Gus Till - Aquana Vol.1 - Stillness

[abasio]

Gus Till - Stillness

Aquana

2008

Ambient

 

Tracklist

 

1 Overland (11:19)

2 Sayan (7:39)

3 Bower (8:40)

4 Bermuda (4:44)

5 Batublan (4:38)

6 Morning (8:57)

7 Uluwatu (9:22)

8 [Return To] Nothing Atoll (10:03)

9 Valley/Amber (5:20)

 

Gus Till, one of my favourite all time favourite producers has brought out a new album, this time it is all ambient. Not down tempo, not chill but completely ambient. As you can imagine from the beautiful cover it is warm natural ambient. As with most ambient albums it is not just a collection of tracks but more of one coherent journey starting with Overland which takes us through sleepy meadows, hand in hand with your love through a flower garden and walking through the park on a beautiful summer's day. It's very melodic throughout with melodies that just chime through the air like blue bells blowing in the wind. There is slight rhythms but they are created using melodic sounds not beats or bass.

The softer Sayan takes me from walking pace to lying down. I imagine being on my back in a field of flowers watching the clouds in the sky as they slowly move by. Bower takes us into a slighlty darker territory, like while lying down in the field, you doze off to awaken and find that the scattered clouds and blue sky have turned into dark grey storm clouds. No rain but the menacing threat of rain that accompanies them.

Bermuda is back to a more melodic feel, but the meldoy is slower and sparser, what I love in this track is the cold feel to the it, not like the menacing clouds of Bower but more like a chill wind accompanied by a melancholic feeling brough on by the wonderful meldious sounds and the thrilling drones. Very nice track, if a little short. Batubulan is another short track with slightly more rhythm to it. The are beats of a sort very soft & very short, kind of tribal but blink and you'll miss it sorts. With a more spacey feeling than the rest I can imagine a UFO terrorising the hapless inhabitants of some tiny hamlet somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Morning is probably my second favourite on the album, the melodies are strong and punchy in that they are almost rhythmical, there need be nothing else as they act as every element. The inclusion of the wind whistling through is a nice addition as it is quite long and it adds a colder dimension to the track.

Uluwatu is definitely my favourite here. It is so deep, so spacey yet amazingly well earthed. The synth drones carry a lot of weight here and these just run up & down my spine in a tingling fashion. The melody is simple and beautiful and the little plops of water in the background make one ultra trippy track. Also the progression through the track keeps it not just interesting but enthralling despite being close to 10 minutes of pure ambience.

[Return To] Nothing Atoll is another punchy ambient track. The sort of track that after listening to a lot of uber chilled tracks seems heavy but when listening to straight away seems so chilled. Just what I like near the end of an ambient album, something that comes and just feels a little more intense without letting go of the ultra chilled out feeling.

Finally we end with either Valley or Amber I'm not sure which as the back of the CD lists 10 tracks whereas there are only 9 tracks on the album. It could be that one of the other tracks is the wrong name but I am going of the discogs entry (click the pic) which lists both amber & valley as 5:20 which is the length of the final track. Whatever it is called it's a very soft ending to a very soft album, nicely summing up the whole journey and punctuating it's conclusion. A little glitchy but still bright and warm and natural. Natural glitch

 

A lovely journey crafted by Gus Till here, this is called Gus Till - Aquana Vol.1 - Stillness. With a title like that and the high quality of this great ambient release I am very much looking forward to volumes 2,3,4.....N very much. Thanks Gus for another top notch release