Austere

Artist: Austere
P: 2007
"This release from 2006 offers 53 minutes of extreme minimalism. Ephemeral tonalities gather, thickening the air with the illusion of density. In actuality, the ambience is extreme and understated. Misty pulsations surround the listener, wafting delicately along the auditory canals. The intent is sedation, but not the somnambulant kind. This music is encoded with alpha waves along with subtle bi-aural panning, producing a mood of relaxed concentration intended to facilitate creative activity in the brain. The structure seems unchanging, but auxiliary textures sneak in over time, craftily altering the flow. Deeper tones rise to slowly overwhelm the nucleus drone, only to be supplanted by other rarefied tones. The illusion of immobility is quite deceptive. Comprising a single long track, this music possesses a loving dedication to undisturbed serenity. The stimulation achieved by this tuneage could well go unnoticed unless the audience engages in cognition."
--Reviewed by Matt Howarth, Sonic Curiosity

Artist: Austere
P: 2008
This is a creative peak for this much-overlooked ambient duo, their first release on Hypnos, following their Hypnos Secret Sounds album Pulse in 2007. In their 10 years of productivity, Austere has covered territory from Pulse's drone minimalism , ranging back through odd and trippy Coil-inspired sonic experimentation, to seamless dark ambient, and occasionally glitchy weirdness. Despite some challenging material in their back catalog, Austere have in this case produced an album as friendly and pleasant as any Austere fan could have imagined possible, and yet without resorting to the usual tricks that make music sound "listenable."

Artist: Various Artists
P: 2008
Message from a Subatomic World excels at doing what the label does best with their compilations – introducing listeners to a variety of new and established artists in a cohesive album. Austere's "Crystil" is first, and it is a cool ten minute journey into a variety of ambient sounds. At first the music is almost imperceptibly quiet, but soon the soft drones are joined by beautiful wordless vocals that border on operatic in feel. Piano adds to the regal nature that briefly takes over before becoming soft drifting ambience again. Barely intelligible male vocals come later in forceful whispers.
Evan Bartholomew's "Sacrosanct" is next, and it does have a touch of the sacred about it – ambient church music perhaps. Bleeps and blips in "Distant Radiance" by Relapxych.0 are juxtaposed against glassy smoothness. Numina follows with "Nadir Ever Spirals," which swirls about in equal parts lightness and darkness. The entire disc, and this track in particular, has a very relaxed meditative quality. Jason Sloan paints a sonic picture of dark restlessness in "faded.forgotten[trace]." It is eerie and beautiful at the same time, whereas Phaenon's "Quantum Silence" dives down into the depths. Ironically, Stephen Philips "Down Deep" brings us out of the darkness with a comparatively light airy floater. Pure drones fans have to check out Eric Kesner, aka True Colour of Blood. His "Choosing To Remain Blind" is composed entirely on guitar, though its warm ambient tones scarcely resemble one.
Svartsinn creates a review for me with the perfectly titled "Cold But Strong."
The disc closes with one of the best known names in ambient music, Italy's Oöphoi. Also aptly named, "Icelight" could have formed a bookend with Svartsinn called "Cold But Bright" instead. With not a bad track to be found, this is an essential addition to any true ambient fan's music collection.

Phil Derby / Electroambient Space