Psychedelic Glitch Mix - PsyAmb 63

Well, 63 episodes in and I am about to attempt a glitchy psychedelic mix. I'm not sure if that is even the right name ! The tracks in this mix share a stuttering glitchy feel to them so I'll just ride with that. So if you happen like that kind of thing you might enjoy this week's episode.

We begin with a a track from UK duo Synth Sense from their After Dark EP. I really dig the Synth Sense sound. I think their darker tracks work best where the bass is to the foreground such as on this tune "Next Level". There is  another track from them later in the mix where I'll talk further about the duo.
 

After Synth Sense is Digital Connection with a a great slice of bass percolation. Just listen to that bass synth bubbling along. The lush synth cords and a touch of rap adds up to make a superb track. This one comes from a huge collection on tracks on the compilation "Bass From Above 2" which is a free download on Bandcamp.

More funky bass from Sympath follows on next with his track "Zero Sum" from Native State Records now classic release "Bioluminescence" of 2007. If you like ambient, quirky glitch psy then you have to get a hold of it. It stands as somewhat of a defining moment in a number of genres including glitch, idm, ambient and psybient styles. On this release Native State artists demonstrate an intelligent merging of all these genres into something new which drove the music forward to the next step. Highly recommended listening.

After Sympath is a collaboration between Xerxes and Jonas Kroon. Xerxes may be known to a number of listeners here as his work has featured on a number of past mixes. This track comes from the eclectic "Droplet Of Water" album released late 2012. A nice diversity of tracks on there so check it out if you enjoy a bit of variety between tracks. Jonas is a producer and mixing engineer who has worked in a variety of media including sound works for film and television. You can listen to more of his individual work at his website. 

We then dive into the clear blue waters of Enrico Coniglio's tune Brushwork from the album Dyanmu. Guitarist, environmental sound recordist and sound artist, Enrico is a musician with an interest in landscape aesthetics. Enrico's music  aims at investigating the loss of identity of places and the uncertainty about the evolution of the territory. Enrico is part of several collaborative projects as Aqua Dorsa, Herion, Lemures, Exquisite What and Sens-O-Tape. Together with Leandro Pisano, Enrico runs the digital label Galaverna. This year he started another new project My Home, Sinking. 

Another modern experimental soloist continues on after Enrico with the warmth of diffracted light delivered by Christoph Schindlig on his tune "The Small Things" from the album "A Dubby Summer". Hailing from Germany, Christoph has been actively producing fine ambient electronica since 2007. He has amassed an extensive catalog of excellent music which you can listen to on his SoundClound page. I think you'll like this one, its got an atmospheric glowing glitch feel to that opens up a lot of aural spaces. 

The sounds of ethnic ambient electronica is something I am a big a fan of. It is also something Greg Hunter is one of the few true masters of. His knowledge of Ethnic and Asian sounds truly knows no limit and he encompasses some of the best of it into his wonderful ethnodub creations. As a member of groups Alien Soap Opera, Subsurfing, DMT and Dub Trees he created the enthnodub sound that has been so influential on many of today's young dub and glitchhop producers. Recently he continues to explore new territories with acts Spectralite and Dubsahara. Follow Greg on Facebook if you want to keep up to date on what he is up to and receive daily updates on what he is currently listening to and recommending.

Benji Vaughan released his latest solo album "Even Tundra" to wide acclaim recently. The album is a masterpiece that explores the sounds of glitch dub, experimental electronica and more. If you liked his work on Younger Brother then I'm sure you will fall in love with this album too. Going back a little before Even Tundra's release, Benji and a number of artists released tracks on the brilliant Eclipse 2012 album late last year. You can find this track on there as well as a number of awesome tunes you shouldn't miss out on. 

With Greg and Benji we have two pioneers of ambient psychedelic music. Completing the hat-trick is our next artist Bluetech. There isn't much more I can say about Bluetech that hasn't been said before. For those of you who have yet to experience Bluetech's technical wizardry then drop by his webpage and listen to one of the true pioneers of psychedelic glitchy dub ambience. Legend. Oh and if you like this tune then drop what you doing right now and get a copy of the "Beneath The Surface" album - an ambient glitch masterclass compilation.

Low Limit is the work of Bryant Rutledge ( of Lazer Sword fame ). You can find his track "Turf Day" on 2009's "Beat Dimensions 2" compilation. The album is a mixture of experimental hip-hop,downtempo, broken beat and various other bass heavy forms. With over 30 tunes on offer there is sure to be a few that appeal to you so why not jump over to the excellent Rush Hour Recordings website and check it out.

Maps And Diagrams follow on next with an array of low glitchy sounds, hushed vacuumed effects, and the warmth of reverbed keys. This tune comes from his 4 track EP, Cubiculo, that was released as a free download on the FluidAudio website. As reveled on the FA website, Cubiculo is a bit of a departure from the previous MADs releases, encompassing a more structured and synchronized, looped arrangement that explores a crystallized lattice of sounds. Yeah, its a little difficult to describe to be honest so let your ears be the judge by grabbing your free copy today.

Rain Of Dub by Antara ( Andrei Shereshovets ) is a super mix of stuttering glitchy percussion, fluctuating pads and spiraling synth melodies. This one comes from the brilliant Trumurti Records compilation "Everything Is Possible" which was a released early last year. A follow up compilation is now available titled "Art Of Balance" which continues in the same vein of abstract beats and bass expressionism. For more sounds from Andrei you can follow him on his Soundcloud page .

Desiseq ( Stephen Tan ) is next in the mix with a track from his album Adrenochrome. This album is another experiment beats affair released on Aussie label Hopskotch Records in 2011. Hopskotch also recently released glitch-hop maestro Itsu's album "Itsop" which is definitely worth grabbing a hold of if you like quality glitchhop like sounds. Getting back to Stephen, he has a new EP out now on Hopskotch too, the bass heavy and more experimental in nature "Ephemeras" 4-track release. There is a real emergence of crazy glitchy bass sounds going on in Australia at the moment with acts like these guys and Mr Bill showcasing what can be achieved when like minded producers get together to move music forward in new directions.  

Speaking of things down under. Another successful new label that is pushing the boundaries of psychedelic electronica is home to our next artist, Woulg. Enig'matik records. In just a few short years, Enig'matik's band of electrodelic producers have a formed a label that is gaining respect world wide due to its consistant output of top quality releases that focus attention to the microscopic details in each tracks production as well as an open level of service and communication with listeners that keeps people well informed on what is going on with the label at present and in the near future. They truly embraced the digital distribution model from day one and continue to attract new artists to the label . Check out their catalog here.

A few years back in 2009 Ultimae Records released an interesting compilation titled "Imaginary Friends". It has a diverse range of styles on offer from some of the usual suspects such as Aes Dana, Solar Fields, Asura and Cell. It also introduced a few lesser known artists at the time such as  Field Rotation and Murya. One song that stuck a chord with me is Rena Jones tune Photosyntheses, remixed by Steve Nelepa.  

Rena Jones has probably past your ears at some point, apart from featuring at psyamb before she has been involved in over 30 collaborations and appeared on labels such as Iboga, Spun Records, Aleph Zero, 1320 Records, Addictech, Schematic Records, Native State Records and her own labels Cartesian Binary Recordings and Pok Pok records. Rena is currently celebrating her fifth full length album , "Echoes" featuring world renowned artists Sophie Barker on vocals (Zero 7 and Groove Armada), Matt Robertson (Bjork, Lamb, Batt for lashes) and Earl Harvin (Seal, Air ). Steve Nelepa has amassed an impressive amount of top remixes over the years as well as his own superbly crafted ambient explorations.

Krusseldorf's 2010 album "Bohemian Groove" was a much more ambient dub affair than his latest release "From Soil To Space" which makes use of a lot more glitchy stuttering constructs. However it is from the Bohemian Goove where we get the next track in the mix - the delightful "Mushroom Soup". Simon has released 14 full length albums in many groups over the years, among them: Atrium Carceri, a black ambient / noise /industrial project that released 5 albums; Za Frumi, his classical music project, which to this date spans 8 albums and has gotten tracks featured and played by the famous 100+ man Swedish Radio Symphonic Orchestra at the once a year classical music event on national TV. He has also been involved or released under the names: Abnocto, Couchlock, Alembic, Sojobo, Dorf Unit, Preponderance and Knaprika. You can listen to some of his art as Krusseldorf at his website here.

Erot ( Tore Mortensen ) features once again in a psyamb mix. This time I've mixed in a song from his 4 track EP of 2012 titled "Mechnanical Lifeforms". Since that release Tore has gone on to create a futher 3 or 4 EPs I think. His latest, "Thoughts From The Past", was released earlier this year comprising of two new tracks and a bonus track by Lemonchill. All three tunes are super polished examples of chilled out trance that I highly recommend for fans of spacey ambient psychill. I especially like the use of the processed guitar work on the track Atmos.

After a quirky interlude by Australia's Melbient we slide into State Azure's "Patterns in The Dust" before things get even quirkier still with a mashup of Gay Satanic Hippie's dystopian "Back On Crack" over-layered with the vocals of beat poet Anne Waldman. This song can be found ( minus the vocals ) on GSH's album Tiefenrausch.

Next we have a remix of Synth Sense's tune "Lost In Time" by Synkro. I didn't know much about these guys until I stumbled across the work of UK producer ASC ( James Clements ) and his label Auxilary Music. James has created an awesome label in Auxilary through which he is able to release his own highly sought after compositions of experiemental ambient music. Manchester’s Joe Synkro is a truly unique musical force in todays electronic landscape. His talent for creating elaborate, emotive & intellectual soundscapes over any chosen tempo is second to none. Launching his musical career with the dubstep / 2 step framework, he has gone on to contort his powerful gift with melody and arrangement to take in almost every electronic musical sub genre, including becoming one of the leading proponents of what came to be known as the Autonomic sound. For an introduction to Synth Sense I recommend reading this article.

Asonat is a collaboration between Fanar Asgimsson and Jonas Thor Guamusson. Having both released on label n5MD is different groups they decided to join forces and create the Asonat project. Over the next year they wrote and recorded what would become tracks for their debut. To further extend this new collaboration they also invited the Icelandic artist Kjartan Olafsson, Japanese singer Chihiro and the French singer Olena Simon to work with them on their debut album "Love in Times of Repetition". The Icelandic group have been remixed by another Icelander, Murya (Gudmundur Gudmundsson) in this mix. I've really enjoyed the few tracks that I've heard from Murya so I'll definitely have to pick up an album or two. 

Following on we have a track from the Banco De Gaia album "10 Years Remixed". There isn't a lot I can add here about BDG that hasn't been said before regarding his long career of quality ethno-ambient releases. It is worth mentioning that he does have a new album out titled Apollo which is really solid, I'm happy to see Toby is making good music again. Check it out here.

Glenn Astro and I.M.YRMiND join forces on the next tune, Heatwave before we slip into a track by a man who is having a big year in 2013, Kalya Scintilla. This is then followed up by the tune Treat by OneLung from the compilation "Fear Of A Quiet Planet" released back in 2002 on New Zealand's Golden Bay Records. Golden Bay have since ceased operations which is a shame as they released some great stuff back then. If you can track down a copy of this compilation I think you'll find it quite an enjoyable listen with its mix of hiphop, idm and experimental soundscapes.

Finally we wrap things up in a glitchy psychedelic bubbling potion with Electocado's wonderfully inventive tune Floptapuss from one of the surprise hit albums of 2012, "The Shepard Tone". Electrocado is the work of Australian producers Mr Bill and Ryanosaurus. While I appreciate the production skills and musicality of both producers, I don't listen to alot of their stuff. However get them together and ... boom...magic ! You can download  a free copy here

Cheers ...

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