Focus On The Breath - Time
New releases from one of my favorite pure ambient labels around, British Elm Records of course. One of them is a project called Focus On The Breath with the album Time, released in November last year. A limited cassette release, with the awesome Elm Records design with it. Lovely transparent blue cassette. 6 tracks divided on an A-side and a B-side, almost 40 minutes in total.
And behind this project hides an artist, which has (according to Discogs) been involved in bands doing art/post-rock, folk, and even avant-garde Jazz as well. Besides that, he has been working on this project since 2014, with 4 albums out so far. Wanna check these albums out, then I suggest you check out the Bandcamp site for Cold Tear records (link below).
The first track on the A-side is called Perpetual, starts really simple in an incredible angelic way. Simple and dreamy piano notes, with a touch of melancholia on a foggy day. Or when the sun rises over a windy cornfield in the morning, when corn fields almost resample waves in the ocean. The time around you absolutely freezes, and your pulse slows down completely. Imagine a black and white movie in the slowest slow-motion. There is also the sound of... dust on a record player evident. Hidden trumpet drones with that angelic touch also being a present in the mix as well. And that beautiful track runs in 16+ minutes. I´m gobsmacked by the beauty of this track. It does remind me a bit of some of the stuff found on Aphex Twin´s Selected Ambient Works Vol.2, or Autechre´s Amber without beats.
The second track on the A-side is called String Theory. Acoustic guitar-driven ambient material, not my cup of tea though. Reminds me of those kinds of new-age shops seeling healing crystals and herbs, acoustic guitar combined with ambient music... I know, it´s a taste thing. The track gets better further on when the guitar gets a kind of looped sound treatment.
We jump further into the third track which is also the first track on the B-side. The track is called Continuum. Floating in space, or just frozen in time and space. A pretty deep, mysterious, and cosmic track. Waves of recorded sounds swirl and intertwine like liquid mercury. Hints of sampled violin here and there, excellent track here.
In the fourth track Origin, we get the sensation of moving back in time. The reversed ambient sensation if you please. Some of the reversed sounds sound like they are moving forward, while other reversed sounds sound like they are moving backward... at the same time (does that make sense?). Is forward actually backwards, or is backwards actually forward? I don´t know.
The fifth track The Waiting Room works like a sort of... well waiting room. A short track, offering sounds of dripping water, windy and scrappy drones, and strings. Not a bad track.
The sixth and last track on the B-side (and the album) called Together includes vocals. Not actually words following a certain melody, but more of a humming voice doing the same sort of thing as that piano part did in the first track. Repetitive and simple tunes. Very kind of Sigur Rós here, more ambient than post-rock though.
Not a bad album as it is, it has its ups and downs but the overall quality of the whole album lifts the whole thing up. The one track that nearly overshadows the other tracks is of course... the first track. That one track is an absolute ambient masterpiece!
Bandcamp (label):
Bandcamp (Cold Tear Records):
Bandcamp (band):