Browsing Tag

ambient darkwave

VAN ELST – OU ES-TU: Confessionally Resonant Dark Dream Pop

After joining Peter Murphy on his 40th-anniversary tour with his previous band, Desert Mountain Tribe, the Dutch producer, songwriter and drummer VAN ELST focused on crafting dreamy, dark feats of electro, which allow the emotion to outweigh the sum of the sonic parts.

The hooky yet ethereal vocal layers in his single, OU ES-TU, draw you into the monochromatic tones with the grip of quicksand as you sink into the raw confessional lyricism. The ability to expose the most wounded parts of the soul and do it in stylistically reticent form is the mark of a true artist.

As someone who discovered Desert Mountain Tribe on that Peter Murphy tour and was transfixed by the psychedelic cadence of the rhythms, I can’t tell you how stoked I am to see VAN ELST coming into his synth-carved melancholic own.

OU ES-TU will officially release on July 22nd. Check it out for yourselves via SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Spacecadet Lullabies’ haunting, cross-generational family ‘Heirloom’

Following the death of his parents, Melbourne-based musician, composer, and producer Matt Lewin started the always-difficult task of sorting through possessions; one such item was an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, containing the outlines of 28 previously unheard compositions for voice and piano, made by his grandfather in the late 1960’s. Lewin took these sketches, interpreting them through his own unique compositional trope, avoiding using his father’s voice or reinterpreting the original compositions, adding instead an ambient, minimalist soundscape around the original recordings to create a unique father-and-son collaboration which reaches across the years.

What we’re left with is a hauntingly beautiful, peaceful-yet-uplifting collection of mellow, downtempo electronica, a deeply original, personal musical conversation which feels both timeless and remarkably contemporary. Lewin’s sympathetic approach allows space for the original compositions to breathe and grow, whilst adding up-to-date touches with synthesised and sequenced instrumentals evoking feelings of peace, tranquillity, hope, and solace.

Lewin’s album, ‘The Map Maker’, is released on March 18th; you can hear ‘Heirloom’ via BandCamp, and check out Spacecadet Lullabies here.

Review by Alex Holmes