Aquila - Observations on the Loss of Culture (1996)

Techno/trance/abstract electronic with a dark, heady vibe from Australian producer Matthew Thomas. Great headphone listening. 

Track listing:

1. Culture

2. Museum

3. Identity

4. Knowledge

5. The Impossibility of Isolation

6. Ritual

7. Progress

Spacial interaction

You should also listen to:

Floatpoint - Beam Error (1995)

Jetone - Autumnmonia (2000)

Oren Ambarchi - Stacte.2 (1999)

Two untitled early guitar/looping experiments from the great Oren Ambarchi. I first heard Ambarchi years ago via his collaborations with Stephen O'Malley/Sunn O))) -- Burial Chamber Trio, Gravetemple, Pentemple, Shade Themes from Kairos -- but only recently started listening to his solo stuff. Five albums in, I've yet to hear anything that's less than excellent, and Stacte.2 was where I started, so that's where we're starting. Its joyful, minimal, textural sounds are all guitar-sourced and I'm guessing are the results of tape looping, as according to the album notes: "All sounds = guitar – no editing no processing no computer no". I still don't understand how those aren't synths but what do I know.

"Quite the opposite," she said, "I've never felt better."

If you like this, you should listen to:

Troum - Mort Aux Vaches: SEN (2000)

Growing - His Return (2005)

Müller • Sugimoto - I Am Happy If You Are Happy (2000)

Low-key, free-form improvisations by the duo of German experimental sound artist Günter Müller and Japanese guitarist Taku Sugimoto. Tentative, ghostly guitar figures against backdrops of gently crackling white noise, alien oscillations, and subterranean pulses.

Track listing:

1. Frozen Memories

2. Snow Pocket

3. Rest and Smile

4. Bright White

5. Cumulus

6. Pitch the Clock

It is known where we come from, but no one much cares about things like that anymore.

Also listen to:

Mother Tongue - Open in Obscurity (1988)

Tigersmilk - Android Love Cry (2007)

Kenny Wheeler • David Friedman • Jasper van 't Hof - Greenhouse Fables (1992)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
John Taylor, Norma Winston, & Kenny Wheeler - Azimuth (1977)

Kenny Wheeler - Deer Wan (1978)

That album cover really is awful, huh? I suppose the actual art itself isn't so bad, but those fonts, and the overall composition? It looks like a self-help book about how bipolar depression can effect your marriage or something.

Which is a shame, because the music is positively gorgeous ambient jazz.  Wheeler's trumpet/flugelhorn, Friedman's vibraphone, and van 't Hof's piano make for beautiful, contemplative bedfellows, effortlessly combining and dispersing, allowing for a sense of dynamic and movement even as the volume rarely goes beyond a gentle murmur.

Track listing:

1. Zambon

2. Everybody's Song but My Own

3. Truvib

4. Greenhouse Fables

5. Farm

6. Salina Street

I follow to the edge of the earth

And fall off

You should also listen to:

Bill Frisell - In Line (1983)

Eberhard Weber - Pendulum (1993)