VARIOUS ARTISTS - Ambient Not Not Ambient
Audio Dregs 2008
17 Tracks. 74mins55secs
[The Milk Factory] UK

In The Ambient Century, writer Mark Prendergast finds elements of ambient music in artists and groups as diverse as The Byrds, Madonna, and (unsurprisingly) Brian Eno. While the most common aural association with the term “ambient” involves gentle synthesizers and reverb, the musical concept reaches a far wider scope. Ambient music can be with or without beats, vocals, traditional instruments, tones, or repetitive structure; all it really requires is a depth that can either be ignored or focused upon, without a clear detriment to the listening experience.

The myriad possibilities inherent in ambient music are smattered across the diverse, engaging contributions to Ambient Not Not Ambient. Eschewing the lo-fi glitch-dance sound most often associated with Audio Dregs, this newest offering features contributions from artists within and without its stable. It’s a gamble to put acts as different as Baltimore psych-noise makers WZT Hearts and Skam favorite Freeform together on the same compilation, but the result is a richly rewarding mosaic of cerebral sounds.
The first track is perhaps the most challenging piece in the collection, as E*Vax, taking a break from electro-rockers Ratatat, presents Awl, a two-minute piece of what sounds like ringing sine wave drones, gracefully going nowhere in particular. As with most ambient music, however, it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts. A few tracks later is Less Of Everything, by Bird Show, one of the release’s many highlights. After a softly disorienting introduction incorporating high-pitched horn samples, Less morphs into a gentle progression of warm chimes supporting a resigned vocal performance. This section, joined by a heavily delayed guitar line, closes out the track, and demonstrates the crossroads between repetitive indie-folk and ambient musics.

It’s obvious that a good deal of thought went into the sequencing on Ambient. Such a long-running compilation of ambient music could easily turn into dismissive wallpaper, but here, every new track brings a different attribute to the fold, such that the listener is constantly reevaluating the music. Nudge’s Dayrise plays like a more concise and fleeting Windy and Carl drone, laden with ascending guitar riffs and flat, airy bass. Following this is Even As We Here, by AM/PM, anchored in a quarter-note bass beat, and gradually developing into an ambient techno epic reminiscent of Detroit second-wavers Kenny Larkin and Carl Craig. Likewise, the dense percussion and menacing wall of sound on WZT Hearts’ Discuss Winter is followed by a break with Sawako’s Nst, built out of distant music box chimes.

Ambient successfully captures both the settling and unsettling possibilities of such minimally progressing music. E*Rock’s Exexpat is an unnerving meditation of hollow synths and tenderly pained shouts, while the rapid audio dicing on Lucky Dragons’ Sayles Street Ok Ok sounds oddly celebratory. Contrary to some ambient music, Ambient Not Not Ambient refuses to be ignored, but in the best possible way: excellent contributions and flawless (and definitely not seamless) sequencing grab the listener at each track. It only figures that it’s taken years to put together Ambient, as it’s an exercise in perfection down to the last minute detail.
5/5

By David Abravanel

Stillstand oder Lähmung
Zu Paul Dickows neuem Strategy-Album »Music for Lamping« und der Compilation »Ambient not not Ambient«
Text: Sebastian Hinz
[goon-magazin.de]

Einer der vielseitigsten Musiker aus Portland, Oregon, ist Paul Dickow. Neben seinem Mitwirken bei Fontanelle und Nudge, veröffentlichte der Multiinstrumentalist unter seinem Künstlernamen Strategy einige schöne Techno-12inches im klassischen Vierviertelrhythmus auf ORAC und Dreck, und war noch um einiges elektronisch-verspielter bei seinen beiden Alben auf Kranky, die durchaus groovy genannt werden dürfen – um hier nur paradigmatisch an sein fantastisches Debüt »Drumsolo’s Delight« aus dem Jahre 2004 zu erinnern. »Music for Lamping«, sein drittes Soloalbum, verzichtet nun allerdings nicht nur völlig auf Beats, sondern auf Rhythmus im allgemeinen. Dickows Ambient-Entwurf entsagt dabei sämtlichen Stilmitteln, die eine Entwicklung, ein Fortkommen, eine Bewegung innerhalb der Musik zulassen. So verharren die sechs Tracks fünfundfünfzig Minuten lang im Schwebezustand, im Stillstand. Da sind geduldige Zuhörer gefragt. Paul Dickow hat zusammen mit Audio Dregs-Mitbetreiber E*Rock die Compilation »Ambient not not Ambient« kuratiert. Dabei bestätigt sich nicht die Annahme, »Ambient not not Ambient« könne stilistisch an Strategy’s »Music for Lamping« anknüpfen. Die Compilation zeigt wunderbar die Vielfalt an musikalischen Möglichkeiten, die unter das Banner ›Ambient‹ gefasst werden können: von den Spieluhrenmelodien Sawakos, über den introvertierten Techno von AM/PM oder dem zerklüfteten Gitarrenpicking der Lucky Dragons, zur schnappatmenden Klangreminiszenz an Brian Eno der Wzt Hearts. Man kann diese Compilation zudem als aktuelle Bestandsaufnahme der Musikszene von Amerikas Kreativhauptstadt Portland lesen. Mit Beiträgen von Bird Show, Nudge, E*Vax, E*Rock, Valet und anderen ist sie auch dahingehend sehr gelungen.

| »Music for Lamping« von Strategy ist bei Audio Dregs erschienen
| Die Compilation »Ambient Not Not Ambient« ist ebenfalls bei Audio Dregs erschienen

VA: Ambient Not Not Ambient
[textura] CA

Perhaps Ambient Not Not Ambient's double negative is intended to stress that the collection isn't just an ambient and anti-ambient collection but that the latter content is so far out it transcends being ambient's mere diametric opposite—“not-ambient squared” in other words. Whether or not that interpretation aligns with the label's concept is unknown but what is clear is that the seventy-six-minute collection largely opts for psychedelic territory more than ambient per se. It's telling that a great many artists who appear are affiliated with kranky (e.g., White Rainbow, Bird Show, Chris Herbert, Valet) given that the Chicago label has itself migrated towards spacey projects of late. Curators Paul Dickow (aka Strategy) and E*Rock both make appearances, with Dickow sneaking in undercover as one-half of Smoke & Mirrors.

Much of could be described as beatless and hazy moodscaping occasionally humanized with murmured vocals. Grouper's (Liz Harris) “Quiet Eyes” is representative of the style, with her hushed vocal set against gossamer guitar-generated shudder and shimmer, while the phantom moans channeled by Honey Owens in Valet's “Tuesday Partly Sunny” epitomize the collection's spacey character. Similarly, Rhenne Molly Miles' narcoleptic voice echoes across the deep sea synthesizer glissandi of partner Paul Dickow in Smoke & Mirrors' “Ocean,” and Adam Forkner works up hazy mushroom shimmer in the White Rainbow piece “See and The Field Feels.” The curdling tempo in Mudboy's “Study for a Sleep Album-2nd Movement” is so slow, the song's beats and electronic lines act like a sleep-inducing pharmaceutical. Stylistic contrasts emerge elsewhere: Chris Herbert's atmospheric dub workout “Whips & Jingles” sounds like Vladislav Delay's Entain revisited; Nudge's “Dayrise” offers beatific ambient realized with assistance from Brian Foote, Marc Hellner, and Rolan Vega; Sawako indulges in intimate sound sculpting using toy-like sounds in “Nst”; and trains agitatedly clatter through the gaseous industrial vapors of WZT Hearts' “Discuss Winter.” The compilation gets a welcome injection of rhythm via Radovan Scasascia's AM/PM and Simon Pyke's Freeform projects. In AM/PM's tech-house track “Even as We Here,” waves of steely shimmer drift into view amidst subtly acidic bass lines and dub interjections, while Freeform's “Ante Meridian” offers an exercise in squirrelly electronic techno-funk. Seventeen tracks is a lot to digest so come prepared for a multi-scenic trip.
April 2008

VALET - “Tuesday Partly Sunny”
from Ambient Not Not Ambient (Audio Dregs)
[paperthinwalls] US

VALET Ambient Not Not Ambient is an exceptional, totally necessary, long overdue compilation of 17 artists who play a sort-of-ambient tweedrone. Laptop chefs and Line-6-artistes and cuddly art-punks seeking tiny nirvanas and flutterbys and pillowrock and soul-gurgle and whatever unites the haze of White Rainbow and cartoon chaos of WZT Hearts and purge of Yellow Swans and highbrow hugs of Lucky Dragons. Through its 17 tracks, tiny epiphanies are joined by a slow slur and purr—and this near-eight-minute Valet track is an epic conclusion: a crescendo that provides both drama and a happy ending. The psych-breeze of her recent Naked Acid is a hazy retelling of bummer trips that still uses comfortable props—familiar delay, acoustic guitar strum, an assuring coo. But “Tuesday Partly Sunday” is darker and scarier than anything on that record, dropping you right in the brown acid, playing with confusing territory—What is that clunking? What is that hum? Where did we take a wrong turn and end up at some place so barren? Slowly but surely, bummer drone nearly turns to summer drone, and Valet is left singing (through heavy distortion of course) a melody that’s both scarred and scared—like a bluesy, sensitive version of the more tuff-gnarl stuff that Gowns and Evangelista have scratching out. - CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN

STRATEGY - MUsic for Lamping
VARIOUS - Ambient Not Ambient [sic!]
[The Wire] UK

Strategy has released some great Techno records on labels such as ORAC an Dreck, with subtly ornate approach to 4/4 rythms. Music for Lamping, however, finds Strategy, aka Paul Dickow, doing without beats altogether. It's a of extremely reductionist Ambient tracks, largely consisting of airy synth drones and crackles of distortion and rain showers. While similarly minimalist post-Techno records, such as Keith Fullerton Whitman's fantastic Playthroughs, achieve a grandeur and gravitas through their hulking, unhurried momentum, Strategy is content to let his Ambient tracks sway gently in the breeze, their minor fluctuations only emphasizing their fundamental stillness.

The lack of movement and narrative makes Music for Lamping a frequently impenetrable listen, with the uniformity of tnes throughout almost encouraging your mind to wander so far away from the music that it disappears altogether. Perhaps this would be pleasant background sound for post-club mornings-indeed, Dickow has said that these tracks were originally intended for such sessions-but in other contexts the album is a step too far into nothingness.

Together with E*Rock, Dickow curates the Ambient Not Ambient [sic], featuring a large number of electronica and avant rock artists from his native Portland along with the likes of London's AM/PM and Lucky Dragons from Los Angeles. The indecision of the album's title is appropriate; while these tracks are too busy and beat-focused to be 'true' Ambient, there's certainly a familial resemblance to the latter in the album's foggy drifts and drones. While the compilation's focus on the indistinct and underrated sometimes make it a little dreary, there's enough good stuff here to make you want to investigate further; which is, after all, the main aim of such showcases. AM/PM's broken down, spluttering Techno is as immersive as ever, while the flicker-frame beauty of Lucky Dragons and WZT Hearts achieves the tranquility of Ambient music through babbling, pointillist rhythms.

-Simon Hampson

Ambient Not Not mbient
Pennyblack- UK

The 'Ambient Not Ambient' compilation features a whole wealth of contributions coming from composers, producers and electronic musicians alike and serves as the reminder that computer-generated music as such never really grounded. It just got a bit smelly. As Audio Dregs's first release in a long time, this seventeen track album is an almost flawless illustration of the state of things in the, still minor, county of Electronica. 'Ambient Not Ambient' provides some sort of a sweet revenge. Whilst The Barbican Centre may well stage Laurie Anderson during the Summer season, at the very same time, interest in electronic music and composition seems to be waning. E*Rock and Eric Johnson's efforts notwithstanding, the Audio Dregs label maintains the foothold that it is known for.
Anyone who's ever used file sharing software will have noticed the alarming amount of electronica releases shared by internet user. The genuinely interesting releases, however, won't make it on to these, platforms for copyright violation that they are. The result of a mere misconception now persists; there is this set belief that electronica, folktronica and electro-acoustics are in a rut. How the consensus is proved wrong ! Need I explain at greater length ?
I suppose I do. On the strength of this cream of the crop compilation, one tends to beg to differ. 'Ambient Not Ambient' portrays the electronica scene, featuring a gang of stalwart Audio Dregs' afficianados, as well as introducing several young guns.
E*Vax, one half of Ratatat, starts off in a quick shower like manner. His 'Awl' prepares for White Rainbow's 'See and The Field Feels' which is another snappy - three minutes - workout, but one now, of overwhelming rhythm patterns and complex (de-)composition. The second movement from Mudboy's 'Study for a Sleep Album' follows and works like a spiral escalator down the depths of terra elektræ.
Next, Dania Shapes crash in with their 'Weird Boombox' and just when you start to recuperate from Dania Shapes' zany splash of bleeps, Bird Show brings 'Less of Everything'. As the first track to feature the human voice, 'Less of Everything' closes off the brighter part of 'Ambient Not Ambient'. Yellow Swans resume the sinister hold of the early tracks with 'To Valleys of Beautiful Arson' ,yet alas the firearms get a hold of them again within three minutes of stoppage time. A real sense of drama and explosion in 'Discuss Winter' from WTZ Hearts continues the felt mood, that of an eruption from darker and deeper grounds.
Sawako's 'NST' is the compilation's breaking point, being a very slight meander on a toy glockenspiel. This is followed by Grouper with 'Quiet Eyes'. Yet again an outfit new to the scene as it were, this Grouper for better or worse eventually gets its message across. With Strategy's very own Paul Dickow on board, Nudge fill in the gap next, the level of quality being restored and we're back on track. Pumping beats melt with sparkling computer sounds on AM/PM's excellent dancefloor-orientated 'Even as We Here' - functioning as the album's grammar glitch.
It is in Smoke & Mirrors's honour that the latter part of 'Ambient Not Ambient' gets lashed about. Ambient becomes uncomfortable as ambience turns into confusion veering towards nightmare. Smoke & Mirrors's 'Ocean' takes on the tide but just as it splashes on the shore, Audio Dregs's very own E*Rock appears as from nowhere on the mighty 'Exexpat' which has a sense of disposition that rocks you back and forth. Cut short, 'Exexpat' segues into Freeform's 'Ante Meridian' like a drone of orchestral appeal that has been interrupted by a busy signal.
We've now reached the deepest depths as Freeform struggles to find a stage. The busy signal from Freeform's mobile phone is mixed with a few obligatory sounds, but this, however, proves not enough. As Freeform is cut short -the theme to this compilation - Chris Herbert takes us to the lower echelons of dubchamber with his 'Whips & Jingles' . Appropriately enough Lucky Dragons and Valet try their hardest to achieve the darkest of moments with the final two tracks, 'Sayles Street Ok Ok' and 'Tuesday Partly Sunny'.
'Ambient Not Ambient' it shall be though. This compilation album showcases plenty of talent that can either be ignored or paraded in grand fashion some time soon.

-Maarten Schiethart