AQUARIUSSSSSSS

by Carlos Niño & Friends

I'm not sure that I entirely understand the love given in hip-hop circles to Carlos Niño.  Sure, his music is hauntingly beautiful, and he was instrumental in the whole Suite for Ma Dukes symphonic interpretation of J Dilla's music (god I love that disc), and he was featured on Exile's brilliant Radio album (he's the guy who keeps saying, "Love, let's say it again" on one track), but it's impossible to listen to Aquariusssssss, his lovely new recording, and think of hip-hop.

This is a collection of pretty ambient music, which some would easily file into a New Age section of a record store.  It's better than that entire genre, but it does have the crashing waves, the bird song, and the random spoken word poetry (all on one track - 'Listening to the conversations of the Birds...').  It also has some terrific music, and the strings of Miguel Atwood-Ferguson.  It also has some ridiculous track names, such as 'Bath of Breath Crystal Crescendo', 'Tears Of Transcendence', and 'Trance Elation of Transformance'.  One would expect to find pictures of fractals circa '94 in the liner notes, but instead we get a picture of Niño swimming in the ocean.

As easy as this project is to poke fun at, I find that I love leaving this playing while I'm reading at the end of a long day.  It's not for everyone, but it's lovely.

Crate Digging: (Surfing On Sine Waves)

by Polygon Window

 Polygon Window is one of the pseudonyms used by Richard James, who was better known in the 90s as Aphex Twin, one of the masters of ambient electronic music.  I went through a phase in my university days where James's stuff was the backdrop to just about every essay or assignment I had to write, as I found that the sonic carpet he blanketed my dorm room in was quite conducive to zoning out and writing for long sessions.


Surfing on Sine Waves is one of his earliest recordings, and it has the makings of his later work.  These nine tracks are very well constructed - the mathematics of the album title carries through each track.  Some, like 'Quoth' are aggressive, while others, like the title track and 'If It Really Is Me' are quite beautiful, and hold up very well almost twenty years after they came out. 

As much as I found James's music trance-inducing, I also sometimes just find it boring.  That is true for most of the middle of this album, which gets a little too rave-friendly for my liking, especially now.  Still, it's nice to put this on from time to time and remember simpler days...

Crate Digging: Orbvs Terrarvm

by The Orb

I recently discovered a cache of CDs that I thought long lost while helping clean out an old TV stand at my parent's house over the holidays.  The pile of CDs (maybe twenty or twenty-five in number) were all sealed away some twelve or more years ago, and I thought it would be cool to write about my thoughts when listening to them after such a long time.  Therefore, I'm resurrecting my old 'Crate Digging' feature.

First up is Orbvs Terrarvm, the 1995 album from ambient superstars The Orb.  I was a huge Orb fan in the early 90s, and can vaguely remember being pretty excited when this album came out.  It's exactly what someone listening to the Orb would expect - the seven tracks here range in length from seven to seventeen minutes, and are both mind-numbingly repetitive and eerily beautiful in about equal proportions.

The music pulses more than progresses through loops of sound that are both warm and inviting, and coldly clinical.  These are all instrumental tracks, except for the usual astronaut chatter or disconnected samples that always sound like they are coming from instructional tapes.

The ship of ambient electronica sailed many many years ago (although it's not much of a stretch to go from here to the post-hip-hop multi-instrumentalism of artists like Shawn Lee and Clutchy Hopkins), but I really enjoyed digging into this album after so many years.  It kind of makes me want to read an article in Wired about Jaron Lanier or fractals or something.  I should look for the rest of my Orb CDs...