Collabor8 #2

Second collaboration with good friend, and producer Jourdan Gallemore, AKA Datadrone, AKA Smoke Machine.  This time we've got an ambient twist.  Really happy with where this is going.  Looking forward to what we come up with next.  Keep an eye on this.

Digitalcasm Daily Play #42

Green Clouds Lead Us To Peak by Sangam 

About this artist

Sangam is an ambient, atherial, experimental artist out of Manchester England.  Their music is comprised of lush, well mixed and mastered soundscapes.

juno  -  facebook  -  soundcloud  

Why this is good

Anyone who is a fan of Brian Eno's Music For Airports will like this.  This extremely minimal atmospheric piece does it's job brilliantly.  The soundscape here is delicate. shallow rainfall sits perfectly on top of the mix subtly piercing way, gently, through the top end of the spectrum. There is subtle rumbling of a distant wash of tones, and an extremely atherial melody that blurs the line between synthesized and acoustic sounds.  This soundscape is so convincing.  So close your eyes, and lend two minutes of your time to Green Clouds Lead Us To Peak by Sangam.  This track is part of the Cotched Under The Stars EP.

More soon.

Digitalcasm Daily Play #40

Automaton Teori by Head Tripper

About this artist

Head Tripper is a part time producer of ambient, glitch, and abstract music, from Brussels, Belgium.

Soundcloud

Why I like this

Automaton Teori is a really nice glitchy ambient filled piece of music with lots of suggestive sounds, a catchy drum beat, and and a sparse melody.  This could be the soundtrack to a precisely executed heist including ziplines, glass cutters, and lots of specific hand gestures for communicating with the team of ex pats for hire. What I like most about Automaton Teori is how Head Tripper handles the pads.  The choral, distant, slightly orchestral sounding tones layer in to unexpected, and dissonant washes of sound that seem to constantly and effortlessly morph back in to unexpected, and slightly beautiful resolutions.  There is an excellent sense of tension and release without the tones and sounds ever sounding like random noisem or like generic progressions.  I'm reminded of Ligeti a little when I hear this track. Definitely worth a listen!

More soon.

Digitalcasm Daily Play #37

U Don't Survive - Remixed by FaltyDL

original Machinedrum Track

About this guy

Drew Lustman! From the dark underbelly of New York; this man makes some seriously cool atmospheric house and garage music.  According to his Discogs profile he makes "nostalgic tracks immersed in the old New York and Chicago sound yet creating a more subtle futuristic Big Apple version mashing together influences from hip hop, dubstep, UKG, soul, jungle, broken beats and electronica creating his own sound."  He mostly just makes expertly mixed atmospheric electronic music that's totally badass.

Facebook  -  Soundcloud  -  Discogs  -  lost.fm

Why I like this

Atmospheric. Expertly mixed.  Incomprehensible vocals.  Beautiful weirdness. And it goes far beyond the original Machinedrum track.  This is such an epic remix, and is so good and psychedelic without sounding like something that can only be enjoyed when uh. . . in the right state of mind.  Highly recommended.  Big thanks to Jourdan G. for the find.

Digitalcasm Daily Play #34

Jamaican Spirits  hash-n-chopped by Smoke Machine

About this guy.

Smoke machine is Santa Ana based DJ,  and producer, Jourdan Gallemore.  He is also one half of Datadrone and the founder of Datadronerecords.  He makes electronic beats, DJ's all sort of music, and is a walking music encyclopedia.  Jourdan's right in my backyard and I can't give this guy enough props.

Facebook  -  Soundcloud

Why I like this

Jamaican Spirits is  a very accessible psychedelic, trip hop-ey track that gently nudges the listener through five plus minutes of drones, vocals, and rhythmic ambience stitched together with a great beat.  Things start out with some cut up vox that lead in to some shifty electronic percussion.  The echoey, droney synths, and sampled lyrics that come in a few seconds later shoot this track in to a great headspace.  As the track continues, you are gently ushered a little deeper in to this really cool and psychedelic sonic space that never feels weird, and always grooves.  I dig this.

More soon!

Music for the Metropolis - Opolis

Digitalcasm Dailiy Play #29

Silhouette by Edamame

About this guy

Edemame is a beatsmith and music maker out of Chicago, Illinois.  His real name is Ed Harris, and he draws inspiration from nature and converts it in to glitch hop.

Facebook  -  Bandcamp  -  Soundcloud

Why I like this

On my very first Daily Play Post, I mentioned how I'm a sucker for good sounding harp and ukelele in music.  Sillhouette is a super chill ambient, beat driven track.  It would right at  home in an old videogame like Sim City, or Cities in Motion.  It's not the kind of music that demands your attention, instead it blends nicely in the background and only draws attention to itself when  the harp arpeggios are reintroduced.  This is a good mellow listen, and is part of the Silhouette EP.

See you tomorrow. 

Digitalcasm Daily Play #27

Buckwheat (Soba) by Evan Geesman

About This Guy

Evan Geesman and his melodic-ambeint-instrumental hip-hop album (or is it trip-hop?  I don't know) spring from Santa Ana California.  My town!  He is a musician/producer and his new album is Uncooked.

Bandcamp  -  Soundcloud

Why I like This

Buckwheat starts out with  some echoey vocals and guitar that are reduced to ambient quarter note hits, when the offbeat volume is ducked way down.  Now, I've always been a sucker for audio that's cut up with spaces of silence, or extreme gating, especially when it reduces multiple layers to something more ambient and linear, in the exact same way that this track does.  But that's just me.

This song is also just really damn pretty; and kind of  haunting.  In the same way that that one cover of Mad World in Donnie Darko was pretty-and-kind-of-haunting.   Buckwheat opens up nicely and, pretty soon, some some great lofi sounding acoustic drums start doing their thing.  Other pretty sounds fill in the gaps and Buckwheat gets more delicate and mellow.  Every sonic element hits a sweet spot and the end result is a soundtrack for something that should, could, or is, blooming right in front of you.  Spare two minutes and twenty-two seconds of your day to listen to this.  It's pretty dang good.

See you tomorrow!

Digitalcasm Daily Play #25

Clear the Air by MeSH

About this Guy

MeSH makes experimental, ambient, and chill music out of Boston, Massachusetts.

Soundcloud

Why I like this

Just needed some ambient goodness today, and Clear The Air delivers.  Enjoy!!!

More tomorrow.

Digitalcasm Daily Play #9

Each Scattergun Glance by Swich Licour

About this guy

Swich Licour is an electronic music creator based out of the UK.  I found Ben's track through the IDMF Netlabel on Soundcloud as part of the This is Good Tea compilation.  I'll have more info on him soon!

Soundcloud  -  Bandcamp  -  IMDF Netlabel website

Why I like this

I like crisp sounds.  Right from the get go there is a really nice kalimba/mbira riff that starts things out.  Other sounds and more electronic rhythms add before a wobbly reminds-me-of-aphex-twin-for-some-reason bass line adds in underneath.  While Each Scattergun Glance does it's things you'll  notice how the ambient sounds and elements that are added in are all very crisp and feel right at home and really integrated in to the soundscape.  Nothing sounds overly compressed, low quality or limp.  I'm not usually a huge fan of this kind of ambient music, but this is a really really fine piece of ear candy, where all the elements feel alive and, to me,  manage to come off slightly eerie in the same way hearing children's laughter in horror movies does.  It's worth a listen.

See you tomorrow!

Digitalcasm Daily Play #8

Romanesck by Aniline 

About this group

Aniline is a collaboration, based in France, between Alex Rich and Flo Rian.  According to their bio, this project is inspired and influenced a lot by colors.  Their sounds are definitely leaning towards IDM, ambient, and experimental.  

Website  -  Facebook  -  Myspace  -  Soundcloud

Why I like this

Romanesck starts out with this nice meandering lead synth line that has a catchy feel even though I can't be sure if I'm ever hearing it repeat.  Nice glitchy vocal and drum programming add in around a pretty straight forward four-on-the-floor beat.  As things start to develop, Romanesck never stops sounding polished and full of nice little motifs and electronic bells and whistles. It continually arrives at all these really cool musical moments that feel like I'm being treated to a series of well executed theme and variations.  Even as the track wraps up it transitions to a nice glitchy, dancy, big beat sounding loop that fades out. So good.

See you tomorrow!

Digitalcasm Daily Play #7

Untrust by fuckmylife (Joel Zimmerman)

 

About this guy

Fuckmylife aka Joel Zimmerman aka Deadmou5.  Funny enough, I didn't know any of that until after I heard the track.
Website  -  Facebook  -  Soundcloud  

Why I like this

Untrust is the kind of song that reminds me why I love electronic music.  With a nice ambient start and an unusual chord progression this track builds and "effortlessly" morphs in to electronica bliss.   Untrust has a pattern of five chords, and begins building in to a pulsating cacophony.  In fact the music keeps getting to a  point where I'm sure things have reached their ceiling.  But instead of stopping, or changing, or going to a drum break, something interesting happens. Untrust keeps growing.  It keeps intensifying beyond what I thought was possible for good commercial sounding music. It sounds like it's purposely messing with my expectations, and it kind of gives me the impression that the music is breaking through a ceiling.  Here are two metaphors that help describe how this song makes me feel:

1.  Listening to Untrust is like watching the status bar for an internet download go to a hundred percent, then stop for a second before the little green or blue line bursts through the edge of the window and starts spilling out on to the desktop for a while before abruptly stopping and five or six hundred percent. 
2. Listening to Untrust is like seeing that point when Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk.  That transition point when he begins to outgrow his clothes, his sleeves rip as his chest and biceps enlarge.  Only it's happening more slowly than we see in the movies.  Its that transition point when you watch something grow and are at the same time aware that something old and previous, that no longer suits is being shedded.  

Well, I guess i'm a Deadmau5 fan now.  See you tomorrow!

Digitalcasm Daily Play #6

Song of the Livid Drawn Outside The Lines of Reason by enoruoS (Sourone)


update 11/28/12:  Song of the Livid was the working title of this track, and has been renamed by the creator.

About this guy

enoruoS is where Sourone a.k.a. Michal Kalinowski dumps his "melodic, ambient, and breaky" sounds on soundcloud.  Even with the brilliantly obvious name in reverse not unlike Spacetime Continuum's album Emit Ecaps, and later Remit Recaps, it still took me a while to track down Michal's (or is it Michael's?) original profile, and eventually his facebook page.

He hails from Poland and is a producer of IDM, psychedelia, glitch electronica, experimental, ambient, micro break beats. . . . .and well you get the idea.  This is the type of music where anyone who ends up listening to a lot of his work will probably start throwing the word pioneer around when describing him and his music to others.  He does a little bit of everything, and he does it really, really well from what I've heard so far.

Facebook  -  Soundcloud  -  doulcnuoS

Digitalcasm's Daily Play #2

Pretty Lil Melody by David Call

About this guy

David Call is an EDM producer, remixer, DJ and vocalist out of Austin, Texas.
Website  -  Myspace  -  Soundcloud  -  Discog

Why I like this

I found this track several months ago by David.  And I can't stop listening to it. The entire song only contains four elements.  The brittle and slightly piercing bell tone melody, a slightly more mellow counter line, the wash of string and synth drones, and the rhythmic pump that is going to a beat that isn't there.  This ambient track is only a minute and some change in length, but still manages to come off as something very big and with the power to move mountains. 

See you tomorrow!