Various Artists – Past Disappears (Dronarivm)
January 6, 2015 | Philip James de Vries
Consistently great drone, ambient, and dub label Dronarivm recently offered up a free Christmas compilation featuring many artists on their roster. The lengthy ambient compilation from the Moscow-based label dabbles in both organic and synthesized sounds, making for a nice mix of timbres and qualities that keep the long group of tracks from getting boring.
Highlights from the wonderful Past Disappears compilation include Zvuku’s “Northking. Part 2”, which breathes a variety of string samples in and out of the foreground of the mix, warming the brain and making everything around the music breath along with it. The Green Kingdom’s “Paynes Grey” also operates in a similarly organic fashion, blending light guitar noodling with wind chimes and other highly tonal instruments, but keeping the melodic theme of this work major and thus retaining a certain sense of optimism and positively curious wonderment.
The compilation is a mix of darker ambient works and the more positive emotions as mentioned above. Porya Hatami’s curiosity in “Another Winter” sounds as though one is watching snowflakes delicately pile themselves on top of one another, and one is given the opportunity to examine their complex and undisturbed patterns that result.
We look forward to what Dronarivm has in store for 2015, but in the mean time download this wonderful ambient compilation on a name-your-price basis below.
Artist: Various Artists | Album: Past Disappears | Released: December 2014
Label: Dronarivm | Genre: Ambient, Drone
Rating: 4/5