Sound Awakener - Five Chapters

Band / Artist: Sound Awakener
Year: 2014
Genre: Dark Ambient, Free Jazz, Modern Classical, Experimental, Field Recordings

My Review:
*EDIT - I'm a twat, and forgot to ask, Nhung is female. All gender references have been changed. Sorry!*

Today's artist of note is Sound Awakener. I got an email from her right before the new year. She lives in Vietnam, and makes ambient, experimental style field recordings with piano. She describes it this way.

Five improvisations recorded on upright acoustic piano. Each piece has a really extinctive character .Vibrate has layers of reverb and exteneded techniques on piano string. Gather Eternity has loud hiss noise and distorted sound. Gallery of emptyness is sort of a lo - fi recording. Remembering all passing things and Untold are a mix of piano chords and field recordings.
"Five Chapters" refers to the endless search in life.

Here's the interview that we had.

Jumbly Music: It's nice to meet you. How are you doing?

Nhung Nguyễn : I’m doing good. Thank you. Things are getting musicaly marvelous for me.

Jumbly: So, whats your back story?

Nhung :  My musical journey started in 2002 when I began taking private classical piano lessons. The training ended in 2007 and since then I have been developing my own techniques and focusing on composition and improvisation.
In 2011 I started my solo musical project - Sound Awakener but no material was released until 2014. My aim is to live with the sonic journey as close as possible. It has always been a natural process.

Jumbly: Where are you from?

Nhung : I was born and now living in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Jumbly: Do you find it influences your style and your music much?

Nhung : Obviously it does. The city is full of thousands types of sounds. That’s why I use a lot of field recordings from everyday life in my music. To be more specific, in “Five Chapters”, there are field recordings from streets and restaurants.

Jumbly: Who makes your album art?

Nhung : Right now my album artworks are stock photos and each of them connects strongly to my music. I hope in the future I’ll invite someone to work with me on that aspect.

Jumbly: What way do you think is best to enjoy your music?

Nhung : The best way is to enjoy with an empty mind.

Jumbly: What would you say is your favorite thing you've done?

Nhung : Interesting question. My favortie thing I’ve done is the thing I do everyday – appreciating and collecting sounds.

Jumbly: Do you like giving away your music for free? Do you hope to continue or would you rather move to a pay system?

Nhung : I like giving it for free when I feel I need to do that. I have some for free on my Bandcamp page and actually “Five Chapters” is free too. But I also have some paid ones  – honestly I need to support myself financially.

Jumbly: If anyone wanted to do a collaboration with you, would you be interested?

Nhung : I’m always open to collaboration.

Jumbly: How should they get in touch with you?

Nhung : The best way is to fill out the contact form on my website (http://soundawakener.weebly.com/contact.html) or the contact form on my Bandcamp page (soundawakener.bandcamp.com)

Jumbly: What kinds of projects do you really want to do in the future?

Nhung : I really want to focus on making music for moving images and installations. Of course other forms still interest me.

Jumbly: Do you follow the blog? What would you like to see more of? Or any suggestions?

Nhung : I’ve been following the blog since June and I much enjoy the content. One thing I would like to see is more interviews of artists

Jumbly: Do you know any other great sites that people should check out?

Nhung : Haha, this is self – promotion : I have a pretty private music blog called Cánh đồng âm nhạc (Vietnamese, which means “Field of music” in English) (http://canhdongamnhac.weebly.com/ ). The reason I write it in Vietnamese is that there are few music blogs here, especially for genres like ambient/experimental or even classical music.

Jumbly: Thanks for sharing your music with me.
I have one last question. What is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

Nhung : The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen hmmm is maybe the calm sea in Đà Nẵng (it is a city in the central of Vietnam, which I’ve visited twice) Thank you so much for the great talk! 

Here are some other places that she shared with me to check out
Facebook page
Soundcloud
Youtube

Alright, enjoy it.

Sound Awakener - Five Chapters

[Free Singles] Death, BONES, Toks', Mystified

Death - Politician In My Eyes (Demo)

 A very interesting story, and a band that could have changed the face of culture history. Imagine the face of the newly desegregated America, had the growth of the Motown era of R&B been only one part of our culture spearheaded by black artists. Imagine if the rise of punk had been a black culture phenomenon, and what that might have looked like by the time of the 90s.



Anyway, Read about them, and watch the trailer. Consider buying their album, as they waited 30 years just to share it.

BONES - The Dirt #131Toks' - The Dirt #131

A collection of remix tracks that will definitely have at least one dance track for your tastes. Here's the whole track list.

BONES picks:
Drake - Hold On, We’re Going Home (TJR Refix)
Skanky - 1 More Night (AMTRAC Dub)
Kanye West - New Slaves (DJ Snake Remix)

Ingwell - Let’s Get It On (Marvin Machine)
Adrian Lux - Teenage Crime (Thomas Jack Remix)

TOKS picks:
Jim James - Know Til Now (Pixelated remix)

Klaves - Without You

Eagles for Hands - Blushed

Dru Hill - How Deep Is Ur Luv (Jaw Jam Bootleg)

Ellie Goulding - Tessellate (Kastle Remix)

Mystified - Love Hiatus

Not a single per se, this is 3 tracks, just short enough that I'd rather share it under a singles post this time. It is a dark ambient, IDM, and Illbient set, which reminds me a lot of some early Aphex Twin. There are elements of breakbeats in it, and some soundtrack feeling in parts.

Mystified has been releasing on Treetrunk Records pretty steadily for quite a few years. This is what this release is described with;

Three songs created mainly for emotional content. No weird sources or strange ideas here, other than that finding love has changed the life and music of Mystified.

Alright well thats it. Hope you enjoyed this set of singles.

Free Singles - MORBIDTWATT, Myron & E, Andy Iona, Magnifico, K.Flay Feat. Felix Cartal

MORBIDTWATT

There was a funny-ish backstory to me finding this musician, but it wouldn't be in best service to him to tell it to you. Suffice it to say, art and life are rarely on the same level. He makes dark industrial music with a lot of techno influence, much of it utilizing string soundscapes. This is a link to all of his soundcloud tracks, as he offers them all up for free.

Myron & E - If I Gave You My Love

This is a soft, Motown-ish sort of track, that has a good amount of horns. It'd be good for dancing or.. ahem.. more private activities..

They do music with a group called  Soul Investigators, and the two just joined up to make a debut album on their new record label, Stones Throw. The new album is called Broadway, and it'll be out in July.

Andy Iona - Pretty Red Hibiscus & Naughty Hula Eyes

You know, that photo is just a tad creepy to me. Nevertheless, these songs are soft, melodic ukelele songs from long ago, which both are pleasing to listen to or to play for a significant other when you're being cute. Both of these fall into the public domain, as does most of his music I believe.

Andy Iona lived from 1902 to 1966, and mostle released music as "Andy Iona and his Islanders". He was noted as being one of Hawaii's most influential musicians, and somewhere out there is a boxed set of his work that has 112 tracks on it.

Magnifico - Ubic‡u Te

A guy from Yugoslavia. He's been getting big there, and has starred in a few Slovenian movies, as well as releasing a number of albums since 92. This track is from 2011.Its kind of like a cross of Latin dance (like salsa and such) with a bit of dub effects, and a few flares of that eastern European horn playing that I've started to notice is common. Its pretty great, even though I have no idea what he's saying.

K.Flay Feat. Felix Cartal - Rest Your Mind

You know where this is going. Its dancey technoish hiphop. This time there was a long backstory. Here it goes...







..and thats it. I like this one more than some of the softer stuff. It makes me wiggle my ass.

Black Circle Records, TakeMeToTheMorgue!, Oddio Overplay, Silber Sounds of Halloween

Bands / Artists: Various
Years: 2011, 2011, 2006, 2007
Genre: Garage Rock, Electronic, Soundtrack, Experimental, Dark Ambient, Noise-Rock, Drone, Rockabilly, Sound Collage, Goth
 
My Review:

This one is all about the haunted house scores, although there is a BUNCH of other stuff here. Totally worth having a look.


Black Circle Records

Soundscapes, drones, score elements. This is an album perfected for playing in your haunted house that you REALLY should be making. This was probably my favorite of the creepy soundtracks I found, for how subdued and ominous it proved to be.

Apparently there are like 6 record labels called “Black Circle Records”. This one is located in the UK. I know very little more about them.

Watch out for that second to last track, its very loud harsh noise, whereas the rest of the album is most definitely not that.

Black Circle Records - Halloween in a Haunted World Remix Project


TakeMeToTheMorgue!

A lot of dark and creepy scores, and some really mean grungy techno and metal stuffs in the mix. There are a few tracks that I would cut before using the mix somewhere, but overall, this is a pretty solid addition.

TakeMeToTheMorgue! - This Dark Virus


Oddio Overplay

A good collection of creepy stuff. This one is a great halloween set, with more sound collages and classical sets in the midst of it than the others. Some of it reminds me of playing through Hell in Doom 3. You will probably want to edit some of it out and keep what you like most though.

Oddio Overplay - Calling All Fiends


Silber Sounds of Halloween 

I thought it hilarious that one of my favorite tracks from this was from a band named “Planet Cock”. This one is a much wider mix of genres, like the last one.  There is some really good garage spooky rock in here to be had, like the track from “Drats!”. Same as the last one though, I would probably go through it and pick out what you really enjoy to keep or use.
Silber Sounds of Halloween

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, No More Cocaine, Blob

Bands / Artists: The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, No More Cocaine, Blob
Years: 2011, 2012, 2007
Genre: Dark Jazz, Dark Ambient, Jazz, Post-Rock

Overview:
Today is all about the Dark Jazz. Very little of this would fall closely to traditional jazz, be it the soulful or the modernist types. I'm sure someone out there would love to lecture me about the name and requirements of jazz, especially in all of its nuances. Jazz aficionados get their panties in a bunch way too easy. ANYHOW. It's a great choice for your front porch while handing out candy, or if you just wanted something as background music for a slightly nefarious candlelight dinner. Anyone pulling a “Hannibal” out there?

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble

Some subdued creepy that plays out nicely over 9 tracks. They create a very interesting feeling, bringing references to a wide variety of music in history, including moments of “Gloomy Sunday”, most popularly covered by Billie Holiday long ago. There aren’t as many creepy dark moments in this as their name would have you believe, but it is still a very good album, probably my favorite for the day.

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Live - I Forsee the Dark Ahead, If I Stay 



No More Cocaine

This is a band comprised of the members of King Fear & The Court of Wolves. They decided to take the music that fits a certain attitude and move it under a pseudonym. Here's an excerpt describing the project.

“No More Cocaine incorporates shamelessly many different influences ranging from Dark Jazz and Dark Ambient in to the IDM and Trip-Hop. If it's dark and laid back, it's probably somewhere in the list of influences. Primarily sounds like Dark Ambient with Dark Jazz overtones.”

This is like a darker, slower, and far less jazz oriented than the first post of the day. Still one of the most ominous album covers I could hope for.

No More Cocaine - Midnight EP


Blob

This is very modern psych-jazz. I could imagine it being used for some weird David Lynch scene in a movie, or for an acid trip scene a-la Easy Rider. It isn't as consistently dark as the others seem to be, but it is FAR more faithful to the jazz moniker, and still has some seriously ominous moments throughout. If someone were to make a haunted lounge/cocktail bar, this would sound awesome for it.

If you are a real jazz lover, then this is the perfect Halloween album for you.

Blob - Halloween

Andrew Lagowski, Hellscion, NovA17

Band / Artist: Andrew Lagowski, Hellscion, NovA17
Year: 1995, 2012, 2012
Genre: Techno, Industrial, Hardcore Techno, Trip Hop, Breaks, Electro, Dark, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Film Score, IDM

My Review:
So I had hoped to have a really special exclusive to offer today, but that didn't really come together like I was hoping. BUT I WAS PREPARED. Instead I'm serving up 3 different flavors of dark electronic goodness.

Andrew Lagowski

Dark techno is what I'd like to find a lot more of. Like, REALLY dark. This one is well on its way there. It has these nice buildups, that slip back into a murky subdued sound of ominous ambient. I was enjoying the plays on build and release that is common in techno. Sadly its only available on heere as a Lo-fi format.




Apparently this album was even reviewed in Wired back when it came out. Good on ya.

Andrew Lagowski – Prismatic ()


Hellscion

This is his 4th release, and he's getting better and rougher every time. This one is right on the edge of EBM, and i really wish there was a vocalist growling out some great lyrics across the top of this, I dunno, something about hell and bondage or something. Either way, its dark and gritty.



Hellscion - Burning Bridges


NovA17

This one is some nice hip-hop beats, edging on horrorcore beats. An interesting instrumental album with a really dark edge to it, biting horror scores and dark ambience from horror, only to hack them up and loop them into the beats. This is the most chill of the posts today. It comes off like the little brother of "Genocide Memoria" from LFO Demon.

NovA17 - FFUNS [darkhiphop instrumental]


Alright. Enjoy another night of fright and horror.