Emmanuel Mieville’s use of found sound is driven by a quest to bring a more earthy feel to the field of ambient music, and through his use of field recordings (here captured in Hong Kong, France and Morocco) and sonic elements immediately recognisable and relatable to human experience– heavily manipulated as they may be – he brings the stratosphere closer to ground level.
The defining feature of the four tracks which comprise ‘Ethers’ isn’t their atmosphere or tonality, but their contrasts. ‘Fertile Drone’ is warm, calm, supple, and built upon the rolling crash of waves. Its multi-layered, textured sound is absorbing, meditative.
In contrast, ‘Sur le Pont’ is built on a slow, deliberate hum, building to a whirring, drilling… then static. Dead air. Only, of course, the air is never dead. There are always more sounds, sounds of life in the ether, a faint drone wallowing in a sea of crackle.
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The crashing waves on ‘Watt Station’ evokes a bleak, exposed and distant location, but evolving drones across a range of frequencies, and fractal sounds of unidentifiable origins hover and drift on the peripheries. ‘Island Ferrysm’ builds a swirl of ethereal hums and extraneous pink noise.
Subtle, nuanced, it’s an accomplished and captivating work that succeeds in its objective, while at the same time pleasantly lifting the listener above the humdrum.
Emmanuel Mieville Online
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