Beyond Sensory Experience – In This Our Life (Cyclic Law)

Label Description:

Beyond Sensory Experience announce “In This Our Life”, a new album that extends and deepens the austere, melancholic sound they have refined since their formation in 2001. The duo continue to balance sparse, cinematic atmospheres with richly layered textures and haunting melodic motifs.

“In This Our Life” follows a sequence of records that critics have described as immersive, melancholic and beautifully unsettling, works which place the duo among the most discreetly consistent voices in contemporary dark ambient. Previous releases were praised for their ability to create vast emotional registers from minimal material, a characteristic the new album amplifies while exploring more expansive song-forms and dynamic contrasts.

Stylistically, the album keeps the trademark BSE touch: low-frequency washes, distant vocal fragments, analogue warmth and crystalline, slowly unfolding harmonies. Where earlier records often emphasized brooding stasis, “In This Our Life” moves the project into more narrative territory, allowing passages of melancholic catharsis to emerge from dense, claustrophobic beds of sound. Reviewers of earlier records noted the group’s talent for making the sparse feel monumental, a sensibility that informs this new collection.

The production embraces both analogue textures and carefully balanced percussive elements. Tracks shift between shadowed ambience and melodic refrains that linger, and the sequencing creates a discreet arc, from intimate, near-silent openings to more emphatic, emotionally charged culminations. Fans of the project’s prior work will recognize the continuity, while new listeners will find entry points in the album’s stronger melodic hooks and cinematic pacing.

CD Edition of 300 copies in 6 panel Digipak. 11 Tracks. Running Time 48:16

snwv – music at a distance 280 (Self-Released)

Label Description:

One element of creativity that’s undervalued, I think, is whim. We can make plans and restrict ourselves to certain forms, but newness and variety can enter by following a thought in the moment. Right before this performance, I thought of using some clipped string ends and the violin bow as ways of exciting the strings, and adding unintentional sounds. As a result, some of these pieces have sonic profiles that are unusual for this series.

The resulting timbres have the quality of small, distant bells, or sounds from an indeterminate instrument. The conventionally played notes often resemble low brass or wind instruments. These pieces are in line with the meditative quality of the series, though the timbral variety suggests new areas to explore.

The titles of these pieces are references to the visual and performance art of Hamish Fulton. Thank you for listening!


Maurice Rickard: Guitar, programming

Signal chain: Univox Coily in Bb F Bb F Bb C tuning > Reuss Effects Understate, Reuss Effects Repeater Fuzz, Balls Effects KWB > Vox Wah > Dunlop Stereo Uni-Vibe, Hungry Robot Wardenclyffe Deluxe > Moyo Volume > Max/MSP eight-delay patch with FFT pitch shift, tremolo, convolution reverb, AudioThing Reels. Guitar played with fingers, eBow, string ends, violin bow.

Impulses: Inchindown Oil Tanks (Matt Gray mattg.co.uk ), silent5 Biamp MR/140 (Tilt Up 2), St. Paul’s Huddersfield (near), Fort Worden Cistern

snw – music at a distance 270 (One Zero Music)

Label Description:

This is a particularly slow performance. I’d gone into it somewhat sleep-deprived, though by the third and fourth pieces, I was getting energy back from the music, enough energy to leave more space and allow the rests to speak. Thank you to the audience for staying with me.

The hollowbody Univox vibrates quite a lot–there’s a lot of air in there. Consequently, there’s a lot of air in these timbres: French horn, muted trumpet, accordion, glass harmonica timbres. This one’s a step toward a collaboration with silence.

The titles this week are references to the visual art of Louise Blyton. Thank you for listening!

Maurice Rickard: Guitar, programming

Signal chain: Univox Coily in Bb F Bb F Bb C tuning > Reuss Effects Understate, Reuss Effects Repeater Fuzz, Balls Effects KWB > Vox Wah > Hungry Robot Wardenclyffe Deluxe > Moyo Volume > Max/MSP eight-delay patch with FFT pitch shift, tremolo, convolution reverb, AudioThing Reels.

Impulses: Inchindown Oil Tanks ( Matt Gray mattg.co.uk ), silent5 Biamp MR/140 (Flat), St. Paul’s Huddersfield (near), Fort Worden Cistern

h{EE}l – Lividity

Label Description:

Cave Fluffer
Body Cavity Stuff, A Downward Rope
A Long, Twisted cable
Gut Luck & Rib Jangle

Cash on the Dime & Dollars
for Organs

Charity Teeth ~
The Best Beak in the Buisness

We’re still your best entertainment Value ~

credits

released February 20, 2025

This Album created using the sounds of

Scott Bazar / CViard / Stick Skiffy / CP McDill / Bim Prongs / Jo Bled / James Ghost / {AN} EeL

Tukahdus – satunnaisia hetkiä (few fictional moments) [Self-Released]

a3771877678_10

Label Description:

If we are not listening to music, we can have a certain part of the song looping inside our head, while we are walking somewhere, working or just lazing around. Surroundings will offer us lots of different sounds and noises that will mix with those loops.

credits

released August 9, 2024

Music, mixing and mastering by tkhds
Cover art collage and design by tkhds

license

all rights reserved