Tag Archives: modular synth

Eden Grey – Timewarp (Triplicate Records)

Posted by John Lithium on

AVAILABLE ON CD & VINYL
elasticstage.com/triplicate/releases/timewarp-album

TIMEWARP ZIP-UP HOODIE
triplicaterecords.com/products/unisex-heavy-blend-zip-hoodie

EDEN GREY’S SYNTH SAMPLE PACK INCLUDED WITH EVERY DOWNLOAD

Modular synth expert and creative force behind the CV-Freqs modular community Eden Grey returns to Triplicate Records with her fourth release entitled “Timewarp”. 10 certified bangers. Cool & slick with classic electronic grit.

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INTERVIEW
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George Ernst (Triplicate Records): It’s been a while, so I’ll simply ask, how are you and what have you been up to?

Dr. Chelsea Bruno (Eden Grey): Been pretty good, thanks.. working on a lot of projects, the CV FREQS events, teaching, writing articles, modular synth workshops and composing. I released my last album in August of 2025 called “In the Forest of Fangorn” with EC Underground. I’ve also been working on my doll project quite a bit, making and showing my handmade dolls, and some of them have found new homes. I love the doll project because it is another place where I find peace in their stillness and silence, where I find a different kind of sound meditation in exploring sounds I create with my modular synth.

GE: How did the Nomadic collaborations come about? They’re excellent! I hope you two can work together again!

CB: Nomadic is an old friend who played one of the first electro shows I ever booked, and he resurfaced again in my sphere after more than a decade. I suggested he should send some drums, which he did with a few synth sounds mixed in and I just spent a lot of time adding to them and making a nice arrangement for both of the tracks that he is featured on. It gives another personality to my work to collab, to see what comes out, collabs often work out really nicely, so I am sure we will be working together again.

GE: Seeing Space in the Finite is a real trippy and heavy title. Can you talk about what that sentence entails to you, and the broader musical themes of Timewarp?

CB: This track I made with the intention for it to represent a Boards of Canada style beat. I made the beat very much inspired by their tracks and then I wanted it to sound like the other synth themes were also familiar too. Coincidentally they have resurfaced this year, when I made this track in the holiday season to also give it some of that nostalgic feel. Space is forever, and what is finite, is not forever. Phosphorescent also reminds me of my early inspiration from Boards of Canada. I am interested in the ways we experience time differently as individuals in our environments. It is a somewhat mysterious concept.

GE: Do you think an elephant would stand and politely sway their trunk to Timewarp? I reckon they would.

CB: Yes, I do think, and a manatee would swim with it underwater too…

GE: Night Tripper is one of my favorite things I’ve heard you make, or heard in general in fact. Can you talk about that one and the effort that went into making it? I’m being selfish I realize but whatever, I like this song a lot and I wanna hear more about it!

CB: I’m so glad you like it.. yes, it is a special song, its evolution, I like the way it changes but keeps you in the same space. Also, sometimes, oftentimes I stay up late at night working on music to get the vibe I am after. And then it has a whole new type of magic when you hear it during the day. To me, it has an equal mixture of dark and light. 

Written & Produced by Dr. Chelsea Bruno
Mastered by Michael Southard
Artwork by Ned Rush

Reverse Image / Thomas Bey William Bailey – 常若 / Tokokawa (Fourth Dimension Records)

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Label Description:

This collaborative release presents three immersive movements of avant-electronics full of unexpected tonal contrasts and shifts in intensity. Powered by modular synthesis, “concrete” assemblage technique and a pervasive desire to work with the full spectrum of sound, Tokokawa is the product of its two producers’ commitment to a dynamic, ever-renewing sense of aesthetics.

From late 2023 to the present, we started from a simple, agreed interest in collaboration to something that became much more carefully calibrated and conceptually guided.The results are, to my ears, a seamless and strangely organic suite of electro-acoustic pieces that hone in on the “essences” of various avant-electronic genres (“noise,” “drone,” “dark ambient,” etc etc) without succumbing to their more cliched elements. We composed this material almost telepathically (i.e. with a bare minimum of instruction and revision needed) and I’m excited to share the results with my supporters here.

I think our music is a representation of us being conduits for energies that precede us and will survive us, and to that end we also named the three “phases” here with verbal cues indicating different states of matter: “Amanogawa” is either the “Milky Way” or, in direct translation, the “River of Heaven.” “Nurikabe” is a solid plaster wall that, I’m told, occasionally figures into bouts of sleep paralysis. “Jouhatsu suru Yuurei” are “vaporizing ghosts” (the confusion this may cause native Japanese speakers is intentional – I was trying to imagine something ephemeral becoming somehow even more ephemeral).

We aimed at creating pieces which would also have the “properties” of solid, liquid or gas, but not completely: the focus is, again, on cyclical renewal and therefore each of these phases has just enough of an open-ended quality to it.

The CD version of this album on Fourth Dimension is also enhanced by lovely full-color artwork from Paul Takahashi, and expert mastering by Ryoko Ono. 

Originally released on 5th July 2024

Y’ng-Yin Siew (Reverse Image), Thomas Bey William Bailey:
analog modular synthesis, real-time digital processing

Paul Takahashi: artwork

Thomas Bey William Bailey: CD layout / design

Ryoko Ono: mastering

Zi iacchos – Fragments (Self-Released)

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Label Description:

Fragments is a series of short musical pieces conceived as breaths rather than songs.

After the album Ornaments, which was built around text, voice, and symbolic articulation, Fragments moves in the opposite direction:
less language, less structure, less intention.

Each piece is limited in duration (around two minutes), not by constraint, but by necessity.
They are not meant to develop or conclude — they appear, remain briefly, and dissolve.

The voice, when present, is reduced to a single word, a syllable, or a gesture.
Sound is treated as matter: grain, air, erosion, suspension.

Fragments was composed and recorded live, without overdubs, to preserve fragility and immediacy.
It is designed for saturated minds and quiet rooms — a space to breathe, not to explain.

This EP is not a continuation of Ornaments, but its decantation.

Slomo – Zen and Zennor (Trilithon Records)

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Label Description:

Electric drone stalwarts Slomo return with only their fifth album in 20 years, “Zen and Zennor”; their sonic palette refreshed, their focus again tuned to the spectral otherness of Land’s End. The cover star – Zennor Quoit – is a colossal megalithic structure to be found on moorland above the village of Zennor, 4.5 miles to the west of St Ives.

Primitive melodies and arcane motifs are buffeted by drifting analogue oscillators on lead track ‘Zen and Zennor’, compressing into thick saturated drones before taking a sublime turn into familiar subterranean territory. ‘Zennor Diode’ crackles into manifestation above the moorland, cautioning against – or perhaps encouraging – experiments with exposed electrics in the Cornish mizzle. Complete removal of self (and band) is provided with circuit-closing track ‘Antechamber’, dissolving the Zennor’d-out participants into the hum of the Hummadruz*.

The duo continues to be informed by their work elsewhere; Chris (“Holy”) McGrail recently contributed to Julian Cope’s Dope and Queen Elizabeth projects, while Howard Marsden co-runs Hebden Bridge’s already-legendary Ambient Bowling Club, where experimental music mixes with environmental sounds, low chatter and the soft clank of bowls.

“Zen and Zennor” wraps Slomo’s only constant – immense, eventual catharsis – in a freshness and immediacy that could perhaps suggest a quickening of their notoriously glacial pace. Time will tell.

*Hummadruz refers to a mysterious, low-frequency hum or droning sound, often said to be heard around the ancient sites of Land’s End.

released October 4, 2024

Composted by McGrail/Marsden
Published by Domesday Music

Various Artists – paisajes en tundra

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description:

(ENG)

Glacier retreat, while a natural phenomenon in some cases, has been exacerbated by various human activities such as burning fossil fuels, deforestation and intensive agriculture. The accelerated melting of ice leads to a series of catastrophic consequences and irreversible effects that are impacting both natural ecosystems and human life.

This album was created as an initiative to raise awareness of this phenomenon, as well as to raise funds to support Glaciares Chilenos (www.glaciareschilenos.org), a Chilean NGO founded with the aim of educating and protecting the more than 26 thousand glaciers located in the national territory, through the development of educational programs and visibility of scientific content on glaciers.

In keeping the editorial line of the previous benefit compilation “migraciones”, Bahía Mansa decides to expand the previous sound palette and invites 10 other global artists to participate in this collaborative instance as part of the annual support for ecological causes.

All proceeds will be donated directly to Glaciares Chilenos (NGO).

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(SPA)

El retroceso de los glaciares, si bien es un fenómeno natural en algunos casos, se ha visto exacerbado por varias actividades humanas como quema de combustibles fósiles, deforestación y agricultura intensiva. Los hielos comienzan a derretirse más rápidamente, lo que conlleva a una serie de consecuencias catastróficas y efectos irreversibles que están afectando la vida natural y humana.

Este álbum nace como iniciativa para concientizar de este fenómeno, así también como para reunir fondos y donar a Glaciares Chilenos (www.glaciareschilenos.org), ONG chilena fundado con el objeto de educar y proteger los más de 26 mil glaciares ubicados en el territorio nacional, a través del desarrollo de programas educativos y visibilización de contenido científico sobre glaciares.

En esta línea, y continuando en la línea editorial del anterior compilado a beneficio “migraciones”, bahía mansa decide ampliar la paleta sonora anterior e invita a otros 10 artistas globales a participar en esta instancia colaborativa como parte del apoyo anual a causas ecológicas.

Todo lo donado va en directo beneficio de Glaciares Chilenos (ONG).

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Thank you infinitely to all the artists who contributed their talents and passion to this project, making it possible to extend this important message!

credits

released October 25, 2024

curated by bahía mansa
mastered by Nico Rosenberg at Alt-Köpenick Studio
artwork by shesoundvisual.

THANKS TO:
Nico Rosenberg (CL) – nicorosenberg.bandcamp.com
Anto Little (CL) – antolittle.bandcamp.com
David Cordero (ES) – davidcordero.bandcamp.com
shesoundvisual (CL) – shesoundvisual.bandcamp.com
Ryan J. Raffa (US) – rjraffa.bandcamp.com/music
Carlos Ferreira (BR) – carlosferreira.bandcamp.com
M. Linnen (US) – mlinnen.bandcamp.com
Yumi Iwaki (JP) – soundcloud.com/iwakiyumi
El Encanto de Lo Discreto (UY) – elencantodelodiscreto.bandcamp.com
emho (FR) – emho.bandcamp.com

Drew McDowall – A Thread, Silvered And Trembling (Dias Records)

Posted by John Lithium on

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Label Description: Scottish experimental/electronic musician Drew McDowall’s lifelong interest in an elegiac solo bagpipe style called pibroch (ceòl mòr in Gaelic) has been an inspiration for much of his previous work (including Coil’s legendary Time Machines). This form, often traditionally used for laments and for tributes to the dead, fuses modal drones with flickering dissonance and plaintive melody evoking an ancient, solemn mood.

His latest work, A Thread, Silvered and Trembling, both incorporates and transforms these elements via exploratory electronic processing, weaving an electro-acoustic tapestry of strings, shudders, voids, and voices, alternately disembodied and displaced. Co-produced with engineer Randall Dunn at Circular Ruin Studios in Brooklyn, the collection’s four pieces capture McDowall at his most elevated and elusive, in thrall to “the ineffable – that which refuses to be spoken.”

McDowall’s palette here is unusually eclectic, sourced from a dynamic orchestral ensemble arranged by Brent Arnold and comprised of cello, viola, violin, harp (Marilu Donovan of LEYA), and french horn. Ebbing between shrouded electronics and enigmatic, sometimes spectralist orchestration, the album moves with a seething, simmering energy, surging into elegant, uneasy crescendos. The first two pieces are inspired by a liberatory hijacking and inversion of a grim biblical story (and by a cryptic and strange UK simple syrup branding). Opener “Out of Strength Comes Sweetness” shivers with short echo and resonant pads, before shifting into the album’s centerpiece: the 14-minute saga “And Lions Will Sing with Joy.” A murmuring electrical storm of keening strings and disorienting drones gradually grows darker and denser, until suddenly there’s a crack in the clouds, revealing mutated choral voices and sparkling harp. McDowall describes the track as “an incantation to help usher in a break, and a new beginning.”

The record’s latter half evokes a deep untamed animism shot through with spiraling radiance. “In Wound and Water” sways with harp, plucked strings and eerie cello undertows while lush layers of disorientated electronics hang in the dusk. There is no resolution, only a faint gradient of fragile dissipation, leading into the album’s harrowing and climactic closer, “A Dream of a Cartographic Membrane Dissolves.” Processed voices (credited on the liner notes to “The Ghosts Who Refuse to Rest”) contort, whisper, and gather as the rest of the ensemble sharpens, poising to strike. Then it does – grand, tragic stabs of strings and horns lashing the sky, storming heaven by force.

The fallout is poetic and inevitable, raining embers into a dark sea. But the journey and catharsis of A Thread linger long after it goes silent. Like so much of McDowall’s multifaceted catalog, this is music of immanence and alchemy, attuned equally to the sacred and the profane, to the tile and the mosaic.