VARIOUS ARTISTS - AMBIENTALE (COMPILED BY CHARLES BALS) [CD]

BUREAU B

£18.45

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: BB395
Barcode: 4015698180763
Release Date: 07 Feb 2025
Genre: Ambient

Collector, seeker and storyteller Charles Bals brings his curatorial finesse to Hamburg's Bureau B with 'Ambientale', a journey into otherworldly sounds from the years 1983 - 2000. Drifting effortlessly between digital exoticism, mellow fusion, new age groove and library electronics, the pieces range from largely obscure to utterly un-google-able, and coalesce into a stunning soundtrack to tranquil seas, desert sand and starlit skies. Cinematic & enigmatic, 'Ambientale' is a stranger you've only just met but can't stop thinking about.

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A familiar face to those who dwell in the deep end of the record pool, Charles is an obsessive digger, always on the track of an otherwise unheard sound. Through two trips to 'Club Meduse' and star-crossed lovers 'America Dream Reserve' and 'Black Rain', he's also established himself as a mixtape auteur, weaving together the strange and beautiful into evocative compilations that transport listeners to distinct, imaginative realms.

While his previous sets resembled Super-8 vignettes, populated by sun-kissed hedonists and drifting outsiders, 'Ambientale' sees Charles leave the human world behind, exploring all the world's wilderness on the scale of an IMAX epic. Rainforest, savanna, seascape and sand dune blur into one under digital manipulation, questioning the balance of nature and technology and wondering whether AI might discover the blueprint of all life and all planets. There's also a little room on the mood board for the striking underwater cinematography and lush soundtrack of Luc Besson's The Big Blue, a film he first saw in 1987 at an open-air theatre in the same Southern French resort that inspired 'Club Meduse'.

Bals opens his sonic travelogue with the bamboo flutes and resonant gongs of esteemed Italian maestro Luigi Ceccarelli, joined by the clean lines and Eastern tonalities of the little-known RanÅ Boru. The journey deepens with a double-feature from Tokyo composer Akira Mitake, sliding from dreamy New Age soundscapes into the lush groove of floral fusion. Digital rhythms and snaking bass add a Latin accent to the bouzouki of Individual Sensitivity's "Greece Ambientale", while the lilting percussion and shimmering synths of Steve Shehan's smooth jazz rarity "Evening In The Sahara" segue perfectly into a masterpiece of French Balearic from Private Joke.

A smoky saxophone rises like mist, echoing through the rainfall on Adriano Maria Vitali's "Velvet Blue Circles", before Masami Tsuchiya pulls us into the depths with the aquatic ambience of 1983's "Never Mind", its electronic palette the perfect vehicle to ensure that Akira Mitake's "Spectrum" surprises, rather than startles, with its booming machine drums a superb point of difference. From there, we wander once more into the digital under-growth, exploring the mystical and magical sounds of the Italian library ensemble Gruppo Sound, along with a rare glimpse of Blue Note new age from Gil MellÃ©. Police sirens and street noise signal our return to the city, forming the backdrop to the tumbling drums and moody electronic stabs of "Ship Out" by Ferris Wheel, an utterly unknown piece rumoured to be a promotional track from a Venezuelan garbage company - the final twist of intrigue to this otherworldly voyage.

Patrick Ryder

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Tracklisting (Artist - Track)
A1 Luigi Ceccarelli - Vientianeâ
A2銀色の波 (Gin no nami) - Whispers Of Chikurin)
A3 Akira Mitake - Yasha
A4 Akira Mitake - Modernism
A5 Individual Sensitivity - Greece Ambientale
A6 Steve Shehan - Evening In The Sahara
A7 Private Joke - Peaceful Traffic

B1 Adriano Maria Vitali - Velvet Blue Circles
B2 Masami Tsuchiya - Nevermind
B3 Akira Mitake - Spectrum
B4 Gil MellÃ - Mindscape
B5 Gruppo Sound - African Interlude II
B6 Ferris Wheel - Shipping Out