Across the Mountains: A Macedonian Ambient Music Compilation (Review from Tome To The Weather Machine)

This, more than anything, is to let you know this exists. I’ve really dug into this compilation of ambient artists from Macedonia with what started as native curiosity. What exactly does ambient music from Macedonia sound like? I’ve been burned before by pretty bad Eastern European electronic music when I listened to three hours of the stuff on the Underground Alliance series for another publication I write for. I’m really happy to say that this stuff is legit. Silber Records must have some pretty strong sway in the Balkans, because a lot of this would not sound out of place on Silber’s fine repertoire of great drone records. Really engaging ambient music that runs a broad gamut. From wandering synth and field recordings by Dimitar Dodovski, to a sprawling 15 minute aleatoric piano piece with huge clouds of gathering static and ominous guitar crackle by fydhws, billowy projections of soft guitar-based droning by Amplidyne Effect, plus plenty of pulsing, Nu-New Age crystalline synth by Sherafedin Kurt. Sound_00 and Airless Project hold down the dark-ambient side of things bringing some much needed noise and darker synth tones into this otherwise all-lights-on affair. Without the sticker shock of this being imported from Macedonia, I would be just as wholly impressed and grateful to have something to take with me as I study.

Long Ambient Journeys with Amplidyne Effect (Concert Review from Skopyeah)

Recently I visited the Autonomous Cultural and Social Center (AKSC) in Skopje for a night of experimental ambient music by Martin Georgievski who produces music under the name Amplidyne Effect.

The corner of the small “living room” of the center was littered with tangled cables, a laptop, several external audio controllers and a guitar. Right behind the setup was an improvised projection screen made of white tablecloth and opposite it was a rather decent projector. 

Martin Georgievski aka Amplidyne Effect was hunched over his laptop, turning knobs, tuning his guitar…getting ready for his live act that he has brought with him to many events around the world. The room next door, through the narrow corridor, was the place of Martin’s art exhibit- photos he had taken on his trip to Japan, that were slightly distorted with a cryptic fuzziness.

A railway, a glass building, some metal circles, a landscape with blue skies above it… this was the pretext to the sound design the small and privileged audience was about to experience. The guests pop in and out of the rooms and Martin is becoming anxious. He feels he should start right away so he summons the crowd- some twenty or so people of various ages, from college students to two elderly couples.

He says: “Folks, I am about to start. I just wanted to ask you, would you prefer to watch a projection of me improvising in my audio software or would you like to watch the stars?” People opt for the stars and so Martin begins while the last empty spots on the improvised benches, padded and made of transportation pallets, were being taken.

A long and deep, pristine wash sets the stage for some serious experimental ambient music. The projector throws images of red and purple, gaseous realms. Sounds of whizzing comets pop in and out of the stereo setup. Martin takes the guitar and holding it awkwardly on his lap, he tingles the strings while with the other hand he constantly turns knobs and plays on the small keyboard.

The audience is becoming lulled into the darkness. From time to time, some peep their eyes at the changing images of Space, completely feeding from the sounds, while some have their eyes shut to enjoy it all in utter darkness. This goes on for some odd forty minutes, broken up in a strange discontinuity between time and space.

When it is all over, Martin bows in gratitude for the attention given to his audio creation and mingles with the crowd in the other room furnished with a makeshift bar that serves red wine and mastika.

Amplidyne Effect recently collaborated on the release Oldcast #55.

You can listen to that release and the rest of his music on his Soundcloud.

You can visit the AKSC on their Facebook.

Location, Dis-location, Conflation: Rum Music By Russell Cuzner (Review from The Quietus)

Post Global Trio – Fluids (Unknown Tone)

Almost in complete contrast to Dead City Voice‘s international array of civic nightmares, Post Global Trio’s Fluids is a relaxed dream of rural idylls produced by three guys from the same place – Skopje, Macedonia (despite their collective name’s implication). The field recordings of Toni Dimitrov are central to the work, providing a near constant trickle of mountain streams, supplemented by crackling fires, bird song and insect-life. These pastoral cues are romanticised by crystalline synth and laid back guitar tones from Martin Georgievski and born aloft on electronic drifts from Dimitar Dodovski. Fluids’ six trips are somewhat similar, their evocations of floating around in fresh air, over cool-wet-grass bordering flowing waters narrowly misses being crystal shop muzak, although no less hackneyed than the noise of urban dystopias, just less theatrical and without tension. They steer shy of the incense and dream catchers through improvisation – Fluids was apparently recorded live – which traps small obstacles of unpredictability in its otherwise smooth, steady flow.

Post Global Trio Captures the Essence of the Natural World on FLUIDS (Review from BandJack)

Supremely calming and peaceful, Post Global Trio’s 2014 album Fluids is another work that came to me in the wake of reviewing the Across the Mountains compilation of ambient music from Macedonia. This group (made up of Toni Dimitrov, Dimitar Dodovski, and Martin Georgievski) impressed me with their track entitled “2” which featured on the compilation – a track which I wrote reminded me of honeybees swarming a hive. Having now heard more of PGT’s music, that this first track conjured up imagery relating to nature doesn’t seem quite so strange.

The minimalistic melodies heard on the forty-three minute, six track Fluids album play out over an ever-present base of field recordings which capture the sound of rain falling, birds chirping, and streams babbling. The album’s title seems most appropriate considering how the material featured on it works since everything here is very flowing and smooth. Though I could almost be convinced that Fluids stands as a slightly brighter companion piece to an album like Pyramids with Nadja or imagines what an ambient record made by Boards of Canada would sound like due to its use of airy, often barely-there melodies, I might be more inclined to compare the PGT sound to that of German group Popol Vuh, known for their soundtrack contributions to many of Werner Herzog’s films. As was the case with Popol Vuh, the music of Post Global Trio seems to replicate what life itself would sound like once one is removed from the hustle and bustle of modern city living.

Establishing the basic sound palette heard throughout the album, the first track unleashes a quietly dizzying array of bells and chimes which gently toll out the main “melody” as it exists in the piece. At ten and three-quarter minutes, this opener is the longest here, incorporating electronic chirps and an omnipresent field recording which first features the pitter-patter of precipitation and goes on to include the sound of water gurgling along in a stream. The whole of the track is extremely enveloping and trance-inducing: even some increasingly strange, more jarring accented tones and noises that occur late in the going don’t disrupt the ongoing, resonant drone that exists at the center of the sound mix. A more immediately pleasant second track offers up a dynamic contrast to the heavy-handed opener, having a mixture of bubbling, playful keyboard melodies and quiet acoustic guitar heard over a crackly background of pure ambient sound. Late in the going, the more fleeting sonic elements are overpowered by piercing, whirring drones, yet the piece ends on a quietly optimistic note.

While the earlier tracks had some sense of an almost religious sense of wonderment, this aspect of PGT’s sound is more prominently on display in the third track which includes the sounds of distant birds cawing beneath loud, buzzing chords. In terms of its sound and ponderous chord structuring, this isn’t so far removed from the types of material heard on Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II, but it seems more atmospheric than anything heard on that album. Again, there’s use of more jarring accents to create some variation in the piece, and it also throws in the sound of rushing water during its second half. Following a brief fourth track that suggests harsh winds ripping across a barren, alien landscape, Fluid’s fifth composition, full of twinkling piano, is arguably the one here that most recalls Brian Eno’s early ambient experiments. A throbbing, almost heartbeat-like sound introduced during its second half adds a seemingly misplaced mechanized element to the otherwise very ethereal piece, and the album’s final track marks a return to more earthy, natural-sounding material. Chirping birds and warbling, resonating keyboard tones are the immediately noticeable parts of this closing track, which doesn’t so much provide closure to the album as suggest an ongoing, possibly never-ending cycle.

Though it’s difficult to really describe much of what’s happening on Fluids, it certainly satisfies as a relaxing soundscape providing welcome relief from the stresses of everyday life. Since the majority of the tracks here are fairly similar in terms of the types of sounds heard in them and their basic construction, I could see some people being turned off by the album’s repetitive nature. It also could be said that neither the album as a whole nor any of the tracks in it come to a true climax at any point; it thus seems a bit “flat” in terms of its direction and purpose. Still, Post Global Trio has precisely embodied the spirit of the countryside and forest with this music and I suspect those who enjoy sound collage and the more atmospheric and arty side of the musical spectrum would appreciate what they have to offer here. As a genuinely comfortable and inviting ambient work (made even more impressive by the fact it was recorded live), this is quite simply exemplary.

POST GLOBAL TRIO – FLUIDS Review (Review from Charlotte Sometimes Zine)

 

Post Global Trio, the trio of Toni Dimitrov, Dimitar Dodovski and Martin Georgievski, all Macedonian lovers of ambient music and this is their first, self-titled album (there’s already more new material that will be released on Twice Removed and elsewhere, during this year)… We have here one piece of music of one hour and that’s the whole album, so, after listening, probably naturally comes the question: is there enough happening to keep it interesting for an hour?! I thought this is an okay album… Sometimes leaping into repetition and without much happening in the music, when it stays just narrow ambience for probably too long, but the guys are into it and they’re having a jam session, so it’s probably ok… This album was played and recorded live and streamed on the frequency of 103 FM at the radio Kanal 103 in Skopje and online, internationally, so it’s a live recording… Combined into a full hour through the immaculate sound-shaped drones, field recordings and textures, it resonates somewhere between the abstraction and the narrative flow (that’s my words in the description for the release on the label’s site). Also: Even though it tends to be concrete to a certain degree, the sound of Post Global Trio still remains a mystery to enjoy and comprehend, within its own distinctive categorizations and impulses. (BR)

Post Global Trio – FLUIDS Review (Review from Kritika.mk)

“…The Trio chooses their instruments and softwares carefuly: 4 Piezo Microphones, SynPrez FM emulator, Audacity, Ableton Live, Native Instruments Massive Software Synthesizer, Pro 53 Synthesizer and so on… They create a completely different and unique tunel of sounds All 6 tracks give light to new meaning and scenario in the atmosphere of Fluids, in a moment you can find yourself in the wilderness of Lazaropole, the waves of the Aegean Sea, or an airport in Pariz. You can expect suspense of manipulative sounds, meditation of thinking or falling inside a wave of sound on Fluids…. back to the beginning.”

POST GLOBAL TRIO – Minus Seven Review (Review from POPSCOTCH)

 

Post Global Trio is one of the most active ambient projects on the musical map in ex-Yugoslavia, which witnesses their extensive biography in the shape of the band and as well the solo projects of Toni Dimitrov, Martin Georgievski and Dimitar Dodovski, in which you had the privilege to read in our interview they gave for our webzine. How devoted and fantastic they are in this sound you can check for example Martin’s 29-hour release 1-49 which gathers the podcasts and stream improvised sounds of his project Amplidyne Effect for which the author suggest to listen in shuffle mode. Unique ambient megalomaniacs project for this region, but don’t be frightened by the 29hr mark of this project. There is different kind of music and sounds in this project from the guitar and synth spectrum that is generated slowly & minimalist, but when has that stopped William Basinski for example to make contact with his audience.

We are mentioning all this in the context of the new album from Post Global Trio who recorded their album in the legendary Radio Kanal 103, mastered it and released it not long ago for the Dutch label Shimmering Moods Records as an album called Minus Seven. Toni Dimitrov in the context of this album serves his function as a sound artist who is painting each of this track with field recordings from nature, gathered from his travels and mountaineering. Martin Georgievski is painting this picture with drones and tones with his ambient guitar and synthesizers, while Dimitar Dodovski is adding his computer sounds and glitches which you can hear on the sampler. Each of the tracks from the album is taking you on a reflective and meditative journey through your headphones which slowly calls in Jon Hassel’s etno-ambient excursions in some imaginary world and sound islands which leads the ghosts of the dead indigenous people and their incantations. Tribal drums and ancient percussions are the new rhythmic frameworks which combines with the classical sound of Post Global Trio and their 12k, Brian Eno and Raster Noton influences, creates an interesting fusion which that slowly jumps around in the rest of this excellent album.

Post Global Trio – Minus Seven Review (Review from Foreign Accents)

“Another great one from Amsterdam’s Shimmering Moods, who deserve major cred for putting out øjeRum’s Naar Vi Vaagner in April, this time from the Macedonian Post Global Trio (Dimitar Dodovski helming an array of electronics, Toni Dimitrov gathering field-recordings as well as taking the cover photo, Martin Georgievski on guitar and synth): the ethno-ambience of Minus Seven. Nothing too serious going on here, just four sprawling helpings of some fourth-world music cross-pollinating electronica with exotica and calming field-recordings– pure bliss, but with a lightness to it. Toni Dimitrov’s oblique recordings of nature and everyday hubbub give a relaxing backdrop to the story-travelogue. Playful stabs from synth and swirling dives and re-surfaces in the mix (check “Part II”, in particular) may remind you a bit of dub and the steady pulse of techno. But knowing these guys, this thing was inspired by piles upon piles of ambient and electronic obscurities spanning the globe to the point where there’s no origin that stands out but the heart. Good stuff; make good and dive right in.”

Conjoining Currents: Ethno-Ambient, Electronica, Field-Recording, Ambient Techno, 

POST GLOBAL TRIO – Post Global Trio (Review from Frame Music)

 

Macedonian band POST GLOBAL TRIO first appeared back in 2014, releasing two albums that year and with at least two more albums to their name following this. The self-titled album “Post Global Trio” is one of the two albums that dates back to 2014, and was released through Macedonian label Post Global Recordings.

One of the things you perhaps doesn’t expect to encounter in life is ambient music that can be properly described as challenging. This is such a case though, and not just due to the length of the single composition here, which clocks in at an hour, as there are other factors at play too.

Understand me correctly though: This isn’t challenging music similar to avant and highly experimental music, but it is more challenging than the undefinable norm in that a lot more is going on than what you’d expect, and that the end result is difficult to describe in an accurate manner.

The first half of this album plays out in a manner pretty close to what one might expect of such a production though. We get field recordings: Of birds, water, the sound of branches and bushes, some sound of people interacting with a natural environment, cleverly flavored with soft floating synth layers, percussion effects with a earthen, natural feel and careful drones. The sound of running water in particular is prominent, and the feeling invoked is one of a trip through nature. At times mystical and mysterious, with an occasional enticing timbre of darkness to it, but never ominous or dramatic in any manner.

In the second half the nature sounds subsides, while the synths and electronics increase in stature. More dramatic soundscapes are formed, the piano is added for contrast here and there, and the general nature of the sounds and textures applied becomes increasingly darker. With gentler interludes along the way, but the general development is towards an overall darker and, especially towards the end, also twisted and distorted musical landscape. In my mind this brings forth associations towards wandering from nature and into a city, and the song possibly concluding in the city core, with a total absence of nature and a more alien and hostile general environment.

I find it impressive to manage to create such a well made creation. Managing to keep one’s attention to a creation for a full hour is an achievement in itself, and that the soundscapes crafted and explored comes with the power to inspire towards associations is another plus in my book. While perhaps not a brilliant creation as such, as some sections lacks the sheer hypnotic power I crave, this is a well made creation on most levels and a fulfilling total experience.

Post Global Trio’s self-titled album comes across as a strong and well made statement from a trio of artists that are accomplished and ambitious in their forays into the fields of ambient music. A full hour of music that use many different elements and effects from the ambient realm to create an accomplished, quality creation, one that possibly will have an impact also beyond the regular audience for ambient productions.

My rating: 7/10

Amplidyne Effect – Gloria on Canvas (Review from Łabandzi Śpiew)

Amplidyne Effect (which is a science term connected to electricity generation) is a project by Macedonian multimedia artist Martin Georgievski. Amongst many of his enterprises and albums, appeared a new one called “Gloria on Canvas”.
Its name is connected to the artist’s inspirations he clarifies as “composition and the artistic movements of nature that we can only experience through forms, canvas and sound.” Georgievski’s music travels around the broad spectre of alternative electronic music with elements of ambient, drone and neoclassical sounds. Plus, there surely is a lot of the biological sound created by living organisms on his newest album too.

Amplidyne Effect – Gloria on Canvas  (Review from Nomads.mk)

 

The album titled Gloria On Canvas through imaginative painted scenery that appears in front of your eyes will make you feel completely relaxed while you are traveling through your thoughts. It’s a somehow time travel, intertwined with neoclassicism – order, balance, clarity, and emotional restraint (20th century reflection sound design). While the experimental textures of the movement of nature that are skillfully inserted in this album make it original and unique.

What will leave you with the biggest impressions after listening the whole album is probably the track titled Xylem. Just like the multi-layer of xylem – with the guitar sound accent and many classic ambient elements, this is the track that definitely makes this album incredibly impressive. The whole album is a clear whole with a thought that constantly flowing. This is a greatly elaborated project or an ambient attempt to restore the aesthetics of the broad concept of classicism. In short – created by the specifications for representation in the world.

Synergistic and constant. Probably one of the best performances of the young ambient author Amplidyne Effect.

Amplidyne Effect – Gloria on Canvas (Review from Popscotch)

After a very fruitful year in 2017 for the Post Global Trio, each of the members of this central station for ambient sound in the Balkans, continued with its sound adventures as solo projects. Amplidyne Effect was founded in 2009 by Martin Georgievski and after a series of collaborations, as well as under the pseudonym Meissa Ionis and within the Oldcast series, he showed a great deal of inspiration and eclecticism, and on his latest edition, he delivered his most mature and most enclosed edition so far.

In addition to ambient and drone compositions,these forty minutes of new material brings a turn to the slow elegance of neoclassicism. Gloria on Canvas is an author’s play with stretched truncheons through which organic textures are poured, blissfully intonated synths blend with glittering tones of new age piano and soothing guitar tunes in a manner that invigorates the 12k sound and ambient symphony by Brian Eno on the Fractal Inconsistency track. The final shape is very warm and cosmically expansive, and this trip can be through the microcosm(s) as much as the macrocosm. Stars of the Lid made imaginative music to continue Twin Peaks and Martin’s album for night moon gazing through the unseen and more White Lodge astral projections.

Amplidyne Effect – Moribund Neighborhoods  (Review from TURBULENCES VIDÉO)

 

Amplidyne Effect is the name of the project initiated in 2009 by Macedonian audio and multimedia artist Martin Georgievski. Result of a commission within the framework of the No Lockdown Art initiative launched by the European Pepinieres of Creation and Transcultures (Belgium) to support contemporary creation during this period of forced isolation, “Moribund Neighborhoods” is a collection of sound pieces recorded at the artist in the city of Skopje or at his places of wandering during confinement.
 
This new album (Amplidyne Effect has produced nearly twenty releases to date, mostly but has been more present lately on the web than on disc) ambient electro exposes us to 9 sometimes tormented soundscapes (On The News), sometimes almost idyllic (Lucent), which make us put into perspective our own physical but also emotional confinement following the upheavals of Covid-19.
These introspective, almost meditative pieces plunge us into a dilated space/time with here and there also fragments of everyday sounds (“field recordings”).
 
From live sessions recorded with synthesizers, guitars and samples captured in town or in the natural environment, these celestial or oceanic sound layers take us on a journey into a parallel organic world with a form of tempered psychedelia.
This fluctuating sonic organicity invites us to find a balance in the chaos of routine and the uncertainty of everyday life (Life’s A Glitch – more rhythmic) and to rethink the – usually urban – space that surrounds us (An Excerpt…).
 
The selection of quasi-documentary photos taken by Martin Georgievski which appear inside the cover of this digipack CD (and in the bandcamp edition, each piece corresponds to an original photograph) with neat graphics, clearly show a certain greyness, even a kind of isolation – all the more so in this extinct period – that emanates from the concrete buildings with the brutalist aesthetic of Skopje, contrasting with the dreamlike dimension of the Bridge of Art and its elegant statues on a foggy night, or the serenity that emanates from the nearby mountains opening up to possible more colourful tomorrows (small surprise detail of this cover where a green grey dominates which fits well with a pale context).
 
To navigate through these sonic and filmic flows, the listener is invited to surrender to a gentle immersion also born of the organic fusion between the crystalline guitars and the electronic treatments which are subtly combined, as well as by fleeting evocations, more or less peaceful, of the sound space that surrounds us and also transforms us.
One does not know exactly if this movement is guided by hope or could turn into a slow descent into hell, but the final direction (Longest day) is towards the light.
 
The material swarms, diffuses, metamorphoses little by little and, in the end, Amplidyne Effect manages to overcome the persistent uncertainty and take us on its “slow trip”.