Experimental Audio Research - Mesmerized (1994)

EAR was an extended solo effort by Peter Kember (Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom) who often invited collaborators such as  Kevin Martin, Kevin Shields, Eddie Prévost , Lawrence Chandler, Nick Kramer, Delia Derbyshire and Thomas Köner to explore the farthest attainable reaches of sonic cosmology. On their first recording, Mesmerized, it’s tough to say exactly whose work is showcased, but it’s fun to make assumptions: the evolving drone on “Guitar Feedback Manipulation” recalls Shields and Chandler while the looming bagpipes on “California Nocturne” recalls Martin and Prévost.

Is the acrostic on purpose? probably

Double Leopards - Halve Maen (2003)

Now, I'm not a humongous drone fan, I was never super into more conventional Drone or Ambient albums. But I can surely say that, without a doubt, Double Leopards are definitely a solid act. They really create such a bleak and dark soundscape that can totally immerse the listener. The length of the album might seem a little daunting (to someone who doesn't listen to any Drone or Ambient that is) but it's definitely deserving of your time. The whole album just has such a great atmosphere. It's dark and cold and beautiful at the same time. It's an excellent starting point into the genre if you ask me, and it's worth a listen for sure, even if you don't know anything about the genre.

Link

Sparklehorse + Fennesz- In the Fishtank 15 (2009)

Indie rock namesake Sparklehorse, led by the late Mark Linkous, and glitch artist Christian Fennesz combined their disparate sounds to an amazing effect for this installment in Konkurrent’s Fishtank series. 

Trist – Willenskraft (2009)

There are two bands with the name Trist, the more famous one a depressive black metal band from the Czech Republic, and this one, an ambient black metal band from Germany. It was formed by Tristan from Lunar Aurora, a black metal band that received quite a lot of praise for their 2012 album Hoagascht. You can draw lines between Lunar Auroras sound and the sound that Tristan creates on Willenskraft, both are ambient black metal bands that rely heavily on atmosphere and a sound that is eerie, and depressive rather than aggressive. Of course there will always be a certain level of aggression in black metal, Trist is not an exception, but with this album the aggression is internal, a battle against oneself.

Gregg Kowalsky - Tape Chants (2009)

Gregg Kowalsky, Florida drone craftsman and Kranky native, has, with Tape Chants, what is undoubtedly his magnum opus. Indeed it stands as a quiet, largely un-witnessed statement to the entirety of contemporary ambient and drone in its ineptitude and stale demeanor. Its dialectical tension of force and resignation, of repetition and novelty, stand to challenge and take to the end the Enoian doctrine of music “as ignorable as it is interesting.” What is interesting, Kowalsky shows, is so because it reciprocally negates its own ignorance.

Radicalfashion- Odori (2007)

Under the name Radicalfashion, Japanese pianist/programmer Hirohito Ihara crafted a special album that was simultaneously both unassuming and wildly inventive.  Combining glitch, neo-classical elements, simplistic piano, and musique concrete, Odori is a quick 30 minutes that floats from one idea to another, effortlessly shifting from carefree to contemplative to profound. 

AGF - Source Voice (2013)

There is perhaps a peculiar honesty to the human voice which has nothing to say - in the age of unspeakable horrors what truth is there of suffering than the pain of its incommunicability? The message, the content, which, under the weight of overdrivven fog, cannot even begin to articulate itself without being smothered, was the genius of How to Dress Well's Love Remains. But what is the result of content stripped of any content? What remains of the voice in this instance is the substrate of material suffering that Roland Barthes recognized as the "grain of the voice" - not just the texture of the voice, but also the material and historical body's instantiation and continuation as the voice. The grain of the voice is the texture is the voice below the level of semantic content (the "phenotext" versus the "genotext") and as such is the body materializing itself in and as voice. Adorno has located the material body, below the indentitarian perversions of rationalization, as the true site of suffering. Then the grain of the human voice - in its crying out as suffering - is the substrate of the substrate of suffering. It is the material imprint of suffering that will not even rise to the level of language's symbolic (and hence dangerously instrumental) rationality.

Yōran - Montparnasse (1981)

Yōran's 1981 EP "Montparnasse" is a depressing release, not only because of its mood but because it is so unfortunately short and obscure that one is only left to wonder about it without ever really knowing anything about it. The album begins with "Concert Maillol", which starts out as a bitter-sweet ballet-esque piano piece which later degenerates itself into a weary collage of what seems to be a weak synthesizer or a guitar with some of the most  haunting and magnificent field recordings of people talking I've ever heard. Then the track transforms into "Je Derve Avec Láir", starting out with the same notes as the piano piece in the beginning of the last track, only that this time the field recordings feel even more desperate and outrageous. Laughs, whispers, and what seems to be an angry imperative sentence haunt this delicate piano piece, crumbling it into a poem of retreat and pain. One cannot stop thinking that this release has some sort of story at this point of the EP. The next track is "Montparnasse" this time the piano-piece sounds heroic  and even fearless, like it's trying to liberate itself from the shiver-worthy words of whoever is speaking over it. Steps, a howling wolf , delicate screams of pain, and joyless whispers bitterly attack this piano-ballad once again, by the end of this track we feel defeat, as if the music has crucified and tortured itself for the good-being of something else.  "La Bou....." is a toy-box melody accompanied by words that seem to announce a epilogue, an epilogue of sweet death. "Montparnasse" is a self-destructive EP that seems to try to get rid of itself, one can only pretend to understand such a dusted gem. One can only invent its story, maybe it's a haunted ballet studio, a piano-ballet that brought a man to its demise, or maybe just a statement of depression and curiosity in its purest form.


"Je Derve Avec Láir"

Hashisheen - The End of Law (1999)

Hashisheen is one of the many projects created by Bill Laswell, a prolific and eclectic musician, most notably for his work as a Bassist during the 80's and 90's. While Laswell was already recognized as a talented musician by the time this project was started, it is not a straight forward track to track album, the songs were not made with any intention of being heard separate to the vocals, they simply compliment the album's true purpose, to tell a story.