O Yuki Conjugate The Euphoria of Disobedience
As Lonely As Dave Bowman POD (Sam of black tape for a blue girl) ~ 3 for $20
Roach, Steve Kairos DVD+CD
Electronic release from Projekt and black tape for a blue girl founder Sam Rosenthal.
Limited Edition of Roughly 400 POD was released in early 2007 as a DVD-sized digi-pak in a limited hand-numbered first edition that was suppose to be 900, but because of snafus at the pressing plant, ended up being around 400. These were sold through by the end of May 2007.
There was also an Ultra-limited edition of only 36 copies: The DVD-sized digipak inside a blue plexiglass box, custom-made right here in Brooklyn.
Click for larger image:
SAM. AGE: 40.88. MUSIC. DESIGN. SASHA. AGE: 3.71. COVER PHOTOGRAPHY.
POD brings a new and chilling element to the ambient music genre known as drone. Inspired by the vast isolation of cold, dark space, the absence of human civilization, and the texture of pure sound, there is a curiosity and fascination with those forces that leads to discovery. As Lonely as Dave Bowman becomes a pioneer in the next stage of ambient drone.
With a chillingly isolated core of sound that detaches and draws back into itself like droplets of mercury, POD crafts a singular sound of metaphoric loneliness that is not just a strand that drifts through space but is an enveloping, permeating cloud. It travels in an infinite trajectory, exploring the realm of the unknown as if a breathing entity, expanding and contracting into eternity. It eventually evolves into a robotic drone, a swarm of emotion and memory.
As Lonely as Dave Bowman is an electronic space music deep-ambient side-project from Sam Rosenthal, Projekt and black tape for a blue girl founder. The images came first. Sam's young son Sasha took the photos one afternoon while playing with Sam's camera. Noticing they were striking enough to be an album cover, Sam decided to create a musical world to compliment the amorphous look the photos captured. Inspired by Sasha's love for the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Sam worked in the studio in new and organic ways. Forsaking his usual melodic and lyrical approach to song-writing, he quickly developed musical pieces that are principally texture and spacial landscapes, created from a meaningful flow of synthetically produced loops and old-fashioned outboard effects.
Is the limitless expanse of space outside the realm of the planet Earth a selective environment for life or is it a cold, dark vacuum that leaves only unimagined emptiness in its wake? Will long periods of separation from humanity support the explorer or will it birth a long, never-ending core of loneliness with tendrils that reach Earth, wrapping its inhabitants in despair and uncertainty? POD provides shape and essence to these philosophical questions that permeate our thinking selves with unanswerable possibilities. The sound ponders the moment and the eternity that extends beyond it, developing a continuous flow that goes on forever in swells and ebbs like an ocean of time.
(THE REAL DAVE BOWMAN)
Ambient music is a miracle in many ways. It isn’t subservient to a chord or central riff. Instead, it is allowed to flow in many directions, creating vast empires of thought and imaginings. The emergent style of ambient music called drone is a repetitious flow of sound that changes subtly, oftentimes in several directions at once. Thus the power of drone music to change mood and create atmosphere is unmatched over the time span of the recording. As such, fans of ambient music are immersed in music that allows one the ability to absorb and transform.
As Lonely As Dave Bowman is an album of soft, flowing musical ideas that move through time like a tether attached to a beginning. Just as Dave Bowman moved through the many points of his journeys, so are you attached to and absorbed by a contemplative and steady stream of core drone music that simply traverses space without a focal point. As Lonely As Dave Bowman is divided musically by 5 tracks, simply titled “One,” “Two,” “Three,” “Four,” and “Five.” However, those five tracks connect quite well over the course of the 65-minute album, never completely breaking off to pursue another sound, instead following the core all the way through.
If you can imagine the immensity of the philosophical barrage that faced Dave Bowman over the course of the Space Odyssey films, as he was re-invented from his experiences, drowned in his loneliness, and swallowed by thoughts and spirituality that no man before him has experienced, then you get an idea of the immersive flow of As Lonely As Dave Bowman.
Ambient music is definitely not for everyone. But if you have an affinity for ambient music, particularly drone, then POD’s As Lonely As Dave Bowman is a superior stream for your meditative side. With the focused eye of a child (featured as the photographic cover of the album) transformed into the evocative and challenging music of an adult, art is as pure as it can get. Note: There are three versions of this album, two of which are and will be available. The first is the standard CD copy in digipak packaging. The remaining version is a 200-piece Limited Edition, numbered album encased in a large, DVD-sized digipak. The third is an "Ultra-Rare" version, now sold out. It is distinguished by a hard blue plexiglass slipcase protecting the DVD-sized digipak packaging. This collector's edition will not be repeated - and was only created in an edition of 50. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. -Matt Rowe