in their song, when you do have to record it, they believe that "reverb" should be cranked hard to the right and possibly through an additional effects processor to boot. Themes, when they can be deciphered, are of space (of course), the sea, and your mind. Some ambient or electronica does not adhere to any tratitional music structure, being of pure "colour and mood." You won’t hear any of that crap here. The songs I like are strongly influenced by dance or funk rhythms and bass lines, often with successive musical layers that come in and out. You know, "grooves." Danbient songs would make great ring-tones.

I’m not sure what I expect for comments. I’ll say a couple of notes about each song, but I would ask that you not feel obligated to comment on each song, individually; if you feel utterly unmoved by the music, as I suspect one or two of you might. Regardless of how much you enjoy or don’t enjoy the collection, I’d like to hear your thoughts on why. If it would help at all, I’d recommend you don’t worry about straining your ears and listening too close. Remember the words of the great Eno. Then, sit back and relax, or maybe start doing something else while you’re listening.

1. Witch Doctor: Small Axe: Slow, grooving, and relentless. This song makes me think of dwarves digging in the deep places of the earth. I love the doppler effect horn sounds and the echoey fill that keeps repeating.

2. Café Coca: De-Phazz: Exotic and alien! Wild confluence of island rhythms, the tinny vibrating vocalizations, the syncopated keyboard, the low, low "ooooh"s. I also love the echo that repeats and repeats on something that sounds like some guy calling out "yammin-o!" at about 1:00.

3. High Roller: The Crystal Method: ooooo-this one, off an album called, Vegas, should presumably be about a gambler. But they’re not fooling anyone. This is all outer space, baby! The build up at the beginning-the countdown, the fuckin’ launch out of the side bay! Christ, this just fires up the hell out of me! When the drums kick in, it’s with an energy that rivals about any live set I’ve ever heard. I love the real guitar power chord at 2:30-damn! I also love the dialogue between this one guy, presumably up in the shuttle, who is concerned that the guy in the starbase isn’t getting his transmission. But the guy in the base, cool as a cubumber, keeps trying to reassure him "we’ve got it."

4. Le Soleil est Près de Moi: Air: I’m pretty sure this is a real electric bass. Slow and sexy. This style might be called chill-out and/or lounge, I’m not sure. I love the seagull keys and the general laid-back nature of the song. I also love the little church organ solo. For those that don’t know and don’t want to have to look it up: Le soleil est près de moi means "the sun is close to me."

5. Kaye: 7-Hurtz: I love the fusion of various styles in this song: the funny spoken word addition by the British guy. Sultry female vocals over the top, with those ping-pongy syncopations bouncing around all over the place, while an orchestration-styled keyboard effect sweeps in from time to time.

6. Sea of Tranquility: John Stanford: If your tether is cut and you’re spiraling off into the vast darkness, there might be some slightly more cheery songs to which you could listen to on your iPod, but none quite so appropriat as John Stanford’s Sea of Tranquility. A perfect ambient song: about space on an album called "Deep Space,"with layer upon poweful layer building for effect and emotion through the song’s gradual and relentless crescendo. To fit the perfect ambient billing, there’s even some guy delivering some sort of echoey transmission or other.

7. Wilderness: Bluetech: OK…now this song. I’m pretty sure it originally caught my attention, as it almost certainly is the background music for some never-before attained level in Blaster Master. I find the beat and diverse, dynamically-pitched tones to be mesmerizing as other mights be mezmerized by the Teletubbies and others, by watching the ocean.

8. Devotion No. 1: Loop Guru: Interesting. The obvious interpretation of the band’s name is that the "Guru" is related to the sitar & tabla used in this song, combined with the "Loop" nature of ambient recording. Odd, then, that Loup Garrou is the French term for werewolf…In any event, I absolutely love the name of the album this song is from: "Bathtime with Loop Guru." The song is not all that dissimilar from a goodly contingent of popular Indian music, insofar as I understand it after repeated dining experiences at Udupi Café and The Great India. I love the repeated vocal phrase and the meditative swirling of sounds. Then they all get brought together just after 3:00 with a catchy bassline motif. Very cleverly done, from a musical standpoint.

9. Numero Deux: The Dining Rooms: This song is definitely using a real, live bass (you can totally hear the squeaks at the beginning). I love that bassline, and the "whatcha-whatcha-watcha" want drums & effects, along with the crazy marimba strain. How about that kind of weird "What’s that flying, in the sky?" delivered at 2:04? A query that is neither answered, repeated, nor followed up with any other words, whatsoever. I can only assume whatever it is, it originates from outer space.

10. Rapture at Sea: Eastern Sun & John Kelley: Much, much more catchy than the song by Eastern Sun & Mike Kelly. Smooth, skidding sound of a .1 gravity space car on a titanium street. I love the little "dittleum!" "dittleum" sounds that are dropped in over the building musical base. Entrancing and compelling.

All right-that’s it. I truly hope you find enjoyment out of this and I look forward to hearing what you have to say!