3CD wooden Box – Record Label Records / Cataclyst

“Ambient” has been released in a specially made wooden box containing three CDs and 35 art cards with original photos, drawings, collage and paintings by Abby and Robbie Martin. The album includes musical contributions from Robbie Martin, Steven Frenda, Djynxx, Sean Dimentia, Ben Vanderford, Laurie Kirchner, Brian English, Mike Dunkley and Unknown Alien Species. Many different kinds of musicians have been involved in this electronic project and this is reflected in the exotic, analogic and vintage flavor that permeates. Cinematic and spatial interludes are immediately impressed on the listener, between winces and lo-fi suggestions. A certain appreciation for psychedelia spreads from the cuts, reinforced by the “freaks” and the mystical aesthetics of the label – Record Label Records (sorry for the cacophony). The prints are reminiscent of underground editions of the seventies, emanating a strong hippy sensibility. The eclectic elaborations are still able, however, to give life to highly involving and imaginative listening experiences, impenetrable in their metamorphic excursions: they find space mostly in electroacoustic and concrete music, rather than ambient or the last forms of glitch. The abstractions become more rarefied and sidereal on the last CD, our favorite, which includes “Ritual At The Super Volcano”, entirely recorded in the Yellowstone Park (between Wyoming, Montana and Idaho) one of the biggest untouched ecosystems of the temperate zones left on the planet. These last tracks are the darkest and most charming of the project, with moments of larger completeness and dynamic strain. On the whole the release is very varied and interesting indeed. Aurelio Cianciotta

Fluorescent Grey – Ambiente