Brendan Walls - Cassia Fistula (2002)

Pure minimal drone from Australian composer Brendan Walls, with assists from Oren Ambarchi. If you, like me, haven't been able to shake that gnawing sense of dread for the past, oh, month or so, Cassia Fistula probably won't help, but it will transmute that anxiety into an aural form, so that instead of just feeling it, you can listen to it, too.

Track listing:

1. Section One

2. Section Two

3. Section Three

And when the sun is low

And the rays high

Similar vibes:

Coil - Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil (2000)

Mirror - I Paint for the Love of Color (2001)

Dreamboat - Dreamboat (2016)

Related:

Ilyas Ahmed - Between Two Skies (2005)

Ilyas Ahmed - Speaking of Shadows (2006)
Golden Retriever - Golden Retriever (2010)

One-off collaboration between two phenomenal Portland artists. The rare collaboration that actually delivers on its implicit promise: Ahmed's spectral desert folk intertwined with Golden Retriever's shimmering synth drone.

Track listing:

1. Aftershock / Face to Face

2. Mirrored Image / Your Sunday Best

What do you think I'd see

If I could walk away from me?

You should also hear:

Charalambides - Market Square (1995)

Yair Elazar Glotman & Mats Erlandsson - Negative Chambers (2017)

thisquietarmy - Blackhaunter (2008)

Guitar-based ambient drone for ghosts. Second full-length from what has turned out to be a very prolific project. Found this CD lost in the understock at my old job, knew I was gonna love it on sight. 

Track listing:

1. Black Haunters

2. In the Breathing Forest

3. Vampyr

4. Taming the Beast

5. Hunting Demons

6. Stranger Than the Sea

Old pang, so faithful to us

You should also listen to:

School of Emotional Engineering - School of Emotional Engineering (2004)

Belong - October Language (2008)

Badgerlore - We Are All Hopeful Farmers, We Are All Scared Rabbits (2007)

Related:

Charalambides - Market Square (1995)

Badgerlore - Of Things Too Sorrowful to Be Reminded Of, and Things Too Beautiful to Possess (2003)

Six Organs of Admittance - For Octavio Paz (2004)

Six Organs of Admittance - RTZ (2009)

Got a request for more Badgerlore, so here's their final full-length. At this point, the former duo had ballooned to a six-member quasi-supergroup encompassing the original two plus Liz Harris of Grouper, Tom Carter of Charalambides, and more. All things considered, We Are All Hopeful Farmers... really isn't all that different from the Badgerlore that had come before -- skeletal guitar figures, shimmering drones, and a spectral vocal here and there -- but it does feel like the most fully realized version of the project's vision.

Track listing:

1. Furbearer

2. Goodnight, Sweet Rabbits

3. The Crops That You Tend

4. Whichever

5. We Are All Hopeful Farmers

6. Mountain Wine

7. Snowballs for Reuven

8. Grow Your Hair

9. Duet

10. When I Look at Your Face, I See Timothy

Find the ones you hate and hold them tight

You should also hear:

Es - Kaikkeuden kauneus ja käsittämättömyys (2004)

Fursaxa - Alone in the Dark Wood (2007)

Philip Samartzis - Mort aux Vaches (2003)

Related:

Troum - Mort Aux Vaches: SEN (2000)

I'm back from a long trip that was just a little too emotionally and physically demanding to call a "vacation." Looking for a job and studying for the CPA exam are gonna be occupying much of my free time in the coming weeks and months, so expect even more sporadic posting. But in the here and now, enjoy these engrossing experimental sound pieces by Australian composer Philip Samartzis. Describing them would sorta take away from the fun of hearing their sound pallets expand and explode, so I'm not going to.

Track listing:

1. Variable Resistance

2. Deconstructed Windmills

3. Soft and Loud

In another time zone, tarantulas are climbing red rocks, and on top of those rocks are churches. Days go by, first and last, always the same stone. Go down, dematerialized like the last one, cast into loneliness. The data cloud is crestfallen. All thoughts of men are sinking like a stone. It's not the first slip, but it's the right time to fall. I want to go now, in the same way, go right away.

You should also listen to:

Michael Prime - Fructification (1989)

John Wiese - Collected Tracks (2000)

Oren Ambarchi - Stacte.2 (1999)

Two untitled early guitar/looping experiments from the great Oren Ambarchi. I first heard Ambarchi years ago via his collaborations with Stephen O'Malley/Sunn O))) -- Burial Chamber Trio, Gravetemple, Pentemple, Shade Themes from Kairos -- but only recently started listening to his solo stuff. Five albums in, I've yet to hear anything that's less than excellent, and Stacte.2 was where I started, so that's where we're starting. Its joyful, minimal, textural sounds are all guitar-sourced and I'm guessing are the results of tape looping, as according to the album notes: "All sounds = guitar – no editing no processing no computer no". I still don't understand how those aren't synths but what do I know.

"Quite the opposite," she said, "I've never felt better."

If you like this, you should listen to:

Troum - Mort Aux Vaches: SEN (2000)

Growing - His Return (2005)

Philip Sollman - Something Is Missing (2006)

Minimal ambient drone from a Berlin-based composer/producer, with whom I became familiar via his tech-house duo Pigon. Total tonal immersion. Not for the impatient.

Track listing:

1. Room One

2. Room Two

3. Room Three

4. Room Four

5. Room Five

6. Untitled

A pill for remembering

Further immersion:

Rafael Toral - Sound Mind Sound Body (1994)

Keith Fullerton Whitman - Playthroughs (2002)

Hunstville - For the Middle Class (2006)

Abstract, instrumental folk-jazz/post-rock from a Norwegian trio. Dreamy, droning, but bubbling over with life, For the Middle Class sounds both improvisational and expertly composed, and is probably a mix of the two. A favorite of mine ever since the golden age of the mp3 blog.

Track listing:

1. The Appearance of a Wise Child

2. Serious Like a Pope

3. Add a Key of Humanity

4. Melon

Presence in absence

You might also like:

Masabumi Kikuchi - Poo-Sun (1970)

Gastre del Sol - Camoufleur (1998)

Dante Augustus Scarlatti - Demises of the Dynamic Microphone (in Monodelity) (2009)

A few months back, I found a crate in my garage full of old CDs of friends' projects and random shit that I accumulated while on tour back in the day. There's a lot of mid-tier punk and metal, but there are a few gems in there, like this one, which I got in Bloomington, IN, where, in 2009, there was a surprisingly rich scene for experimental, often black metal-adjacent sounds. Demises of the Dynamic Microphone (in Monodelity) presents a series of grainy, analogue synth and/or guitar abstractions against a backdrop of tape hiss and muffled field recordings. While there, I also picked up this tape, as well as this LP by the band OS, who we played with and whose house we stayed at -- neither of which I have the capability to rip, unfortunately.

Track listing:

1. Prologue

2. Re:verses of Decay in 1939's Kodascope Mass for Arachnid

3. Transcriptions of Subterranean Meteorological Phenomena in the Galaxie Deluxe

4. Vinyl Etchings Containing Hymns of the Sacred Greek Orthodox Funeral

5. Electro-Syncing Static Keys in the City of Dead Sound

6. Recitations of the Reel Rhythm in a Stern Seasonal Stereophonic Headphone Set

7.  Epilogue

The weaver's fulfillment does not come from disparity and shame, but from courage and consistency.

You should also hear:

S·Core - Pretension (1988)

Badgerlore - Of Things Too Sorrowful to Be Reminded Of, and Things Too Beautiful to Possess (2003)

Necrophorus - Drifting in Motion (2000)

Related:

raison d'être - Residuality (1993)

Glacial dark ambient for the dead of winter, courtesy of Peter Andersson, best known for his work as raison d'être. Droning synths and icy SFX.

Track listing:

1. Lost Land - Part 1

2. Ice Shifting

3. Frost

4. Partial Melt

5. Lost Land - Part 2

6. Drifting

They've all gone

More arctic ambience:

Vidna Obmana - Gathering in Frozen Beauty (1989)

Amir Baghiri & Mathias Grassow - True North (1998)

S·Core - Pretension (1988)

Uneasy experimental sounds from Japan. Frail keyboard figures floating amidst abstract, analogue drones and muffled industrial noise. Music for ghosts to listen to when they're alone.

Track listing:

1. Plasmodium

2. Giaour

3. Lame Meter

4. Somnus

5. Concussion

6. Hard Words

7. End All

Set: The leathery skin of a female straddling a furnace. Illuminates in blue. Hands melt against the burning surface. Feel no pain. Kiss the burner. Lips fall away. Blood runs down the inside of her thighs. She tightens her grip in one last exaggerated movement and falls to the ground. A pile of ashes. The furnace stands triumphant over the mound.

If you like this, you should hear:

Attrition - Death House (1982)

raison d'être - Residuality (1993)

Eric Holm - Andøya (2014)

Massive, reverberating sounds from UK producer Eric Holm. Thunderous rhythms and static-ridden drones echoing through a vast, lightless expanse. From Holm's bandcamp: "Andoya [...] was made from contact mic recordings of pylons carrying communications cables that connected listening stations on an Arctic Norwegian island."

Track listing:

1. Måtinden

2. Stave

3. Åse

4. Kvastinden

5. Høyvika

6. Andøya

I know it's taking pictures from another plane

You should also hear:

All Sides - Dedalus (2007)

M.E.S.H. - Piteous Gate (2015)

Rafael Toral - Sound Mind Sound Body (1994)

Great news: post-vacation depression is sinking in, so I'm back on my sadboi shit. Here's ambient composer Rafael Toral's first album. Spacious, drifting drones and abstract, glistening minimalism, almost entirely sourced from electric guitar.

Track listing:

1. A E R 4

2. Loopability I

3. A E R 7 E

4. Soft Energy I

5. A E 1

We are getting closer

You'd also like:

Eluvium - Lambent Material (2003)

Simon Scott - Navigare (2009)

Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht (1972)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:

Richard Wahnfried - Time Actor (1979)

Michael Shrieve with Kevin Shrieve & Klaus Schulze - Transfer Station Blue (1988)

Klaus Schulze - Shadowlands (2013)

RIP to Klaus Schulze, the synth GOAT. Schulze changed electronic music, and as a result, the larger musical landscape, by helping to pioneer sounds that would form the basis for not just ambient/progressive electronic music, but trance and techno. He also created some of my all-time favorite records. So to send him off, here's one of them: his very first solo album, and the first one I ever heard. A piece of pure, foreboding, cosmic drone for the ages.

Track listing:

1. Satz: Ebene

2. Satz: Gewitter (Energy Rise - Energy Collaps)

3. Satz: Exil Sils Maria

4. Dungeon [bonus]

Journey through a burning brain

Also listen to:

Tony Scott — Astral Meditation - Voyage into a Black Hole - Part 1 (1988)

Coil - Moon's Milk (In Four Phases) (2002)

Yair Elazar Glotman & Mats Erlandsson - Negative Chambers (2017)

A collaboration between Yair Elazar Glotman & Mats Erlandsson. On their own, both artists tend towards experimental drone, but this collaboration finds them generating a fascinating, utterly transfixing take on ritualistic, instrumental psych-folk that's as transportive as it is mysterious. Drone still figures heavily into the equation, of course, but it's a fully organic drone filled with chimes, zither, gimli, and more.

Track listing:

1. Cornelian Cities

2. Orchid Sedation

3. Turn Roots in Iodine

4. Aspirations

5. Ceramic Relic

6. Libra Index

7. Desacrelasation

8. Format and Formalize Desire

The one reborn

Other nodding classics:

Pelt - Ayahuasca (2001)

Ginnungagap - Remeindre (2004)

All Sides - Dedalus (2007)

First album by All Sides, a moniker of German artist Nina Kernicke which she has since changed to Allseits. Dedalus evokes vast, dark spaces with minimal bass-lines, throbbing rhythms, and amorphous guitars.

Track listing:

1. The Idea

2. They Come by Night

3. Luv

4. Dedalus

5. The Unfinished End of H.W.

6. Mistake

7. Against the Sun

8. Runaway

9. Icarus

10. Into the Sea

11. Stay

Life is an optical illusion

If you like this, try:

The Third Eye Foundation - Semtex (1996)

Cyclobe - Luminous Darkness (1999)

Isengrind - Golestan (2007)

Haunting ambient-psych-folk-drone from French musician Solange Gularte. Guitars, cello, jangling percussion, various woodwinds, keyboards, wordless vocals.

Track listing:

1. Morgenstern

2. Virgin Rain Fog

3. Cum Mortuis en Langua Mortua

4. All Tiny Animals

5. Perseid Meteor Shower

6. Convicta et Combusta

7. N'ed'el'a

8. With Its Mouth to the South & Its Tail to the North

9. Path of Ice

10. How Deep Is the Mud?

11. Golestan

12. Perchtmilk

Dead horses by the sea

You should also hear:

Ginnungagap - Remeindre (2004)

Elm - Bxogonoas (2008)

Polmo Polpo - Like Hearts Swelling (2003)

Glorious sounds merging Gas-like ambient and woozy, abstract post-rock from Ontarian artist Sandro Perri. Layered towers of drone, guitar, strings, loops, and more build and recede, anchored by muffled pulses and angelic slide guitar. I found Polmo Polpo through the laid-back, zen-like indie/folk rock that Perri puts out under his given name, and that's definitely worth checking out, too.

Track listing:

1. Romeo Heart

2. Requiem for a Fox

3. Farewell

4. Sky Histoire

5. Like Hearts Swelling

Move most mysteriously in dreams

If you like this, check out:

Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By (2001)

bvdub - Strength in Solitude LP (2007)

Eluvium - Lambent Material (2003)

The wonderful debut of Portland's own Eluvium, aka musician Matthew Cooper. Lambent Material introduced the world (or whoever was listening) to Eluvium's beautifully grainy, organic, guitar-originating abstractions, and, along with The Pearl, introduced me to the world of ambient music. Will always remind me of driving with a few friends through suburbia at like 3 AM to pick up a bag of weed that I'd left sitting by my bed; before deciding to make the trek, we called information and asked for "Towson, MD, weed dealer," then hung up and laughed hysterically for like 20 minutes. Good times.

Track listing:

1. The Unfinished

2. Under the Water It Glowed

3. There Wasn't Anything

4. Zerthis Was a Shivering Human Image

5. I Am So Much More Me That You Are Perfectly You

We say goodbye to ourselves

You should also hear:

Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By (2002)

Vanessa Amara - Like All Mornings (2017)

Simon Scott - Navigare (2009)

Excellent first solo album by Simon Scott, best known as the drummer for Slowdive. Haunting, evocatively layered ambient pieces that kind of sound like distant echoes of Slowdive songs.

Track listing:

1. Introduction of Cambridge

2. Under Crumbling Skies

3. Flood Inn

4. Derelict Days

5. Repulse

6. The ACC

7. The Old Jug and Drum

8. Ashma

9. Spring Stars

10. The Night and the Artificial Light

Today I watch the colors fade

You should also listen to:

Belong - October Language (2006)

Alan Sparhawk - Solo Guitar (2006)