Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ard bit

Ard Bit ~ Field Recordings - 06 Vietnam

Spoiler alert: if you don’t want to know the last sound on this album, stop reading now! We start at the end because that closing note – technically, the last note of the quarter-hour bonus track that comes with the CD – sums up all that has come before, and draws the set to completion. Any guesses? The sound, perhaps ironic as the track is titled “Mr. Whistle,” is that of a ceremonial gong.…

#Ard Bit #Field Recordings - 06 Vietnam #Richard Allen

Ard Bit - Clouds (from Six Scores One, Self-Released 2019)

Reviews 284: Ard Bit

Though I’ve only recently become acquainted with the sonic world of Ard Bit, the composer and sound designer has been producing melancholic downtempo, naturalistic ambient, and ethereal bass music since at least 2009, which saw the release of his debut album Spanon on Symbolic Interaction. The years since have seen a handful of vinyl, cassette, and digital releases come out on labels such as Shipwrec and Lowriders Recordings and now in 2019, Ard Bit returns with his first solo release since 2014’s Ellioth. Six Scores One is a gorgeous cassette journey inspired by the wooded surroundings of Winterswijk and the mysterious and ever-changing environments of the Korenburgerveen, which the artist describes as a place where “you can wander through beautiful forests, wooded banks, streams, and heathland.” And though touches of these settings can be heard throughout the music, with leaves rustling and streams babbling, the sonic world of Six Scores One is more concerned with transformation and disorientation…as if Ard Bit is scoring the unknowable forces and violent energies that lurk behind nature’s beautiful facade. As such, the sonics are as serene as they are bewildering, with crystalline pianos and sorrowful strings floating amidst clouds of glitch, noise, and static. And beneath these strangely glowing hazes, subsonic bass pulsations and downtempo rhythmics work into slow motion beatscapes, with touches of IDM, dub, and DnB hovering around the edges.

Ard Bit - Six Scores One EP (Self Released, 2019) We start on “Afterhook” and its clattering percussive textures, with pianos dancing beneath the audial confusion. Animalistic lasers and subsonic bass motions build towards a groove, which eventually forms as kick drums and hi-hats lock into a downtempo glide wherein jazzy snare accents are smothered in noise. Stick clicks, rimshots, and vaporous string stabs suffuse the background as the piano continues its chordal adventures and in a moment where the mix washes out, synthetic cellos sit beneath glowing leads while paranoid cymbals skitter across the stereo field. Later, reversing ivory leads are immersed in samples of a babbling brook, which then leads back to the glorious downtempo glide and its whooshing chords and sighing strings. And at certain moments, it all seems to malfunction, with the mix descending into strange miasmas of noise while the cymbal work grows progressively more complex, eventually incorporating IDM accents and 64th note spirals. “Sw6rm” flows seamlessly out of the abstracted soundbath ending “Afterhook” and sees e-pianos dropping twilit reveries over subsonic kick pulses and ominous bass atmospherics. The sonics hint at noir jazz nightscapes and alien futurisms, with dubwise drums slowed to a glacial pace and eventually locking into a funereal downbeat throb, one accented by ride bell taps and dry snares. Cellos sing elegiac fantasias from deep underwater…their mournful songs drifting above a reverb soaked doom dirge, and as gothic choirs emit hovering vocal spells, buzzing waves of static swell then fade away.

“Clouds” emerges from a world of black hole droning and industrialized musique concrète, as zooming oscillations, cut-up samples, and smoldering noises surround a technoid sequence…an early-Heldon style kosmische throb, only transmuted into shadowy realms of bass music mysticism. Bending arps dance in counterpoint and acid synths squelch softly while wavefronts of cyborg static fade in and out, with each swell suffused by insect buzz and extra-terrestrial whispers. The kick drum moves from a barely there tap to a resonant jack as cymbals splay out into spectral hazes and at some point, the rhythms unexpectedly drop, leaving sequences to slowly morph into mist as the spirits floats within cosmic corridors and interstellar caverns. Droplets of metal hit crystal structures, glowing coudforms vibrate out of control, and outer-dimensional beings chant sinister vocalisms, with everything bending and twisting in ways that defy logic. “Monkey” begins with feet rustling through leaves and other such naturalistic field recordings being transmuted and transformed…all while pianos float overhead in a delirium fog...their melodies blurred out yet utterly gorgeous. Bass synthesizers gurgle and growl in the distance, conversations drift through the air, and as the track progresses, the background atmospheres are increasingly overwhelmed by glitching textures…as if drum clicks and rhythmic scrapes have been blasted through a fractal wormhole.

Ambient dreamscapes are immersed in further glitch abstraction at the start of “Ffog,” with bass pulses floating the soul and glowing gemstones of melody moving forwards and backwards through time. It’s a beatless post-rock expanse, wherein starshine sequences and Berlin school lullabies wrap around each other while the mix periodically devolves into manipulated sample weirdness. And at some point, the sprightly synth patterns give way to a world of reversing swirls and beatific ambiance that ever so often threatens towards alien experimentation. Closing piece “Kern” is like awakening in the depths of the cosmos, where galactic winds carry clouds of glowing dust. Ethereal chord patterns pulse and swarm according to a unique dream logic and wailing synthesizers drift gently by, before everything is washed out by a bass heavy refrain. Descending progressions pull the heart into the depths of melancholy while the mind is dazzled by glitching electrohazes and as the track continues, we descend further and further into landscapes of sonic psychedelia. Then, almost out of nowhere, a propulsive bassline starts chugging through the sonic shadowrealms, soon joined by cosmic pads that slide side to side in slow motion majesty. Everything is heavy with vibes of mystery and sorrow and at certain moments, touches of evil kiss the mix as throbbing bass patterns open up into a primal growl. But eventually, Ard Bit seamlessly morphs things back to the ambient bass descents and Twin Peaks atmospherics, which themselves slowly fade into bit-crushed whispers.

(image from my personal copy)

#Portrait #Black and White #Ard Bit #Photographers on Tumblr #2014 #Source: Klaasfoto #In The Middle #My Favorites

Ard Bit – Ellioth Release date: September 29th 2014 Format: digital Label: Lowriders Recordings Catalogue Number: LOWf001 written & produced by Ard Janssen mixed & mastered by Roel Funcken Artwork by NOTDEF

#SoundCloud #Ard Bit #Roel Funcken #idm #beats

Ard Bit - Cribble (feat. Jor Mesin)

This beat is literally insane! WOW

#Beat #Electronic #synth #Ard Bit #Netherlands #Rotterdam #IDM #Bass #Bass music #Music #INSANE #WOW #Soundcloud #Dope

North Sea Round Town: Ard Bit

Op vrijdag 6 juli organiseert het NAi tijdens North Sea Round Town het programma Innercity Life: het geluid van Rotterdam. Met optredens van The New Earth Group, Machinefabriek, Cocy Bryce en Ard Bit. In aanloop naar deze avond stelden we de musici een paar vragen. Vandaag: Ard Bit.

Zou je je kort aan ons publiek willen voorstellen?

Ik ben Ard Janssen en ik woon in Rotterdam. In de avonden en nachten producer en dj, overdag music- & soundesigner bij SKEEP

Kun je jouw muzikale scene in Rotterdam beschrijven?

Die is erg verschillend, en niet te vinden op 1 plek, maar verspreidt zich over de stad. Ik kom graag bij Worm waar erg fijne, diverse avonden worden georganiseerd en de locatie is erg cool. De laatste tijd ben ik ook te vinden in Bird voor de betere jazz avonden.

Heb je een favoriet geluid in Rotterdam?

Er zijn meerdere geluiden die me erg aanspreken. Dat kan gaan van jazz tot dubstep, bass en elektronisch. De diversheid is mijn favoriet.

Hoe denk je dat de stad invloed heeft op jouw muziek?

Door de verscheidenheid die de stad te bieden heeft, de stad prikkelt dagelijks.

Wat kunnen mensen vrijdag van je verwachten?

Een fijne mix van elektronisch en dubstep, van eigen tracks met tracks waar ik de laatste tijd erg blij van wordt, het wordt in ieder geval zeer divers.

Kom je ook? Laat het ons weten op Facebook.

#Ard Bit #North Sea Round Town #Lowriders