If you're old-fashioned enough to hear Brock Van Wey's mammoth debut on CD, take a look behind the tray. There you'll find a quotation from one Wang Wei (701-761):

Dismounting, I offer you wine. And you ask, "Where are you bound?" You say, "I've found no fame or favors; I must return to rest in the South Mountain." You leave, and I ask no more -

If you're old-fashioned enough to hear Brock Van Wey's mammoth debut on CD, take a look behind the tray. There you'll find a quotation from one Wang Wei (701-761):

Dismounting, I offer you wine. And you ask, "Where are you bound?" You say, "I've found no fame or favors; I must return to rest in the South Mountain." You leave, and I ask no more - White clouds drift on and on.

If you find that a bit much, you're in the wrong place; as Van Wey himself would tell you, his music is intensely personal, deeply emotional and unafraid of seeming too sentimental or pretentious to those unwilling to take it on its own terms. It's the kind of uncompromising approach that's led to fervent fans and alliances with like-minded labels, and now Van Wey becomes the first "outside" artist to release something on the storied and impeccable (and sometimes monomaniacal) Echospace label.

Aside from staking his claim as an unabashedly private and poignant artist, though, the above quotation points to the feelings contained by Van Wey's restless, roiling, profoundly beautiful ambient music. The tracklisting here might begin evoking regret, loss and isolation, but even then the compassionately seething mix of chords, voices and static and Van Wey's mastery of emotional tone makes White Clouds Drift On and On more comforting than alienating. In some ways this is the anti-Untrue; both Van Wey and Burial long for the way "the scene" used to be and want above all else to make personally resonant music. But where Burial evokes a precise variety of urban loss and ennui, Van Wey takes us out of the city and even out of ourselves; White Clouds Drift On and On could be the soundtrack to an endless freefall, the world's most gentle rollercoaster, restless sleep, a place where nothing ever hurts.

For the 77 minutes of the first disc, the listener is cast gloriously adrift, without many reference points. Saying that "A Chance to Start Over" is Eluvium mixed with Gas or that the opening "Too Little Too Late" could be a beatless, melted version of The Field played over a string arrangement only partially explains what they sound like, and doesn't at all sum up their beauty. On its own, Van Wey's work makes for one of the most striking, flawless and outright gorgeous ambient albums to come along in a while. As a result the second disc is almost a bridge too far; Echospace's Steve Hitchell (AKA Intrusion) loved Van Wey's work so much that he offers a full 79 minute dub techno take on White Clouds Drift On and On. The result confirms Van Wey's contention that what he does isn't dub in any sense. For fans of the label or of deep, luscious dub techno the "Intrusion Shape"s of the second disc are gravy, but crucially it sounds like nothing more than a really good Echospace album. That's nothing to sneeze at, but Van Wey's own work sounds like something else entirely.

4.5/5 -Resident Adviser (TOP 20 ALBUMS OF THE YEAR)

As Bvdub, Brock Van Wey pokes holes in the fabric between dub and ambient music. On his first release under his own name, White Clouds Drift On and On, he discards drums and bass entirely, producing his finest work yet in the process. The tracks are built from tapered, drenching loops of tone, massed in respiring pulses. The music beats, shivers, yawns open. The album's title, while almost comically generic, is apt: without drums, it's wonderfully unimpeded, like a huge pendulum slowly spending its energy. We would get that it's Van Wey's most personal work even if it weren't for song titles like "I Knew Happiness Once"-- the tracks are sensitively inhabited, with a human ache in every cascade.

Though Gas is Van Wey's most obvious forebearer, traces of modern minimal techno and dubstep echo in the distance. You can detect the Field on "A Gentle Hand to Hold", where an idyllic guitar loop slaloms lazily through voices as evanescent as soap bubbles, and Burial on "Too Little Too Late", with its gauzy clatter, and vocal information about rapture and pain. The album's emotional depth makes itself plain, but it has a conceptual dimension as well: It lies on a continuum of deconstruction. Dub itself is already an abstraction of something else; White Clouds is an abstraction of dub; and the bonus disc-- a series of interpretations by Stephen Hitchell, as Intrusion-- abstracts White Clouds. Hitchell breaks up Van Wey's glaciers into ice chunks floating on vast seas, sometimes gathering them back up with nets of percussion. The second disc also stretches the total play time to upwards of two and a half hours. This amplitude winds up being important.

White Clouds is immediately pleasurable for the opulence of its sounds. From the unhurriedly swooping strings of "Too Little Too Late" to the tinkling piano in an engulfing corona of drones on "A Chance to Start Over", Van Wey cultivates an unremitting sense of majesty and loneliness. But to praise ambient music for prettiness is like praising a house track because you can dance to it. Epic pace and scale are what push White Clouds over the border between pretty and awesome. The deliberate pace screws with your perception of time, and minutes melt away unnoticed. When "I Knew Happiness Once" finally begins to swirl around the drain, I'm always astonished that 16 minutes have elapsed. Van Wey lets his parts linger until they feel inert and permanent, only then introducing new elements-- often ecstatic voices, piercing what seemed an impenetrable wall of sound. He uses long forms not to antagonize or subdue, but to unleash a welter of happy-sad feeling. It's the most gracious, forthcoming ambient music I've heard this year. -PITCHFORK

Ahhh yes, the one so many of you have been waiting for. Brock Van Wey's productions have been gently lapping at the edge of the dub techno consciousness for the last couple of years with cherished releases on a host of premier outlets, including his own wonderful Quietus imprint. His dancefloor productions have appealed to heady listeners as much as the dancers, but it's those lush ambient compositions for Shoreless and Echospace that have set him apart from the rest of the crowd. Steve Hitchell found a soulmate in Brock's mindwashing style and paired his album of cloud-drift tones with a remix set of his own, adding extra instrumentation and rhythmic elements on a further disc of Intrusion remixes for this echospace release. Van Wey's disc of original tracks is designed for strictly horizontal listening, covering acres of ambient space with sighing strings, layered guitars and cotton coated synth pads in thrall to classic ambient electronica from the likes of Eno, Hans-Joakim Roedelius or Gas but with a forlorn spirit of its own making. Simplicity and subtlety are key here and Van Wey is master of both disciplines. Hitchell's efforts on the second disc remain faithful to Van Wey's vision, conjuring deeply hypnotic soundscapes with broad brushstrokes of ambience and reclined atmospherics, with the notable difference of pulsing waves of tidal bass and organic tape delay probing further into the ether. -Boomkat

With a faultless series of releases focused on ambient atmospheres and techno textures, Brock Van Wey — perhaps better known as Bvdub, has rapidly become an indispensable fixture of the deeper side of electronica. His latest long player is broken into two parts, with kindred spirit Intrusion offering interpretations of the six tracks in reverse order for the second part of the album. The album’s inspiration is hinted at in the liner notes which feature a poem by Chinese poet Wang Wei, the last line of which is adopted by Van Wey for the album title.

A serenely meditative collection of droning ambience, White Clouds Drift On and On makes studied detail of the repetitive fabric of woven pads, strings and silken noise. Van Wey’s floating compositions weigh in with a gossamer lightness despite an occasional mournful tenderness here and there. “I Knew Happiness Once” is a prime example of this, the yearning tones hint at some long ago emotional treasure buried by time, though the mood remains overall of hope rather than despair. On “A Gentle Hand To Hold” fragile guitar strings combine with angelic, breathy snatches of voices while vast, cascading pads rain down from the heavens. “A Chance To Start Over” takes these elements in reverse, the backwards guitars sucked up into an invisible vacuum, the strains of voices swallowed back into the mouths they came from as pulsing pianos key minute melodies. With the basis of White Clouds Drift On and On being comprised of broad sweeping pads and otherworldly, near religious sounding vocal phrases, these exploratory soundscapes would not sound out of place in a surreal nature documentary. In fact it is hard not to picture the equally wondrous and haunting images of Baraka while listening to this album.

Stephen Hitchell applies his Intrusion touch to the album, adding not only his own interpretation of the tracks but also some notably absent bottom end. The Intrusion “Shapes” are not the usual hallucinatory dub-influenced fare you’d expect from Hitchell; in keeping with the ambient nature of the album his versions are slow, ambling excursions into the deepest of atmospherics. Armed with just a kick drum, a light smattering of toms and some hats, Intrusion creates the same dreamy vibrations he is known for with his more uptempo releases on “A Gentle Hand To Hold,” though with the BPM here hovering around 70 here the amount of breathing space he creates is astounding. The dubbier side of Intrusion emerges on “A Chance To Start Again,” “Forever A Stranger” and “I Knew Happiness Once,” though these too remain purposefully sedentary. Van Wey and Hitchell each capture a masterful beauty in their respective parts on this album, one which is a modern ambient masterpiece and shows each producer in prime form. It will however be much easier to aurally digest by those who are content to lay back and gaze skyward while the two and a half hours of gentle undulating rhythms roll and wash over them. -Little White Earbuds

Album of the year mentions in The Wire, RA, XL8R, Pitchfork, Textura and many more... Classic!

written + produced by brock van wey. remixed and reshaped by intrusion, mastered in echospace by stephen hitchell.

It's been nearly 5 years since Brock's highly acclaimed "White Clouds Drift On And On" debuted on Echospace earning a plethora of critical acclaim including many coveted top albums of the year list from RA to The Wire. Brock returns in beautiful form with what he's said to us is his most personal and self defining moment in his fruitful musical

It's been nearly 5 years since Brock's highly acclaimed "White Clouds Drift On And On" debuted on Echospace earning a plethora of critical acclaim including many coveted top albums of the year list from RA to The Wire. Brock returns in beautiful form with what he's said to us is his most personal and self defining moment in his fruitful musical career. This album however strikes on a very different chord from the last, rather than find contentment in repeating himself he's sculpted a unique sound slightly out of focus from his previous work, a sound one could only say is like drifting in and out of consciousness. A place where early lsd experiments reveal third dimensions of the mind and evoke emotions so powerful they haunt you forever. Here we see Brock's true dedication to vision, maturity and growth, the reason why so many people have gravitated to his heart tugging productions. On, "Home' he paints a near 3 hour exploration so beautiful and hypnotic the listener feels as if only moments passed by, a second to forever. This is a welcome return to form in the one place Brock refers to as, "Home" here on Echospace. If Burial were to meet Eno in the studio of a BBC radio workshop session with Tape masters sent to Steve Roach for further deconstruction this might be the unique result, residing somewhere in the ether. Brock has truly blown us away yet again with another stunning masterpiece.

w + p by brock van wey. mastered and engineered by stephen hitchell in echospace.

There's been a world of hurt in regard to this album, the original masters recorded from 1996-2010 were submerged underwater due to the flood in our home studio where boxes of old reel's were never to be recovered again. Finally, years of restructure on live recordings and pain staking undulation in the restoration process have lead us to finally

There's been a world of hurt in regard to this album, the original masters recorded from 1996-2010 were submerged underwater due to the flood in our home studio where boxes of old reel's were never to be recovered again. Finally, years of restructure on live recordings and pain staking undulation in the restoration process have lead us to finally accomplish what so many expected wouldn't happen: an awakening of sagacious spirit: With that being said It's our distinct honor to present the sonic world of "dimensional space" the highly anticipated debut album from cv313. This album has taken a cosmic eclipse where two events collide for Unison. The culmination of this project lead to synergy, creative experience re-invented and re-imagined, flow of an astral vortex.

We're not sure why this was still listed in pre-order, must have been a glitch on the matrix. Here's all the bonus content culled from the recording sessions for Dimensional Space (1997-2010). Now available in all digital formats.

Thoughts & Reviews:

There are album delays, and then there are album delays. At three years, cv313's debut album Dimensional Space certainly qualifies as an inordinately long one. But the delay wasn't caused by some bureaucratic logjam; instead, the original masters, recorded between 1996 and 2010, were the victims of a flood in Steve Hitchell and Rod Modell's home studio, with some reels completely ruined and others able to be salvaged and painstakingly restored. A characteristically epic collection from the Echospace [Detroit] stable, Dimensional Space pairs an eighty-minute set of originals with a “Subtraktive” disc featuring cv313's own version plus variations by The Sight Below, Reference (Luke Hess and Brian Kage), King Midas Sound, bvdub (Brock Van Wey), and Hitchell and Modell under the Intrusion and Deepchord Presents Echospace monikers.

Dub-techno is the label that's sometimes assigned to the music Hitchell and Modell have released under a number of different aliases, but it's an imperfect term, even if a convenient signifier: as Dimensional Space repeatedly illustrates, their music refuses to be restricted by so simple a designation. If anything, it makes more sense to cast aside genre labels in favour of adjectives such as aquatic, enveloping, oceanic, reverberant, and vaporous, the accumulation of which allows the listener new to their soundworld to acquire some preliminary sense of its character. The material on the release is hardly techno as conventionally defined (if anything, cv313's understated swing has more in common with house), though it does share with dub a concern for multi-dimensional production design.

The eighty-minute opening disc features seven originals of varying mood, the shortest eight minutes and the longest sixteen. Some are rhythmically charged pieces, whereas others drift in a comparatively dream-like and laid-back manner (“Energies Collide,” “Evocation,” “Sella Bay”). Within “Luna Petra,” the presence of a muted instrument—the density of the soundmass of which it's a part makes it difficult to determine whether it's a melodica, harmonica, or horn—lends the material a jazz-like feel. A lumbering pulse injects the burbling swirl of “Serenity Thru Sorrow” with a kinetic and funk-inflected force as cold gusts of winds blow across the track's slippery surfaces, while “Clouds Beyond,” a barely contained fireball of energy, exudes even more propulsive drive in its bubbly, bass-thudding broil.

cv313's ultra-vaporous stepper “Subtraktive,” which captures in a single track the project's persona in its essential form, inaugurates the release's second half. And though it admittedly has the feel of a bonus disc due to its concentration on remix treatments, it also plays very much like a natural sibling to the first half when the guests don't wholly strip the original's cv313 identity away from their own versions. The Sight Below's, for example, could easily be mistaken for a Hitchell and Modell original, while Intrusion's understandably feels closely connected to the original, given that Hitchell's the man behind the Intrusion mask. Not all, however, hew as closely to cv313's version. Hess and Kage's feels like a club track straining to break free of its chains and unleash a full-on house groove—something that Deepchord Presents Echospace's pumping “Live Dub,” in fact, accomplishes. In an especially bold makeover, King Midas Sound re-imagines the track as a trippy dub poetry reverie replete with a female lead vocal, while Van Wey shows himself to be his characteristically voluminous self in transmuting the original into a sweeping, twenty-minute “Journey East of the Lotus Leaves” opus. It seems only fitting that Dimensional Space should end on such an epic note. -Textura Magazine

Detroit and Chicago to worship the Polish Jasna Gora.

The fate of this material made by Stephen Hitchella and Rod Modell under the banner cv313 were quite unlucky. Included in the system records were born since 1996, have been published on vinyl releases, but finally had to appear on a double album prowess summary of the project in 2010. But it did not happen - because fate would have it, there was a flood which resulted in the studio suffered from both manufacturers, including songs and prepared to "Dimensional Space". The following months have passed on the laborious recovery of lost registration. In the end, the process was a success - and today we can already enjoy this set, covering up to nineteen recordings.

The beginning of the build is very subdued character. It consists of muted recordings by reduced bits carry with grace cavorts synthesizers. Far come fragments of vocals and dub chords nurzają in successive waves of analog noise (both versions of "Luna Petra" and "Collide Energies").

A complete variety of mood brings the central segment of the collection, which consists of eight deconstruction of the famous song "substractive". While King Midas Sound dub majestic hits its developed for rough crushing bass and keyboards, so Bvdub rocks dreamy ambient filled with angelic choirs. American creator Rafael Anton Irisarri (here as The Sight Below) surprises radical shift towards energy techno and Luke Hess and Brian Kage serve an epic version of said composition by slowly and deliberately constructed narrative. Contemplating "Subtractive" ends enter the recording in the formula of gentle dub-house music in the style of Maurizio - two remixes realized by DeepChord and Intrusion.

Much more hard bit hits "Infinit-1" - and leading us into a massive techno filled with sewage effects and underwater passages synthesizers. "Space" is growing consistently, these threads - adding by more reggae sound of yearning chords. There is no lack of such sounds also in the "Dimensional" - although this composition has a slightly faster rhythm and a more minimalist design.

The best recordings from the whole set Hitchell and Modell leave at the end. "Steering By Starlight" sounds a little as a unfinished demo - surprising slow pulse and economical sound. Within ten minutes of his course work, however, it creates an unusual atmosphere - like a hypnotic ride through the vast desert. And finally, the album's magnum opus - fifteen recording at how close to us the title of "Jasna Gora". Here, too, US producers rely on raw sound: this combination of measuring bit and subsequent cascades of chords spogłosowanych but does so incredible feeling that sends shivers up the spine. And imagine how these sounds zabrzmiałyby in the scenery famous monastery!

Three hours of music cv313 will satisfy any fan of this kind of music. The more that this kit offers all its varieties - from typical ambient version, the spicy, firmly embedded in the Jamaican context, if modeled on club styles, techno and house. In any case, these sounds are saturated with the same extraordinary mysticism, which is hard to find in the work of other professionals from such play. And that is what the uniqueness of the music created by Stephen Hitchella and Rod Modell. -Nowamuzyka Magazine (PL)

At long last the hugely anticipated Dimensional Space LP from Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell’s CV313 project is upon us. The release, out on Echospace Detroit, is an engaging lucid dream into a submerged dub techno world. Perfectly crafted, each piece hovers around the 10-minute mark, allowing a sense of space to develop through the use of glistening chords and treacle-like bass frequencies. For remixes the producers turn to the likes of Reference (Luke Hess & Brian Kage) and King Midas Sound who both take us deeper down the rabbit hole with their own added personal touches. -Bleep

Epic three and a half hour digital edition with bonus content At long last, Echospace's CV313 project, 'Dimensional Space' finally sees the light of day, packing one disc of original material backed with extensive revisions from Steve Hitchell and Rod Modell themselves, plus additional reworks by King MIdas Sound, BVDub, The Sight Below, and Reference. So the story goes, the original masters recorded 1996-2010 were submerged underwater due to a flood in the duo's home studio, with many reels never recovered. The ones they did manage to salvage have been painstakingly restored to form CV313's debut album proper. The original material comprises eight nebulous pieces of perfectly detached dub techno intended for healing, meditative purposes. The average length of each piece is 10 minutes, allowing the duo plenty time to feel out fathomless bottom end and vaulted reverb structures, bobbing on slow churning ocean of dub noise. The versions are warmly faithful to the original material, and include strong highlights in the shoegazing shimmer of The Sight Below's Subtraktive mix, a blooming Reference mix from Brian Kage and Luke Hess, and the desolate dub poetry of King Midas Sound. -Boomkat

The long awaited “debut” album of cv313 (echospace) “Dimensional Space” has finally arrived on wax. It’s an absolute triumph of an album, presenting the depth and range of their work, and housed in a stunning black and silver silk-screened sleeve.

“Luna Petra” is the standout track with its muted trumpet beautifully emerging from the dubby whirl. Like their other best work, this one makes it difficult to tell what you're hearing, swirling vocals dubbing into oblivion interlock with one another and the deep dubby bassline. “Beyond the Clouds (Seconds to Forever Livemix) is a rework of the Seconds to Forever cdr release that manages to improve on the excellent original. It’s a tunneling, 20+ minute psychedelic dubtechno journey as only cv313 can pull off, and one of their greatest tracks yet.

“Isis” is on the cloudy ambient tip with an ultra-deep bassline, good for mixing with. But on its own, the mind starts to wander after 7 or 8 minutes. “Beyond Starlit Skies (reimagined)” pulses along with a steady dance-ready beat under hypnotic, cascading echospace-y sounds that mutate into and through one another (in a similar way to “Beyond The Clouds (III)”). “Stella Bay” rounds out the album with deep, meditative dub. -No Chicago

cv313 aka Rod Modell (DeepChord, Echospace) and Steve Hitchell. This release had a three year delay after the original masters (recorded 1996-2010) were submerged underwater due to a flood in their home studio, with many reels never recovered. This is very similar to DeeoChord, long lingering trance-y, dubby tracks. There are beats but they are so overshadowed by other shimmery, ethereal elements. Im not even sure if you can consider this techno, more like ambient drone with a beat. According to the Echospace website ‘The culmination of this project leads to synergy, creative experience re-invented and re-imagined, flow of an astral vortex’ and that pretty much sums it up hippies. -KFJC 89.3FM

Nein, keine Ahnung, wer sich dahinter verbirgt, aber die eutliche Liebe zum Berliner CR-Universum lässt auf jeden Fall vermuten, dass die Labelbetreiber Hitchel und Modell irgendwie an der Produktion beteiligt waren. Zwei lange, deepe Tracks, die in ihrer stoischen Trägheit vor allem von der schwebenden Schunkelei der Echos leben und mit ihren kurzen Dub-Stabs auf dem Weg in Richtung Heimat sind. Und doch klingt es ein bisschen moderner, ein bisschen mehr upfront, allein schon wegen der 707-Bassdrum und dem nototrisch klackernden Rimshots. Ersetzt die Heizung im Winter. -De:Bug Magazine (DE)

Top 100 Tracks of 2014 @ TEA. www.teaandtechno.net/tea-favourites-2014/top-100-tracks-for-2014/

cv313's "Sella Bay" featured on Steve Barker's BBC Radio Lancashire.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01x02yh

www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/425ce5fc-c1ca-4462-ae67-27aee589a92a