Owl Island

Hunter P. Thompson leaves his acid/ambient house project Akasha System 

continue to rest and will release his 2nd album as Tegu in 2024.

“Forest Hills” brought sunshine to my personal start to the year.

I would have been only too happy to accompany the tour for the album (together with Wave Temples and others).

But travel expenses and time were disproportionate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT9f_EAB_WU

So now “Owl Island” and with colleagues I admire like Wave Temples and X.Y.R. Hunter P.Thompson brings the smile back to my face, and the lack of sun and temperatures just above 0 degrees suddenly don't matter anymore.

The tracks move between meditative sequences and expectant moments, always permeated by a slightly mystical, mysterious aura. The combination of organic and electronic elements creates a unique atmosphere that is both calming and captivating.

„The second outing by Hunter Thompson’s tribalist dub alias Tegu skews more spectral and simmering, a canopy of cascading keys, hand percussion, and swells of everglades bass: Owl Island. Recorded in early 2024 on the banks of a Floridian canal, the album’s 11 tracks roll in like shifting fog over an ancient marsh, swaying with low end and loops of humid synths.

Across 53 minutes, the music moves between séance and visitation, alternately transient and expectant, bathed in a sheen of starlight and streetlights. Fellow voyagers Wave Temples and X.Y.R. join for a pair of smoky, cosmic cameos, but otherwise this is a solitary affair – locked in, looking up, mapping new constellations in the expanding void.“

• Not Not Fun -

„Tegu, the tribalist dub alias of Hunter Thompson, has released his second album, Owl Island, under the label Not Not Fun. The album, recorded in early 2024 along the banks of a Floridian canal, contains 11 tracks with a total duration of 53 minutes. The music on the album is characterized by layered keyboard patterns, rhythmic hand percussion, and deep bass tones that create an atmosphere reminiscent of the Everglades. The sound is described as both spectral and environmental, evoking a sense of immersion in a natural, yet otherworldly setting.

The album includes contributions from Wave Temples and X.Y.R., who appear on the tracks “2×12” and “2×11,” respectively. Despite these collaborations, the album largely remains a solo endeavor, exploring themes of solitude and introspection. The music transitions between various moods, from séance-like environments to more tense and anticipatory moments, all enveloped in a mix of natural and artificial light.

• retrofuturista -

Café a la Cardamome

 

In times like these, ambient music is never a bad idea about hatred, hecticness 

and racing hearts not to let it come into play in the first place.

Ambient music is actually always a musical companion in my life,

And the term is also flexible. But that's probably something like a pill box for on the go. 

Just much healthier.

Atlantea Records are Tom Lievens and Anthony Asher Yates.

Both of them have been making my world a better world with their projects Atmosphere and Balsam for years. The fact that Vladimir Karpov (or Xram Yedinennogo Razmuwlenuja, based on a novella by Nikolai Gogol published in 1842), who I also admire very much and is busy, recently became a member of the Atlantea Family makes sense and was perhaps even overdue. 

A release with track names like “Café a la Cardamome”, “Blue Lagoon”, or “Coconut Pickers”  

is very likeable and interesting per se. A Volume 1 in the title name also suggests a subsequent release. The album is full of X.Y.R. References from previous releases,

Compiled here from a different, but not entirely new, perspective.

Fruity Loops. Sit back and enjoy.

„such a beautiful album from the very first notes. very well crafted with a lot of details and with big care to the every sound. you may think that this album is already exist in your memory because a lot of sounds you already listened possibly every day and it works pretty well, because your brain thinks that it's just another day in your life and when it's over then you press repeat because the day was great „

• Go4awalk Music -

Music by Xram Yedinennogo Razmuwlenuja 

Audio mastering by Tom Lievens 

Cover artwork by Anthony Asher-Yates

Polaris

 

America has done it again: Trump has been elected for the second time.

It has to mean something. But:

I have no words.

Luciano Ermondi and Paolo Mazzacani, perhaps better known to some through their 

Balearic albums with Gigi Masin as Tempelhof, released after two releases on 

A strangely isolated Place, a few days ago their new album as One Million Eyes 

on the Oakland-based Constellation Tatsu.

Just beautiful music.

From America. 

If you will.

„One Million Eyes, previously known as Templehof, return with a new album of balearic ambient, previously heard on two excellent releases for A Strangely Isolated Place. This time appearing on legendary cassette label Constellation Tatsu as part of their fall combo, anyone familiar with their previous work will know what to expect. Dreamy, sun hazed analogue synth lines mix with deep fourth world soundscapes that wouldn't sound out of place on 90s labels such as Pete Namlook's Fax or Instinct Ambient. The first half of Signal begins slowly, eyes wide shut, with 'Nickel', a slow pulsating jam of chilled out psychedelia. 'Marea' blends organic instrumentation with distant, processed voices. 'Koala', the deepest cut on the album, leads to a mood shift in 'Opalescent' that will sound eerily familiar to any Gaussian Curve fans. 'Polaris', 'Solstice' and highlight 'Landscape' close out the album in style. For fans of anyone from Music From Memory, Jonathan Fitoussi & Ishq, there are few better ways to relive your memories of later summer.“

Juno records -

„Hot on the heels of their acclaimed second album, Iris, One Million Eyes unveil their latest work, Polaris. This new album is a rich tapestry of analog and instrumental elements, creating a vibrant and dynamic experience. 

Formerly known as Tempelhof (where they collaborated with artists like Gigi Masin), Luciano Ermondi and Paolo Mazzacani created One Million Eyes upon the realizing they needed a new creative outlet to rekindle their passion for making music. This new project allowed them to approach their instruments and influences untethered to the body of work and inhibitions of their past. What results is a shimmering, energetic current of organic instrumentation and analog synthesizers that carries us on a meditative journey through interior landscapes.“

Release Info 

Coconut Dealers

 

The Coconut Dealers, if we want to believe the release info, and why shouldn't we? -

only steered their ship through tropical waters for 1 - 2 years. That was more than 10 years ago. 

The crew probably only consisted of Konstantin Shkolnikov. Shkolnikov, as captain, boatsmate and cook all rolled into one, followed the same route that Dolphins into the Future, Wave Temples and other adventurers had already taken.

Afterwards, his trail is lost in the vastness of the sea, in the jungle of an unspecified island or just a faceless satellite city of the Russian Federation.

Whatever he left behind, and however it ended up in Not Not Fun's Britt Brown's hands, here comes almost 2 hours of oceanic bliss, 2 hours of support to bring back the memories of your last seaside vacation to refresh.

„Exquisitely woozy ambient wow and flutter from Russian Federation rogue naturalist Konstantin Shkolnikov, landing square between the distant gazes of Spencer Clark, Huerco S. and 1991.

Hard to resist, the pull of warmer climes and better days is most beautifully at the core of Coconut Dealers’ gently hallucinatory recordings here. Made sometime around 2011, and issued at the time as digital releases which totally escaped most radars, you can trust the ever reliable NNF to bide their time perfectly with this comprehensive survey and reminder of the project, spanning nearly 2 hours of breezy tropical transportation that will surely do in lieu of holidays for us.

There’s no shortage of this style in circulation, but the amount that’s worth your time is small. ‘Coconut Dealers’ is most certainly worth the dive though, turning an array of found research recordings gifted to the artists by an oceanographer friend, into a lush sort of ethnographic collage where rolling surf laps sloshing keys, waterfall sounds, and flanging tape hiss resembling far away jet planes.

Perhaps unavoidably comparisons should be made with Spencer Clark’s myriad “ethnographic” aliases, but also 1991 cult ‘High-Tech High-Life’ album, which shares much of the Coconut Dealers’ melodic wistfulness and washed out tape textures, just like Huerco S. when he vapourises the beats. Treat your ears to a few hours in the sun, no factor 50 needed.“

Boomkat 

„Russian Federation rogue naturalist Konstantin Shkolnikov launched Coconut Dealers in 2011 after being gifted an extensive vault of research recordings by an oceanographer friend. Inspired by their beauty and blankness, he began shaping them into ethnographic collages of rolling surf, sundazed keys, hand drums, tropical waterfalls, and tape hiss, “like notes in the diary of some traveler,” compelled by a compositional muse he describes as “pure visionary.” 

After three self-released digital collections the project ceased activities in 2012. Totaling nearly two hours, this remastered box set presents the entirety of the Coconut Dealers soundsphere, spanning all manner of aquatic and equatorial hallucination: “sunny archipelagos, woeful lagoons in the night, sleepy sand bays of restless waters with no horizon.” This is music of the mind's eye, adrift and ascendent, divined from and for the infinite seas within.“

NNF Release Info on Bandcamp