Vend - Wiel

I'll go with the ambient-not-ambient description (above). This album is like a coloured acetate cell: place it over any landscape for enhanced enjoyment. A friend remarked to me that he'd listened to it on headphones, and was delighted that he could also hear trains passing in the background. He beat me to it, because I had more or less the 'same' experience, albeit to the sound of a temple gong resonating in the windy winter night. Nor was this addition detrimental to either source: the audio experience is a subtle suffusion of moments present and frozen.

The 'music' itself creeps naturally, in an out of audibility. I must own to indulging in a mirthful smile that it is the work of two people. I wonder if, rather than adding individually to the recording, they subtracted instead. This is minimalism WAY beyond the standard set by Basic Channel or Richie Hawtin, which is not to say it's remotely in the same vein.

Perhaps this album wasn't meant to be back OR foreground music, but an audio intermediary between listener and environment in the quixotic state of simply existing. I don't know, but this music is as delicate as it is precious. A precious gem.

Computer music indeed.

Picture it being the year 3673. All nature and wild life is completly destroyed, replaced by mammoth concrete and steel structures. The only bits of 'nature' left are completly mechanic. The birds are robotic. Trees are holographic. Water is holographic. Rodents are robots, bears, deer, crickets, mice...and each of them makes computer generated noises. This is what this album sounds like. It sounds like robotic birds chirping, fake water flowing, crickets...doing whatever they do. Then throw in some microphone feed back and glitches beacuse the computer program is crashing.

Weil is a very experimental peice of work. I quite like it, but I also found it boring - and annoying at times. Some parts I really loved, others I hated. At times I felt like I was listening to a Gordon Hempton gone digital album, others Merzbow. I shouldnt say I quite like it, I should say I very much love it - but also hate it. I love it for being so random and I hate it for being so irritating. It's a must hear.

Allthough it's not really ambient, at least not by definition, expect the sounds to be ambience when you put it on. You'll forget you have it on after a while, that is untill a really high pitched...bunch of noises hits you. But don't worry, that usually stops after a few seconds, then gradually builds back up to be irritating again.

Love it or hate it, this album kicks ass.