Articles
Roger O'Donnell
Morgan Packard

Albums
The Ace of Clubs
akido
Cenotype
Cyrus
Mathias Delplanque
Entia Non
Michael Fakesch
False
Forrest
Kraig Grady
Kiln
Kingfisherg
Low in the Sky
Payton MacDonald
Manitou
Martin & Machinefabriek
Mt. Fuji Doom. Corporation
Need More Sources
Nobile
Odd Nosdam
Ontayso
Jair-Rôhm Parker Wells
RF & Lili De La Mora
Schmickler / Chisholm
The Sea
Seabear
Valgeir Sigurðsson
Silvania
Six Twilights
Aaron Spectre
Stamen & Pistils
Swayzak
Tijuana M. A. Broad. Inc.
Utom Alla
Pete Warren
Yaporigami

Compilations / Mixes
Box of Dub
Expanse at Low Levels
Ibiza – Renaissance Vol. 4
Jahtarian Dubbers Vol. 1
The Silence Was Warm

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Abiku / Kid Camaro
Audio Injection
B12
Bering & Simko
Bury the Sound
The Caribbean
DJ C feat. Zulu
Entia Non
Flavius E
Andre Gardeja
Lerosa
Magnum 38
Microthol
Ontayso
Troy Pierce
Ghislain Poirier
Rusuden
Skoozbot
Slap [unmodified]
Sonmi451
Joel Tammik
TG

VA: Expanse at Low Levels
Moodgadget

On this hefty eighty-minute, twenty-track Moodgadget compilation, familiar names (Tstewart, Marumari, The Reflecting Skin) and new recruits do their part to make this a wide-ranging and forward-thinking collection of fresh ambient music. Some pieces are mere fragments (Benoît Pioulard's acoustic guitar setting “Sunol,” Viul's swirling vignette “Breath On Empty Avenues”) while others are more fully-developed. In general, the longer pieces make a stronger impact, typically because they offer the contributors a better opportunity to dig deeper emotionally and instrumentally. Though all participants adhere to the album's ambient theme, there's ample diversity on display: certainly Library Tapes mix of piano elegance and vinyl surface noise (“Skiss Av Trad”) is light years removed from Calmer's “Miles Ahead” which sounds like Filles de Kilimanjaro transmuted into a placid, four-minute oasis.

One style that reoccurs on Expanse At Low Levels is heavily-textured, loop-based meditations: Viul's “Belleau Wood,” Will's deeply textured stream of blurry pianos, babbling voices, and electronics (“5ft.2”), Direwires' entrancing sparkle (“Sunkissed”), and A Setting Sun's ponderous synth-clustered setting (“Sunny Side Up”). MIA for years, Marumari re-appears for a two-minute sampling of technicolour synths-and-beats in “Birch Bark Vessel” which is more significant for suggesting Marumari still exists than for the track itself. In addition, Tstewart contributes “Wonders Of Blunders,” a blurry mix of stuttering plucks and willowy vocals, and Rob Theakston assembles a seductive undertow of reverberant swirl and washes in his Basic Channel-styled “Puck.” Praveen gets in two good tracks too: “Tour Around This House,” a shifting kaleidoscope of melting piano playing, glassy tonal shimmer, speaking voice samples, and flickering beats, and “Distant Snow,” a funereal, drum-heavy setting of piano, strings, and electronics. The collection's loveliest moment may be D. R. Casey's “Marino,” which envelops the sweet sparkle of cascading glockenspiel melodies with the surging tick-tock of soft strings and beats.

August 2007