Jérémie Mathes - Árset (Mystery Sea, 2010) available now !!!!!

a close friend is publishing his sophomore album on Mystery Sea... so buy it !!!! and like always check the back catalogue of Mystery Sea....


"Le jour, je collecte et capture des images sonores que je retire de leur réalité tangible. La nuit lorsque tout est calme en surface,
ces fragments m'apparaissent sous un autre aspect sublimé qui modifie ma perception initiale. Mon attention se porte sur la myriade
de micro détails produits par la captation sonore. Je m'abandonne alors à révéler les imperceptibilités de de leur structure inhérente.
Modélisant cette matière ineffable, je m'efforce de concevoir une architecture du non visible. Hors de toute temporalité, mon esprit accomplit son voyage nocturne."

"During the day, I collect and capture sound images that I separate from their tangible reality. At night, when everything seems calm on the surface, these fragments appear to be sublimed and changed in aspect, which modifies my initial perception.
My attention is set on the myriad of micro details produced by the sound capture. I then abandon myself to reveal the imperceptibilities
inherant to their structure. Modelling this unspeakable matter, I strive to conceive an architecture of the non visible.
Out of all temporality, my spirit accomplishes its nocturnal journey."

- Jérémie Mathes, January 2010

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Celer - Tropical (Mystery Sea, 2008)

1 Normal Sadness (The Softness Of The Sea Hibiscus) (13:29)
2 Stipulated Morning Beside The Wreckage (First Sight) (6:46)
3 The Second In A Sequence Of Glances And Introductions (6:58)
4 Heart Shapes And Requiems At The Height Of LamLam (6:55)
5 Empty Hum (An Open, Empty Ocean) (18:03)

"With little more than uneasy tension, a short existence in a humid paradise left our
untrained ears listening to the falling-apart.
The surrounding pink sand beaches, dancing palms, on the edge of
decayed reefs, leading us, swimming in stillness, and lying on the tip of the trench.
We’re left inside sweating jungles, dripping.

Pouring out a summer spent in mint swims, everything that happened left the rush
nowhere to fall. Drives through one-lane mountain roads, plane skeletons tattered
remains in the hidden hills, all inactive and silent; there is little remembered. With
unaware farewells, we’d rather remember the slow-motion dances under the soft glow
of paper lanterns, the tracers from lightning bugs drifting into the endless blackness
of the hidden inland.

The ending, with an arduous voyage home, left signs in the churning water,
but they disappeared into the deep blue depth, as the island fell with the sunset.
The naval ship hum, dooming any hope of silence, left only the moonlit decks
to mimic the loss. Unexposed film of the lost loves that we didn’t have time to fall for,
still and lifeless, swaying with diaphoresis in the humid wind."

- Celer, August 2008

CELER is a fast growing in reputation entity, and also the main artistic expression of lovely couple of Will Thomas Long & Danielle Baquet-Long, currently based on the coast of Southern California... Both have jobs in the educational domain, are versed into literature, and have common interests in Poetry, Painting, Photography, History & Philosophy...
CELER carries out its ceaseless thirst for beauty & emotion through sound, merging techniques of analog and digital world via the use of field recordings, custom software, real instruments, effects + manipulation, and concepts...
Since inception, CELER has been extremely prolific and generous, overflowing the independent market with numerous hand-made releases, soundtracks for installations & art exhibitions, & works for various labels across North America, Japan & Europe...
As a result of their sheer passion, they didn't have to wait that long before seeing unfurling waves of praise... as an example, their collab with Mathieu Ruhlmann, "Mesoscaphe" is now permanently archived in Vancouver's Maritime Museum...

As symbolic celebration of reaching its 50th release, MS is proud to serve as a showcase for their highly personal album "Tropical"

"Tropical" is all muggy heat,
an intimate pulse swelling,
raising from the depths, the scars of past...
The sound of an invisible river
reaching out and afar,
while palm trees cry some golden tears...
The sound of a slow breeze
making twigs dance...
-
"Tropical" touches you, reads you,
leaves you forlorn and naked,
rough, unpolished as lava rocks
close to burst into pieces, flakes of pure wonder...
-
The torn landscape is aglow,
eyes are wild, and truth is in the air...
And a single flower crystallizes all hope,
hands open, all sand fleeing...
A notion of eternity,
or just perennial Father's traces...
Mystery Sea

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Ninth Desert - Zone (Mystery Sea, 2007)

1 Strate (4:35)
2 Marhbe (7:30)
3 Green (3:04)
4 Gathe (6:35)
5 Alke (7:05)
6 Ghorg (4:14)
7 Kollected (7:33)

My first wish when working with sound is to carve a landscape ; an open mental space which will change while going from one ear to an other.
This work in itself offers an infinite number of possibilities specific to the way the sound material is processed. For "zone", this landscape is directly bound to the visuals & to the name "Mystery Sea".
Each tone had to vehicle a feeling of immersion within the visual material, through its texture, in depth. It was thus a question of shaping a landscape from a graphic landscape, organizing a link between the two supports, into time & space, in motion, like two extensions responding to themselves.
Like with image, the sound appears to me like a porous body with multiple entries. Everything is a choice regarding the processing of the texture, and the combinations between the different gained results.
This version of "zone" (the 4th one) is the closest to what Mystery Sea evokes to me in visuals & sound terms : mental wanderings into graphic surfaces & through sound fluxes in constant transformation.

There are seven sequences : seven possibilities to wander into a same landscape."

- Cyril Herry , April 2007

Currently installed with minimum comfort in Creuse, in a secluded hamlet, Cyril Herry is dedicating most of his time to various forms of art (writing, graphics, photography, video...) and their intercombination...
Also veteran of the french experimental music scene, he had co-founded SECHRES MOUND (with Cédric peyronnet/TOY BIZARRE) EXOTOENDO, and expressed himself through various solo projects, LECANORA being the most known...
NINTH DESERT is his latest one with works released on TAÂLEM, VERATO & AFE... let's also mention that Cyril creates all the beautiful graphics for the TAÂLEM 3"cd-r series and the KOKESHIDISK sister-label... he also realized a special video which has been used by TROUM on tour...

ninth desert's "zone" is an invitation to merge into the layers of sound,
extending in a sea of intimate sensations & recycled memories,
opening up a myriad of universes, existing like small vortexes of condensed energy...
-
Cyril Herry fashions sound as clay, exploring interstices, variations of recurrent motifs, echoing a process of permanent elemental mutation...
-
"zone" attempts to freeze the quintessence of an experienced moment, building a sort of shelter... a place of reflection & ultimate contact...
-
Listen to these aural sculptures, apprehend their outlines & inner vibrations, and possibly, you'll get far deeper into the understanding of our surrounding world...
Mystery Sea

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Moth Electret - Lil (Mystery Sea, 2007)

1 Cygal (6:51)
2 Kalaa (10:53)
3 Lyel (6:36)
4 Isal I (3:08)
5 Isal II (5:56)
6 Aelia I (4:42)
7 Aelia II (5:29)
8 Aelia III (8:08)

"the giant shimmering blades against the ancient landscape seemed more like a tribute. it would be a few hours before we reached the island sand. typically a colin archer will float in the water like a nut, but this one – she said – was a rare species.

we loved those early hours, before the day drove the mystery away. people that venture out early share a secret unspoken bond, and a question.

it was a spur of the moment thing. she reached eureka late in the afternoon and settled at that victorian by the harbor. it channeled the spirit of the old winston. a train was stranded in the middle of the rusty industrial, sentenced without trial. gazing north it all seemed so impenetrable, like some final outpost."

- Stig Berg, February 2007

Already a long time ago, Norwegian/US man Stig Berg released under the R|A|A|N moniker "The Nacrasti" on Malignant Antibody, an influential dark ambient work of epic proportion inspired by desert views...
Now, after years of patient maturation & experimentation in subdued mode, he comes to the surface again with an even more poignant & less categorizable sound which will undoubtedly arouse interest among a new type of audience...
For this sloughing, Stig has adequately opted to work under another name : moth electret...
After years of crossed correspondence with my humble self, moth electret has given birth to "lil" which has been based around impressions & field recordings made in sea/fish industry areas, mainly gathered from a trip to Eureka on the northern californian coast, but also from Barcelona harbor & the island of Sandøy, as well as some specific related digigraphic vignettes created by me as impulse elements...
"lil" is a Mayan word for vibration... the one you can feel passing through the whole piece, and which brings it to life...

"lil" is like running on an imaginary river
swollen & stripped with copper & rusty tones,
bracing scraps & scoria
in a mysterious underflow...

scintillations & gleams eddy
in an imperturbable metallic ringing choreography
-
"lil" makes you listen
to an emerging dense inner song
along which we drift effortlessly,
trying to catch some primal dormant energy
relocating us to an higher & more sensitive plane...
-
"lil" has enough evocative power
to drag you along its torrent
till you osmotically become it...
Mystery Sea

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Gydja - Umbilicus Maris (Mystery Sea, 2007)

1 Beyond The Earth's Edge (8:47)
2 The Wave, With Red Stain Running (6:52)
3 Snakestone (11:29)
4 A Siren Stood Hymning Upon Each Circle (11:23)
5 Cold Water Flowing Forth (10:59)

"Nec satis procul ab hoc de quo praemisimus litore, contra occidentalem partem, profundissima aquarum illa vorago est, quam usitato nomine maris umbilicum vocamus. Quae bis in die fluctus absorbere et rursum evomere dicitur, sicut per universa illa litora accedentibus ac recedentibus fluctibus celeritate nimia fieri comprobatur.
-
Not very far from this shore of which we have spoken, towards the western side, on which the ocean main lies open without end, is that very deep abyss of waters which we call 'the navel of the sea'. It is said twice a day to suck the waves into itself and spew them out again."

- Paulus Diaconus (Historia gentis Langobardorum)

Gydja (old Norse word for priestess) officiates since 1995, led by New Zealand muse Abby Helasdottir, also active in design & performance art, creating supernatural soundscapes with transforming potential.
Having contributed to various compilations, online projects, and rich in some collaborations (including one with Aidan Baker "Corpus Callosum", and another with Austrian musician Marunfura Fufunjiru "Ma-mo Rbad Gtong"), Gydja has also under its belt a series of self-released works ("Liber babalon", "Cold Seed", "Rivers..." to name, but a few...)... close to all are soaked with magical/shamanic connotations, obeying to some peculiar inner laws, merging electro-acoustic & experimental techniques, and formally often based on abstracted field-recordings...

On "umbilicus maris", Gydja drags us along a quest for a lost mythic world beyond frontier...

After a dazed drift in a foggy mangrove,
we reach an unmapped regio of concentric superimposing circles
& endless ripples
preparing us for a sheer descent into murky waters...
-
adorning the dive,
huge, drowned thousand years stones
seem to betray an ancient ceremony,
a passage through Time
to a supreme Essence...
-
Small lights flicker in the cold current,
and thoughts snake along the moss walls
whispering lunar tales...
-
immersed in this strange universe, we grow
in constant mutation
at the mercy of the waves
towards a better Self...
Mystery Sea

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Cherry Beach Project - Silo 11 (Mystery Sea, 2006)

1 Untitled (14:07)
2 Untitled (6:55)
3 Untitled (5:46)
4 Untitled (2:18)
5 Untitled (6:45)
6 Untitled (4:11)

"Cherry Beach is located at the end of a small, artificially created peninsula on which various heavy industrial facilities and toxic no-man’s lands decay. The area is infamous as a site out of public sight for police to engage in ‘off the record’ activities. Our location was within a complex of vacant waste oil storage facilities on Cherry Beach. While recording on the night of June 5th, 2004, we were forced to abandon our equipment after discerning that violent activities were taking place in one of the seemingly abandoned structures nearby. We returned at dawn to retrieve our equipment, which we were able to do successfully, only to be pursued out of the area and down the beach by two unidentified men. Fortunately we escaped unharmed, with our recordings intact. Since this time the entire compound and all of its reverberant structures have been demolished, leaving only an empty lot. The material presented here has been selected from two days of recording on site, but otherwise left untreated and unprocessed."
- Joda Clément/Nigel Craig, November 2006

Joda Clément is a young canadian composer of great promise, as already emphasized in some reviews related to his debut disc for ALLUVIAL, "Movement + Rest"...
With an acute ear for details, Joda blends subtly ambient sounds with processed ones stemming from analog or acoustic instruments...
Here with his friend Nigel Craig who gave the impulse to this work by pointing out the specific used location, he pushes everything a step further, rooting out the spirit of the place, while manipulating objects & instruments in situ... this quasi "animist" approach & revisitation makes us enter into another dimension, as Joda & Nigel channel unknown & unvoiced forces, going deep into the invisible universe...

Sometimes everything merges
to an astonishing extent
Listening to the pulse of the night,
full of silver shades,
the air is filled with threat
-
Bent in "Silo 11"
We absorb its decaying aura,
a body of strange connections,
inner engraved memories,
vague but intense feelings
letting the inky sea flow within...
-
Bringing back all what's lingering
those tranquil ghosts still singing
-
"Silo 11" is a fount of knowledge
a training locus
a ford to acumen
enabling you to circle the Instant
and catch the long gone by...
an antenna into the world of meaningful silences...
Mystery Sea

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Exit In Grey - Nameless Droplet (Mystery Sea, 2006)

1 Part I (36:51)
2 Part II (11:41)

"Nameless Droplet – a peculiar object, inspired by the connection with a location of a sort. It travels through this location like a droplet through air, inevitably catching its reflections and vibrations, which flow into this object taking a new place. And we can see new reflections and another million of things in them - lost whisper, fluid crackle, unseen wall of frozen sound..."

exit in grey is an enigmatic duo composed of Sergey & Stas, or rather [S] & (S) their preferred signatures, originating from the Moscow region, and almost the same area as fellow Chistov Dmitry (HUM)...
Functioning since a while already as a complete autonomous entity, they have released a solid bunch of works as ltd cd-rs on their own imprint STILL SLEEP...
Mixing mainly emotional guitar drone ambient with field recordings, or sounds emanating from analog devices, they nurture an undeniable fascination for elemental phenomena, body and nature languages...
Their personal path seem to lead them more and more towards abstract & concrete aural territories, such as in the solo venture of [S], FIVE ELEMENTS MUSIC where processed field recordings have become pivotal... (a future MS work is besides upcoming !)...

Capturing atmospheres from some specific on site peregrinations, "nameless droplet" is their debut on an outside label, and hopefully the start of some new itinerary, as well as an opportunity of arousing more well-deserved interest...

Along an obscure stream as only guide,
we glide in a sensory drift
amplifying the world...
-
A copper light makes water breathe
and even in a nameless droplet
all memories are trapped...
all words are sealed...
-
On the verge of silence,
things rustle and buzz
in a constant underlying murmur...
-
And in the last scent of rain,
all the nascent puddles
are just mirrors
in which we dissolve,
disappearing in acute communion...
-
Lost in the wind tales,
we move like ripples on the liquid surface
drinking from this Fountain of Life...
Mystery Sea

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Emerge - Immersion (Mystery Sea, 2006)

1 Immersion Part 1 (6:47)
2 Immersion Part 2 (5:55)
3 Immersion Part 3 (11:44)
4 Immersion Part 4 (5:38)
5 Immersion Part 5 (8:48)
6 Immersion Part 6 (8:26)
7 Immersion Part 7 (7:10)
8 Deprivation (12:20)

Drones sous-marins, relecture abstraite de matériaux d'Amir Baghiri...

"The aim was to create a journey into the unknown depths as synonym for the listeners personal interpretations.
The immersion starts with a light surface world and dives deeper and deeper into more strange regions until we finally are confronted with a collapse of the whole surrounding. this gives way to other yet unknown directions waiting for being discovered"
- Sascha Stadlmeier , September 2005

emerge is Sascha Stadlmeier from Augsburg (South-Germany), an ambient experimentalist whose hollow organic drones play around with an holistic notion of resonance & rumble, inhabiting a space within...
After several self-released cd-rs on his own ATTENUATION CIRCUIT imprint, a 7" for DRONE, a 3" cd-r for VERATO, and another 3"cd-r holding a collaborative work with Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf, emerge explores here new unidentified liquid depths, proposing a complete re-reading & readaptation of some Amir Baghiri sounds...

Along the sea spray
run echoing prayers,
an alluvial litany
spreading in shell rooms,
absorbed by stones...
-
Our hands full of sand
let time go
in a tidal motion
-
Murmured, aqueous,
Recomposed & singular,
our drift is eternal,
and even with a broken ascent,
all streams trace everything back to a unique origin,
the only beating heart,
a primary focus of vital energy...
Mystery Sea

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Spiracle - Ananta (Mystery Sea, 2006)

1 Ananta (Mystery Sea Mix) (62:22)

Hitoshi Kojo, ici sous son alias Spiracle, nous livre un drone en forme de long mantra centré sur une simple tonalité modulée...

" Riding on currents of the atmosphere. Collecting the radiance of infinite stars. And listening closely...

To the subtle howling of flames, the genetic suns in the flow of blood.

To the caresses of the membrane of gravity by your spiral tentacles.

To the wounds being filled with magma, the splashes becoming the Milky Way in the flesh of the sky.

To your blink-of-an-eye, each a scale of Ananta, each a lifetime of omnipresent stars."
- Hitoshi Kojo, January 2006

Hitoshi Kojo (b. 1969, Japan) has worked in various artistic branches such as music, painting, installation & performance, using both a traditional & contemporary methodology...
Brought up with the influence of ancient asian culture, he exposed himself recently to Europe where he currently has most of his activities, absorbing old myths & customs, & collaborating with other like-minded artists
(mnortham [under the KODAMA moniker], John Grzinich, Nobu Kasahara, Loren Chasse to name but a few...). The theme of his projects often drifts from scanning daily matters, trying to catch that elusive spark at the very core of a momentum...
Hitoshi Kojo manages also his own label : OCTPIA, since 2000...
Several of his titles were created under the "spiracle" name, his main solo project)...
-
For Mystery Sea, spiracle has weaved an original/special mix of a new piece entitled "ananta"...
Listening to "ananta" is like inhaling a cloud of stars at twilight, drinking up all its creeping flow of energy... breathing like a snake undulating under the dark primal waves... channelling unknown forces...
"ananta" is being within the stream, living it from the inside, becoming it, reaching that impossible oneness, if only in the phosphorescence of a unique moment...
"ananta" is a key to universal empathy...
a bridge to a world waiting hidden, there behind the curtain...
a deep essential vibe captured just for you...
Mystery Sea

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Moljebka Pvlse - Irdlirvirisissong (Mystery Sea, 2005)

1 Irdlirvirisissong (65:36)

Drone de guitare manipulée divaguant d'une atmosphère à l'autre...

Swedish experimental artist Mathias Josefson started to operate under the Moljebka Pvlse moniker around 1999...
With releases under his belt for labels such as EIBON, COLD MEAT INDUSTRY, SEGERHUVA, FIN DE SIECLE MEDIA & some highly impressive work on his own ISORAMARA imprint, he became quickly renowned for his weaving of magnetizing droney ambiences mainly based on manipulated guitar patterns, despite some rarer harsher, noisier digressions...
On his majestic MS contribution, Mathias renews his sublime ethereal dronalia...
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"Irdlirvirisissong" raises like an ancestral siren song
in a diffuse tidal motion...
a suspended filament
waving in the slow breeze...
-
Far away from some ancient shores,
an halo of lost voices haunts the seascape
resounding along an invisible fault line
like some elemental incantation...
-
"Irdlirvirisissong" swells like a gaseous cloud,
an evanescent ghost,
making from its absences
a focus of imaginary effervescence
-
If you ingest this liquid ode
and surrender yourself to its aura
it'll anchor you in an unbounded contemplative mood...
Mystery Sea

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Dronæment - Ezoterick Soundzcapes (Mystery Sea, 2003)

1 Moon Drone (9:15)
2 Psw1 (7:39)
3 Psw2 (19:46)

Ce disque serait né d'une passion croisée pour le son de drones d'un barrage hydroélectrique et la musique indienne....

German Marcus Obst has been operating for many years in the underground "experimental" scene under various names of which the most known remains his dronæment incarnation...
some of his releases included works for AFE (Andrea Marutti's label), DACHSTUHL (Tarkatak/Lutz Pruditsch's label) & french label LE CRI DE LA HARPE (collaboration with RABBITS'SORROW)...
Marcus is quite a versatile artist who loves to throw a bridge between his visuals & sounds...
As for dronæment's "ethics", they are maybe enclosed into its own name... "drone as ornament", as a vital & mesmerizing motif...

Proceeding from a singular fascination for the interaction between elemental forces, natural phenomena, and all sorts of currents, dronæment's music is also an intuitive transcription of the experience of being rooted in the memory of a specific location...

On "ezoterick soundzcapes", a few drops seem suspended, half-frozen in the open air, forming a trembling pool of evanescent vibrations, a corona of waving particles, a striping motion leading to a calm shelter...
Like waking up on a submerged morning,
a repeated echo pounds out a lunar chant, digging deeper, culminating with each passage along its washed out circles...

"ezoterick soundzcapes" flow like a translucent sea on a wasted shore, pinpointing some dormant energies...
Mystery Sea

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Oöphoi - The Dreams Of Shells (Mystery Sea, 2003)

1 Cydron (18:53)
2 Kalyx (20:45)
3 Narwal (28:50)

Drones désespérément (dans le bon sens du terme, hein...) lents...

Oöphoi is Gianluigi Gasparetti's main vehicle of expression for distilling deep dark tinted & entrancing ambient of the very best nature...
After captivating works for esteemed labels such as HIC SUNT LEONES, AMPLEXUS, ELECTROSHOCK, SKEAN DHU, NEXTERA, & HYPNOS, he offers here his own version of the "Night-Ocean Drones" aesthetic, having a rather innate empathy for the theme developed by Mystery Sea...

"The dreams of shells" is a breathtaking descent straight to an unknown chasm where small clouds of fine luminescent dust drift away, splitting obscure cold waters, swaying to the sound of cavernous tones...
This is a submarine hidden chorus, an ode of sirens'voices singing ageless chants...
a rain of fragmented glittering particles brushing submerged walls, while golden refractions sleep buried in the fissures...
"The dreams of shells" is a meeting with a resonating radiant world of its own, a long dive in apnea scattered with amazements...
Mystery Sea

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MNortham - A Great And Riverless Ocean (Mystery Sea, 2002)

1 A Great And Riverless Ocean (53:58)

Long drone jouant des différences de tons entre corne de brume et cithare....

mnortham is a nomad, an attentive and intuitive observer of neglected lifeforms from which he captures the internal resonances & vibrational essence...
for more than 10 years now, he has shared his many journeys of perception with the curious listeners, leading them through mysterious environments...
His work is a constantly unfolding experience operating on various levels...
"a great and riverless ocean" perpetuates this tradition as well as sowing new seeds...

From a faint circular and buzzing pattern, a cyclic schema is broken out of its stasis to reveal hidden harmonics & radiant occurrences...
recomposing themselves through superimposition, elements gradually grow into a distinct entity, a sonic metaphor of molecular activity...
For those who like to come closer to the apprehension of reality, "a great and riverless ocean" is a gaze beyond reflections, a shortcut to imaginary landscapes, a fluid raga for meditation...
Mystery Sea

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Ea - Öl (Mystery Sea, 2002)

1 Untitled (10:44)
2 Untitled (10:19)
3 Untitled (17:17)
4 Untitled (19:41)

Drones à base de guitare préparée et de field recordings, évoluant lentement et tout en profondeur ...

"Schroedinger's cat meowing in an atomic cage.
Being in two places at one.
One is quite tangible, present at the distance of sight,
the other cannot be easily located, thus establishing a genuine sonic horizon.
One can no longer tell his inner elusive sounds from the audible surrounding.
Is it the acoustics of a space producing an echo or is it your mind repeating what it has already learned to hear ?
Like mantra uttered selected number of times resonates endlessly loosing its primal shape, a physical place is sipping into one's mental essence, so that you can barely escape the impression of being into one place only.
This sound research made by EA is aimed at revealing a frontier between the perceived and the recalled.
It is you who must find out."
- Ea, March 2002.

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Wilt - White Chrysalis In Blue (Mystery Sea, 2002)

1 Submerge (6:23)
2 Dim (7:22)
3 Pierce (7:55)
4 Oxidize (4:03)
5 Collapse (5:44)
6 Evolution To The Main Sequence (4:12)
7 Evolution On The Main Sequence (3:08)
8 Evolution Off The Main Sequence (6:39)
9 Evolution To The End (3:12)
10 Zero Transformation (3:16)
11 Infinite Matter Defined (2:35)
12 A Beginnings End (4:09)

James Keeler (Wilt) beaucoup moins lourd et bruyant que pour d'autres réalisations laisse place à des rêveries marines, musique organique, sombre et profonde....

WILT (James P. Keeler's main musical vehicle) is a name currently on everybody's lips in the field of experimental/dark ambient noise...
From project to project, sound sources may vary greatly, moulded by a concept or a prevailing mood, but there's always some common denominator & unique stamp.
For MYSTERY SEA, WILT has dived into its quietest realms so far, offering a textured snaking audio-exploration of low submerged plateaux, a flow of muffled clanks and ghostly resonances...
.white chrysalis in blue. is the soundtrack to a desolate laguna under an orange pale light, a dark pool of decomposed thoughts bathed with silvery-moon reflections, a path to oblivion...
along this rolling , breathing shapeless sea & deep below, .white chrysalis in blue. unfurls revealing subtle minimal evolving tones, composing the colours of a solemn drowned dream...
Mystery Sea

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Ultrasound - Encomium (Mystery Sea, 2002)

1 A Drop Becomes The Ocean, Ocean Becomes The Drop
2 Enigmatic Curves Of The Dutch Night
3 Past Life Experience
4 Maybe I Will Know By Sound And Taste
5 Lo.8
6 Vertical Cravings
7 Convexing Concave
8 Lisa, Play
9 Ne Pour Meme

Ce rip est enregistré comme un seul morceau mais l'album en compte neuf qui fonctionne comme un seul, sublime voyage atmosphérique à la guitare....

Ultrasound's core are Rfovetz & Kirk Laktas.
Together they outline a rippling tapestry of subliminal & hypnagogic sounds,
one of the most beautiful haunting drone music to be heard today...
In this they share more than common ground with STARS OF THE LID
of whom Kirk Laktas has been a former member...
The material featured on .encomium. has been recorded at various moments between 1996 & 1998...specifically collected for MYSTERY SEA,
all pieces have carefully been chosen to form a flowing construction...
Overall, the resulting "Ocean of sound" is warm, shrouding, deeply immersing,
shaping up a language of new perceptions...
.encomium. unfolds at the pace of quiet glistening waves,
spreading their "dewdrop-particles" into the listener's mind, making him reach a state of subdued dazzle...
A drop falls with a slight resonant echo as in a ceremonial of infinite reflections & overlapping circles, paving the way for a sharper insight...
Mystery Sea

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Birds Of Tin : Ene - .Key Ray. (Mystery Sea, 2001)

1 Key Nell (5:07)
2 Open Doors (6:41)
3 Paper Lock (12:43)
4 Clear Passage Through (11:16)
5 Thin Walls (0:14)
6 Entry (7:24)
7 Endless Empty (10:07)
8 Key Ray (11:24)

Pour sa première réalisation Mystery Sea fait collaborer Birds of tin (Brooke Oates) et Ene (Scott Hudgins).... Long flot de sons évoluant et muant lentement....

For its first release, the new belgian dark ambient label Mystery Sea has chosen to present eight track composed together by two american projects, Birds of Tin and Ene.
"Key Ray" is a nice album of flowing drones, very surprising for people who, like me, were expecting something far more rhythmic, considering what Ene's "Cost vs Consciousness" album sounds like.
No beats here, but long soundscapes of dreamy tones,
slightly distorted background ("Open doors") and looped basses.
With its relentless droning of distant tunes and very bleak arrangements, this album sounds like a muffled storm, with a lot of bass and heavy elements gathering in the background, while the front sounds, lighter, are flowing nicely.
The CD is instrumental, with the exception of a long sampled ranting in "Paper lock" and "Clear passage through", which made me think a lot of the kind of things Godspeed You Black Emperor! like to sample (think of "Slow riot for new zero Kanada").
Sometimes getting a bit more in a noisy direction ("Paper lock", "Entry"), sometimes silence-like (the short "Thin walls"),
"Key Ray" is an unexpectedly experimental album that combines both very nice atmospheres and a thicker, somewhat heavier side on which the emphasis is more put on the effects applied to a very distant wall of noise than on the calm tones that dominate some of the tracks (like the melodic beginning of "Endless empty", before it gets full of saturated sounds).
Heavy in its atmospheric part and light in the noise, this album is a weird mixture that stays calm but never gets really relaxing, making the listener uncomfortable about wether a storm is going to break out of the dense elements layered on the tracks.
Not as twisted as Wilt, and darker and more disturbing than Liquid Morphine, this is a nice CD for Mystery Sea to present itself, and something that use bleak tones and drones in a personal way (which is all the more surprising when you consider that two differents acts are responsible for this sound).
A very ambient sea indeed, but that is deep and whose waters are not so calm.
Recycle Your Ears

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Paul Bradley - Sophia Drifts (Mystery Sea, 2005)

1 Sophia Drifts (40:03)

Sophia Drifts se meut comme une lente spirale de drones languides, la première moitié du morceau nous engourdit l'esprit tandis que la seconde moitié va dans un crescendo de fréquences métalliques et finalement s'éteint dans le calme...

Most of the time, a piece of art will slowly come into being. Switching over from the world of ideas and from a state of infiniteness, it will materialise and take a definite shape in the hands of a painter, sculptor, writer or composer. Sometimes, however, a piece of music will simply “be” there. Suddenly a note can be heard, a chord is struck or a sound emerges from the depths of your PCs memory chips and there is nothing which needs to be added anymore. That’s what “Sophia drifts” sounds like. Set out to emphasize the “now”, this is indeed an album which rests in itself, travelling at the speed of your watches’s hour hand in slow motion. Yet move it does and there’s not a moment that goes by without the distinct notion that time is progressing, both inexorably and compassionately. A darkly shimmering diamond sun pulsates at the heart of “Sophia”, while a high-frequency breeze cooling its heated surface. Emenating from the void, it slowly grows into its destined form and simply continues from there on, merely allowing in some crackling and fissling as well as some subterranean water gurgling. Most comparable pieces use volume to create expansion, but Bradley chooses to explore the concept of thematical contraction instead – tiny musical motives come up and are unfathomably sped up. While their cycles become ever more closely intertwined, the listener’s mind starts to glide frictionlessly, like a silent figure skater on a moonlit sea in winter. Finally, the piece falls back into the sea of mystery and myriad opportunities, this time with a sense of thankful acceptance. Or maybe with an entirely different feeling, depending on your disposition: What has happened between pushing the “play” button and the return of the laser to its initial position can not be described by a summary of its content, nor by the time which has passed. “Sophia drifts” has become something of a silent classic, one of those works that you read about empatically on those tiny, but loveable web spaces, far away from the frenzy of the magazine market and the daily media. It deserves to be: A whole life seems to be comprised in this single composition and it takes you to all the places it has been and to all the faces it has seen. Sometimes that is all you need to be happy.
Mouvement Nouveau

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Asher - The Depths, The Colors, The Objects & The Silence (Mystery Sea, 2007)

1 Partly Framed In Sunlight (19:58)
2 The Blue Gently Linked (24:20)
3 Plastic Dusk (22:05)

La base du matériel travaillé ici par Asher est constitué de field recordings d'environnement urbain (sirène de police, voitures, appels de voix) qui constratent grandement avec les morceaux intimes qu'il obtient...

asher thal-nir resides in Somerville, Massachusetts... in recent years, he has emerged as one of the most interesting & singular sound artist, shaping aural microlandscapes of a new nature...
His works are based on recordings of acoustic & electronic instruments, manipulated location & found recordings... He already saw a lot of his sound miniature studies published on various well known netlabels (12k/Term, Laboratoire Moderne, Con-V...) and had some CD-Rs out on Con-V & Leeraum... he is also about to launch his own label named SOURDINE...

asher thal-nir feeds his music with the everyday sounds as a root for emotional stimulus... it uncoils nonchalantly in long eroded tapes of granular texture & uneven surfaces, dust varnished ribbons...
the emphasis lays often on scratches & tears put to the fore, tending to draw an extremely minimal rhythmic structure, mirror of a frailty & language of invisibility...
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On "the depths, the colors, the objects and the silence", asher embraces an hazy ocean of memory, tracing a path beyond obliteration...
Things are perceived through a numb veil, carrying the residues of a former superficial life, trying to connect with an evanescent world, an inner frame...
This is a sort of reverse microcosm...
For this shift in meaning, abandon all preconceptions & thoughts of usual grasp... you'll then be able to "rewrite" the book, and feel differently...
Mystery Sea

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Dale Lloyd - Aionios The Fundament (Mystery Sea, 2004)

1 Saline Crystals Of Mother Solutions (20:03)
2 Adamite Effluvia (5:34)
3 A Degree More Corporeal Than Air (4:27)
4 A Degree Less Corporeal Than Water (8:34)
5 This Sea, Our Lodestone (9:15)

Drones composés de field recordings d'eau, retravaillés tout en en conservant l'essentiel, pour en faire des morceaux austères et subtils qui évoluent doucement et appellent à la méditation...

For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Dale Lloyd, let me take this review as an opportunity to introduce you to a wonderful artist. For the past three years, as owner of the and/OAR label, Lloyd has led a burgeoning community of interesting environmental and field recording artists. I suspect to be hearing and thus writing a lot about and/OAR artists for future editions of Wind and Wire. But first I turn to Lloyd's latest - a non-and/OAR release from Daniel Crokaert's wonderfully sublime Mystery Sea label - Aionios the Fundament. What is most fascinating about Aionios the Fundament is the way that each track expands sonically - that is, with little repetition - from one into the next. This is a work of very subtle detail that promises discovery with each listen. Beginning with the soft stuttering cadence and water-through-a-barrel hum of "Saline Crystals Born of Mother Solutions," Lloyd, in effect, splashes a blank canvas with a clear, watery and whispery alchemical mixture. This is indeed the "birth" of Lloyd's fundament - the barest structural details - from which this "aionic" embryo will grow. As the watery echo of swirls come closer into the audio field the track ends and, sure enough, track two, "Adamite Effluvia," takes on a kind of maturation from its predecessor - that is to say, it gains a thicker layer of pulsing flesh. It is remarkable that this recording was constructed entirely from field recordings obtained primarily from sound sculptor extraordinaire, K.M. Krebs. Lloyd's mixing of different sounds and his subtle volume adjustments create a truly rich and absorbing listening experience. "Adamite Effluvia" is a clear example of how Lloyd's creative use of panning in the recording process can utterly build on a sound's overall aesthetic - in this case, a slow and circular tumbling of cans bathed in a static effervescence that provides surprise with its sudden and abrupt ending. It is difficult to find a clear reference point when considering Aionios the Fundament. On the one hand, it exhibits all the wonderful mysteriousness of a master such as Asmus Tietchens or the provocative and multi-layered soundings of newer artists like Wilt or Heath Yonaites, but Lloyd is more inclined to a slower, more patient unfolding of sounds than most experimentalists. Tracks 3 and 4 explore the corporeality of air and liquid respectively. Once again Lloyd demonstrates his fascination with sounds at the audio interstices of white noise and ambience. Both tracks extend into open drone canvases - track 4, "A Degree Less Corporeal than Water," surges with even louder washes of breathy, shimmering rapids than its airy predecessor. Underscoring the flow of water, we hear additional layers of sporadic pops and pulses, as if hydrogen atoms are on the very cusp of becoming a liquid-one with lingering oxygen that is just out of reach. When we are finally taken into the actuality of the sea on "This Sea, Our Lodestone" the once embryonic mixture of saline crystals that began Aionios the Fundament is now a heavily reverberating curtain of thunderous drones. Highly recommended.
Wind & Wire

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