ZAMBIENT
TOWA TEI
[review-body]
ZAMBIENT is not going to be an album for everyone. but it can also be the right album for the right people. it would even be fair for many to bounce off the project. but for those who stick around, they might just find something a bit rewarding. ZAMBIENT is an electronic configuration of robotic and lifeless sounds that, on surface level, should be just that, a cold and sterile ambient, almost Ai-like, production. yet beneath the initial veneer is a beating heart. sure the album is a collection of disparate noises and sound effects, but it never doesn’t show it’s hand. in the same vein Imeruat’s Black Ocean or even David Lanze and Paul Speer’s “Behind the Waterfall” (EPCOT anyone?) the album feels like a science experiment come to life. a whole factory in fact. but this factory is very intentionally filled with sun, life and the echoes of humanity.
i think it a fair reaction to initially bounce off the album. especially to those new to this very specific branch of the ambient genre (or the genre in general). however, it feels like a sign of proper direction that the album also becomes easily acceptable. and through this acceptance, a certain appreciation and joy can be felt. it reminds me of those 90s based live-future slash humanity fusion visions that led so much of the Y2K branch of hope for the future of humanity in marriage with the advent of technology and the internet. the sheen of green futurism is at full display in this album. bizarre retro-futurism sound samples are let loose in this project over the barest thread of music. for anyone who grew up in the world of 90s Disney’s EPCOT or even watching all the ludicrous low-poly 3D games, shows and infotainment that came form the era might feel right at home. and even if this era might be before your time, there is still something so pure and singular about the experience. it strikes a particular vein of an era past, an era once promised. so unlike the world today.
just check out “MOSAIC” for an instant kickback of yester-nostalgia. the song has a sort of Rube Goldberg-machine like mechanical actuality. like each piece of the song is only a reaction giving action to another reaction, a calculated circus of kinetic events. in the established chaos of beeps and shoots is an underlying formula. a formula guided by hand and intention.
i think the album starts off more abrasively than it might intend. coming back to my first feeling was a simple eye-roll. oh lord, here’s another avant-garde art piece that has everything to say and nothing at all. my favorite kind. not. yet even by the end of song one i was finding the groove of the work. the album exists in a cold and calculated world, but breaks out through a clear guiding hand. the result is a surprisingly fun album. and an album that can exist as both background noise to progress a day’s work, or just for simple enjoyment. the guided randomness reminds me a lot of Imeruat’s Black Ocean. an album which excels in combining the fluidity and ungainliness of humanity with the preciseness of computer technology.
“PERSIMMON & KOMATSUNA KIMCHI” is another great entry. it has some ridiculous sloops over the piano like synth chords. the overall loop is almost comical, but stays thoroughly enjoyable in it’s predictability. the song may have a wild collection of stock 90s PC sound effects, but it also uses them deftly. it turns out, no matter the instrument, it just takes a competent composer to make a song.
TOWA TEI pulls off something surprisingly approachable and replayable. it may take the listener a few minutes to acclimate but the result is actually a somewhat cozy and very listenable album. the ambient genre sings best when left to its own devices to unravel and ravel again in the background. the best versions of this are able to make this loop just as compelling to actively listen. ZAMBIENT won’t blow your mind, and you may not even like it at first, but given just a handful of time, you might just find the kind of humanity you wish the outside world should have. the exterior is a bunch of retro style computer based tones and samples, but beneath the surface is a compelling essay of the world we were promised. the same way your Nintendo Wii or the Playstation 2 chime on startup, or the personal touches and sounds that existed in Windows 98, or the enchanting form factors of goofy retro electronics like the colorful Macintosh, the future was once promised to be an exciting time. not these black monoliths we carry in our pockets or the ultra-streamlined cost-precise capitalist world we live in today. the world of technology used to feel exciting, unbound, an extension of us. ZAMBIENT taps into this long lost promise. each piece may be a digital machine, but there is a soul beneath it all, a harmony between technology and humanity. even if just for a bit, it feels quite nice to remember why we’ve come all this way in the first place.
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Highlights
ALA & MOANA
DAPPLED SUN
MOSAIC
PERSIMMON & KOMATSUNA KIMCHI
THE PEARL & OYSTER
Tracklist
TOUCH
NOTHING ELSE 2
HEY!
THE SOURCE
ALA & MOANA
DAPPLED SUN
GANG AVOCADO TEAM
MOSAIC
PERSIMMON & KOMATSUNA KIMCHI
KATABUI
DEW MARIMBA TOUR
THE PEARL & OYSTER
