Product Description
2. Origin 13:44
3. Eidolon 11:06
4. The Source 07:29
5. Star Cradle 11:27
6. Et Flux 10:11
7. Antigravity (full album) 01:01:15
Genres: ambient, experimental, drift, drone
For fans of: Brian Eno, Steve Roach & Stars of the Lid
theAdelaidean and deepspace’s second collaboration of 2021 trades stately, psychic impressions for weightless, crystalline synths that sparkle and hum with otherworldly energies. Driven by slow enigmatic melodies, antigravity leads the listener on a weightless odyssey built from alien sounds and poignant, all-too-human cadences through an electric void of otherworldly (un)consciousness.
A delicate fantasy meticulously assembled from inspirations as diverse as art music and contemporary electronic works, antigravity takes an eclectic approach to unfolding moments that teases the listener with bioluminescent shards of synthetic ambience, glittering like anxious alien moths, while leviathans of sound emerge from and retreat into distant regions of space. Ever-changing currents of sound bear the listener outward as well as inward, triggering images of vistas unseen by human eye. Dark blue lights flash softly while soft star trails criss-cross over reef-like nebulae, full of wondrous light. In a vast diorama of sublimity where near and far do not figure, stratospheric heights fall away to distant glowing planets below, all gentle and inviting.
Enter a darkly phosphorous world and drift away, on your couch or in your spacecraft…
A Bandcamp review by Dave Aftandilian: The cover image sums up this (dark) ambient album nicely: sometimes gently buoyant, sometimes shadowed and creepy. Listening to it feels like drifting through the darkening heavens at twilight, shivering as you pass through seeping clouds, wondering in awe as you walk through the doorway behind the moon, then disappearing behind the velvet curtain of twinkling stars.
theAdelaidean:
Although a relative newcomer to the ambient music scene, theAdelaidean has been creating music since the 1980s. He has 6 albums released to date and has composed for the stage. He cites influences such as composers Cage, Webern and Poulenc, serial music, and contemporary electronic ambient music artists. In his other life, he is #1 bestselling author Sean Williams and teaches creative writing at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.
deepspace:
deepspace is award-winning ambient musician Mirko Ruckels from Brisbane, Australia, with a discography of 12 releases. Creating with various synthesizers and acoustic instruments such as bells, guitars and piano, his themes range from macro – space, underwater, deserts and science fiction imaginings, to micro – internal states and microscopic life. deepspace is influenced by modern ambient artists as well as art music, particularly the work of the French impressionists Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and English counterpart Ralph Vaughan Williams.
cover image: Odilon Redon’s À Edgar Poe (1882)
padmin –
From Exposé
Dual review for two albums: Antigravity and Adrift
TheAdelaidean is ambient soundscape composer Sean Williams, presumably from Adelaide, Australia; Deepspace is the moniker used by another Australian ambient composer, Mirko Ruckels, from Brisbane. TheAdelaidean and Deepspace have done two collaborative releases in 2021, Adrift, which saw a February release, and Antigravity, which was released in November, and the difference between the two releases shows surprising growth in how the two approach their craft together. The influences are clearly evident on the earlier release, with Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Zeit era Tangerine Dream, Michael Stearns, Alio Die, and Brian Eno all figuring in prominently, and as far as floating ambient music goes, the six pieces on Adrift pretty much typify the genre, and even if a little generic, the sound is textural, flowing, and intensely beautiful at times, dark and mysterious at others; the six pieces fit together well as a journey of sorts, and a seventh track which is a compilation of the full album is included in the download. Don’t expect any fast synth sequences or percussive elements here, this one floats in the purest sense, and has a strong power to change the listener’s mood into calmer states and even serve as a gateway to slumber. The second-to-closing track “The Lowering Staircase of No Fears” is especially potent, but in fact everything up to that point and beyond is a perfect transformative meditation.
Fast forward nine months and we arrive at the second collaboration, Antigravity, where the duo is moving forward from their earlier effort, elucidating a far less derivative sound that goes well beyond simple floating textures and reaches into novel and fresh ideas that blossom as each piece unfolds. Again, there are six tracks, and like its predecessor, the entire album is collected in a single seventh track. It still fits squarely in the floating ambient subgenre but there are fragments of melodic color sweeping through the soundscapes and interesting fragments of sound that brighten up the horizons; a listener will likely find this as far more attentive and less of a slumber gateway, although its mood altering properties remain powerful like its predecessor. Taken together, these two track the collaborative work of TheAdelaidean and Deepspace on a trajectory that shows much promise for any future releases. -Peter Thelen
padmin –
From Bandcamp fan Dave
The cover image sums up this (dark) ambient album nicely: sometimes gently buoyant, sometimes shadowed and creepy. Listening to it feels like drifting through the darkening heavens at twilight, shivering as you pass through seeping clouds, wondering in awe as you walk through the doorway behind the moon, then disappearing behind the velvet curtain of twinkling stars. -Dave Aftandilian
padmin –
From Rockerilla
“Ambient vibration from Australia,” is appropriate to say. Adelaidean is the moniker behind which a very famous Adelaide university professor, Sean Williams, acts. A journey that began in the 1980s with six albums under its belt. Mirko Ruckels aka Deepspace is an award-winning Brisbane composer with a catalog of twelve record productions. Their roots lie in contemporary or classic sound: Cage, Webern, Dubussy, Ravel which are masterfully inserted in these six episodes dedicated to the slowness and lightness of interstellar travel capable of assuming the semblance of cinematic depth. The perfect soundtrack for a feature film by MOEBIUS. -Mirco Salvadori
“Ambient vibration from Australia,” é il caso de dire. Adelaidean é il moniker dietro al quale agisce un assai famoso professore universitario di Adelaide, Sean Williams. Un percorso iniziato negli ’80 con sei album all’attivo. Mirko Ruckels aka Deepspace é un pluipremiato compositore di Brisbane con un catalogo di dodici produzioni discografiche. Le loro radici affondano nel suono contemporaneo o classico: Cage, Webern, Dubussy, Ravel che vengono magistralmente inseriti in questi sei episodi dedicati alla lentezza e lievitá del viaggio interstellare capace di assumere sembianze di profunditá cinematica. Il soundtrack perfetto per un lungometraggio firmato MOEBIUS. -Mirco Salvadori