New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Soardwarm's 2010 Selection has been announced
The Best Ambient, Post-rock, Experimental Albums Of 2010
1. MOGWAI � SPECIAL MOVES
https://www.mogwaispecialmoves.com/order/uk/
No need for lots of words. It's
Mogwai again. Live album comes with a DVD.
Recorded live in April 2009 during a three night visit to the
Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, the recordings are superb (aside from the occasional applause, you wouldn't know this wasn't a studio album). With three nights from which to choose, the band had the luxury of selecting the best performances, so the songs are all high-quality stuff, well-played and displaying the spark that a live show can give to a song.
2. DRAFF KRIMMY � POETRY OF VAR
https://www.flutteryrecords.com/flttry008.html
Post-rock, Ambient, Electronic even noise. What ever your favourite experimental genre is you will find your taste in this great album. Poetry of V�r is a result of a collaboration between musicians living in 8 different countries, which included Halvard Vebj�rnsson (Germany), Morfar (Norway), Rim and Kidedo (France), Void`s Anatomy (Canada), Bosques De Mi Mente (Spain), Hasta Luego Pilar (Denmark), Dylan Waller (USA) and Gargle (Japan). Dreamlike soundscapes, made up of scraps of glitch, post-rock, electronics, experimental music, folk, lo-fi and ambient.
3. YELLOW SWANS � GOING PLACES
https://typerecords.com/releases/going-places
Type's noise-drone duo,Yellow Swans' music dense drones that build like narratives-- has always conveyed these kinds of concepts and feelings. What makes Going Places so great is how it transforms them from explainable ideas into things that can't be easily captured in words. When "Opt Out" rises from underwater tones into thick howls, you can feel anger and catharsis, but there's something else there, too. The long tones of "
Sovereign" are clearly wistful, but that's just the tip of the track's layers. Maybe Pete Swanson and Gabriel Saloman's awareness of their pending demise added those extra levels, but it feels like Going Places would sound this good no matter what the time or circumstances.
4. BRIAN ENO � SMALL CRAFT ON A MILK SEA
https://warp.net/records/releases/brian-eno/small-craft-on-a-milk-sea
Eno seems content to lull away. It isn't an entirely unwise choice; opening combo "Emerald and Lime" and "Complex Heaven" are prime Eno, minimal and haunting, owing more to the subdued format of Another Green World than Eno's more oblique ambient series. Tracks like "Lesser Heaven" and "Calcium Needles" aren't lackluster, exactly, but they certainly feel more indebted to Eno's past than the record's best moments, like "Invisible," which bubbles up with found sound and haunting chords, Eno's ambient trademark sounding more modern and fresh than ever.
5. �LAFUR ARNALDS � AND THEY HAVE ESCAPED THE WEIGHT OF DARKNESS
https://www.erasedtapes.com/Collective/Artist/OlafurArnalds
�lafur Arnalds is a young Icelandic musician whose work defines "architectural," as bulky strings are built around skeletal frameworks of piano, sometimes with sparse electronic loops for detail. He has a strong ear for proportion and balance, as if a single misplaced sound could trigger a collapse. This arc from shadow to light is mirrored across the duration of �and They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness, providing Arnalds with a clear contextual framework upon which to found his work, while emancipating him from the default melancholia of his past material
5. AUTECHRE � OVERSTEPS
https://warp.net/records/autechre
A new
Autechre album is always a step into the unknown, so different have each of their records been. With Oversteps,
Autechre have accentuated this trend quite drastically, often doing away with beats altogether and relying instead on shimmering soundscapes and intricate melodic patterns to weave a refined series of textured pieces which evoke, at times, some of their early work. Yet, there is here a level of complexity, even in the simpler tracks, which is more indebted to the austere patterns of Confield or Draft 7.30 than to the rich progressive templates of
Amber or Tri Repetae.
6. MAX RICHTER � INFRA
https://fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/release.php?id=321
Richter's a talented composer, and one that's shown an admirable desire to keep things interesting; he's worked with everyone from
Future Sound of London to Vashti Bunyan, and the ravishing melancholy of "On the Nature of Daylight" from 2004's already-kind-of-seminal The Blue Notebooks has started popping up in soundtracks. So, while the mass of modern music fans might be ready to consign his work to one of the two aforementioned bins, Richter shows every sign of not caring and not slowing down or settling into a routine either; in this case, Infra started life as a collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and artist Julian Opie, and some of the material here was originally the score for a ballet inspired by Eliot's "The Wasteland."
7. LIGHTS OUT OF ASIA � IN THE DAYS OF JUPITER
https://n5md.com/artist/Lights-Out-Asia
Born in 2003 from a desire to find unexplored regions between post-rock and laptop electronica,
Lights Out Asia has refined a sound that is best described as the soundtrack to an imaginary club scene from Blade Runner. From a foundation of plush melancholy, the sample-rich melding of dissonant guitar swells, plaintive vocals and intricate electronics leads to songs thoroughly infected by influences ranging from dream pop artist Ulrich Schnauss to ambient pioneer Brian Eno, classic shoegazers My Bloody
Valentine and a even dash of IDM stalwart Arovane. For their latest release, In The Days of Jupiter, the band admits to backing off a bit from the meticulous editing that made their previous works so precise.
8. SUPERSILENT � 10
https://www.runegrammofon.com/artists/supersilent/rcd-2102-supersilent_-10
Norway's Supersilent is a supremely questing experimental jazz unit. Whether playing live or recording a new entry in their numbered series of albums for Rune Grammofon/ECM, they don't rehearse or make plans. Instead, they convene and explore, following their collective muse into sound-worlds that seldom fail to seem conceptually centered, despite their spontaneous nature. On 10, they reveal a new direction that would be obvious for anyone else but is counterintuitive for them: a more acoustic, lyrical, almost traditional approach. As much as I admire their more "difficult" works, 10 is not only their most listenable record, but their bravest, clearing away the usual thickets of disturbance to let the technical skill and emotional acuity of the players shine through.
9. NEST - RETOLD
https://www.serein.co.uk/releases/sere001/nest-retold
We all know about Erik Skodvin's activities outside of Deaf Center - he's carved out quite a solo career for himself as Svarte Greiner - but what of the Norwegian duo's other member, Otto Totland? For the past couple of years he's worked as part of the duo, Nest, with Huw Roberts, releasing their eponymous debut EP in 2007 on Roberts' own Serein label. Now the two artists at last follow up that release with this wonderful full-length, which lifts its first six tracks from the EP (with one newly reworked) and adds a further five new compositions. Retold is something of a masterpiece within its field.
10. ELUVIUM � STATIC NOCTURNE
https://www.eluvium.bigcartel.com/product/eluvium-static-nocturne
Have you ever sat down and listened to the static or white noise on your television? I mean, really took in it's essence and beauty? Well apparently Eluvium has, because Oregon native Matthew
Cooper has created an entire EP paying tribute to said noises. An "homage to static and white noise" reads the description, and it truly fits the EP well. It is a neat concept, that is executed surprisingly well, as there is quite a bit more here than static. It's actually difficult to peg what "Static Nocturne" really is. At fifty minutes, the EP is composed of only one song, the title track. Needless to say, "Static Nocturne" is huge, and at times, rather oppressive.
OTHER TOP RELASESES
Greg Haines - Until The Point Of Hushed Support
Pan Sonic � Gravitoni
Hammock � Chasing After Shadows
Alva Noto � For 2
Gate � Iterations
Loscil � Endless Falls
Lilium � Felt
Balmorhea � Constellations
Erik K. Skodvin � Flare
Four Tet � There Is
Love In You
Jaga Jazzist - One-Armed Bandit
Clint Mansell -
Black Swan
