Ethedrone is a independent label located in Texas whose bands explore the harsher side of ambience.
ARCSIN: Turn It Off and Go to Bed (CD on Ethedrone Muzac)
This release from 2002 features 17 minutes of delightful electronic music.
Track 1: Lively electronics spring forth peppered with pleasant e-perc. A ricochet quality abounds, and treated guitars waver into view, injecting a haunting quality that is remarkably enticing.
Track 2: Murkier electronics cavort in tandem with conventionally generated percussion. The music descends to a quantum level to examine microscopic particles amid a pulsating ambience.
Track 3: Sparse beats and grinding moods collide with lusher instrumentation, accomplishing a rewarding excursion into a futurist urban setting defined by a hesitant quasi-techno delineation that mutates into robotic pop.
Track 4: Crackling diodes lead to a pensive passage of sashaying tonalities goaded along by somber e-perc.
Track 5: Abrasive beats and orchestral deliberations escort the audience into retreat from the real world, preparing the listener for dreamland.
Highly recommended for those looking for new sonic thrills.
INALONELYPLACE: Muzac for Lovers, Vol. 1 (CD on Ethedrone Muzac)
This release from 2002 features 25 minutes of passive ambience.
InaLonelyPlace is: Phrancis and Jenner Carnelian.
Minimal moods coalesce like fog drifting through subterranean tunnels. Soft basslines seep with ethereal atmospherics, producing a soothing anticipation. Tenderly trickling waters float into view. The thoughtful mists gradually become inhabited by lightly echoing strummed guitar which persists in a remote presence as if the instrument lurks just ahead around a bend in the passage. This just-out-of-reach impression permeates the entire release.
Despite the sparse nature of this tuneage, the music tingles with a romantic intimacy. Unhurried compositions combine delicate haunted guitar sounds with tenuous ambience to generate the sonic disposition of darkened rooms full of loving caresses.
INALONELYPLACE: Transmutation (CD on Ethedrone Muzac)
This release from 2004 features 19 minutes of darker ambience.
This time the band produces a grittier soundscape of reverberating guitar textures tempered with screeching tonalities designed to blend effortlessly with the harsh outcries of the treated guitar. While strings are diligently strummed and lovingly distorted, pulsating ambience appears to ponderously establish a milieu of shadows. This mixture is chilling, evoking desolate landscapes wherein nature overruns decay with patient obstinance. Densely resonant bass enters the flow, attributing a curious humanity to the seesawing harmonies.
While this release exhibits more bite than the band's prior release, a mood of gently floating predominates. The tunes are crafted to agitate as well as lull. A romantic edge lurks underneath the wobbling riffs, providing needy goths with contemplative soundtracks of delicate demeanor.
The CD ends with a crisp but gloomy piece confined to acoustic guitar.
INALONELYPLACE: Friendly Ghosts (CD on Ethedrone Muzac)
This release from 2004 features 26 minutes of jarring compositions.
Here, the guitar textures and moody temperament receive a surprise jolt with the introduction to the mix of sampled voice snippets from movies and television. Also new are the jarring electronics that tend to explode on the scene without warning, shattering the calm with their abrasive wail.
Even the guitar seems to have abandoned the band's soothing sound, seeking harsher realms with higher pitches and intrusive clarity. Now the seesawing is an aggressive expression of angst, the textures are no longer ambient but strain to penetrate the most resolute psychic obstacles.
While the electronics have adopted attack mode, filling the air with unruly sounds and spiteful buzzings. One track even features in-your-face drumming.
Somehow, despite all this overtness, an ambient mood is maintained, only now it appeals to a warrior caste. It's almost like the Durutti Column meets Merzbow.
KUSSER: Urban Decay (CD on Ethedrone Muzac)
This release from 2003 features 22 minutes of growling beat-driven tunes.
This CD is more abrasive sonics. Techno-based electronics generate gritty melodies that dwell on the dark side. Grinding textures clash with concrete drones, generating edgy harmonics of a dire nature. Fanciful cybernetic riffs cavort in tandem with harsh e-perc. The rhythms are more pensive that standard rave material, producing a decidedly urban flair steeped in futurism.
While Kusser’s tomorrow is world of decay and entropy as civilization crumbles under its own ponderous weight, these tunes are distinctly devoid of pessimism, focusing instead on earnest warnings.
The songs feature minimal background vocal effects and spoken word recitations ruminating on the potential of direct connections between the brain and internet technologies.
| Entire page © 2005 Matt Howarth. All rights reserved. |
Webpage design by
 |