jürgen müller science of the sea

http://www.foxydigitalis.com/images/DIGIV034-jurgen_muller-cvr.jpg

been listening to this album a lot lately. apparently there is a hotly disputed origin myth about it being recorded 30 years ago by an oceanographer really into ambient synth pop. i can see why whoever released it might have needed to make one up though, everything good about it is pretty obvious: it's buoyant & sounds like it was recorded underwater, it's reminiscent of the soundtrack & atmospheric passages of the silent world, it's nice background music, makes u feel like you're underwater. but the songs are called things like "seabed meditation," so you know what you're getting into. in terms of contemporary releases it feels closest to stuff like last year's arp - soft wave; a subtle, sometimes imperceptible but intuitive rhythm, minimal synth keys rubbing up against each other, simple brilliant layering. both achieve a kind of timestretched transcendence w/o use of heavy reverb, maybe notable these days. cool album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psZm0fDeQy4

link to hot dispute

only dispute link i could find: http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/8675-imaginary-stories/

i enjoy this record

http://static.boomkat.com/images/331554/333.jpg

http://static.boomkat.com/images/331554/333.jpg

excuse me

fwiw as much as i dig this i dont think the whole mythology behind it is partic appealing/smart... theres a slightness to the music, the kind of harmless ease that sdtrks commercials selling auto insurance to young ppl or w/e whereas the sea/ocean is p fearsome, 'epic', &c like a track like jana winderen's 'isolation/measurement' does a much better job of translating the 'feel' and the 'scope' of these things, kinda think it puts the album in the wrong context

this album is more like about the fun cartoony parts of the sea than the scary parts

The track titles are my favourite thing about this album: "The elusive seahorse", "Dream sequence for a jellyfish", "Chasing submarines". The music is nice but kind of forgettable imo.

I find this album chill.

His story kind of reminds me of Biosphere, being a mountaineer, trekking up cliffs to get glacial samples for Substrata and his field recording albums. Having some sort of mythology around the maker or process of making can definitely spice up a somewhat bland ambient album.

there was a small vinyl pressing at first, which sold out immediately. so that, and the manufactured-myth story together just turned me off. the lp is pleasant, but the "marketing" makes me dislike it.

There's no myth to the Biosphere though. He actually did that, unless you call 'things that actually happened in the past' myths.

oh--sorry, no--i was referring to the JMuller lp.

This album did nothing for me the first couple times I listened to it, and it's hard to get past the phony back story now, but I am intrigued more by the "timestretched transcendence w/o use of heavy reverb" as described in the opening post. Any solid evidence as to who created this? The PR hinted at Brad Rose but I think I read he said he was not responsible.

The "marketing ploy" is kind of clever, for electronic music, not insofar that it exists to Sell Records, but in that it draws attention to the fact that the music was made with old gear, or at least, is made to sound as such.

Just found a link to this album so i'll check it out and see if it's worth the fuss.

I enjoy the album, not bothered by the fake backstory. Somehow this is way less egregious to my mind than the Eleh situation.

This is a lovely record, very delicate and evocative. I like that it doesn't strive for the same all-enveloping kosmische bigness of a lot of other analog synth whizzjizz of the moment.

I like that it doesn't strive for the same all-enveloping kosmische bigness of a lot of other analog synth whizzjizz of the moment.

yes.

otm

every tedious ilm poster is a snowflake but the story is really no fuss. the tom ewing piece about it is good. i wasnt aware of the story when i first heard the album but it sounded/sounds like a 2011 album

Just spotted this in the Boomkat write-up for a new Digitalis release by Panabrite and wondered if it was alluding to Science Of The Sea...

Digitalis invite us to dive headfirst into the synth froth of 'Soft Terminal', the latest emission from maverick soundscaper Norm Chambers, aka Panabrite. Over the last few years he's amassed a small library of exceptional material for the likes of Gift Tapes, Aguirre and Digitalis, plus one rather special pearl, a real scene classic, produced incognito and which we've been sworn to secrecy over.

#seapunk

this record is so boring

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/72260-jurgen-muller-is-panabrite/

(Mostly reposted from the Ambient Recommendations thread) Biggest RIP to Norm Chambers aka N Chambers aka Panabrite aka the man responsible for this record.

Science of the Sea got more attention than his other music, but the Panabrite discography is full of gorgeous cosmic synthscapes with occasional acoustic guitar ornamentation. Personally I owed him a huge debt for his blog Lunar Atrium, which turned me on to a ton of great library and outré synth records circa 2010. Sadly the blog got scrubbed a few years ago like so many others from that era...

Currently zoning out to Panabrite's The Baroque Atrium, which glows extremely bright.

Fuck cancer, long live progressive synth music.

He was truly a remarkable musician, and it's a terrible loss.

rip

O fuck. I wondered why he closed the bcamp sub. RIP

That is so sad. I was on his Bandcamp sub too.

Science of the Sea is a delightful album that I love revisiting. Was really enjoying exploring his broader catalogue. RIP.

:(