Electronic / IDM / Ambient / Drone listening club

It should be there between every album as a palette cleanser.

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Look it was only THREE hours long ok!

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Alright, gang, it’s time for round 2.

Bola - Soup

I’ve had far too much time to think about the second pick. In the end I decided to go for this masterpiece which has just turned 20 years old. For me it marks the apex of old school ambient techno - it’s building on the foundations from folks like The Black Dog and Richard H Kirk. For me it has a really spacey feel. On the opener is the take-off with grand synths slowly emerging. W.i.k is like the rumble of machinery against the stillness of space with its industrial clanks. Forcasa is the glimmer of distant stars. It’s music which paints pictures.

It came out on Skam, which, as any BoC fan will tell you, is a sure sign of quality. Darrell Fitton, the man behind the music, followed this up with 4 albums between 2002 and 2007 which, while decent, never hit the same heights. He did come back last year with D.E.G. which was one of my albums of 2017 and is well worth your time.

I was pretty obsessed with this while at university and it’s an album I’ve consistently revisited several times a year since then. It certainly sounds of-its-time, but I think it’s aged pretty well.

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Oof.

Classic.

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Oof.

Never heard of it.

Sounds great! You sell it well :slight_smile:

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Enjoying my first listen to this while doing some late work. Definitely sounds like a 90s album (a good and a bad thing?) and reminds me of mu-ziq more than anyone. I agree with your view on it being ‘spacey’ (we (don’t) need to talk about kevin)…

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Can people stop posting Ambient choices, please? I keep telling myself I won’t like them, then keep getting drawn in.
Another great listen. The run from W.I.K. …

Also, I can’t be arsed scrolling back through the thread, but I’d still like to thank whoever posted burger/ink.

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Never get tired of those thundering drums in w.i.k. Absolutely massive sound.

Some admin. @Twinkletoes is it my turn, next?

I’ve updated the spreadsheet with a few things - namely the “series” list which will categories the over all success of the runs.

Also, I’ve added a number to the MG episode - which there will be a new one this week. I have a backlog of three shows, insanely.

Yes, it is indeed!

Looking forward to more MG too!

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My turn, Round 2.

Tycho - Dive

I fell in love with Tycho throughout 2008 and 2009 before the release of this album, based on a recommendation here for the Past is Prologue album, and dived deep into the singles he was releasing through eMusic those years. Dive came at a transformative time in my life - I had just met my wife and we had just started dating, and I was moving to Texas, and it really mixes up in my head those memories. One such memory is that the album soundtracked a winter of driving across Ontario in a hire car, which has meant that both my wife and I adore this album.

Which makes no sense as this is a true summer album I feel. It uses the same nostalgia dripping synths as Boards of Canada, but instead of it being just about what it reminds you of, this trys to transport you. I think it does it well, and the drawn out slowness of some of the tracks - Adrift being a favourite - it feels so much like a transportative record, for me at least.

Some of the other tracks are pure Boards of Canada rip offs, but stuff like Hours and Daydream feel like pure electronic and IDM class.

I adore this record, and find that it is the peak of what the Tycho project would be. Awake would be almost half the length of Dive, and for that feels like it’s too rushed, and Epoch feels too samey (though both have amazing moments on them). But Dive, to me, is perfect. And feels like the natural extension of it’s own feels and artwork.

It might not be the classic that everyone thinks, nor it is the “best” album out there, but tio me it’s a key album in my life and one I never fail to enjoy a listen to.

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Ultimate Sunday morning album

Nice… I was introduced to Tycho on one of the mix CD swaps on here but haven’t listened to him in a while.
Looking forward to getting more familiar with this one.

Aaaah so that’s where that album cover is from! I’ve seen that around for years but never been arsed to look into it. Mystery solved.

It’s a nice sunny day at work and I’m rather enjoying this. Tbh if someone had said to me on New Years Eve, “2018 is the year chilled dance music starts to make sense to you” I’d have assumed it was some kind of obscure Chinese curse. But this is rather lovely.

I haven’t gotten around to giving Bola a go, I’ll get on that later.

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Oh yeah! great choice. Definitely overdue a re-listen to this. Pretty sure the first time I heard Tycho was on that Monday Graveyard radio show…

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Popped this on this morning and got proper good feels. As noted above, this was my go-to sunday morning album for a good while. One of those with a real sense of time and place.

Think it’s interesting he switches up the tempo within lots of the tracks like the breakdown and then gradual build up around 3 mins in the opener. I mean it’s obviously the same 4/4 throughout but he uses the busy-ness of the track really effectively.

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Adore Tycho. First got into a track off of Past Is Prologue (which is also great, but feels much more bedroom) on a mixtape, and then the next stop was Coastal Brake … swoon.

I think Past Is Prologue is as good an album as Dive, but his best tracks are on Dive. The cover says it all - beatific, sunkissed. It’s the sound of someone clearly in love with Boards of Canada through the prism of California surf (or mountain snowboarding). Like Sigur Ros, you can feel the geography in his music.

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Has anyone kept a list of everything so far? I’d like to catch up and start contributing (listened to first 3 then forgot about the whole shebang until today).

@escutcheon has posted a spreadsheet and Spotify playlist (I think) upthread

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Playlist:

Spreadsheet:

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