The AbstrAct Observer
We make music.
We run our own abstract project.
“The Path Integral” is here.
“Primes” is here.
“The Boundless” is here.
“The Dawn Identity” is here.
We regard music.
This is an archive of notes and voices about independent releases: ambient, instrumental, electronic, contemporary, experimental, minimalist, whatever.
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Our fourth release is out.
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Observation n.79
The Earl of Dean
Silence Has Broken
○ Oct 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Electronic / Experimental
■ Rating: 7.1/10
■ Favorite track: “Excavate”► This is where you get in a tense, restless atmosphere that never quite settles. Jagged synth clouds, nervous pulses and ticking textures create a constant sense of motion, as if the sound is pacing within its own confines. Dissonant tones hover uneasily in the background, sustaining a mood of unresolved urgency. That feels deliberately and effectively unstable.
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Observation n.78
Droning Cats with NRV
Cartography of Sleep
○ Dec 2025 | Label: See Blue Audio
■ Genres: Ambient / Post-rock / Electronic
■ Rating: 8.4/10
■ Favorite track: “Catastrophic”► Well, you’d better take 5 minutes of your time for this track. Guitar lines slowly evolve within a sea of spacious, enveloping layers of atmosphere. Sun is quietly rising all around. The progression is patient and immersive, inviting the listener to sink fully into the sound. Each swell adds depth and scale, transforming simple phrases into something vast and cinematic. Resistance is futile.
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voices #40
◦ “voices” is the place where we ask, artists reply and you read.
here we got:
H-M O
answering some questions. We have already observed her drone / ambient / new age work here.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: Can you tell us how the track “Misty Lake” came to light?
► H-M O: I live in northern Finland and spend a lot of time in nature – one beautiful morning in August I woke up in the wee hours to a sudden urge to go outside and enjoy the first rays of the sun. As I stepped outside, I was enticed by this sweet mist to a nearby lake. And there I could do nothing but stare at the water, breathe in the balmy air and record the soundscape all around me. So, the whole track is built on and around one single field recording from that morning. All I tried to do was to capture the feeling of staring at the lake at sunrise, by emphasizing the natural soundscape with soft and smooth and meditative electronic elements. My aim was to keep it calming yet quietly suspenseful, as that morning, or the whole natural world actually, felt and often feels to me. It was an almost transcendental experience, as if a whole huge lake was evaporating into thin air…and condensing back into a single drop on a blade of grass.I also took many black and white photos on my film camera of that lake on that very morning, which then ended up forming the cover art for Misty Lake as well as the music video (for which the link is this: ▼)
[2. CREATION]
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Observation n.77
Apostolis Tziogkidis, Giorgos Kelesidis
Shades of Structure
○ Jan 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Avant-garde / Experimental / Improvisation
■ Rating: 7.0/10
■ Favorite track: “Inner Turbolence”► That’s an improvised dialogue between a double bass and an electric guitar, raw and intensely present. Their interaction feels conversational yet confrontational, as if two distinct voices were negotiating space in real time. There is no fixed structure, only intuition and risk, allowing tension and release to emerge organically. The result is challenging but compelling, a vivid exploration of texture, gesture, and spontaneous form that rewards attentive listening with moments of stark, unpredictable awareness.
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observation n.76
Tó Anjo
Dwam
○ Nov 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Ambient / Electronic
■ Rating: 8.1/10
■ Favorite track: “Inbound”► This unfolds like a dream in slow motion, guided by an uplifting piano that glows at the center of the soundscape. Each piano note lingers, suspended in a haze of soft pads and shimmering textures that stretch time into something weightless. The harmonies rise gently, creating a sense of quiet optimism and emotional warmth, while the electronic layers drift like distant light. The pacing is unhurried, allowing every sound to bloom fully before dissolving into the next.
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a bunch of frames
This is a video for the Fourth track of the album
The Dawn Identity
released on Bandcamp on September 19th.Thanks for your time.
Take care,
The AbstrAct Observer -
voices #39
◦ “voices” is the place where we ask, artists reply and you read.
here we got:
Swoop and Cross
answering some questions. We have already observed his ambient / drone / electroacoustic work here.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “On the Grounds of Indecency” that we prefer is “This river”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Swoop and Cross: There is this quote in Ishiguro’s Never let me go: “I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart.”
The track is largely inspired in this idea of trying to hold on to each other in a turbulent world, hence the feathering in and out of sounds that try to overtake the looping motif that extends throughout the piece and that symbolises the attempt for stability, which keeps being disrupted by the flow in “this river”. From the starting idea, the track was then just a technical exercise of musical composition and layering. Like most pieces, it wrote itself.[2. CREATION]
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Observation n.75
GODTRAWLER
GODTRAWLER
○ Nov 2025 | Label: 1.44mb
■ Genres: Noise / Experimental
■ Rating: 6.5/10
■ Favorite track: “Evil”► Heraclitus said that dynamic tension and opposition inherent in all existence make things real and distinct. The track opens with a gentle guitar phrase serving as a calm anchor before the piece fractures into eruptions of noise and sharp dissonances. The contrast is striking: warm, melodic strings giving way to bursts of distortion, metallic resonance, and unpredictable sonic fractures. The only thing we can do is embrace instability.
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voices #38
◦ “voices” is the place where we ask, artists reply and you read.
here we got:
Modern Silent Cinema
answering some questions. We have already observed his experimental / concrete / electroacoustic work here.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Surveillance Film” that we prefer is “Nexus”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Modern Silent Cinema: Surveillance Film is my fifth score for filmmaker Matt Barry, and with each new score I like to try something a bit different from what I did before. In terms of the amount of recorded music, this would be the longest project yet–requiring nearly an hour of music. And so, to counter that scope, I wanted to reduce the compositional palette and work with repeated motifs and sounds as a fun creative challenge.
At the time, I had recently seen Claus Boesser-Ferrari play guitar at Downtown Music Gallery in NYC, I was really struck by his performance, which embraced the totality of the guitar, the wood, the shape, the depth, the strings, every aspect of the instrument had potential for sound and he explored all of it, and for me that inspired a new relationship with the guitar (I’ve been playing for over 30 years). Claus greatly influenced how I approached this score, playing the whole guitar, and not just melodies and chords on the strings. It also inspired me to consider how other objects could be used for sound (I used my water thermos for percussion on several tracks).
So, for “Nexus,” I started with a Philip Glass type of minimalist rondo, which originally appears earlier in the film but played on a thumb piano. I repeat it on multiple instruments throughout the score–but here it is played on a piano (technically on a MIDI synth, since I don’t have access to a real piano at the moment). I also wanted to do more than just repeat the melody, I wanted this to be its own piece, so I used an acoustic guitar to create scrapes, percussive bangs, and other twangs to create a soundscape as a musical counterpoint. Electroacoustic dynamics is an overarching interest for me–that intersection of a real instrument with electronic manipulations, and I try to explore that throughout all the Modern Silent Cinema albums. For “Nexus,” I wanted to contrast the serene piano melody with these more abrasive noise elements. I also wanted to have a contrast between the intentional, structured melody and the improvisation of the guitar sounds.[2. CREATION]
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Observation n.74
Bee Resort
Hivemind
○ Oct 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Electronic / Ambient
■ Rating: 6.8/10
■ Favorite track: “A Constant Struggle For Air”► The atmosphere is built around a stratified, pulsing synth that glows with steady, hypnotic energy. Each layer expands the harmonic field, creating a sense of gentle propulsion without overwhelming the calm. Beneath this luminous swell, a minimal IDM rhythm flickers with precision — crisp clicks, soft taps, and subtle syncopations that add movement while preserving the track’s spacious serenity.