KiloWatts - Undercurrent (Somnia)

In terms of technique, Jamie Watts, the man behind KiloWatts, is an extremely accomplished producer; he knows how to make music that sounds great. His last full-length album, Ground State, released on Evan Bartholomew's Native State Records, stood out for its fresh and chunky sound. It featured a rolling mid-tempo groove, using mostly an acoustic drum sample set, to go with dynamic and full-bodied synths that displayed Watt's taste for thick, growling lead sounds in the lower register. At times, the bass took center stage and propelled the music forward, like on the excellent track Dub Serious. Watts has tried his hand at a variety of genres. His last few releases have ranged from the mid-tempo IDM grooves of Ground State to the tech house of the Snakewinds and Love on Saturn EPs, both released on Noah Pred's minimal techno and house offshoot of Native State, Thoughtless Music. Now, with Undercurrent, he's followed Evan over to his new Somnia label for a stab at downtempo/ambient. “With this album, I wanted to focus on the essence of melody and expose it in a raw form through the electronic medium," says Watts. "The source of the main melodies came from repetitive hooks I found myself sporadically singing or humming during day to day business. Think of the joyful tunes whistled during a walk. These melodic mantras seem to pop up out of nowhere and go on repeating forever... From a larger perspective, I felt that the search for these melodies was similar to unearthing subconscious archetypes that drive reality. the process was like discovering an ever-flowing undercurrent of reality that can be translated directly into melody." The funny thing is that taken as a whole, the album is not defined by the strength of the melodies. There are a couple of standouts - Rode Falls and Ayandan - that are blessed with the kind of riffs that seem to have been around forever. They're like old friends you haven't seen for a while. The Undercurrent Is Love is also hummable if not as memorable. But more often than not the album is defined by the mood it evokes. Most of the tracks are based on short repeated motifs that ebb and flow with the undulating tide or the movement of the current. Opener Cascade Serenade flows by effortlessly, but most of the album is tinged with a darker hue. As if gray clouds are gathering and the waves are beginning to swell. There's an ominous undercurrent to Couette and Seed is vaguely sinister, like a snake slithering along just underneath the water's surface. On Nightshade, the crickets and other creatures of the night come out to play. The album culminates in the 12-minute The Moment Just Before Dawn, with a single phrase repeated over and over again like a persistent mantra, slowly building toward a majestic crescendo. The sonic landscape of Undercurrent is compact, with clearly defined boundaries. The sounds mostly seem to originate from the same source, as if Watts decided to stick with one trusted synth and one electric piano throughout the making of the album. Most significantly, he has largely - though thankfully not completely - done away with the beats that have been such a defining feature of his music until now. It has to be said that while there are moments of beauty on Undercurrent and the album as a whole grows on you, the tracks that make the biggest impression are the ones that have a pulse. Watts is most in his element when he's working with a beat, or at least a strong rhythmic element, such as on Rode Falls, Seed and Nightshade. The percussion, although further in the background than is usual for him, gives the songs a much more vivid presence and sense of development. Nevertheless, it's clear that Undercurrent has served to expand KiloWatts' horizons, even if the addition of one more genre to his discography risks confusing some of his audience. Be sure to check out Watt's digital releases on Thoughtless Music, Harmonious Discord, as well as his own outlet, KiloWatts Music (see Six Silicates EP). Also, looks like Jamie finally re-released his collaboration with Peter Van Ewijk as KiloWatts & Vanek titled Focus and Flow (Dependent, 2009).

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Original interview posted by Tigon on Tigon World.
Republished with permission of the author.

myspace.com/kilowatts | kilowattsmusic.com
somniasound.com

Juxta Phona & Offthesky - !Escape Kit! (Somnia)

With its fifth limited release, Somnia is introducing Juxta Phona & Offthesky to the rest of the world. Starting off with some ambient and modern classical sounds, Somnia delivered a little surprise with their last release by Evan Marc and Steve Hillage. In Dreamtime Submersible the duo has married dub techno and hypnotic ambient sound into a critically acclaimed composition that speaks for itself - the 777 limited copies are completely sold out. With the signing of Juxta Phona and Offthesky onto the label, the dub journey continues, this time with a jazzy swing. On !Escape Kit! the artist experiments with dubbed out, hazy, and definitely groovy beats, lightly sprinkled with tiny glitches and IDM treatments, but nevertheless purely organic sound. Instruments like vibraphone, sax, and jazz guitar quickly find themselves in a surreal atmosphere surrounded by acoustic drums, synth bleeps, clocks and paper rips. As if the local jazz band from the 60s has been secretly miked during one of their nonchalant improvisational coffee house performances, with the cables running through the walls into upstairs laboratory, where Juxta Phona and Offthesky feed the signal into their vacuum tubes, magnetic tapes, and digital machines, to twist, to bend, and warp the time, the sound, and reality. Inconceivably somnific, somniferous, somnolent. Here I want to applaud the art of Ray Massini, who has been printing the recycled paper covers with soy ink for every Somnia release. The illustration depicts an urban city rising above the skies, overgrown with evergreens, all floating on a piece of earth uprooted from its core. I need to get out. I need to withdraw. I need to return to my essential center of being. Where is my escape kit? Pick up your copy of this limited release while it hasn't run out. Clearly, by this point, Somnia is a collectible label, where each release shines on its own. Highly recommended. You will absolutely love this if you enjoy Dictaphone, Swod, Julien Neto, and Porn Sword Tobacco.



myspace.com/offthesky | offthesky.com
somniasound.com

Evan Marc + Steve Hillage - Dreamtime Submersible (Somnia)

Mr. Evan Bartholomew... For connoisseurs of tech house, he is known as Evan Marc. For fiends of psybient and dubbed out downtempo, he is Bluetech - the West Coast producer of psychedelic influenced IDM sound (PsyDM) and an owner of a prolific record label, Native State Records. But a recent shift in economics of the music industry pushed Evan to create another independent label, Somnia, where along with a roster of modern classical musicians, he releases limited copies of minimal, electro-acoustic and ambient dreamscapes under his own name, Evan Bartholomew. In this fourth Somnia release, Dreamtime Submersible, Bartholomew compliments his ambient soundscapes with dub techno influences. This album is a continuous mix of evolving sweeps, that becomes a single unfolding composition within seven movements, each transforming and elaborating on the theme. And... ahem!... This time he is collaborating with a visionary extraordinaire, Steve Hillage, whose discography trails into the 70s - most notable for his ambient techno project with Miquette Giraudy, System 7. I can dedicate a whole exclusive article just to Hillage, and yes, you should feel ashamed if haven't heard the name. So all I can say is... wow... A continuous sweep of a story-telling emotion that is impossible to interrupt in mid-sentence. Not once a repeated pattern of signal processing attributes! Each note carrying an immeasurable delay that feeds into an eternal release of ADSR's tail. The duo paint volume envelopes with an artisan brush of an Irezumi master. There's another interesting phenomenon that I always experience when listening to Dreamtime Submersible which I must share. The album begins with a bass theme which evokes a 4/4 kick drum that my brain just can't place at the beginning of each measure. It comes in between the bars (as a hi-hat would). Try hard as I might, I can't get my brain to switch to the correct meter. I can only fix the perceived rhythm by pausing the track and restarting a few seconds later. Obviously, on different occasions that decision is made at various portions of the track. And then I'm all good. But because for the next ten minutes (at least during the first piece) there are no perceivable codas, or defining signs of a virtual bar, I end up listening to a unique melodic pattern every time. And approach on a different path towards the core of dreamtime. On each arrival, I am fully submerged in a warm trance of bliss and harmony. Enjoy...

For an indepth view on the inner workings of Somnia and Evan's musical inspiration, check out my friend's Bazooka Joe's (Solipsistic Nation Podcast) interview appearing on Igloo: Interview with Evan Marc



myspace.com/iamevanmarc | evanmarc.com
myspace.com/stevehillage | somniasound.com

Emanuele Errante - Humus (Somnia)

Italian ambient composer, Emanuele Errante lands his second full length release on the only label where it belongs - Somnia. Errante began his musical career in electronic folk-rock bands. In 2004 he released his first solo album, Stand, under Mais alias on a Maetrixsolution netlabel. In 2005, Errante released his first ambient work under his real name, Absolute EP on Maetrixsolution once again. 2006 reaped his debut full length, Migrations, on Apegenine Recordings - a Canadian independent label for electronic textural music that first hit the scene with a compilation of ambient sounds from Julien Neto, Xhale, Xerxes, and Khonnor among a few [definitely worth checking out as well]. Errante's sound is soothing, organic, drifting, and at the same time present in the now. The textures within the soundscapes are carefully laid out, like a crisp white table cloth saved for a special occasion. The music within Humus is more than just a selection of layered ambient pads and smoky dream states. Intelligent design and production looms just around the corner, ready to reveal itself just as you float away. Errante is definitely an excellent addition to the roster of Somnia. Instantly fitting in among the modern classical releases by its owner, Evan Bartholomew, Somnia's third hand made installment propels the independent label to the ranks of Xela's Type Records and Deaf Center's Miasmah. I've got my eyes and ears open awaiting any future releases from this young label, as it slowly reveals its layers and unfolds its wings. Recommended for the likes of the above mentioned artists. Favorite track: Radio Hopes

maisound.com/errante | myspace.com/eerrante
somniasound.com

Evan Bartholomew - Secret Entries Into Darkness (Somnia)

In the second installment of his Somnia series, a Portland based modern classical composer, Evan Bartholomew, continues his meditative descent through Secret Entries Into Darkness. The minimal ambient sound slightly curves around the deep entrance, brushing the wet moonlight on the cave's bold stone, before it breaks into sheaths of white, and vanishes with echoes. Unlike its predecessor, this journey in this follow up is more rhythmic and darker, sustaining an eerie and desolate feeling, as the composer dissects the abstract lines between the realms of life and death during our weightless dive into Xibalba. In his streaming hypnotic voyage, Bartholomew perfects his production and the art of revealing his soul to the listener through music. The gravity of the emotion is immediate and heavy; for when the album ends, we are left alone and helpless, at the bottom of the void, only to be born again. Once again, the album is signed, numbered, and limited to 777 wax sealed copies packaged in sewn, soy ink stamped, recycled paper. Recommended if you like Steven Reich, Brian Eno, and Philip Glass. Absolute favorite track : Soft Spots In The Tyranny Of Matter.

myspace.com/evanbartholomewmusic