SIDDHARTHA BARNHOORN - DUNE MEDITATIONS


My first association after seeing the title was that this album was inspired by Frank Herbert's books, or perhaps by the Dune movies. But I was wrong: the true inspiration came from walks in the Dutch dunes near Katwijk aan Zee.


After some of his walks in the dunes, Siddharta Barnhoorn sat down playing his guitar. These spontaneous sessions were completed with synthesizers and singing bowls (and a spolum drum on Meditation IV) and thus became this set of seven Meditations. Those walks were obviously inspiring ánd relaxing - you can check the cover for an impression - because the music is, too.
Siddharta Barnhoorn is a Dutch composer who has scored more than 70 films, documentaries, and games. His Bandcamp page boasts no less than 50 titles. Apart from the work he produced on commission, he also (self-)released solo albums of ambient music - some of which were featured earlier on Ambientblog.
With its seven meditations, Dune Meditations is an excellent addition to his already extensive catalogue.


Dune Meditations by Siddhartha Barnhoorn








ALAN BROWN - ENCIRCLE


Coming from a jazz background, New Zealand's Alan Brown is no stranger to improvisation. For Encircle, his improvisations centered on "the interplay of contrasting sounds and textures inspired by generative audio systems".
This way of composing challenged Brown to let go of his original intentions and let the compositions evolve into unredictable new pathways. "When these semi-random elements aligned, the results were creatively rewarding, influencing and sometimes shaping the character of a composition in ways that allowed Alaln to discover creative synchronicities he might not have found otherwise. In this sense, Alan is employing the collaborative improvisational language of jazz within an interactive technological environment."
The resulting music, however, will not be classified as 'jazz'. This is immersive ambient music in the truest sense. Each track has its own signature, but the album as a whole remains beautifully coherent. In some tracks - like the opener Night Sky - the rhythmic patters bring to mind the fourth world music of Jon Hassel.
One of the instruments here is not the trumpet but the 'Ondomo' - a modern Japanese version of the classic Ondes Martenot. But it is used very subtly, 'discreetly woven into the fabric'. The closing track Isolation Tank is an hommage to the work of William Basinski: this time the degradation does not come from tape dacay but from the gradual degradation of bits.


A physical edition of Encircle is available as a (print on demand-) CD.


Encircle by Alan Brown

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

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