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| Photo by Pin Han Lim |
Nicholas Skalba - (circadian) ambience and soundscapes
ambient
Nicholas Skalba is a multi-instrumentalist composer from Chicago now based in Los Angeles. Having earned a master's degree in scoring music for film and television from Columbia College Chicago, Skalba's work is emboldened by theoretical know-how and engineering professionalism. The ten tracks across his recent collection, (circadian) ambience and soundscapes, are sonically corsetted into welcomingly digestible form. Each track is given two titles, one for which instrument was predominantly used ("piano", "harp", "guitar") and one in parenthesis (pullulate, erosion, doorway) for some representational nudging. All roads lead to Rome, but some offer more breathtaking scenery. "piano (doorway)" and "harp (aubade)" are more winsome and spirituality enriching than more ominous cuts such as "winds (phonological)". Meanwhile, "arp (sunbeam, moonbeam)" delights with Rileyesque frenetics and "pads (aeriform)" dispenses pulsating snippets of heaven in the vein of Yoshimura but with a cinematic slant. There are varying environments to be found here. ★★★½
Storm Clouds - F.O.G.
lo-fi
There's something incredibly earthy about F.O.G., a recent album from Storm Clouds, the gloomy stage name of San Diegan Dima Zadorozhny. Zadorozhny recorded the album on a 4-track cassette machine after becoming disillusioned as a professional audio engineer. The result is a bare-bones assemblage of simple but sparkling-clean drum patterns, directly injected guitar overdubs, whispery vocals and space-filling bass. There is distortion in places (the winning "self/image" and the brutal "no rewind"), and gentle instrumental indietronica ("out of the fog"), but when Storm Clouds truly blow the roof off the place is with "Kosmonout", a celestial and galvanizing serving of reverb tinted art pop. Nostalgic in the best possible way, F.O.G. is one for the wee morning hours, watching the candle fade. ★★★½
Hari Sima & Mínim - Fluvius
electronic
Water's fundamental necessity and undeniable power are illustrated with curious majesty across eight tracks of floating harmonies and alleviating progressions on "Fluvius", a collaborative album between Spanish artists Hari Sami & Mínim, monikers of Spanish electronic musicians Paco León and Juanvi Fortea, respectively. While the duo have collaborated in the past under the Güiro Meets Russia banner, here they reign the other's propensions for chaos like the bank of a river guiding its water. Water has inspired many artists across time and cultures, and "Fluvius" is a worthy addition to that fold. León and Fortea present the precious substance with respect, not only focusing on pretty river sounds but what at times could be described as water torture practices ("Pu-rat-tu"), the tribes that live off the river ("Sindhu"), or the instrumentation in general, which seems soaked with the gushing of a million years of rain. ★★★★½