Valiska

Put simply: Calgarian experimental composer Krzysztof Sujata's latest release as Valiska is his best yet and one of the most singular yet humble avant-garde musical statements of 2017.

On Pause expands the palette he used to paint the hauntingly beautiful synth-based compositions of last year's Healer EP, giving Sujata's penchant for adventurous arrangements space to roam and bloom while honing each piece with more focus than many entries in his rapidly growing catalogue.

To achieve the album's distinct, indelible sound, Sujata feeds simple melodic phrases made with a Moog Sub 37 synthesizer and wordless vocalizations through tape loops to merge unique elements of organic inconsistency with the rich beauty of carefully massaged tone synthesis. The results are at turns breathtaking and heart-wrenching.

Whatever the methods of creation, On Pause contains some of the most soulful and mournful sounds this reviewer has heard coaxed from electronic instrumentation. Its deeply humanistic expression through such integrative mechanical means represents a step forward in the genre, and is a cathartic and engaging listening experience regardless. - Exclaim!

Valiska first showed up on my radar when I premiered his track, titled “A Pause”, on Headphone Commute, back in September of 2017. Since then,’s On Pause, released on Francis Redman’s brand new label, Trouble In Utopia, has appeared on my rotations nearly on a weekly basis, as I fell in love with his particular aesthetic of simplicity, minimalism, and disintegration. At first, the music sounds almost bare. A few unembellished notes, uncomplicated phrases, basic lo-fi effects. But go just past the first track of the album, and you begin to understand, that in austerity there lies an honest sound. Sujata’s humble entry onto the scene, where such direct and unpretentious music comes with virtue, is very dear, sweet, and precious.

Throughout the eight pieces of the album, Poland born and now Calgary (Canada) based composer works with a limited palette of a Moog Sub 37 synth, some haunting voice, and remnants of their sound, recorded on a tape loop, which shows the signs of wear, warping, hissing, and crackling in its unyielding wail. These elements of tone and texture continue to permeate the underlying theme. Although conceptually straightforward in its style, you suddenly find yourself yearning to be surrounded by nothing much but this intricately bare environment, that is the world of Valiska. Such sonic impermanence seeps through the mood of this entire composition, reflecting melancholy, sorrow, and ultimately hope.

Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at his Black Knoll Studio, and pressed on a nicely cut 12” by Simon Davey at The Exchange Vinyl, the album comes housed in a beautiful dual printed sleeve. There are, of course, CD and digital editions (as well as a few copies of test pressings left). A captivating, charming, and magnetic work. Fans of noir-fi, decay, isolationist ambiance will approve. - Off The Record / Headphone Commute

Releasing on the new and aptly-named label Trouble in Utopia, Valiska’s On Pause details a series of life-changing events which took place between 2016 and 2017. Although the electronic music is at times stark, bleak and empty, with cold blue orbs masquerading as frail, staccato-strung notes, there are occasional glimpses of something more positive just up ahead, and it doesn’t want to stay in the depths of dissonance.

Bluebird skies fade until they disappear, like a parched note that’s lost all sustain, and all of a sudden, life just changes. Hijacking the blue sky is a dull, obdurate grey, the kind of grey that coats a silver bullet, which settles upon the skin and potentially turns into something like depression. Sometimes, you don’t so much get over something as learn to adapt to it. Life goes on; the music still has to rise in the morning.

Rainy tones leak out of the music, but so does a careful optimism, and the music’s had the opportunity to grow during its time of hardship. It’s all part of a learning process, albeit a strict one. The sobering times have led Valiska to develop sobering tones, and he sensitively explores cooler, musically-mature themes which revolve around a siege mentality; a strengthening rather than a weakening. Both he and the music are determined to push through this, and On Pause is a record of sorrow and struggle. The notes push and heave; nothing is coming easily. Although the melodies are soft and as delicate as a vase (a draught of thin air could be their downfall, resulting in them disintegrating), they’re also heavy with effort, and a seeping melancholia drips from its downcast eyes. Uncertainty is a constant plague, but that also gifts the music a certain unpredictability.

Glass ornaments had once decorated the open space, lovingly arranged on top of the dresser, but now they lie broken, and these dislocated melodies are the fragmented pieces that litter the floor, the leftovers of lost warfare. Defeat sounds like this, but On Pause is, eventually, all the stronger for its loss; it wouldn’t exist in its current form without the arrival of trouble and loss, and that’s a positive. If the spirit wants it badly enough, the greatest victory will come after the most crushing of defeats. All the while, the music whispers like a lover or a good friend:

Try again, try again,

Take care, take care…

Structurally, a well-defined skeleton props up the music. Valiska uses a Moog Sub 37 synthesizer (which is the crux of the sound, lending the music an isolated, mournful and eerie tone) and then runs a list of looping melodies through the tape, although everything is done in an almost minimal way. Hisses and crackles also help to increase the music’s fragility; we don’t always realize just how precious someone or something is until it’s gone. Sometimes, a lone melody is all that’s left, a completely isolated thing, just a vein-thin strand on a fog-shrouded isle.

The last two years have aged the music. Its once blonde hair is now salt-sprayed, and things are only going to age further…but it has matured and developed, becoming what it was always supposed to be, and its beauty isn’t skin deep. Life isn’t a perpetual smile, but it is an experience. - Fluid Radio

Another artist who had a release back in October was Canada-based Valiska, who released a highly personal album via label Trouble In Utopia, recounting several life-events that had taken place in the time before its release. On Pause is centered on synthesizer and tape looping, with several layers, levels of distortion and sound effects giving it an unmistakable sound. In every single track, there is intriguing movement and anti-movement, a measured disarray in the looping technique, making the tracks blend together smoothly like days turning into weeks turning into months. There’s something so raw about Valiska’s sound and I find myself getting chills, like the ones you get when someone whispers in your ear – there’s this unquestionable intimacy but it’s somehow terrifyingly exposed at the same time.

Mornings stands out with its cries of alarm in the early hours – though jumbled and distraught it’s still oddly synchronized, and the addition of spoken word adds a dystopian air to the album. Fake Strings for False Memories conveys the albums message most clearly, as the haunting melodies loop, more or less distorted each time, quite like the way our memories decay and take new forms with every recollection. Meditative and internalized, the album pulls your thoughts and feelings from your innermost parts; brings them out in the light, packs them up neatly, and sends them away. - Piano and Coffee

Grainy reflections echo Tim Hecker’s soundscapes or Boards of Canada’s melancholic warmth. - Mojo Magazine

A musician who deals in drone and ambient sound, Valiska often creates beautiful pieces of music from samples and tape loops. "Softness", taken from his new album On Pause, is one such track.

“Softness” is a haunting and melancholic introduction to experimental musician Valiska
BEST FIT PREMIERE
Calgary artist Valiska is set to release his latest album in October, and today he's unveiling one of the most moving tracks from the record.

A musician who deals in drone and ambient sound, Valiska often creates beautiful pieces of music from samples and tape loops. "Softness", taken from his new album On Pause, is one such track.



Over six minutes Valiska creates a wordless narrative (we do hear the Polish-born artist's voice through a series of manipulated moans and choral exercises) engaging in loss and devastation. Opening with those layered, mournful vocals which recall some of Peter Broderick's experiments with voice, Valiska creates a barren and solitary landscape before introducting sampled and cut-up woodwind notes. A buzzing synth cuts through the final movement of the track; as it does so the sharper noise creates a feeling of both hope and fear, the open-endedness of the track perhaps just about pointing to a story yet to be completed.

"'Softness' is about my father, who had a really hard and unapproachable exterior," says Valiska. "But he had a kind and caring interior, and no matter what you do to try and distance yourself or hide it, that softness will always come through." - Line of Best Fit

Five new helictites: Valiska is back

Calgary-based multi-instrumentalist, radio DJ and photographer Krzysztof Sujata aka Valiska is back with another quintet of gemstones which he subsequently gathers on an EP called Healer. Released in August 2016 on the artist's own label Bow Bottom Records which is currently reserved as an on-and-off platform for his material, Healer can be inquired and streamed at Valiska's Bandcamp page. Fuelled by the rubicund timbre of the Moog Sub 37 synthesizer, each composition prominently places this very instrument in its barycenter; it is being isolated, transformed, multiplied, altered and shock-frosted as the EP progresses, but magnanimous warmth and raptured tone sequences are equally audible and as strong a force. In addition, Healer is not a solo affair at all: at least four other musicians are involved in the process. Valiska lists Crystal Sujata, Sean Warkentine and Whitney Ota as his partners in crime (and sunshine), with the appearance of saxophonist/composer and AmbientExotica regular Phil Gardelis aka Zenjungle rounding off the roster. This review (my eighth Valiska review overall) serves both as an introduction to Sujata's aesthetics and a closer look at three constituents which are equally endemic amid this EP and prominent pericarps of Valiska's back catalog, at least to my ears; so here, then, goes everything.



Human Architecture Amidst Nature-Driven Warmth

Valiska's music follows an architectural structure driven by organic landscapes: 2012's sophisticated micrometry of 24 minutes called A Day As A Blade Of Grass as well as 2013's full-length album Shifts come to mind. At the same time, the ocassionally subdued but often primary feature of Sujata's compositions is based on the rectilineal counterpoints of human prowess: 2013's alkaloidal chem wonder Structure and 2014's introspective La Tourette, for instance, are short but very strong milestones. Throughout Healer, you can spot these organic waves and artificial tendencies incessantly, but with an interesting twist. In the center of attention, you'll find the analog low poly aesthetics of the Moog Sub 37 synthesizer. The presumption of Healer being an EP drawn by precision and iridescent shards isn't false per se; that is unless the layers of the main instrument multiply and mesh with female vocals. The opener Of Water next-to-literally radiates thermal haze and benthic fumes right with the very first majestic chord which will be analyzed further below, while the third track Suspension showcases an amalgamation of sound, sustain and silence in a setting that brings Valiska closer to the New Age movement as ever before. The helicoidal flute-evoking Moog pearls emanate time and again in front of a valley-like diorama where their ultramafic afterglow oozes into the positively crepuscular distance. Purposefully apocryphal — like all human endeavors — yet drowning in the wideness of nature: Healer reciprocates.



Diaphanous Cocoons

Valiska's music drowns in contemplation and focused observation, celebrating the innermost analysis as the primary focal point. The listening subject absorbs — and later adheres to — the structural movement, the reciprocation between sinewed flumes and harsher interim stages. The whole EP, meanwhile, does indeed feature that dualism time and again, but fittingly enough evokes its title by emphasizing the connotative qualities of its title. Of Water showcases the healing powers with pride, letting the listener feel right at home due to its benign shelter-like Moog mica which simmer like a sanctuary's airflow. Quite desiccated an aquatic-aeriform streamlet, the golden sounds mesh with female wordless vocals and the piercing iridescence of parallax sub themes. These constituents lessen the otherwise adiabatic standstill and turn it into an ebb-and-flow construction of the matutinal kind. The fourth track Through The Air, while decidedly more rotatory around its barocenter, injects similarly thermal coils amidst its glacial panorama, thus turning the remote locales into warmer zones or, more poetically, diaphanous cocoons which lose their petrifying state by becoming sun-lit abodes.



The Cautious Buzz

Buzzes, prongs and spikes filled with energy: these are the electrifying forces of the other side of Valiska's coin. Their occurrence is not unlike the purposefully violent outbursts you except from mid-90's IDM, but here, in these tranquil landscapes filled with serene aureoles, the caustic cracks and overdriven vicissitudes are mere shadows from the past. Nevertheless: they are the potentially antagonistic counterpoints which ennoble the work, functioning as cataracts and cascades which intertwine with the calm. Even the most beatific section is eventually greeted with nuclear power and ground loops. Several chemical liquids, compounds and mixtures come to mind in order to describe the vitriolic veils, be it camphene, quercetin or just acid in general. Remaining firmly on the Ambient path, these prolonged particles and elasticized lozenges are never violent, but can be considered forceful regardless. The mellow closer Along Deer's Ridge, for instance, transmutes from a nomological valley of the mind into a bedazzling blitz made of firecrackers, asbestus blebs and hydrazine bursts. The elysian drones, though, remain. Solitude, on the other hand, augments its periglacial palace with even frostier glaze, short pitches of oversaturated verve and granular coatings. The reverb mellows out the incision, but you can sense and feel it, the omnipresence of that cautious buzz.



Valiska's Potion: Stratiform Superstructures

If you allow silence to be as tangible and real an ingredient in music as the much more noticeable airwaves and oscillating tones, then the densitometry of Valiska's Healer is ablaze with salubrious layers made possible by the gyration between analog warmth, the frostier interim states and purified nothingness. The healing aspects of the music cannot be underestimated, especially not in the warmest, most harmonious of times as in Of Water. But even the colder environments of vast vistas such as Suspension or the infinitesimally harsher, a tad more adventurous Along Deer's Ridge provide mellow injections; due to their New Age-invoking qualities melody- and texture-wise, these two mentioned tracks might as well be the real sources of heat and wisdom. It so happens that the Calgary-based artist delivers another rhizomatic EP, with each tendril serving as the channel for that potion, the aforementioned stratiform superstructure. In one paragraph, I likened this aural mixture to toxic liquids, true enough, but Valiska's process of titration ameliorates their quality with contrapuntal instances of opalescent beauty. Healer sees Valiska as a builder first and foremost; the occasional debris and decay is but a hint of the very deconstruction he is (also) known for, so the EP is the most-balanced artifact to my ears. The clandestine sinister vibes of La Tourette are farther away than ever, but as an antidote after that meticulous observation, Healer is worth your attention. - Ambient Exotica

Repetitions is an album by Calgary based experimental musician Krzysztof Sujata, who records under the name Valiska. The album began as a series of looping piano improvisations and developed to explore the concept of repetition in terms of both music and composition. The inspiration was drawn largely from the impressions and memories of a trip the artist took with his mother and brother to his native Poland last summer:

“Visiting the Baltic Sea and Auschwitz for the first time, as well as attending a Polish wedding, were unforgettable highlights. And the long train rides were something I enjoyed immensely. Going back home, I had this large subset of emotions to pick and choose from, and would sit down and record whatever I was keyed into that day. I took the emotional inspiration from Poland, and brought it together with the musical ideas I was thinking of at the time.” – Krzysztof Sujata (Valiska)


While much of this inspiration must have been quite personal, Sujata chooses simple single word titles for each piece that do not reference a specific place or event. Rather he focuses on mood, emotion, and pattern of sound and structure, allowing the listener to freely form their own connections to the music. In terms of sound, softly textured ambient drones are blended with generous helpings of organic elements such as piano, organ, and wind instruments creating a general mood of somber reflection (‘Clearing’, ‘Snow’, ‘Lost’, and ‘Reflection’) punctuated by dramatic surges of emotion that swell in the noisier passages (‘Glide, ‘Dawn’).

The album also contains two pieces (‘Held’ and ‘Escape’) written for a collaborative multidisciplinary work called ‘What Is More’ created alongside choreographer/dancer Pamela Tzeng, and writer/visual artist Jenna Swift. In tone and composition, they fit in seamlessly with the other tracks, once again prioritizing the musical concepts over the origin of their inspiration to create one cohesive and captivating listening experience. - Stationary Travels

Repetitions is the first big release of Calgary-based multi-instrumentalist and modern classical composer Krzysztof Sujata aka Valiska in 2015, an eight-track epitome of graceful electro-acoustic mica released in August on the artist’s own Bow Bottom Records imprint, named after the Bow River near the artist’s home and, for the moment, reserved for Valiska’s constructions only. Available on a limited run of cassettes and unlimited download versions at Bandcamp, Valiska offers a viewpoint whose angular momentum is less fond of a gravitational redshift as before. Don’t be bewildered by the crestfallen front artwork: in lieu of a charcoal-hued ergosphere, a sensorial microlensing takes place, waking the apprehension of – and whetting the appetite for – beautiful melodies that are awash with light.



Okay, so Valiska creates an incandescent album; is this a big deal? I think so, yes. Having visited his relatives in Poland for the first time since the early 90’s and confronting historic sites such as Auschwitz with natural landmarks like the Baltic Sea, Repetitions oscillates between the barometric poles and opposite standpoints. The nullpoint or innermost sanctuary, depending on one’s point of view, is neither nihilistic nor over(t)ly joyous. Somehow I’m lucky enough to absorb the more positive tones and magnificent tendencies of the melodies. Guitars are less transparently used on this album, Valiska’s forte remains the piano which is now acompanied by a clarinet, possibly making Repetitions the first instance in which the latter instrument is used. The album title could be seen as dangerous, given how dubious the concept of repetition is in the latest Ambient music and modern classical structures, but according to Valiska, he “was playing around with ideas of musical and compositional repetition, each piece using it in some way or another,” and that’s why textural, melody- and surface-related markers and ideas reappear in an otherwise versatile-as-usual immersion. Here, then, is a meticulous look at Repetitions and its eight tracks.



Clearing is the gateway to a hatched world, and the realization that Repetitions begins on a positive helicoidal note is remarkable. Piano-accentuated fermions, cautiously pentatonic jitters that are aflutter and a semi-mournful clarinet in the epicenter. Valiska is known for his deconstructions which eventually both harm and ennoble the scenery, but the opener is notably diaphanous and cohesive in terms of its comparatively mellow physiognomy. Pauses and fading arabesques augment the sequences of longform vignettes further. The adjacent Glide is then perfectly juxtaposed style-wise, boosting a matutinal-estival feeling of piano punctilios and heterodyned clarinet crystals hued in energetic organ-esque flumes during the latter half of its existence.



It is the third track Snow which ventures into classical Valiska territory: introvert, withdrawn and remote, the formerly fluvial landscapes are now showing their periglacial pyroxene, with the piano sequences carrying a gelid gravitas that is fittingly amplified by the droning magnetotails of simmering sinews and various electropositive fractals. Tension without conniption, petrifying standstill via fluvio-lacustrine cave pearls: a hibernal troposphere. Lost, meanwhile, uncovers a not so unexpectedly soothing-oneiric gamut of washed out droplets and orographic protrusions that first surfaced on Valiska’s SoundCloud account. Why the mellow megafauna? Because our artist from Calgary found this long-lost song after almost accidentally deleting it, so it does most certainly not depict a crestfallen catch–22. Instead, salubrious rhizomes and adaxial helictites outshine the darker edges, though the latter constituents are at home in the following Dawn: cerulean chords, piercing sirens and ice-cold centrioles pave the way to further ancillary routes until the last third bursts at the seams due to an arpeggiated retinue of lo-freq blebs, sawtooth tendrils and square lead saprotrophs echoing high above the polyvalent syncytium.



Diving ever-furher into the bewildering ambivalence of Repetitions, the sixth track Held is particularly fond of faux-luminosity. Being more of an ignis fatuus or volatile-violent flare than a guardian light, its rhenium-alloyed shooting stars and amethystine guitar granuloma – while beautifully open to scrutiny – actually lead to tone sequences of a clandestine cloak-and-dagger mentality, fog-fueled surges of tawny silver and reticulations of tape hiss. To me, benignancy and amicability are graspable throughout the arrangement, but it is a multifaceted piece for sure. The penultimate Reflections then fathoms the alkaliphilic scintillation of a presumably reversely played spectral chirality which is itself superimposed onto warmhearted fibroblasts, before the endpoint Escape offers yet another example of weirdly twisted reciprocation. Here, it is the track title that gives hope and provides a chance to overthrow the catenae. The agglutinated arrangement, however, is a chimera and features – in the last possible instance – Valiska’s trademark bursts and overdriven scythes amidst spine-tingling streams of sorrow. Escaping is a project, and projected it is indeed. It’s much more surreal than real within the boundaries of the album.



The heartbreaking finale notwithstanding, Repetitions is aglow with wonder and awe in lieu of, say, the similarly oft-quoted pairing “shock and awe.” It still encompasses, encapsulates and spreads Krzysztof Sujata’s approach of granularity, acidic boosts and other chloroderivative devices, but this aural topiary seemingly – and seamlessly – transmutes into a cathexis. Now widened by aqueous phytotelemata, keys of mutual understanding and gregarious encounters within the rivulets of contemplation and loneliness, Repetitions is not only the ancestor but concestor to albums such as Shifts or the industrial/organic longform diffeomorphism A Day As A Blade Of Grass (both 2013), marrying their purposeful destructions and talon-ic sound sculptures with the enigmatic-ecclesiastic La Tourette (2014)… only to then reveal chord progressions of shimmering beauty. You don’t have to peek behind the curtain: the orthochromaticity is the immersive counterpoint to the album’s portentous back story and bleak artwork. Repetitions shows Krzysztof Sujata’s less labyrinthine side. Whatever this means to the respective listener or even the artist himself, to me it translates into a distant happiness and clear opening on one's way. It might only be an approximation thereof, but thankfulness and commemoration are radiated through every tercet and polyphonic element. - Ambient Exotica

Granted, it has been done several times before, and today’s Ambient producers have either been inspired by the cinematic sepia aureoles of 1986’s The Name Of The Rose or the post-millennial, supposedly less valuable Angels And Demons, but whatever the source of inspiration may be, ecclesiastic crypts and churchly architecture impress the listener with their alkaline vestiges of pastoral sermons and wads of frankincense smoke simmering around a Gothic choir. Enter Calgary’s multi-instrumentalist and CJSW radio DJ Valiska aka Krzysztof Sujata and his destructionist take on French architecture: La Tourette is a short triptych of approximately ten minutes, self-released in July 2014 on Bandcamp in digital-only form. The artist demonstrates his love for architectural prowess – as happened previously in the saffron mirage Havana off the split release Digital Architecture (2013) – with the following description: Mass /Surface / Plan. What is that supposed to mean? Not that I have been let in on the secret, but it presumably describes the exterior surface and innermost rooms of the chapels Sainte Marie de La Tourette and Villeaceron, both of them looking entirely different, exuding modernist megalomania and shadows of a dubious past, at least when cross-linked to Valiska’s sound. Made of acoustic instruments such as cellos, guitars and pianos, the actual trademark and aesthetic achievement is found deep within and all around the clangs, rattles and studders that destruct the orderly Drone physiognomy, transforming the presumption of this being a Modern Classical artifact into an ignis fatuui adjacent to the Glitch genre. Sinister motifs, harmful melancholia… and crystalline resurrection? Let’s find out what the short trip to La Tourette has to offer.



The opener is called La Tourette (Chapel), serving as the seemingly self-explanatory gateway to the dichotomous synthesis between faux remembrances and astute reminiscences of increasingly chlorotic identikits. Even without having heard the first sound, the listener might anticipate the granuloma; it is clear in advance that Valiska’s layering technique is going to gyre between gravity and gravitas. Indeed, the mood is dense and almost mephitic, a potentially ribald remark amid the aura of a saints’ building. Asphyxiating cello or ebow sinews waft around an unexpectedly supernal glitter amalgamation, with echoey accordion remnants rounding off the arcane photometry. While the electro-acoustic textures are more akin to the Drone genre, their reverberated state makes them resemble a rather pointillistic-arpeggiated state. The careful emphasis on said reverb allows each surface’s afterglow to linger on and erect both the gustatory aura and erudite odor of this sanctuary… all done via the magic of sound waves, naturally! Placid movements, quiescent plinks, sudden eruptions of sparkling instruments that resemble clavi-, harpsi- but not necessarily vocal chords, the tone sequences and their interstitial alcoves breathe cinematic chromaticity, flashing lights and lilac shadows. Could this piece be based on sampled material? It seems incredibly senescent and clandestine.



The short centerpiece Villeaceron meanwhile clocks in at a mere 90 seconds but is closely tied to both movements that surround its complexion made of frequencies. The architecture of the real-world obelisk meanwhile resembles the jagged edges of a certain, most gruesome video game antagonist called Pyramid Head, but this is of no importance once the track is running on all cylinders. This is indeed an apt description, for Valiska takes the droning interlineal shapes and cauterizes them yet again with the help of fusillades of blotches and stop-and-go undercurrents, resulting in a hammering martelato arpeggio that is all the more bewildering in terms of the vitreous clarity of the argentine texture itself. Resembling a church organ entrapped by sputtering acidic guitar scythes, Villeaceron showcases Krzysztof Sujata’s proclivity for bending the nuts and bolts of a track by destroying the soothing equilibrioception. This titration process usually ends with a pH-value below 7, and this is the case here as well. Bubbling blebs, vesiculating specks… this second track delineates gigantomachy rather than theophany.



La Tourette (Rooms) is the endpoint of the journey, but definitely not the endgame. It is remarkable how awash with light the envisioned architecture of these rooms really is. Instead of harsh and recondite timbres, Sujata’s piano is in the foreground, strongly veiled in ligneous hall effects which flicker like sanguine flares. The constant oscillation is the agglutinating force of the presentation, interweaving both the black nonentity and the signs of life and clemency in the foreground. The piano is glacial at first, the harmonious overtones however spawn a reticulation of thankfulness, of genteel grace and a somewhat rhizomatic link to the nearby copses. Whereas the first two tracks were certainly grave and even sinister in their dualistic approach, La Tourette (Rooms) can be seen as the epiphany, the lactic syringa scenery that breaks the cannelure of the preceding material in order to blight the concept of Hauntology, Dark Ambient and whatnot. Naturally, this final piece does not bask in ethereal effulgence, but considering the intrinsic qualities and endemic demeanor of this EP, La Tourette (Rooms) is indeed the diaphanous rift to absorb the internecine burden and turn it into fibrillar delight.



Deconstruction is a formidable area in literature, film and music. Valiska’s La Tourette addresses the love for static noise protrusions, cataracts of jitters as well as aggrandized convulsions. Clocking in at a mere ten minutes, this little EP is quite a bit more emaciated than Krzysztof Sujata’s previous works, but shares many a resentment with the churchly halo that is built during the process of creation. Structure I off the artist’s EP called, well, Structure (2013) comes to mind tonality-wise; the textural variety and baseframe then showcase the fondness of an earthen approach made with real instruments. La Tourette features all of Valiska’s signature instruments, but with an important twist: the guitar seems to be out of focus this time. While clearly included, it is appearing in a much more processed state in order to make room for the piano. Whatever the source or instrumental base, the material is decorticated, harmed, sliced and cut. If this is what one is searching for, La Tourette’s stern and orderly architecture might come as a surprise once it reaches the cochlea of the aficionado. - Ambient Exotica

Apparently we live in a world where such a thing as “post-ambient” exists, according to one citizen’s review of Shifts via his Bandcamp profile. And you know, I don’t know if I really want to live in a world where such a thing exists. Or, at least I don’t want to recognize that it does. Too much thinking, too much trying to figure it all out. Even sitting here right now, deciding what words to use to describe Shifts — what adjectives are there, what genres or styles do we hear… I don’t want to fuck with any of that. What I want to do is listen to Shifts and just not worry about it. And I don’t think that Shifts really wants me to worry about it either. All Shifts cares about is taking you through its contours. Hoisting you up its peaks. Dropping you into the center of a cloud from the heavens. Washing you clean. It wants to show you its detail, and it wants you to feel its texture. Explore its color thoroughly and bask in the hot glow of an ambiguous mood. And Shifts is just grand enough to do it. You’ll hear Krzysztof Sujata plunk some melodies out of a piano in a minor key, only to leave trails of sustained note clusters behind, and a guitar (or a few of them, more than likely) swoop and swell up in a thunderous drone. On a track by track basis, it’s all enough to prick the hairs on your arms to life, and when it’s all said and done, that’s just about all there is that matters. Valiska is post-ambient? Sure. It’s also post-this review. So over me writing about it, and so into you getting lost in it. So go do that and leave me alone, please. - Tiny Mix Tapes' Cerberus

Self-proclaimed sound artist Valiska has a rate of composition and release too prolific for us to keep up with. The latest in his line of intriguing conceptual works is an album that draws us away from the repetitious, human-made sounds of industry and city honoured in prior releases to the breathtaking variety of the open country.

Driven by piano, synths and diverse guitar tones, Shifts seems to chart the more abstract course of time as well as a more defined journey taken by the artist to Vancouver, with various landmarks referenced in most of the song titles. A waking sun can be perceived from the opening strains of “Jericho Tides” – a name referring to a beach near the west tip but also bearing more profound association with the antique city in the West Bank (whose Hebrew name, it is theorized, derives from the word ‘moon’). And with Jericho Beach’s tides come the breaking dawn – the sun casting aside its lunar counterpart and offering a shimmering glow of lambency to the water within the first minute of the track. By the following piece, however, it is already the dead of night. As during many long journeys, the concept of time has become distorted as routine is held in suspense.

Through the following six tracks, Shifts presents a subtle and surprising variety. The second track, “Midnight, False Creek”, commences a murkier passage, with layers of synth engulfing as only night can when the opacity of its veil is not compromised by the glow of nearby cities. This oppressiveness is alleviated somewhat through the two-part “Hills and Fog”, but true clarity is only reclaimed in the fifth piece, “Shuswap”. An acoustic guitar – its sole appearance on the record – heralds the arrival of clear vistas, dispersing the fog in slow triumph around 3:40. The ensuing passage of delicate tremolo guitar hovering over plangent piano chords echoes the more ambient moments of Explosions in the Sky.

But the clarity is transient. The journey ends with “Radio Limits” – a piece of haunting vacuity that makes the most effective use of the reversed-note passages that recur throughout the album. Brooding and echoing, these notes suggest the call of unseen fauna lurking beyond the limit of humankind’s influence – a murmurous warning of what may occur should their dominion be breached. The tragic tale of Christopher McCandless’s end at the hands of the Alaskan wilderness comes to mind.

Despite the constantly shifting tone and mood, the album’s triumph is blending its disparity into a cohesive whole that feels entirely natural, moments of sound manipulation notwithstanding. However constant the changing features of a foreground, rivers, beaches, mountains and forests remain backdropped by a relentless skyline that binds all. As dusk settles and renders these features in shadow, it is this line that divides the land from the sky, substance from absence. As promised by the album’s apt cover, Shifts delivers both, with many layers in between its passage from dark to light. It also delivers an organic scene through a prism of artistic process, and, in doing so, attempts to decipher the patterns and cycles it may be possible to perceive within nature’s infinite variety. - a closer listen

Starting a review with a sentence as follows may be seen as an affront, but the surprise level only grows when the respective work is closely inspected, so here we go: Structure by Calgary-based multi-instrumentalist and field recordist Valiska aka Krzysztof Sujata is only an interim work and harbinger of an album yet to come, but still, do not miss this humble four-track EP if you can. Self-released on Bandcamp late in October 2013 where it is available to purchase and fully streamable, Sujata could have knocked on many a Drone- and Ambient-oriented label’s door to ask for some cooperative effort. He didn’t. A prolific veteran such as Valiska does not need to self-release his music anymore, but if he does, chances are that this material does not comprise of mere remainders from the archive, but sports the valuable complexion of serious gems which outshine even the corkers or vignettes gathered on his label-backed full-length works or long-form tracks. Sometimes, it is easier – and most of all more refreshing – to take matters in one’s own hands, to not blow up the proportions of a release in order to momentarily turn back to the blissful state of DIY. This is where Structure is situated in, inspired by Lebbeus Woods’ architectural drawings – as was Valiska’s Havana on his split release with Lcoma called Digital Architecture (2013) – and John Cage’s written anthology Silence (1961). Not necessarily Drone-driven due to pointillistic surfaces which are enmeshed as well, for example piano tones, Structure features four short works which present the virtue of superimposed textures. Pianos, organs and guitars are gathered together, but filters, frequency benders and other ornamental eutectics make sure to keep the listener entertained. This is no electro-acoustic work, as it tends much more to the first part of the hyphenated description. A euphonious entity for Ambient fans who want to bathe in moirés whose fiber-related entanglement invites the listener to both unravel it and to disentangle its overtones and masked accompaniments, Structure overcomes the lachrymosity and pondering depth Valiska’s music is known for… and blimey, the artist even succumbs to Rave-oid realms. Neonnnn!



The EP starts with a bang that is not even hinted at with a track title such as Structure I, but this is one gem to keep hold of. It is nothing less than a superb ode to the glistening Rave era complete with translucent laser beams and roaring sawtooth tigers buzzing on all bit-crushed cylinders. Yearning synth choirs (or processed guitars thereof), zestful zoetropes, static noise protrusions and plinking droplets are all ingredients of a typical Valiska tune, but here, their liaison turns into a cyberific looking glass of retrogressive futurism. Naturally, Krzysztof Sujata cannot give up the lament and particles of threnody, but the bustling scenery covers these traces of gloom efficiently. With no clear cut piano or guitar in sight and inside, I am more than willed to pinpoint the origin of all sources as synthetic. But what do I know? It is definitely a superbly glowing, very coruscating glitz blitz Valiska is unleashing, one where the blackness is incessantly illumined by libidinous lights and fiery flashes. Structure II seems to cross-fade into Structure I, but is more keen on electric guitar strata, angelic stardust helixes and glacial blisters. Genteel and forsaken piano tones have a short moment for themselves before they change their physiognomy into glacially jagged prongs of fragility and become enmeshed with cyclonic electric guitar tones. This is noisy Drone par excellence, but nothing could be more antagonistic than the tohubohu’s long afterglow which makes room for wondrously sentimental keys and stringed cavalcades.



Structure III aurally visualizes another – very different – approach, and I for one am almost saddened that this is the shortest tune of the EP, only barely crossing the two-minute-mark. It is very hazy, aqueous and lofty, shuttling between the aggregate phases by overlaying them, never giving up any of them for the other. The fluttering falsetto of the hymnic guitar drones is further ennobled by strikingly beatific piano vesicles which jump and tumble in pure euphony, emanating genteel mysteries and helical playfulness. Even in those moments where only phantom frequencies and figments of the main melody are heard, the composition succeeds. The main motif on the aquatic piano is so enchanting and supercharged with child-like wonders that it remains stuck in one’s head even when the song is long over. A masterful piece that has never been used in a Hayao Miyazaki movie, although by the look of things, it could, should and might have been. With Structure IV, Valiska’s fearful gem comes to a halt: this one is the feistiest, most voluminous hazescape with the usual complexions of isolated piano chords appearing together with gyrating guitar serpentines, but nevertheless emanating a haunting surge of emotion. Alloys of tape hiss, powerful overtones of contempt and warmth as well as harshly sizzling counterparts which eruptively cut through the mauve-tinged elysium, Structure IV is ablaze with thermal vortexes and moments of cessation.



Valiska seemingly belittles and exalts his EP via two markers: firstly by naming it Structure instead of Structures. The singular form hence stresses the utmost importance of the textural entanglement as the superior aesthetic standard of this work and every of its tracks, thus making sure that the same consistent rule and spirit is applied to every enmeshment. Secondly, the exclusion of micro stories – which are often hinted at in track titles – turns the viewpoint onto the textures or the structure, and nothing else. Naturally, there are reasons that led to this release as mentioned in the first paragraph and the explanatory notes, but other than these, it is refreshing to review a work whose, well, structure is situated above everything else, functioning as the towering entity rather than spawning multitudes of concepts, aimless conglomerates or collections of tracks. And granted, I would not want to miss one single fiber of the four arrangements. From the xeon-illuminated low frequency-traversed glowstick galore that is Structure I and the whitewashed ocean of nostalgia and apprehension called Structure II, over the strikingly Tetsu Inoue-esque crystalline forest pond of Structure III to the staggering warmth of the piano in the shapeshifting finale Structure IV, Valiska shines many a light on the interdependencies of the different patterns. The multitude of surfaces, the jagged harshness and occasional prongs that float through the EP are counterpoints to an almost audacious euphony and blissful elation. So make no mistake: these are no sound experiments à la Koji Kihara's as of yet unfinished and still growing A Study (2013). No mere leftovers or semi-finished globs are thrown at the listener in order to cash in big time. These are factually fully fleshed out enshrinements of rapture and mirth. You will not recognize this from the get-go when you approach the designedly jejune but precious front artwork or consider Structure's status as a self-released work. Indeed, artists like Valiska do not need to self-release anything ever again. So let me rephrase: once these artists do it nevertheless, it is less an act of defiance rather than the opportunity to surprise – and enthrall – with an appendix or interim work. And in this case, this interim work sports an additional ground rule: a structure. - Ambient Exotica

A day in 24 minutes, unfurling like dawn on either end of the horizon: Calgary-based ambient/noise auteur Valiska (born Krzysztof Sujata) is back with A Day as a Blade of Grass. The album is a single piece largely sourced from his recent performance at the Soundasaurus festival. Sujata’s ambitious piece maintains an astutely measured pace, instinctively layering sounds delicate and ragged into a gripping canvas of melody and texture — you know, the type of thing Tim Hecker became known for. However, where Hecker’s recent work tends towards a sort of grandiose distance, Sujata opts to explore something more immediately recognizable.

Constructed of piano, guitar and feedback, this piece demonstrates Sujata’s dynamic control of his musical language, reigning over the digital apparatus with a deeply human touch. Sujata’s accompanying visuals provide a peek of light and shadows, as well as moving shapes and blurred consciousness — a visual pairing that makes sense, given the ways in which melodic emotion seeps through the piece. Layering piano along sheets of waking fuzz, with a yearning undercurrent throughout, this is one of the most thrilling and immersive pieces of contemporary music I’ve heard all year. Listen to this. - FFWD Weekly

The most pleasant surprise this week came from Music on Hold, a new collaboration between Calgary’s own Valiska and Norway’s MHVA. If you’ve got an ear for lush, evocative and highly textured electronic music à la Tim Hecker or pre-New Order worship Belong, direct your browser over to Black Hymn Records’ bandcamp page for a free stream, and we’ll all pretend to live in a world where “hold music” is no longer synonymous with waiting on the phone. - FFWD Weekly

One day not so long ago, Valiska (Krzysztof Sujata) took the bus to the train in downtown Calgary and thought, wow, this sounds pretty good. And so, field recorder in hand, he set out to record the sounds of the day: to bring the city to life for international sonic travelers. The result is the intriguing Record of 37, an album whose strength (lack of post-processing) is also its weakness; the tracks make wonderful postcards, but an overall soundscape might have been more effective. I’ve said this sort of thing before, and recently, but it’s worth repeating: flow (in this case, the elimination of stops and starts) is often preferable to accuracy (in this case, the presentation of unadorned tracks in their originally recorded order, save one). This being said, Record of 37 is a fine collection and an impressive first foray into the genre for the artist.

The opening and closing tracks (“Centre p.1? and “Centre p.2?, the latter being the only track out of order, but wisely placed) are two of the strongest. The first part contains the train announcement and is followed a track later by the stretch and buckle of arrival. Perhaps not coincidentally, this second track (“Harsh noise busking”) finds its brother in the loud traffic of the second-to-last track (“Any street corner”), but the rest of the album is less parabolic. ”Centre p.2? contains the same birds and tracks of the opener, but adds bells for a sense of closure. What goes around has come around, and will do so again.

“Idling” features an amusingly disgruntled female speaking to her companion as the sound of heels clicks from speaker to speaker. ”A moveable stair, unusable chair” contains a series of interesting squeaks, while “Pasteur rooftop” presents gravelly sounds similar to those of a sorting machine. The busier, more specific and less nature-oriented sounds are the most effective, as they convey more of a city feel; a soundscape would likely have clustered these tracks in the middle or end. Overall, Calgary comes across as a rather quiet city, a nice place to live or visit, with minimal traffic and even fewer pedestrians; or perhaps this was simply an introspective day. Representative or not, Record of 37 is loving in its approach and respectful of its sonic environment, a kind present to its Canadian subject. (Richard Allen) - a closer listen

One day not so long ago, Valiska (Krzysztof Sujata) took the bus to the train in downtown Calgary and thought, wow, this sounds pretty good. And so, field recorder in hand, he set out to record the sounds of the day: to bring the city to life for international sonic travelers. The result is the intriguing Record of 37, an album whose strength (lack of post-processing) is also its weakness; the tracks make wonderful postcards, but an overall soundscape might have been more effective. I’ve said this sort of thing before, and recently, but it’s worth repeating: flow (in this case, the elimination of stops and starts) is often preferable to accuracy (in this case, the presentation of unadorned tracks in their originally recorded order, save one). This being said, Record of 37 is a fine collection and an impressive first foray into the genre for the artist.

The opening and closing tracks (“Centre p.1? and “Centre p.2?, the latter being the only track out of order, but wisely placed) are two of the strongest. The first part contains the train announcement and is followed a track later by the stretch and buckle of arrival. Perhaps not coincidentally, this second track (“Harsh noise busking”) finds its brother in the loud traffic of the second-to-last track (“Any street corner”), but the rest of the album is less parabolic. ”Centre p.2? contains the same birds and tracks of the opener, but adds bells for a sense of closure. What goes around has come around, and will do so again.

“Idling” features an amusingly disgruntled female speaking to her companion as the sound of heels clicks from speaker to speaker. ”A moveable stair, unusable chair” contains a series of interesting squeaks, while “Pasteur rooftop” presents gravelly sounds similar to those of a sorting machine. The busier, more specific and less nature-oriented sounds are the most effective, as they convey more of a city feel; a soundscape would likely have clustered these tracks in the middle or end. Overall, Calgary comes across as a rather quiet city, a nice place to live or visit, with minimal traffic and even fewer pedestrians; or perhaps this was simply an introspective day. Representative or not, Record of 37 is loving in its approach and respectful of its sonic environment, a kind present to its Canadian subject. (Richard Allen) - a closer listen

“Write what you know” is a common piece of advice given to authors; it applies to composers as well. A couple months back, we reviewed Valiska‘s Record of 37, a series of field recordings inspired by a bus ride to the train. As the artist works next to a train yard, this should come as no surprise. Valiska’s latest two-track effort is inspired by various forms of transportation: “Land I” by rush hour traffic and “Land II” by freight and commuter trains traveling through tunnels and around bends. By writing what he knows, the artist brings his subject to life. The beauty of this release is that it contains no actual field recordings; instead, it translates sound to impression, impression to sound, forging a document twice removed yet eerily true.

While listening to “Land I”, it’s easy to imagine the time-lapse photography of the commuter section of Baraka, specifically the stop-and-go of cars and pedestrians at city lights. The track stutters forward, hesitates, and stutters forward again: a cycle of interrupted movement. Electronic in nature, it mimics the blinking of walk signals and brake lights, although thankfully not the one-fingered salutes and the honking. ”Land II” moves slowly at the start like a train leaving the station. As the wheels pick up speed, sudden rail rushes are imitated through thickening, vibrating drones. The most effective of these segments begins at 2:45 and never quite dissipates. Random sounds reminiscent of the clack of metal against metal enter at 3:42. Just as rail passengers are never quite sure what that noise is underneath the car, the listener remains puzzled by the flickering pops. This subtle disorientation is part of the travel process, but it takes a frequent rider to remember it, as it often registers only in the subconscious.

Land was initially intended to be part of a larger transportation work. It’s a great start; one hopes that the artist reconsiders his decision to stop here. (Richard Allen) - a closer listen

One of the greatest thematic trinities in Ambient music consists first of the yearning for ethereal, wraithlike places, not necessarily of the New Age kind, but still densely layered and enchanting enough to feel swallowed, salvaged or encapsulated. A second possibility is to poeticize perfectly real, rural landscapes. It is the alternative draft, the counterpoint to the celestial climes. But even this aspect experiences an antagonistic device: Ambient is moved back to metropolis. Not coincidentally, this is exactly how the genre was truly carved out, at least under its well-known name, in Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. And this is how it developed ever since. Concrete jungles can cause great stress – same old, same old – but if they are transfigured, seen through different eyes from a snugly place of shelter, it so happens that the dynamics, traffic noise, bustling life and neon lights turn into something more meaningful once they are transcoded into music. Calgary-based Krzysztof Sujata aka Valiska creates just that with his self-released debut EP of 2010 which I finally got around to review: a homage to the city. Fittingly called The City, his five-track artifact draws from many microstylistic flecks and provides an interesting journey due to the clever collages, the Drone nature that seems to circumvent the bustling city life at first, and the blending of field recordings with electronics. Whereas many Glitch and Drone records depict similar city-related prospects from a bird’s eye perspective or through a camouflaged silkened veil that is strictly detached from the noisy melting pot – Microstoria’s Init Ding (1995), Takashi Wada’s Meguro (2004), Marconi Union’s Tokyo (2009) and Linear Bells’ Los Angeles EP (2012) are but four examples amid a never-ending stream of cityscapes –, Valiska’s The City, which you can fetch and listen to in full at his Bandcamp site, is much more earthen and cognizably rooted in a more realistic setting.



The whitewashed blur of diffuse traffic noise in Drone form, that’s the beginning of Recollection, an 8+ minutes long thunderously energetic Shoegaze piece. The wadded sounds at the beginning lead to crunchy guitar layers, their overdriven strings cause medulla-emptying spark discharges. The claustrophobic nothingness as a backdrop allows the electric guitar to shine and be the only source of lucency. After more than four minutes, a further shift occurs in the form of square lead synth-evoking oscillations which are grafted into the acidic gallimaufry to serve as towering devices of both euphoria and melancholy. The song fades out with rain-resembling crackles and the sudden realization that despite the attack rate and adamant severity of the guitars, it is the glowing warmth they provided which boosts the impetus of this opener, a warmth that is missing in the cross-fading The Curved Tower. It is here that a generous dose of ethereality is first injected in adjacency to softer guitar twangs: wonky, elastically wobbling synth strings in high regions conflate with a light blue-tinged granular mist. The aural landscape resembles braking trains, darker horn-like sweeps traverse by and insert a whimsical bit of a Königsforst feeling into the endemic panorama. The Curved Tower feels much lighter, and even though its textures and surfaces are more varied, its vibrant impact is deliberately lessened by the softness and fragility of all of its ingredients.



Up next is 9th, which is, in Sujata’s own words "a sound collage piece created using various recordings done in and around Calgary." The beans are spilled. The City EP can of course be linked to any megacity as the field recordings are too unspecific to be punctiliously pinpointed, but this is the one track where Valiska advects a clear geographic statement. 9th succeeds with a gorgeous wideness of its recordings which altogether prove my point that this EP depicts the city life from the inside. Public transportation vehicles, hectic pedestrians, honking horns and the droning pink noise of cars passing by create an often feared and seemingly mundane, but high-plasticity insight into a briskly place in the heart of Calgary’s 9th avenue. No synthetic droplets or guitar infusions are featured, this is a pure good-old panoramic field recording created with proper equipment. And thanks to Google Streetview, the listener can now relate visually to this street with ease. The remaining two tracks return to the Drone genre. It Felt Weird, the shortest piece which clocks in just a bit over the two minute mark, features flamboyant harmonica or mouth organ sequences in front of a hypnotizing sough with ship horn-esque drone patterns. I even spot a few steel guitar- or harp-resembling driblets in this mélange, but of equal importance is the interplay between the layers which results in a wonderful euphony full of contentment and majesty. The melodies themselves are not particularly strong or noteworthy. This would have been a - Ambient Exotica

One of the greatest thematic trinities in Ambient music consists first of the yearning for ethereal, wraithlike places, not necessarily of the New Age kind, but still densely layered and enchanting enough to feel swallowed, salvaged or encapsulated. A second possibility is to poeticize perfectly real, rural landscapes. It is the alternative draft, the counterpoint to the celestial climes. But even this aspect experiences an antagonistic device: Ambient is moved back to metropolis. Not coincidentally, this is exactly how the genre was truly carved out, at least under its well-known name, in Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. And this is how it developed ever since. Concrete jungles can cause great stress – same old, same old – but if they are transfigured, seen through different eyes from a snugly place of shelter, it so happens that the dynamics, traffic noise, bustling life and neon lights turn into something more meaningful once they are transcoded into music. Calgary-based Krzysztof Sujata aka Valiska creates just that with his self-released debut EP of 2010 which I finally got around to review: a homage to the city. Fittingly called The City, his five-track artifact draws from many microstylistic flecks and provides an interesting journey due to the clever collages, the Drone nature that seems to circumvent the bustling city life at first, and the blending of field recordings with electronics. Whereas many Glitch and Drone records depict similar city-related prospects from a bird’s eye perspective or through a camouflaged silkened veil that is strictly detached from the noisy melting pot – Microstoria’s Init Ding (1995), Takashi Wada’s Meguro (2004), Marconi Union’s Tokyo (2009) and Linear Bells’ Los Angeles EP (2012) are but four examples amid a never-ending stream of cityscapes –, Valiska’s The City, which you can fetch and listen to in full at his Bandcamp site, is much more earthen and cognizably rooted in a more realistic setting.



The whitewashed blur of diffuse traffic noise in Drone form, that’s the beginning of Recollection, an 8+ minutes long thunderously energetic Shoegaze piece. The wadded sounds at the beginning lead to crunchy guitar layers, their overdriven strings cause medulla-emptying spark discharges. The claustrophobic nothingness as a backdrop allows the electric guitar to shine and be the only source of lucency. After more than four minutes, a further shift occurs in the form of square lead synth-evoking oscillations which are grafted into the acidic gallimaufry to serve as towering devices of both euphoria and melancholy. The song fades out with rain-resembling crackles and the sudden realization that despite the attack rate and adamant severity of the guitars, it is the glowing warmth they provided which boosts the impetus of this opener, a warmth that is missing in the cross-fading The Curved Tower. It is here that a generous dose of ethereality is first injected in adjacency to softer guitar twangs: wonky, elastically wobbling synth strings in high regions conflate with a light blue-tinged granular mist. The aural landscape resembles braking trains, darker horn-like sweeps traverse by and insert a whimsical bit of a Königsforst feeling into the endemic panorama. The Curved Tower feels much lighter, and even though its textures and surfaces are more varied, its vibrant impact is deliberately lessened by the softness and fragility of all of its ingredients.



Up next is 9th, which is, in Sujata’s own words "a sound collage piece created using various recordings done in and around Calgary." The beans are spilled. The City EP can of course be linked to any megacity as the field recordings are too unspecific to be punctiliously pinpointed, but this is the one track where Valiska advects a clear geographic statement. 9th succeeds with a gorgeous wideness of its recordings which altogether prove my point that this EP depicts the city life from the inside. Public transportation vehicles, hectic pedestrians, honking horns and the droning pink noise of cars passing by create an often feared and seemingly mundane, but high-plasticity insight into a briskly place in the heart of Calgary’s 9th avenue. No synthetic droplets or guitar infusions are featured, this is a pure good-old panoramic field recording created with proper equipment. And thanks to Google Streetview, the listener can now relate visually to this street with ease. The remaining two tracks return to the Drone genre. It Felt Weird, the shortest piece which clocks in just a bit over the two minute mark, features flamboyant harmonica or mouth organ sequences in front of a hypnotizing sough with ship horn-esque drone patterns. I even spot a few steel guitar- or harp-resembling driblets in this mélange, but of equal importance is the interplay between the layers which results in a wonderful euphony full of contentment and majesty. The melodies themselves are not particularly strong or noteworthy. This would have been a - Ambient Exotica

Digital Architecture is a two-song, four-track Drone EP by Leeds-based Liam Coleman aka Lcoma or L_coma respectively, and Krzysztof Sujata from Calgary, Canada, better known under his moniker Valiska. It was released on Petroglyph Music in late January 2013, is available for free and can be downloaded at the label website. Cross-border or even transatlantic file-swapping of stems, samples and loops is more en vogue than ever, with many artists working together without ever meeting in person. I admit it is incredibly banal to write something like this in 2013, but while the particular concept of Digital Architecture turns out to be good on paper, it is enormously better in its aural state, leading to the impression that the musicians must have worked together in the same room, even though they created the respective tracks on their own: both Coleman and Sujata use photographs and drawings from architecturally interesting locations or buildings and utilize them as a base for the two tracks that are presented in a rotatory way, with Lcoma's Liverbird I and II being the first and third track, and Valiska's Havana I and II placed at two and four. The specific origin of the their inspiration is nowhere mentioned in the liner notes, so I had to investigate – read: pester the gentlemen via Twitter – in order to uncover the truth. Coleman draws his inspiration from the two so-called Liver Bird sculptures which are placed at the top of architect Walter Aubrey Thomas' Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, making the tracks' Roman numerals all the more poignant, while Sujata is inspired by the Havana sketches of the recently deceased architect Lebbeus Woods. These Walls Of Change can be further inspected on Woods' blog. There is a reason I am stoked about Digital Architecture, and it all started with a – major to me – revelation by Valiska on Twitter. Afterwards, I was then hooked big time by Lcoma's contribution to the EP, but more about this below. Let me just state that this work is absolutely worth anyone's while who is the slightest bit fond of Drone music with interspersed guitars and a few Glitch artifacts. Even though the two versions of each track are divided, I will review them in a consecutive, song-focused order.



Liverbird I opens the digital release, and if you are a fan of mellow machine-like sounds, Liam Coleman caters to your specific taste, for he manages to let euphony and monotony coalesce in the hazy metropolis that is Liverpool. The first Liverbird track is also one of the Drone tracks with a clear prelude: the crunchy clicks at the point of origin are of a dualistic nature, they encapsulate both a hazardous Geiger counter-evoking nature and an aqueous state of benignment. Coupled with an iridescent polar light stream and duskier stokehold fragments, these clicks are then replaced by New Age-oid wind chimes which gyrate around ethereal gales. The aura is intense, but balmy. Bit-crushed klaxon square lead pads and field recordings of rivulets refine the scenery further. Despite the ongoing wind gusts, omnipresent liquid particles and glistening sparkles, there is literally one source of thermal heat in place that meanders like an aorta through the arrangement, namely the aforementioned whitewashed machine drones that remind of boiler rooms and lack any traces of acidity or attack rate. They are in fact mollifying, entrancing and shift their pitch-related shape ever so slightly. Liverbird I is a blast. It probably does not feature all too many layers, but the thickness of its drones bolsters the construction and results in a completely wadded listening experience without any fissures or cracks.



The second incarnation, Liverbird II, draws from the exact same pool of layers and is a genuine continuation of the first mix. It is in fact highly similar, with the same wind chimes, radiator creeks and airflows happily reunited, but mind you, Lcoma changes a few nuances here and there, be it the surprisingly acroamatic-gelid dripstone cave phase that makes up the first third of the track, the revved up roughness of the mildly distorted pink noise placenta, or the vinyl crackle-accentuated final phase complete with oscillating wind bubbles and abyssal bass drones. While Liverbird I and II are torn apart, the belong together in real life and on the EP. It is here that architectural particularities of the real world are perfectly transformed into an aural concept. Coleman's offerings feel eminently airy, but not just due to the allusion of birds, but their concrete (!) placement.



Let us move to Havana: Krzysztof Sujata's two-part excursion is a proper Drone track, but takes a decidedly different route than Liam Coleman's infusion. Mark my words when I state the gradual change of the color palette. I first encountered the two Havanas via SoundCloud, and I immediately had the images of sepia-tinged, creme-tinted and beige-colored structures in mind. When I confronted Valiska with my impressio - Ambient Exotica

Narratives is an intensively poetic noise album featuring two ten minute pieces of sullen storytelling. They drift along at a perfect rate, telling morbid stories with long drones, samples from the news in Egypt, orchestral/ambient sounds and lots more. The pieces shift slowly between the dark and the light but somehow manage to tell their tales in under ten minutes. The progression is amazing and perfectly paced. The changes in mood are imperceptible in their subtly. Another glorious aspect of this tape is the sheer amount of techniques that Valiska uses - from guitars to nature's natural noises, effected sounds to whirling ambience and found sounds to pure noise. - Feedback Magazine