Albums of the Decade - 23. Eluvium - Nightmare Ending (2013)

 23. ELUVIUM - NIGHTMARE ENDING (2013)

This one's like the ultimate ambient album, sweeping textures, luscious strings, twinkling pianos and a bucket of comfort - almost wrote "compost."

Predictive texting used to cost me dearly on the old Nokia, on the old iPhone 3 and such. Now I needn't worry so much, but I have come to realize that I am such a lazy typer that my texts are littered with spelling mistakes.

Like, if I'd just typed slower, the time it took to go back and edit a text like this one, could've been savoured kicking back into a fulcrum of chill and had lavendar bathsalths with some Eluvium playing.

 

Albums of the Decade - 58. William Basinski - A Shadow In Time (2017)

58. WILLIAM BASINSKI - A SHADOW IN TIME (2017) 

Anxiety is never easy. It has always befounded and confounded me. It envelopes me and flows right through - and no coffee can put it out. Neither does a glass of wine in the long term - as it only makes it worse. Luckily the answer often comes in the form of musical therapy - and luckily here came one of the most beautifully meditative works in decades from the master of ambience.

Just 2 tracks covering 43 minutes, the first one - a tribute to Bowie - is sumptuous tape loop featuring a fractured saxophone - it really sorted me out when I was blue two years ago in Germany, in a hellhole of a flat organized by my former employer. The bed was uncomfortable - the sofa shocking - I wanted to get out but the city had a massive deficit of flats - I moved out eventually to another place where the water from the shower flooded the whole studio....

,...better to flood your life with dissonance maybe. This changes the game. Breathe it in.

Albums Of The Decade - 92. Bibio - A Mineral Love

92. BIBIO - A MINERAL LOVE 

Underrated sepia beige. Could there be a worse line than that to sell this album? It's folk with rose-tinted lenses, it's a dove cooing, it's spring spilling into summer. The production is as angelic as a delight, as a dessert. Normally. I'd abhor something so mucically fluffy - but Bibio has the depth to line this output with substance.

I first ran into Bibio at the top of the decade; glued to 2009's Ambivalence Avenue,making a big move to Taiwan in 2010. As I played tracks like Lovers' Carvings to my new roommates, it stopped them in their tracks. That timelessness of summer was captured in a few chords of gold, as Stephen Wilinson gave the bucolic sounds that chastened the city sprawl that we were feeling.

Advance it to 2016 and as I was leaving Asia, the technicolor hues were seeping through the audio, as four albums in-between had shown that Bibio, as a package, had finally put the feather in his cap. And. while it's rarely just a record that stands alone to represent an artist during the last ten years, at least with this effort, it typifies idealism in a laudative sense.

Records of 2014 - 33. Inventions - Inventions

33. INVENTIONS - INVENTIONS 

Eluvium collaborating with one of the members of Explosions in the Sky. Sounds good on paper. And it is! Everything is good with paper. Yea, I know they're cutting down your trees, but your i-Pad is using electricity which burns a lot of renewable fossil energy. I just invented that sentence.

This album is beautiful electronic new-age and the song Entity perfectly captures it with beautiful dissonance and hiss, coupled with crashing waves and vocals better than Enya's. There are two things I just did:

1) Did a conversation ESL class to students about music and I did a genre quiz. I played Enya's Sail Away and they said it didn't touch their hearts. I bet this would.

2) Did a "Which Philosophical School of Thought are you in?" shitty quiz on FB and got Epicurean which means I see the glass as half full. No need to with this. It's full.

Oh ah.

albums of 2012 - 45. Nathan Fake - Steam Days

45. NATHAN FAKE –STEAM DAYS

And yes, this is his real name. From Norwich, Norfolk ,in the UK, Nathan Fake came on to the scene in 2006 with the giddy and wonky ambience of debut LP Drowning In A Sea Of Love. He followed this up with a mini-album in 2009 entitled Hard Islands whose title definitely signaled the shift towards a harder techno sound. I saw him DJ in Reykjavik in 2008 and his music spazzed around but was still danceable. I really enjoyed that night, even though I abused the publication I worked for by getting in for free. This third effort is a messy ride again, as it fuses the two styles of ambient glow and techno glare to commendable effect. You can stick it on when doing shit around the room or use it as a headphones record. It’s not made for the club but can definitely get you in the mood while you pre-game you party penguins you!

BEST PLAYED: When pre-gaming to go out.

Records of 2010 - 50. Eluvium - Similes

50. Eluvium - Similes

I've been following the music of Matthew Cooper for a few years now. He's cool. He began with 'Lambent Material' in 2003, an excellent ambient album that incorporates warm washes of sound that puts the listener in a little envelope and posts them to heaven. 2005 brought 'Talk Amongst The Trees' that was a lot more droney, empty and sci-fi. In 2007, Cooper got all new-age with the piano and organ led 'Copia.' And so, all of his work before 'Similes' was without vocals. Now that changes, as he sounds like a bedroom artist more than ever before. This time he has percussion. This time he has choruses. But once again, he has another new, spellbinding development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvAHrrtJgKc