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.

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.

First time available in digital formats. Although quite the tantalising proposition on paper, we really weren't prepared for this immense Deepchord reworking of last year's biggest Techno anthem : Claude Vonstroke's "Who's Afraid Of Detroit?". And it truly is a shocking production - all that remains of the original is the odd flurry of distant

First time available in digital formats. Although quite the tantalising proposition on paper, we really weren't prepared for this immense Deepchord reworking of last year's biggest Techno anthem : Claude Vonstroke's "Who's Afraid Of Detroit?". And it truly is a shocking production - all that remains of the original is the odd flurry of distant melodies and an underlying shuffle - everything else has been replaced by one of Rod Modell's most propulsive, robust techno reductions to date, and one of his most dancefloor-bound at that. What's so genius about Modell's work here is the relentless layering of low-end registers - it's not just the bassline that's packed out with his unique low modulations, the propulsive core at the very heart of the track is itself somehow constructed out of pure BASS, with just a solitary snare providing the track with the necessary balance. Truly, mindblowing stuff. Modell's partner in the Echospace project Steve Hitchell offers up the remix on the flipside under his Soultek moniker, an altogether more electroid affair that's punctuated by the original's skittering arpeggios and the sound of a 1980's drum machine starting to malfunction, in the best possible sense. Totally killer twelve - limited coloured vinyl! -BOOMKAT

w + p by barclay crenshaw, remixed by rod modell + stephen hitchell for echospace [detroit] 2008. mastered by soultek, vinyl cut and remastered by mark richardson @ prairie cat mastering, chicago, usa.

For our money the finest release from the mysterious CV313 to date, head straight for the flip and the immense "Saraya", a kind of padded vocoder session that takes the robust pads of Maurizio and layers them with slivers of pitched synths and squashed vox, a beautiful twilight track that manages to keep it deep without sounding derivative.

For our money the finest release from the mysterious CV313 to date, head straight for the flip and the immense "Saraya", a kind of padded vocoder session that takes the robust pads of Maurizio and layers them with slivers of pitched synths and squashed vox, a beautiful twilight track that manages to keep it deep without sounding derivative. "Motor" is a more stripped-down affair, a quasi electroid skeleton dictating proceedings while the percussion is kept to a clipped 4/4 template that works a treat. The title track, meanwhile, is the most euphoric and playful of the 3 tracks, if the echospace axis could be said to ever have written a peak-time track, this would probably be it. Great stuff - Limited copies! -Boomkat

Rumours abound about CV313, their connection to the Echospace camp adding much fuel to the various theories doing the rounds at the moment about just who it might be behind the controls. Following on from the long sold out "Dimensional Space" 12" for Echospace, "Affiniti" is a more progressive beast, with "Galaxy 313" somehow situating itself between Convextion's low-end reductions, Rod Modell's stretched chords and Carl Finlow's electroid variations. The result offers a fresh permutation for dub techno, giving more prominence to the percussive structure and even throwing in the kind of gargantuan bass grind beloved of dubstep or the more bottom-heavy work of Andy Stott. "Oceans", meanwhile, delivers a beatless coda that's like Echospace's Coldest Season material except stripped of the Space Echo, while "Affiniti" uncuffs any generic restrictions and provides a much more direct dancefloor missive, with one-note bass hits and synthetic effects included. -Boomkat

Compiled album from cv313 which includes remastered and unreleased mixes of 12" content originally released on Lee Purkis's (R.I.P. UK techno and Fat Cat Records originator) London based Fortune 8 imprint.

written + produced by cv313. recorded in detroit from 1993-1998. Remastered in Echospace in 2008.

The holy grail for fans of Steve Soultek's peerless Echospace label which over the years has released some monumental 12's from himself and Deepchord. This limited edition 2 X CD compilation focuses on the magical work of cv313 and comes in a beautifully printed double gatefold CD.

Review:

You see, Echospace [Detroit] presents: Altering Illusions

The holy grail for fans of Steve Soultek's peerless Echospace label which over the years has released some monumental 12's from himself and Deepchord. This limited edition 2 X CD compilation focuses on the magical work of cv313 and comes in a beautifully printed double gatefold CD.

Review:

You see, Echospace [Detroit] presents: Altering Illusions Chapter One: cv313 (or whatever the hell this thing is actually called) is in fact the first chapter in a three part series of Altering Illusions releases, each focusing on a different artist. Two brand new cv313 albums instead of one? Yes, please. Furthermore, it makes for an amazing companion piece to the main Dimensional Space album, the tone and palette substantially different but the content every bit as essential.

There is no better statement of intent than the opening track, “Isis,” as jets of crystalline ice particles are shot through solar winds, which batter the soundstage to the rhythmic thump of a relentless beat. Forthcoming single “Fading Lights [Original]” ups the ante with shuffling rhythms, blunted beats, plumes of steam and tumbling breaks before the album spirals towards the dance-floor with the comparatively brief “Irradiate,” all pin-sharp hi-hats, fretwork and thundering bass.

We enter previously released singles territory at this point, with remastered versions of the both the original and particularly fine reduction of “Seconds To Forever,” “Dimensional” and “Sailing Stars” before the disc ends with “Beyond Starlit Sky [Live]” that reads like a re-pitched, holographic version of “Fading Lights.”

The only material here that doesn’t quite blend in is the odd slice of older single material. “Dimensional” sounds better than ever thanks to an even higher definition remaster, but feels like it belongs to a different era, and the harder stomp of “Sailing Stars” juts out at oblique angles, somehow out of place among its amorphous, vaporous siblings. But this is nitpicking given that this is ostensibly a compilation rather than a dedicated album, even though it mostly feels like the latter, rather than the former.

Perhaps the finest moments on Altering Illusions [Chapter One] cv313, however, are those found on the second disc, an even more seamless and unified experience than the first. It certainly has the power to surprise as it opens with “Longing For Darkness,” a delicate but metallic bowed synth string melody emerging from a mist of swirling vapour, soft static hiss and what sounds like a genuine field recording of a haunted, twilight whistle and howl of wind through deeply saturated, nocturnal environments. It is quite unlike anything cv313 has released before or since, a beautiful hybrid of cv313 textures, dense, whirring drones from Alva Noto’s Xerrox series of ambient albums and Thomas Koner’s panoramic soundscapes.

“Beyond The Clouds” is, for many, one of Hitchell and Modell’s key masterpieces and reason enough to own this compilation, which it closes in a beautifully remastered form, but if any shred of doubt still lingers in your mind, it should be utterly eradicated by one of Hitchell’s crowning achievements: I give you “Standing Still [Reduced].”

Seated regally at the epicenter of the majestic second disc, it is simply one of the ultimate expressions of cv313’s craft, a twenty-two minute pièce de résistance of meticulous and subtle artistry. Once you enter its orbit, and are enveloped in its supple blooms of synth, scything fx, soft flashes of electricity, deep-sea sub-bass throb and bass rumble, ever-so-subtle machine fan whir and the hypnotic, propulsive rhythm of the piece, a higher state of (un)consciousness is inescapable.

It’s followed by yet another album highlight in the newly minted “Magenta,” packed with turbulent whorls of dark beige storm clouds pregnant with rain and ice whipping around the adrenalin-fueled listener submerged in a tumbling life-support capsule full of bubbling fluid that muffles the beat to a in-ear heart pounding. And as already mentioned, the whole experience is beautifically rounded out by “Beyond The Clouds [Reprise]”.

Altering Illusions [Chapter One] cv313 is every bit as strong and essential as the debut cv313 album it supplements and acts as a nexus between cv313 material old and new. It has also just become available as a digital download on the echospace [detroit] Bandcamp site, for those who missed out on or are not interested in the physical CD edition. -Igloo Magazine credits released November 23, 2021

Written and Produced in Echospace,, Chicago / Detroit, USA. Mastered + Engineered by Steven Hitchell. “Beyond The Clouds” Mastered by Ron Murphy & Steven Hitchell, Additional mixing by Jamal Wallace @ NSC, Detroit, USA. © + ℗ by echospace [detroit] 2014

Distributed worldwide by: www.rubadub.co.uk | www.forcedexposure.com | www.diskunion.net

The furthest depths of sound are awakened in this distinctive sonic environment inspired by ocean movements and its mysteries. Beginning anew, cv313 delivers an etheric approach in, "analogue oceans" that fearlessly illuminates the culmination of 25-years of sound design, a continuous transformation that engages the listener in ways it never has

The furthest depths of sound are awakened in this distinctive sonic environment inspired by ocean movements and its mysteries. Beginning anew, cv313 delivers an etheric approach in, "analogue oceans" that fearlessly illuminates the culmination of 25-years of sound design, a continuous transformation that engages the listener in ways it never has before. Shimmering metallic washes of color meet sub-aquatic tones, creating an immersive sonic world unlike anything heard before, this is hands down some of most engaging sound worlds this project has ever explored.

"The sound of water is deep, its form is serpent-like, its color green, and it is best heard in the roaring of the sea." -The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan

This mysticism is the essence of our time.

Thoughts:

"When it comes to immersive listening experiences built on cutting-edge sound design, few can match the continued brilliance of Echospace duo Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell. For proof, check the pair's latest offering under the alternative CV313 alias. Built around a suite of three drawn-out soundscapes, Analogue Oceans sees them mimicking the ebb and flow of oceanic tides by smothering gentle dub techno rhythms in lapping waves and soft-focus, spacey electronics. On disc two, Hitchell goes solo to present his own, hour-long interpretation under the Variant guise, heading into the pitch-black depths via watery effects, clandestine aural textures and suitably horizontal ambient dub rhythms." -Juno

"So you've just arrived back home from an epic night clubbing, limbs aching, heart pounding, with sweat drenched clothes you stagger home on the night bus while tucking into doner meat and chips, the thumping 4/4 beats still ringing in your ears and the disco biscuit in your blood stream is a long way from coming down so what you really need are some soothing beats and warm drones to help you drift into slumber, cv313 is just what the doctor ordered, let the ambient bliss of echospace drench you it's gentle embrace and float off down the flowing dream stream into sleepy land.......zzzzzzzzzz.." -Norman

If you look closely at the works of Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell, even after the titles of the records they record, you can see that the greatest inspiration is for both creators of nature. They have in their output albums devoted to various phenomena of our world: clouds, aurora and stars. Now the ocean joins this catalog. He is dedicated to the latest album of both men, and branded the name cv313 - "Analogue Oceans". We get four versions of the title song on it.

"Analogue Oceans (Current 1) Divergent" is an epic vision of dub-techno. The basis for the recording is a heavily beaten pulse, which is accompanied by wavy chords, sewage effects and cascades of sound corrosion. The poignant mood of the composition is created here, however, by a reggae melodic motif, turning the recording into a mystical meditation. "Analogue Oceans (Current 2) Convergent" focuses on majestic, grainy tones. They flow over the suppressed beat, giving the recording a withdrawn and reduced tone.

"Analogue Oceans (Current 3) Transform" is like translating both previous versions into the language of trance music. Hitchell and Modell slowly build up the tension by looping in the next sound motifs, eventually reaching a hypnotic culmination. The opposite of this version is "Analogue Oceans (Variant's Conduction)". This time all the sounds are slowed down, which makes you feel that the music resonates outside of time. But here too there is no shortage of melody brought by corroded chords and pulsing bass.

The ocean consists of waves - and so happens in all versions of the dedicated composition. American producers are ingeniously using the essence of this natural phenomenon to create its equivalent in sound matter. The effects are exceptionally beautiful and touching: nature is elevated to the form of the Spirit, revealing its eternity and imperfection. As a result, "Analogue Oceans" is another example of sonic metaphysics, with such a passion for Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell for almost a quarter of a century! -Nowamuzyka Magazine

From Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell I knew only one album, Liumin, released under the pseudonym DeepChord presents Echospace, massive urban road trip in an underwater civilization, a techno dub that sticks to the body, whose urgency is relegated to a background always in motion, an art whose flows are sustained but troubled, far away, while the closer to our ears it is a formidable mixture composite, aquatic, organic that truly captures us - rarely, in some disc that that is, all genres combined, I was so instantaneously transported into a universe (the term is rash, but here it is justified by the richness and coherence of its evocative sound ecosystem). Well, some time later, this analogous oceans appears, that the same guys are behind the controllers and have spent years ... doing the same thing all the time, with a few variations.

But I'm not a man to take offense for so little, both guys (especially Rod Modell of what I understand, prince of electronic aquatic atmospheres) seem to have very precisely found what they excel at and continue to exploit it which seems inexhaustible, I'm not going to ask them to go to the country to see if there is any hidden talent. Especially since, obviously listening to this album no less massive than his big brother, they are not content to stay in stagnant water and patiently renew their sea currents, extending the course and widening the bed. The CV313 work on long formats - from 18 to 30 minutes per track, with one of the 5 tracks stretching for an hour. And if the atmosphere is just as rich and instantly speaking as Liumin's, the tracks here take more time to develop their abstract narration, so as to slowly raise the sound with ethereal beaches on which waves crash. evanescent crackling sounds, and dull beats infra low (it's not the "dub" techno for nothing, it's a bit as if our neighbors in the center of the Earth were the surf and we heard them pulsed echoes in the ocean through the Earth's crust).

If you have fun calculating the total duration of analogue oceans we come to a little more than 2 hours and 30 minutes of music. It's a lot of yes, on paper, but when you spend this time in such company, the said time takes on a whole other gravity, it floats and any notion of "duration" takes a sweet air of anecdote. There is one last thing; the dreamlike elephant in the corridor of ether, this Homeric track of 62 minutes which moves away from the technoid structures to go towards the quasi-pure ambient juice, leaving in the night light the pulsative to better detail a sound environment which never ceases to transform, slowly but surely, a real coral reef that lives with its fauna and flora. This is also what devotes analogous oceans: for any lover of Liumin, this second ambient half has always struggled to convince me as much as his techno counterpart, and it creates a certain imbalance in listening (understand: I often stop after the first disc). Here, on the other hand, Modell and Hitchell prove that they, too, have not ceased to evolve in their field, that the impressions of "always the same" are only that, impressions, vague and uttered in haste while they fly over the dub techno game being, this time, as competent in every facet of their art. (18/20) -XSilence Magazine

Il suono dell’acqua è profondo, la sua forma è serpentina, il suo colore è verde e lo si ode sopratutto nel mugghiare del mare.

Quattro tracce, più due ore di musica. Dub techno ispirata, in primis, dai movimenti ondulatori degli oceani causati dall’azione del vento, il cui soffio colpisce le particelle d’acqua che oscillano attorno alla propria posizione, generando increspature che, poco alla volta, si trasformano in onde. Le particelle d’acqua descrivono, ulteriormente, movimenti circolari che diventano più piccoli all’aumentare della profondità, fino a scomparire del tutto. Il parallelismo con i brani di Rod Modell e Stephen Hitchell è tanto evidente quanto suggestivo. Le creazioni del duo cv313 sono, spesso, caratterizzate da uno stato di agitazione costante, con creste e flutti che salgono e scendono, mentre onde ‘sonore’ s’infrangono su una superficie eterea. È un moto senza fine.

“Analogue Oceans” (2018) è l’ennesima ottima release a cura della echospace [detroit] che, in parallelo, rilancia il pensiero di Inayat Khan che, tra le prime pagine de “Il Misticismo Del Suono” (1923), precisava anche come una vibrazione potesse causare diversità di toni e, nel mondo degli atomi, diversità di colori. “Raggruppandosi insieme le vibrazioni diventano udibili e si moltiplicano man mano che si avvicinano alla superficie e avanzando si materializzano”, spiegava l’indiano. “Il suono da alla consapevolezza l’evidenza della sua esistenza benché, in verità, sia la parte attiva della conoscenza stessa che si trasforma in suono. Colui che conosce diviene cosciente di se stesso, cioè la consapevolezza fa da testimone alla sua voce. Così il suono attrae l’uomo”.

Lo stesso “può produrre effetti gradevoli o sgradevoli sia sul corpo che sulla mente umana e ha un effetto curativo, così come erbe o medicinali che a loro volta hanno la loro origine nelle vibrazioni”. È il mistico incipit dell’insegnamento sufista. “L’uomo non è soltanto formato da vibrazioni, ma vive e si muove in esse; queste lo circondano come il pesce è circondato dall’acqua e l’uomo le contiene come un serbatoio contiene l’acqua stessa”. “Il suono dell’acqua corrente, di ruscelli montani, il piovigginare e picchiettare della pioggia, il suono dell’acqua che scorre da una brocca in un vaso, da una bottiglia in un bicchiere, tutti questi suoni hanno un effetto gradevole e allegro e rendono inclini a fantasticare e a sognare, destano l’immaginazione, l’affetto e le emozioni”.

Non è casuale che Inayat Khan si distinse anche come musicista. “Analogue Oceans” è caratterizzato, inoltre, dalla particolare scelta dei titoli dei brani che, con buona dose di fantasia, prendono in esame l’attività geologica terrestre: Analogue Oceans [Current I] Divergent, Analogue Oceans [Current II] Convergent e Analogue Oceans [Current III] Transform si riferiscono al movimento delle placche che costituiscono l’involucro solido esterno della Terra, la litosfera, che crea tre tipi di margini tettonici, convergenti, divergenti e trasformi. I margini convergenti si generano quando una placca oceanica si immerge al di sotto di una massa continentale. I margini divergenti provocano la separazione di due o più placche. I margini trasformi innescano terremoti.

Il battito di Detroit e il ruggito del mare. Suoni e località separate da oltre seicento miglia. Pulsioni elettroniche e registrazioni dal vivo. Musica che si spinge oltre i confini dello spazio, realizzata tra il 2012 e il 2013, e che fa propri alcuni frammenti ‘oceanici’ raccolti tra il Giappone e le Hawaii. Il primo cd di “Analogue Oceans” è un continuum dall’afflato visionario, con oltre settanta minuti da ascoltare preferibilmente al buio, quasi senza pause. Gli esperimenti sono limitati, tra variazioni a intervalli regolari e melodie eteree. La struttura ritmica è tanto imponente quanto ridotta al debito calibro, pronta per essere sottoposta a un nuovo editing a cura di Stephen Hitchell: è il caso di Analogue Oceans [Variant’s Conduction], un’altra ora di loop ipnotici. -Souterraine (Italy)

Engineered, written & produced by cv313. Tape Transfers, digital conversion and mix downs in Echospace. Reworked & Redesigned by Variant. Additional Modular development and concepts by N.S. and S.B @ Antique Modulation, Ann Arbor / Detroit, MI circa 2012-2013. Field recordings conducted in Gamma, Japan & Maui, Hi.

Limited 2XCD edition [hand numbered to 100 copies] inspired by and created during the production of "analogue oceans", these two versions were omitted due to length restrictions. This release features current IV [subduction] and current V [obduction], the last 2 closing pieces of this ethereal opus cv313 has created, a mind shifting movement of

Limited 2XCD edition [hand numbered to 100 copies] inspired by and created during the production of "analogue oceans", these two versions were omitted due to length restrictions. This release features current IV [subduction] and current V [obduction], the last 2 closing pieces of this ethereal opus cv313 has created, a mind shifting movement of electricity modulates voltage and currents into a sonic world like no other. Anyone in love with the original versions will have so much to adore here, this is hands down some of most engaging sounds this project has ever explored. Additional sound design and synthesis reshaping by variant. A sequential analog dream...

"The sound of water is deep, its form is serpent-like, its color green, and it is best heard in the roaring of the sea." -The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan

This mysticism is the essence of our time.

Engineered, written & produced by cv313. Tape Transfers, digital conversion and mix downs in Echospace. Additional Modular development and concepts by Variant, N.S. and S.B @ Antique Modulation, Ann Arbor / Detroit, MI circa 2012-2013. Field recordings conducted in Gamma, Japan & Maui, Hi.