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Ambientium - Fractal Philosophy


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Artist: Ambientium

Title: Fractal Philosophy

Label: Kahvi Netlabel & Ambientium’s website (web release)

Released: Early 2009

 

Tracklist

 

1. Hadron Era

2. Star Birthday

3. Infinitum

4. Another World Part 1

5. Another World Part 2

6. Europa

7. Fractal Philosophy

8. Touch Of Light

9. Home

 

Ambientium are Lucie and Lubos hailing from the Czech Republic. This is the first and only release I am aware of and it is a free net release available from Ambientium.com and Kahvi.org. This is a release that shows just how good a lot of the free net releases can be. This sounds spacey and deep with a lot little psychedelic sounds, nice melodies and sci-fi imagery. This sounds a little like Distant System – Spiral Empire and could have appeared on Ultimae Records. The production is not quite up to the standard of the aforementioned musicians though and it would be nice to hear this remastered and have a few things tweaked. Occasionally the intro of a track doesn’t flow well into the rest of it and sometime the changes in direction are a little abrupt but overall I am very impressed by this album. It has what is more important to me than production, it has ideas and great ideas at that. This is a very visual album and while listening to it I am taken on a journey through outer space, passed dust clouds onto alien planets, being abducted by aliens & floating down along the length of a huge spaceship.

This album also has a lot of different styles mixed in together, there is a lot that sounds deep and bassy like many Ultimae albums, there is also a lot of melodic tracks with even some glitchy ones, ambient ones, natural sounds and mechanical sounds and even one track that is a little bit on the cheesy side. Despite all these styles though this is best listened to as a whole as it’s a good journey better on headphones without any distractions.

 

1. Hadron Era

We start off with a spacey track, the intro is very ambient with just a few wet synths and big rushes of noise that sound like a deep space explosion. As the intro ends we get a high pitched noise that sounds like it’s from a 1970’s Dr. Who. The intro doesn’t particularly well into this section of the track but that is forgotten when the high pitch noise morphs into a slightly deeper more atmospheric drone. The feeling of floating through space comes to fruition when the slight beats come in and little light melodic sounds like stars twinkle fill the space in between. The feeling we have crossed over into the Ultimae universe comes with the lush long female voice and deep rumbling bassline. The inclusion of some brief tribal beats near the end just adds a touch of the ancient to the mix. This is a nice atmospheric opener.

 

2. Star Birthday

We go smoothly into the next track with more of the bright twinkling ambient sounds but this time behind everything almost imperceptible is the sounds of a crowd, it sounds to me like a playground or somewhere with a lot of people having fun. The spacey feeling mixed with the faint sounds of Earth makes me feel like there is some blending of realities here. A place where the universe we find ourselves in here comes close and touches the Terran universe. The kids fade away though as we pass on our journey and soon with the arrival of a nice deep melody played on a few different planes they are all but forgotten. These melodies are nice, one sounds ethereal the other more earthly in an eastern kind of way. Another lush female voice chants slowly over everything towards the end and it reminds me some of Dakini records’ old material. It’s spacey with a slight touch of eastern ethnicity. Nice.

 

3. Infinitum

A brief break in the atmosphere as this track starts but it teases back in with flurries of the melody that will play fully later. The beats also tease their way in quite a glitchy manner and the start of the track feels a little disjointed but when it all pulls together and the deep vibrating bass comes in with a funky melody & broken beats the atmosphere seems deep and powerful once again. The melody that teased in the intro comes in fully around half way through and with the little synths that sound like falling stars it really does feel like standing on the edge of a cliff on a clear night watching a meteor shower. The music shifts from smooth and lush with a few broken beats to glitchy again and then back to smooth ambient with a few twinkles to end on.

 

4. Another World Part 1

This starts with some scratchy sounding rain. Like a downpour of slightly metallic raindrops falling onto a slate roof. This feels like I am out in a cottage in the countryside late in the evening with all the lights in the house off, miles from the nearest town with nothing but the rain, the stars and the feeling of night. The music is beatless and there is a pulsating sound in the air almost like distant space ships. The Pulsating sound gets bigger and bigger until it’s a full bassline, beats kick in and some sharp melodies & I feel like I am surrounded by lights. The beats become a steady 4-4 like I am moving or being taken somewhere as the atmosphere becomes a little more mechanical. Gone are the sounds of nature to be replaced by these slick high tech sounds. It feels like I have been abducted by aliens and taken onto their spacecraft.

 

5. Another World Part 2

A deep melody and some glitchy beats follow on in this short track. The melody is melancholic the glitchy beats mechanical. The atmosphere is all still here and it still feels spacey but with the background noises screaming like a siren, strange alien sounds coming up from the floor and the sound of the wind outside it’s easy to feel the sense of melancholy that is emitted from this track.

 

6. Europa

The wind takes us over into the next track which starts out just like floating in deep space but after a couple of minutes the beats and a sharp acidic melody come in and it feels like while floating in space a huge spaceship has snuck up on me and I am now falling down it’s entire length. Along the way I see all the little details on the outside of this space city. There are sounds that remind me of air venting, of crews working out side and chattering over the radio to each other. Others just sound like huge buildings rushing passed me but the sharp melodic synths sound to me like the release of fighter jets off to fight and only narrowly missing my strewn form.

 

7. Fractal Philosophy

The title track is a short one and a very ambient one, glitch ambient to be exact. All that I can hear is the rush of some sound far away, traces of subtle drones and a whole lot of technical glitch. Like a robot gone haywire but with the atmospheric ambience behind it, it is quite pleasant.

 

8. Touch Of Light

Right from the start there is a really nice light melody closely joined by a second light melody just a few notes higher. These melodies surrounded by some trippy spacey noise are soon followed by an energetic beat. Lots of little wet sounds fall like droplets on a smooth polished floor. The beats become a little scattered but when they kick back in to a steady rhythm the energy seems to increase as well. The melodies are light, the beats are quick and the sample at the end sounds like an announcement in an airport, overall it’s a little on the cheesy side but it’s still a pretty pleasant track.

 

9. Home

The final track is a deep ambient track with the sound of falling rain throughout. It feels like it is taking me falling through the atmosphere. The sounds rush about like they are swirling in the air and the soft melody seems like it is coming from all directions at once. As we go on the rushing sounds leave and the melody quietens down and we can start to hear the birds singing from down beneath us. New rushes sound more terrestrial as if they were aeroplanes or cars on the highway. It is as if we were home.

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I want to single out Europe because it is pretty damn good!

+1

 

 

Also, it's kind of disappointing that the title track for the album seems to be a little underwhelming. But the rest of the album is not bad.

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  • 1 month later...

I personally love this album... I can see where the mastering could be sweetened up, but I have listened to it on my entry level studio monitors, cheap headphones and some nice entry/reference towers and a/v receiver and it never sounds "bad" so what I mean is.. for free this album is great! :clapping:

 

 

 

I love how they have fused lots of influences.. I know lots of chillout artists throw glitchy parts in or some dnb type stuff but the one song on this album like that almost blows my mind.. almost.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 5 months later...

Nope, I listen to a lot of ambient from outside the psytrance scene.

Just because it is a different style to beatless drone ambient though, doesn't make it bad. I still like this release despite obvious mastering problems.

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  • 1 month later...

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