Shades of Grey?
2009-06-28 by The Double K
“E.E. Barnard’s photo of the North American Nebula, taken on September 4, 1905, illustrates what astronomers call “dark nebulosity” and what I am here calling “white darkness”. Is the phenomenon seen here the result of white light splattered on a black background, or blackness emerging from a white background?”
Sandoz – White Darkness
While I’m trawling these old compilation LPs, here’s another beautiful ambient track taken from Narcosis. Sandoz, AKA Richard H. Kirk, was a member of Cabaret Voltaire and (I surprisingly just discovered) Sweet Exorcist, and AKA about 100 other aliases too. His contribution and influence on electronic music cannot be underplayed, and I’m not even going to start to try to do the man justice in this blog post.
This track is in the same vein as Ob Selon Mi Nos, in that it draws the listener in completely and has a story to tell. The track opens with light pizzicato string chords and celestial atmospherics. After a while a bassline drops, which is shortly joined by a slow, heavy beat and an echoing vocal chant. This all gives way to some sparse, chugging mechanical techno, and then suddenly – out of nowhere and taking the listener completely by surprise – a fantastic, mellow, groovy, handclapping melody drops (this is my favourite bit of the tune). The elements from earlier are gradually re-introduced and then it all winds back down again. Magnificent stuff to be sure.
As well as being compiled on Narcosis, this track is also on the classic Sandoz LP Digital Lifeforms, which was re-released digitally last year (see the “buy it” link to get yourself a copy).
Download MP3 (0:00min / 0MB)
Comments 
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The Sandoz stuff was pure class. The Chocolate Machine 12 was the don – Drum meditation my personal favourite. Anyone got that?
http://www.discogs.com/Sandoz-Chocolate-Machine/release/375370