James Plotkin & Mark Spybey - A peripheral blur (1998)

It must have been a weird day in New York, back in 1996. Two men improvised an unprepared soundscape in front of a festival audience at the Brooklyn bridge anchorage. Their performance turned out succesful and it sparked their interest to collaborate further with a recording project.

To recreate the conditions of their shared performance, Mark Spybey sent tapes containing first-take improvisations of vocals, ethnic stringed instruments and various toy sounds to James Plotkin, who then laid out multiple layers of his manipulated guitar sound into the mix.

Although the source sounds are rendered beyond recognition, the end result is a very fluid and minimal ambient album. Totally void of beats, the album progresses through the use of simple looped melodies surrounded with gentle washes of noise and drones.

It's always a joy when artists manage to complement each other. Not only on an audial level, but on their artform and aesthetic as a whole. Not too many albums manage to pull off the feeling of fluffy warmth and calmness where you can get sucked into, with an indescribable sense of dread and danger looming in the sonic textures, at the same time.

Five sound collages of headphone enjoyment dedicated to the insomniacs amongst us, especially the chosen few reloading the front page numerous times a day. Hope you enjoy!

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(95+20MB/320CBR)

Flux - Protoplasmic (1997)

My first encounter with Flux was through a good friend of mine. The man had introduced me to bands like Dead World, Incantation and Exit-13 a few years before, and still had quite an appetite for anything related to Relapse Records.

As I had a knack for "weird shit", as he called it, he kindly went for a few extra records from the Release sub-label whenever he was putting in an order. When he acquired Protoplasmic, and I heard of the involvement of James Plotkin and Mick Harris doing the production job, I once again, like many times before, volunteered to trade the extra baggage off of him. And it paid off.

Protoplasmic utilizes many of the same elements already present on The joy of disease. Catchy guitar loops and overdubs, experimental rhythm patterns, various electronic sounds and Ruth Collins's almost narrative spoken word. Additional sung parts by both Collins and Plotkin are treated with effects and layered into various tracks on the album.

If The joy of disease had a more darker and gloomier feel, the overall vibe on Protoplasmic is much groovier and almost upbeat at times. Although much of the hypnotic ambience is achieved through repetition, the album does not feel stagnant and dull at all. Once you get your head nodding to the groove, the 55 minutes are gone long before you know it.

As much as I hate categorization and labeling, I'm still going to throw the word "progressive ambient pop" out there. Besides using the "experimental"-tag to excess, it's pretty much the only thing I can come up with to describe Flux. Fluffy and warm experimental music for the long summer evenings.

Hope you enjoy!

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(95+27MB/320CBR)

James Plotkin - The joy of disease (1996)

The annual Midsummer's festival is up during the weekend. The Finnish people have a funny way of leaving their urban environment behind once a year, because Juhannus "can only be celebrated and experienced correctly at the countryside". Popular activities include lighting bonfires and consuming dubious amounts of alcohol. When you combine The Land of the Thousand Lakes with heavy drinking you end up with another highly popular activity: people drowning in those said lakes.

"So what's that got to do with anything?" I call bullshit on this highly popular holiday. I am staying at home. For once, Helsinki and it's surroundings are almost deserted. Time to dedicate my time to those good things in life.

If you've sampled any of the previous Plotkin-related releases I've shared, you've perhaps become somewhat acquainted with his guitar playing and sound deconstruction. Combining forces with Plotkin are Franz Treichler of The Young Gods and Mick Harris, providing additional samples and "atmospheres", with Ruth Collins contributing her ethereal voice in sung and spoken form.

It's hard to file this album under one particular genre, as it features such a broad spectrum of influences and different soundscapes.

Starting with the cold mechanized beats and heavy riffs of Casual murder, transforming into an almost cheerful vibe halfway through the track, which somehow reminds me of The love of life-era Swans, and ending with the looped guitar strumming and the menacing calmness of Disease as a child. This album has it all. Scattered throughout the nine songs is everything from trippy guitar loops, feedback manipulations, subtle drones and looped beats to dark ambience in the vein of Lull.

It all comes down to a form of escapism, really. I like to imagine myself and a few friends on a silent beach with the album playing in the background. Zoning out to this psychedelic and colorful album is a much better alternative than taking that final plunge into a dirty pond.

Hope you enjoy!

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(95+39MB/320CBR)

Trifid Project - Trifid Project (2001)

Perhaps it's time to share some summer vibes, with the weather outside being so nice and today being the first of June. James Plotkin teams up with a few french fellows, namely Matthieu Maire of Celluloïd Mata, Sheila Mata and Marie & Yves Daubert.

The result is a catchy 22-minute disc of fluffy avantgarde electronica. Floating ambient soundscapes, crunchy beats, bleeps and bloops, unprocessed guitar strumming and female vocalisations.

Although I'm no expert on this kind of electronic experimentation, and I originally grabbed the release solely because of Plotkin, I found myself listening to this repeatedly. Especially the "spending the day at the beach, feeling the sand between your toes"-vibe had me smiling. Il fait du soleil. Ethereal, atmospheric and uplifting stuff.

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(49MB/320CBR)

James Plotkin - A strange, perplexing (1996)

Strange and perplexing, indeed.

Here's a collection of Plotkin's earlier ambient works, spanning from 1993 up to 1996. According to the linear notes, the only source sound used on this album is the guitar. The source material is manipulated beyond recognition, apart from a few plucked and strummed guitar melodies, present here and there, throughout the album.

This is another one of those great "room-filling" ambient records. Although the album is void of beats, there is no need for rhythm when Plotkin is at the helm. He is in total control of his processed sounds, at times harsh, other times mellow and fluffy.

The resulting album is a minimalist, at times almost meditative, journey into experimental guitar work. I am willing to bet, that when playing the fourth track, The wrong context, at high volume levels, I'm able to stop my neighbours pacemaker in it's tracks. Truely strange and perplexing, isn't it?

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(95+37MB/320CBR)

James Plotkin & Mick Harris - Collapse (1996)

Amidst all these releases with angry shouting men, it's always good to return to some isolationist ambient. On Collapse James Plotkin teams up with Mick Harris to perform an album full of beatless, ambient landscapes.

The album consists of five long instrumental pieces, which are put together with guitar loops and a ton of processed (un)natural sounds. Imagine the cold, dystopian soundscapes of Lull blended together with Plotkin's floating noisy guitar loops.

Let's summarize: Two prolific musicians combine their views on ambient music. The result is a massive cloud of sound, filled with abrasive low end rumble, heavy drones washing over the listener with some, occasional, melodic guitar plucking going on in the background. Ambient? Yes. Soothing? No. Enjoyable? Very.

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(95+51MB/320CBR)

Khlyst - Chaos is my name (2006)

So, you got acquainted with Runhild Gammelsæter and her bestial vocals in my previous post. Coming at us full speed again, she teams up with James Plotkin and Tim Wyskida of Khanate fame, to bring us something completely different. Trust me on this one, this is unlike anything you've heard before. There's a warm Khanatean vibe on the whole album, combining free jazz improvisations, feedback-drenched doom metal and buzzing ambient sounds. This is definetly an acquired taste, but I'd still recommend this for anybody willing to broaden their musical horizons. Album info here.

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(63MB/VBR)