Oberlin: Ten More Dreamwebs (digital outlets)

Elsewhere has frequently written about ambient albums and we sometimes refer to Brian Eno's dictum about the genre being of music which is as enjoyable as it ignorable.

This album by Germany's Oberlin (Alexander Holtz) is one of a continuum of 45 releases – 45! – which are often ambient in nature but shift the needle from melody to atmosphere.

This one is like a creative sound design for a movie that exists in your own head as the pieces, some with what seem to be field recordings or found sounds, play out.

We've been down something like this path with New Zealand's Rotor so the sonic territory is not unfamiliar or off-putting.

In fact these “dreamweb” pieces (there are others in that Oberlin back-catalogue) can be very transporting: Hungarian Voices here has a discreet choral part and for four minutes you feel like you are inside a medieval church during a downpour; Moving On pulses like an anxious heartbeat before being blown by winds and the arrival of a distant piano in a carnival and a minimalist loop; the 12 minute Beryll Crown – as often happens in such atmospheric and weightless sounds – casts you adrift in spacecraft.

Another album in our Further Outwhere pages. 

We would not pretend that an album like this is for just anyone, but if the idea of ambient sound design which often refers to nothing outside of itself is of interest then Oberlin is for you.

And believe me, there is plenty of it in that massive back-catalogue.

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You can hear and buy albums by Oberlin at bandcamp here