Title: Neely
Artist: Bengalfuel
Label: Resting Bell
Cat No: RB110
Release Date: July 30th, 2012
Release Page: Resting Bell
I have mostly been reviewing new or current releases on The CerebralRift for the last few months. But sometimes there are works that you missed that have been out for a while. Neely by Bengalfuel is one of those releases.
Bengalfuel is Lou DiBenedetto and Joe LiTrenta, They have been recording together since 2009, and have had releases on at least five different netlabels.
This release sees the duo exploring the depths of ambient sounds with panoramic sweeping drones underpinned by jungle and electronic rhythm tracks.
The shifting expansiveness of the drones and shifting keyboard sweeps are driven forward into territories beyond the field of the listeners perception: sometimes into dark domains and sometimes into peaceful domains. And yet, even with these twists and turns the listener is always embraced by the sound, and never suffocated.
This is a form of abstract expressionism that allows the mind to wander, to explore inner thoughts and concepts. Yet it doesn’t take one too far out of themselves or leave them feeling isolated. It’s like taking a hallucinogenic without the physical or psychological damage that drugs can cause.
This is a recording best experienced with the sensory deprivation that headphones can lend to the experience. So, immerse yourself in the deep, dark, twisty passages of Neely. You are likely to learn something about yourself and your mind in the process.
I usually feel don’t having the time for ambient/drone. I do however enjoy most of Resting Bell’s releases.
Saito Koji is worth checking out too.
Well written review!
Thanks.
Well, the ideas behind ambient and drone styles are interesting. More interesting is how the ideas have expended to include more experimental and micro/macro tonality noise works as a backlash to New Age and avant garde… IMO, there’s a lot more interesting stuff going on in ambient and drone styles. Eventually, the interesting things from ambient / drone works find their way into the mainstream styles, where they are killed. (Like in the bubstep style.)
But, everyone has different ears! 🙂
” Eventually, the interesting things from ambient / drone works find their way into the mainstream”
have difficulties to imagine that. Which aspects could that be, given that the average attention span for mainstream music is 3 minutes/2 refrains or less?
Ambient and specially drone is about time, and perhaps set and setting, I feel?
Any examples yet?
Honestly curious..
Well, the obvious current example is Dubstep. The “wub-wub” sound is based on taking a sample of a sound or song and time-stretching to the point where it’s unrecognizable as the original piece, and then running it through additional effects processing. The same idea has been explored by drone artists, stretching sounds to the point of them being unrecognizable as the original sound, although typically they didn’t do the same kind of effects processing on the sounds.
A lot of the ambient production / engineering concepts in terms of layering sounds, setting sound-scopes, etc. have affected most popular music pretty dramatically.
There’s tons more examples…