(dark ambient, field recordings, industrial) VA - Field Recordings Compilation Vol.1 - 2010, Dahlia's Tear, Jaaportit, Skadi, Phaenon, Nightech, Stuzha etc., MP3, V0

Группы из разных стран исполняющих dark ambient собраны в этом сборнике посвященным полевым записям. Все треки представленные на альбоме объединяет использование реальных звуков окружающего мира. Среди наиболее известных исполнителей присутствуют: Dahlia's Tear, Jaaportit, Phaenon, Nightech.

#777Диск был издан в 2010 году небольшим греческим лейблом Species Productions http://www.myspace.com/speciesproductions где может быть и приобретен. Диск включает в себя 8ми страничный буклет оформленный Туомасом Мэкела из Jaaportit. Идея и руководство данной компиляцией было выполнено Сибирскими проектами _Algol_ & Stuzha. http://stuzha.info/
www.myspace.com/stuzha
www.myspace.com/algolspace

Music with lengthy write-ups explaining the motivation of the artist always leave me somewhat cold and feeling rather unintelligent; I guess when it comes down to it, I'm quite the troglodyte with music. Skadi's opening track's all about "the travel to the innermost darkness of the soul" and here am I, thinking "Hey this is pretty cool, sounds all spacey" but with far less syllables, and maybe a bit of drool leaking out the corner of my mouth. It's the same pretty much throughout, really; the cool songs are spacey and the worst ones aren't, but there's more of the former then the latter. If you're lacking brain cells in the same manner as I am, that'll do well enough as a description- go out and buy this, so you can sit around late at night and dream of dying stars.
Unfortunately, my superiors probably want a bit more meat on my review, so I can't just leave it at that. First up, then, I've really got to pay tribute to the dude behind this whole thing; grammatical errors on the booklet notwithstanding he's got a good package going here; artists have been chosen well, the track list, the mastering all picked so the whole thing resembles a cohesive album far better then you'd expect a 12-band compilation to do so.
Not to say it's perfect, of course, and we'll get that out of the way first. Perhaps it's because I'm not a purist of this sort of thing but I tend to think that field recordings without any human intervention are, rare cases like Alan Lamb, Jonathan Coleclough etc. notwithstanding, boring as all hell- if I wanted to listen to some rain, or a subway or what have you I'd just go out in the rain, or catch the train to the city. Unfortunately not everyone on the comp shares my opinion; 'From Apollo to Jesus Christ' and 'Roda Linen' being tear-jerkingly, agonisingly boring. 'Roda Linen' in particular falls flat on it's face, I guess the "babelic mixture of languages" as described in the booklet is there, but what I tend to hear is "bunch of swedish people talking swedish in a train", and really, for what purpose? Yes, it's evocative, but why would I want to be taken to a subway full of pale scandinavians? Why would anyone find that even remotely interesting? 'Apollo''s not quite as bad but comes off as fairly amateurish; a digital snowstorm rages in the background while our sound experimentalist scratches an acoustic's strings for 6 odd minutes. Someone trying to hard there, certainly.
Those two aside, most of the other tracks do a very solid job for me. We get back to that "spacey/not spacey" type distinction that i mentioned earlier, and luckily the tracks tend towards the former, offering plenty of tastefully ethereal and otherworldly delights. The highlight here is clearly "A Message From Nowhere", a truly epic track where the soaring, majestic tones intertwine and enfold around each other, creating a really beautiful soundscape that would generate some fantastic metaphors where I am a man of much imagination. Stuzha's "Alone in the Cave" is another one that caught my attention; more guitar heavy then anything else on here, with a few massive distorted chords snapping us out of our field-induced daze. Credit is definitely due to most of the artists on here; the level of subtlety varies throughout but the integration between the field recordings and extra processing is done brilliantly; whether it's some hazy, drowsy synths laid over a bright, cheerful summer's day or even the clanging, disorientating bells from "These Bells are Made for Walking", a strange and fascinating piece in it's opacity and uneasiness.
Yep, there are some songs here that aren't really worth their salt- the delay wank-fest of "Chamber of Shadows" being another fairly low light- but for the most part this has got some quality stuff by a lot of artists that I haven't heard of before. Well worth getting if you're into your field recordings, or if you're out for a spot of some late night drone.