REVIEWS reviews...... sounds...... pictures...... words...... links...... info from The Ambient Mailing List <ambient@hyperreal.org> posted by Joshua Maremont/Thermal   The Foundry (whose M frequents this list) has three wonderful CDs out. eM <Djinn> is based on electromagnetic fields and their various effects on musical devices; the sound is at times noisy and at times quiet, and I am reminded of the beatless drones of early Aphex Twin and Sakho as well as the density of Maeror Tri. <Eclectronica> appears to be a compilation of various projects, and this one is more melodic and synthetic, with a mood of melancholy suffusing many of the tracks, and a thematic approach to sonic incidents reminiscent of quieter In The Nursery. The Apiary <Descent> is my favorite of the three, presenting an organic array of acoustic and electronic instruments in a naturalistic expanse of delicate processing, calling to mind the fragile soundscapes of Ora and Alio Die. But these comparisons are only vague points of triangulation for this intriguing and personal music. (Bonus points for ecologically and dimensionally sound packaging in cardboard sleeves!) These I got from The Foundry. posted separately Rhomb <Hidden Topographies> (Foundry) - Another list member surprises me with a rather dramatic change in style from previous issues, this album fitting nicely into the realm of deep space electronic ambience inhabited by Aerial Service Area (#2) and Anthony Manning (IIPP), its little noises and quirky melodies providing an engaging vacation from gravity and inviting many listenings. posted separately Mote - M. Bentley has focused upon specific sound palettes and technological means of their generation on recent releases on his label The Foundry, but with "Mote" we sense a much wider territory is open for exploration. The album itself is credited to the label, with the main contributors being eM and Rhomb, whose recent releases chart two of the stylistic poles of this album: the digital machine cubism of eM and the zero-Kelvin deep space ambience of Rhomb. At the equator, meanwhile is the moody melodic dreamscape of The Apiary, another Foundry project, with a new electroacoustic dimension added by the violin of Susan Worland. The resulting sonic world is expansive, at times cosmic, at others subaquatic, processing its influences - from the Kosmische schools of Berlin and Koln, the desert music of the American Southwest, the bedroom four-trackers of the UK, and the Powerbook processors of Vienna - to terraform a fertile and personal landscape. This is not the music the machines make, and the machines found submerged in the tidepools of "Mote" chatter assembly language in the larger chorus of organic voices. Altogether, a varied and emotionally complex voyage through several ambient worlds of electronic sound. posted separately Motor Sessions - eM diverges obliquely from his digimusic, leaving the land of the crackling hard drive for the clotted superhighways of autoculture and the tangled patch-cords of antique synthesis, and offering the pulsating discourse upon the "Motor." Packed in a box with maps, photos, quotations, and even multiple variations of the same tracksheet, "Motor" is a game with no pieces, a spinning vinyl analog of the rotating tires and camshafts it conjures. Yet despite an almost Ballardian bibliography, it is the warm vitality of humanized technology which bubbles out of these grooves, rather than the cold grind of passionless components one might expect. Have you considered: perhaps your car understands your jokes but does not laugh?