Excellent review of ‘NYX’. I don’t say that just because it’s a very positive review of the album, it’s because I think it’s very well observed as well.
There’s a lot written about ambient music that drops the same names over and over — Eno this, Roach that. Hell, I’m as guilty as anyone on that count when making comparative references. But in fact there are artists with extensive and impressive discographies working today who are the all-time ambient music legends of the future. I’m pleased to be able to talk about new releases by two such artists.
Phillip Wilkerson has a very extensive and diverse catalog of releases that often focuses on “drift” ambient, meaning the beautiful celestial layers of pads kind, which is one of my favourite varieties of music. Now, he’s done other stuff, but sunshine-drenched releases such as Highlands and Sun Tracer are the ones that float my boat the highest. Wikerson’s catalog is also notable for its consistency in quality — he has not made a single recording I’ve heard that is not…
The inspiration for this track was hearing choral / organ music in a highly reverberant Abbey Church and being inspired by the cavernous low notes and uplifting voices created by the acoustic effects of the space. I also was very taken with the atmosphere created by the music, I pick up on the ‘presence’ in such places and find them inspiring. I tried to create something with a ‘sacred ambient’ motif. I’m rarely directly inspired in such a way musically, but this has been an engaging exception.
The source material for this track was taken from a pool of sounds from which my ‘Harmony through Conflict’ and ‘NYX’ albums arose (as well as my upcoming releases ‘IRIS’) This pool of material contains a lot of experimental recordings created using Native Instrument’s Razor and Prism synths (as well as a lot of manipulated sample library recordings) I used Razor’s vocoder in ‘Unveil’, I think this is the best vocoder I’ve come across and I’m a big fan of such things ! Image-line’s idiosyncratic Harmor synth was also featured on this track.
‘NYX’ new album released (8/813 update – see end of post)
Press Release:
Hypnotic and meditative, ‘NYX’ waxes and wanes around thirteen slow-motion tracks encompassing depth and air. Each track is centered on a fixed tonal structure, recurring sounds and themes appearing throughout giving an overall coherent sound to the album. Spatial and spectral processes add to the subtle colour of the work. In terms of spectral balance, ‘NYX’ has a tempered upper frequency range, resulting in a softer sound than is usually present in ambient music. For this release, I felt that less was more and focusing on a somewhat band-limited spectra allowed for a more tempered overall production.
The album is ‘long-form’ in terms of its overall duration – it’s a ‘single’ album of just over 2 hours in length. In the traditional sense of defining an album by what can be fitted on a CD, it would be a ‘double’ album, but as ‘NYX’ is a digital only release, there’s no requirement to define it as such.
As an independent artist, I was able to devote as much time as I felt was necessary to complete ‘NYX’. I refer to the time taken to create the album as ‘slow cooking‘, in that ideas gelled over time, in a way that probably wouldn’t have happened in a more intense /concentrated shorter period of working. Ideas came to me whilst out and about walking primarily, which I made a mental note of and worked on back in the studio. On a personal note, this album is significant to me, in that I was able to channel a lot of energy into it.
Headphone listening recommended / suggested.
(album was composed, mixed and mastered on headphones)
Thanks as ever to my partner Denise, thanks also to Kati Astraeir and Achromus for their advice.
Artwork:
Pete Kelly (Igneous Flame)
Availabilty: (to date)
16 Bit Flac and all other download formats at CD Baby:
I think I’ve erred in omitting my choice of the title ‘NYX’. The album was titled after ‘Nyx’, the greek goddess of the night, I felt the hypnotic subtleties of the album were reflected in using that name for the title. The upper-case NYX may have suggested it was called ‘eN-whY-eX’, I think I was being a bit too ambiguous…
Wikipedia entry for the Greek Goddess ‘Nyx’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyx