lost in a sea of sound

A charge of enigmatic melodies surface. Clear and effortless yet connected through generations of styles and technique. The keyboard playing glides across the surface, like a surfer at the end of a ride in the whitewater or people burdened with supplies moving across dry and weathered land. Then a pause in these sinuous harmonies, the surrounding fauna cries out in playfully distressed cries. Elephants, malfunctioning vehicle horns, birds or robots, these are wide open aural plains of both past millenniums and futures expanse. Life within welling up as hypnotic undertones are momentarily segmented. The days are like this, beautiful tranquilizing lulls of routine interrupted by the always existing screeches and squeals. Nights settle in for relaxed rumination, then lengthy dreams.

SiP is the project of the Chicago based Jimmy Lacy. Leos Naturals is a full dive into the world of rhythms and reverie. A composition stretching across vasts landscapes with many gear changes. The first two t…

Less than an hour ago the music wormhole opened to the label Phantom Limb out of Brighton, UK. This was in pursuit of the first edition of WaqWaq Kingdom's Essaka Hoisa. A pink vinyl edition that is sold out, and there was an even more limited blue marble edition. Yes this is a really curved opening description for Dylan Henner, but there is something of interest. Doing a little pre-research before writing about this beautiful ambient release titled A Dingo Crossing a Stream, showed Dylan Henner has a release on Phantom Limb titled A Reason for Living. Before one hour ago, there was no knowledge of this Brighton, UK label and now two very different recordings have led there. This is synchronicity becoming blatantly obvious. What does this have to do with Dylan Henner's A Dingo Crossing a Stream? A difficult connection to make without going down the paranormal path of what is real even though it has yet to be scientifically proven. If you read Dylan's description of the pro…

The pressure is heavy on Protozoic Rock Express. A sonic current steadily pushing through the subsurface, and within the intensity, clarity and detail escape like air breathing from volcanic vents. A dark droning composition filled experienced aural stitching. Life pulled from the darkness then placed like breadcrumbs along the path. Two artists across an ocean, their patience and care over multiple years produces a heavyweight masterpiece.

Three tracks on Protozoic Rock Express divided into forty five minutes. Phil Todd is the force behind Ashtray Navigations, playing acoustic guitar, oscillators, moog sampled harmonium & casio sampler. Anla Courtis plays electric guitar, organ, hawk-bells e-bow & found metals. Together these duo creates a fantastic sonic landscape. The severity of these sounds in perfect balance with the aural facets lifting above the depths. The beauty of Protozoic Rock Express is it's ability to provide contemplative meditation, but never sinking so de…

Watch Your Step is the house of mirrors. At times, sound reflections cascading into infinity, then the aural reality is clearly in the forefront. These harmonic conditions fluctuate within each track, and continue for subsequent selections. Beautiful melodies slightly tilted, creating a spiraling focus in the best manner possible. Watch Your Step is subtle, somehow Suko & moduS have filled this composition with a plethora of genres across multiple decades. With all of this influence, these tracks gracefully and causally unfold, the patience and creativity is so good. 

Suko & moduS create the melodically obscure. Sounds you are not going to absorb the first time through. Our receptors are squares and circles, Suko & moduS fashion triangles. And speaking of pointy things, check out the third track "Down the Stream". Like a Harry Nilsson masterpiece, this is a brilliantly composed track. "like a chicken on a open field" yes sometimes we do feel.....
The n…

In just under twenty minutes the debut album from Glue dislodges the consciousness. Two side long tracks titled "Imagined Enemy" and "Dubbing", both sonic flowing lava.

The first side, a forest of metal trees withstanding thousand mile per hour planetary winds. They bend and wail, some topple in unbelievable slow motion. For so much energy, "Imagined Enemy" seems stoically tranquil. The force of the wind against the sturdiness of metal balancing each other over the millennia it took to create. A sonic wonder in full tilt.

The high energy beam cutting through your ears is the power wielded on "Dubbing". These sounds are like a laser torch, a steady cycling of power fluctuation plays as a lonely rhythm. This is full force feedback and sound bending prowess. Definitely not for anyone with per-existing conditions..... or maybe this is just what will fix it?

This is ZEN001, the first release from the label Zazen Tapes from Buffalo, New York. Not sure…

The century old clock tower rises above buildings and trees. A face with a slowly spinning mustache continually looking into the distance. The town's people gather in the park below, friendly interactions, relaxing quite moments are all part of the days making years, then decades. Entire lives have had the reassurance the presence this structure provides. Hourly chimes are the aural reminder, the accepted warmth, inner workings bestowing aural certainty and piece of mind. A few have seen the inside, giant gears and weights, wires and cords, spindles running through wheels, thick steel bells waiting to sound. LIFE EDUCATION knows this machinery. LIFE EDUCATION is the caretaker and the winding energy.

Gemütlichkeit is a German word for warmth, friendliness and good spirits or at least that is the closest definition we can give it in English. Why the clock tower analogy? After listening to Gemütlichkeit many times, a mechanical feeling seemed to ensue. Like being inside the tower g…

Sounds emanating from artwork is a frontier left for creative interpretation and skilled means of channeling. The artists who make up the project Pet The Tiger are the select crew you would want on this en devour. Surely Brian Lucas, the artists who created all of these drawings, felt at ease when the creation of this "soundtrack" was discussed.

Gaze Emanations has no boundaries, but this does not mean these sonic craftings are scattered or chaotic. Looking at the artwork created by Brian Lucas, there is a format and method that bonds all of the drawings together. The project Pet The Tiger was thoughtful with each selection. With eight musicians working together to portray in sound one artist's renderings, there is a sense of concise appreciation for the entire process. Of the group, three artists are highly adept at creating there own instruments. Two musicians specializing in percussion, one with saxophones, one with trumpet and electronics and the last with the incred…

Cosmic Winnetou's newest selection of three cassettes, just went live on bandcamp. If everything holds, May 5th is the current ship date. So, do not have these tapes here for pictures and descriptions. Will get to them when they arrive. Wanted to make note, this is an all sublime and tranquil ambient batch. Not many in each edition, 70, 50 & 50. They are going to sell sell out by the time they are properly gone through at Lost in a Sea of Sound.

 The Sixteenth Batch
cw48: tristan magnetique - 2 (c32 & c36) Edition of 70 cw49: pjs - precipice (c62) Edition of 50cw50: oberlin - grauer morgen, ungewisse bilder (c40) Edition of 50 They can also be ordered straight from Cosmic Winnetou

Here are Cosmic Winnetou pictures and embedded bandcamp players.


Tristan Magnetique - 2 
2 (cw48) by tristan magnetique
PJS - Precipice
precipice (cw49) by pjs
Oberlin - Grauer Morgen, Ungewisse Bilder
grauer morgen, ungewisse bilder (cw50) by oberlin Links
Cosmic Winnetou site - bandcamp - soundcloud

Scattered rhythms, like a bag of bearings splitting open above an old wooden floor. The downward spray producing one note drops by the feet, skittering sounds falling into cracks and recesses, loud bounces with unimaginable directions and unexplained sounds of complete disintegration as the impact occurs. The Realisation That Someone Has Been Stood Behind You Your Entire Life is like that broken pouch. Everything nestled together in perfect order, like water molecules stacking to make a lake or sea. Then a tear, or the fear of noticing someone behind you, this new spontaneous moment causing a rush of minor chaos. Sounds spilling forth, what once were controlled rhythm and harmony, now separated from the compositions they once were.

Coims holds an aural divining rod, continually droning with slight variations as new veins of sounds are discovered. The first track "Londos versus Londos" is a very good example of this, with mesmerizing tones until the final note. "Elon Job…

The silhouette of a shaman shaking a medicinal rattle, bass and drums vibrate with each footstep in the spiritual dance. Celestial sounds of a star filled sky enveloping the fireside ritual. Wind chimes hanging on huts stir as a breeze blows through the strands of digital notes. Where is this place? An anomaly of existence, both tribal and advanced technology pushing against each other, coalescing in the deep thoughts we all hold. The world is an amplifier for noise playing to the metronome of time. From molten flow deep within to meteorites pinging off the mesosphere, AAM explores all reaches of these sounds with mysterious felicity.

African Ghost Valley circles the earth, rarely landing with a label more than once. With around twenty five release in five years, on as many labels, this duo from Canada and Europe explores the core of sonic densities. AAM follows suite with this short and forceful upheaval of drone, harmony and other worldly noise. The first side holds three of the fiv…

Everything existing in an undisturbed state. Energy moving with silent and unseen power beneath the outward stratum. This process has endured longer than what makes sense to rationalize. With lives only reaching one hundred years, tens of thousands of years is an incomprehensible length. And in this duration, the ever present aural current drones on with the most sublime characteristics. A sonic heritage reaching back to the fabric of creation. Then, the slightest disturbance occurs, a graceful drop of rain, the most gentle breeze, a ray of sun emanating through crisp blue sky. "Unfolded Along The River" captures and shares this moment with us. The softest flurry above the flow, a brief euphoria of discernible beauty.

Oxherding has crossed paths with Lost in a Sea of Sound four times. Each composition is an extension of the last, all connecting in a spiritual surge of increasing vibrations. The first release described on LIASOS is titled "The Past Is Gone and The Future…