Tracklist:

1. Rural Lullaby

2. When the Ice Breaks

3. Tundra Ambient

4. Turbid Waves of Blizzard’s Breath

Band: Demolyne)

Album: Natural EP

Album Year: 2007

Label:  Two left hands on two right arms

Genre(s): ambient, experimental

Download from: http://www.archive.org/details/tlhotra020

Rating: 5/10

I’ve been looking for some new non-dark ambient for a while and this one kind of fell right into my lap so I figured ‘what the hell, I might as well check it out’. It’s a brief offering at only four tracks, and so I will go over each of them:

Rural Lullaby:

It begins like generic non-dark ambient: a decent, albeit generic, fuzzy atmosphere (like looking at an old fading picture) coupled some field samples of a flute. It doesn’t blow my mind, but it’s not that bad. It purveys a pretty solid representation of what I would imagine sitting in a lonely field in the middle of Europe feels like. The track stays pretty much the same for the first two minutes and then it introduces some kind of random glitchy sounds that follows no discernable pattern. At first it almost sounds like something out of a Squarepusher or Aphex Twin track, except that instead of continuing, Demolyne) just repeats the same 3 second glitch part over and over for most of the rest of the track. It is totally without beat or time and it gets very annoying. It’s much louder than the ambience, so when it first kicks in it feels extremely abrasive. I feel like this could’ve been a good idea if it had been executed in an IDM-style manner and merged more with the rest of the track. Had he taken the glitches somewhere instead of just throwing them on top of his atmosphere haphazardly and hoping they will blend together on their own it could’ve worked…maybe. Towards the end of the track some nice samples of talking come in and add to the atmosphere, but that glitchy shit continues to grind on and get in the way of what could’ve been half pleasant ambient.

When The Ice Breaks:
11 seconds of a beep and some decaying static….pointless any way you skew it.

Tundra Ambient:

This track is completely different from the first part of the album and ventures into drone territory. No more flute and no more glitch, thank god. This is actually a solid drone track. It builds up to just the right spot and then plateaus to provide a nice meditative ambiance. It reminds me a good deal of the Biosphere album Substrata; very empty and subtly arctic. While Tundra Ambient (a fitting name) isn’t going to blow your mind, it does provide a good background for other means of mental expansion. The only major downside is that towards the end he throws in a sample of a guitar which neither fits the atmosphere nor furthers the flow of the song. The quality of the guitar sample is poor and more than anything else it just inhibits the momentum of the track.

Turbid Waves of Blizzard’s Breath:

This one is probably my favorite on the album. Once again I am reminded very much of Biosphere. Demolyne) succeeds in creating solid minimalist yet atmospheric droning arctic ambient. It’s a bit boring, yes, but the pads have a very pleasant rolling static-y texture to them which I cannot deny enjoying. This track brings to life an ice-encased void. The song doesn’t change much one it gets into its full swing (about two minutes in), but nonetheless this is a very good meditative piece and since the album is free for download I would definitely suggest checking this one out if you’re a fan of this style. Oh but some words of caution: try to remember to skip the track once it gets to about nine and a half minutes. At this point some very badly sampled bells marinated in muddy reverb come in and it’s really just fucking annoying. But it’s great pre-9:30.

Overall, the Natural EP was hardly mind-blowing or earth-shattering. Apparently this is Demolyne)’s debut, which isn’t surprising. He shows a proclivity when it comes to droning atmospheres, although his work doesn’t exactly stand apart from the other drone artists out there. If he continues, I hope that he focuses more on the drone side of ambient, but works on incorporating some kind of progression(s) into the songs. I sincerely enjoyed most of the later two tracks and if you’re into drone ambient then I would highly recommend checking out the last two tracks and then waiting for something more mature from Demolyne).