Various

Behind SPECIMENS we find the London based ambient/drone artist Alex Ives. His productions pull together
delicately arranged but often highly driven cassette loops, synth layers and field recordings as well as often
employing wider instrumentation such as organ drones, guitar swells & saxophone hidden beneath the noise.
Two excellent LPs have been released so far on his own label First Terrace Records and SVS Records.
Alex Ives also co-hosts a monthly experimental radio show on Resonance Extra.
For MIND-07 we present three shorter SPECIMENS pieces: these raw, somehow perforated drones with lots
of atmospheric noise remind on PETER WRIGHT or early TIM HECKER, creating a truly absorbing mood.
SKELDOS: This "drone-melancholia" phenomenon (active since 2011) doing "abstract, longing, flowing
soundscapes with tender touch of a distant melody" from Lithuania breathed out one long track that befogs
everything in sadnesss and emotion, built on waving sounds from accordeon, voice and other instrumental
sources, slowly unfolding into multiple layers. The title of the track "Byra" means 'falling' or 'crumbling' and is
encrypted through this fragmented sentence: "...or listening to the things you have barely touched falling...
(sls.III)", coming from a never-ending sentence which was started with the first SKELDOS album.
MYTRIP from Bulgaria has been characterized by Tiny Mix Tapes with the phrase "ambient music as a
weapon" and is surely standing at the forefront of the vivid electronic/ambient/drone scene there, active since
about 10 years with the AMEK label. Two tracks of swirling and pulsing spectral synth drones show the
newest development of the project, founded on "more melody-driven and textural soundscapes, where blurry
rhythmic patterns meet with organic field recordings, found sounds and deconstructed instrumentation."
OPENING PERFORMANCE ORCHESTRA: Something very special is also the last act on MIND-07, O.P.O.
from Prague, with a 12min. 'especially mastered for vinyl'-version of 'Creeping Waves', the FULL version (70
min.) of this piece is placed on the bonus CD. An incredible dense and steadily fluctuating drone expansion,
based on the Creeping Wave theory, applied to acoustic phenomena: "According to the principle of
diffraction, when a wave front passes an obstruction, it spreads out into the shadowed space. A creeping
wave in electromagnetism or acoustics is the wave that is diffracted around the shadowed surface of a
smooth body such as a sphere. Creeping waves greatly extend the ground wave propagation of long
wavelength (low frequency) radio. They also cause both of a person's ears to hear a sound, rather than only
the ear on the side of the head facing the origin of the sound. In radar ranging, the creeping wave return
appears to come from behind the target."

(label info)