Sundaze 2109

 Hello,  


Today's Artist is the electronic/ambient music project of Scott Morgan, from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The name Loscil is taken from the "looping oscillator" function (loscil) in Csound in case you wondered, Scott Morgan was also the drummer for the Vancouver indie band Destroyer, but then studying communications and music at Simon Fraser University opened Morgan to the possibilities of experimental and electronic music and the rest as they say,is history...... N'Joy

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As Loscil, composer/producer Scott Morgan creates ambient music that drifts between the intuitive and the intellectual with deceptively easy grace. Since his 2001 debut album, Triple Point, a set of evocative tracks revolving around thermodynamics, he's shaped his masterful atmospheres and delicate, almost subliminal melodies with conceptual frameworks. The history and striking geography of southwestern British Columbia -- especially his hometown of Vancouver -- inspired some of his finest albums, including 2004's First Narrows (his first work to blend live instrumentation with electronics), 2012's Sketches from New Brighton, and 2014's Sea Island. While Morgan expanded his focus with 2016's ecologically minded Monument Builders and the meditations on creativity of 2019's Equivalents, the vast yet intimate feel of his music remained.

Born and raised in Vancouver, Morgan moved from the city's eastern suburbs to Courtenay on Vancouver Island as a boy. In his teens and twenties, he grew bored of the island's stillness, and channeled his restlessness into the bands he played with, which later included a stint as the drummer for Destroyer. However, studying communications and music at Simon Fraser University opened Morgan to the possibilities of experimental and electronic music. As he trained to be a sound designer and director, he learned about the fundamentals of computer music as well as the work of 20th century experimental composers like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Submers
Morgan's education shaped the music he was making on his own. Taking the term "loscil" (a combination of "loop" and "oscillate") from the audio programming language Csound, he began performing his minimalist dub/techno/ambient-inspired tracks at a friend's independent theater. He made a demo album, A New Demonstration of Thermodynamic Tendencies, named after and inspired by a physics textbook Morgan found at a used book store. After a friend suggested he send the demo to Kranky, the label signed him and, following a few tweaks, released it as Loscil's debut album. Arriving in October 2001, Triple Point introduced the conceptual basis of Morgan's music and his abstract yet vivid style. Following a European tour with Stars of the Lid, Morgan started work on Loscil's second album. This time, he looked to underwater craft for his music's emotional and thematic coherence and used heavily processed samples of classical music to convey its aqueous depth. Submers, which appeared in November 2002, included a touching requiem for the crew of ill-fated Russian nuclear vessel Kursk.

Destroyer's Rubies
For his next album, Morgan used a much wider range of sound sources. Along with samples, found sounds, and computer-generated tones, he also incorporated live instrumentation into the work. Inspired by Vancouver's Lion's Gate Bridge, May 2004's First Narrows featured Fender Rhodes courtesy of Zumpano's Jason Zumpano, along with contributions from Destroyer guitarist Tim Loewen and cellist Nyla Rany. At this point, Morgan was still Destroyer's drummer, and his remix of the band's 2006 album Destroyer's Rubies, "Loscil's Rubies," appeared on its vinyl release. That May, Morgan also issued Plume, which reunited him with Zumpano and featured xylophonist Josh August Lindstrom alongside guitarists Krista Michelle Marshall and Stephen Wood.

Endless Falls
Loscil returned in 2009 with Strathcona Variations, an EP for Ghostly International that ranged from minimalism to orchestral heights. With March 2010's somber Endless Falls, Morgan took another step forward; the album's final track showcased the vocals of his Destroyer bandmate Dan Bejar. The Italian label Glacial Movements issued Coast/Range/Arc, a piece inspired by the Coast Mountains, as a limited-edition release in June 2011. Morgan's next pair of albums showcased different sides of his hometown. Appearing in September 2012, Sketches from New Brighton took its name from an oceanside park in Vancouver that was considered to be the city's birthplace. The album spawned the following year's Intervalo, a reworking of several Sketches from New Brighton tracks with pianist Kelly Wyse. In November 2014, Morgan and Wyse reunited for Sea Island, which drew inspiration from the isle that is home to Vancouver's international airport. That year, Loscil also appeared on a split EP with Fieldhead.

Morgan's 2015 works included the For Greta EP, a benefit release for a friend's daughter who was battling bone cancer, and the interactive smartphone EP Adrift, which incorporates the elements of each track differently each time it plays. A warped VHS copy of Koyaanisqatsi, as well as the writing of philosopher John Gray and the photography of Edward Burtynsky, shaped Morgan's vision for November 2016's pensive full-length Monument Builders. The next year, collaborations with Seabuckthorn and Lost Trail arrived. In 2018, Morgan self-released Bannockburn, an extended version of one of the tracks from Adrift. In August 2019, he issued Equivalents, an album inspired by a series of moody, early 20th century photographs of clouds by renowned photographer and artist Alfred Stieglitz.

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Loscil's Scott Morgan recorded Monument Builders during a difficult time that also spawned For Greta, an EP benefiting a friend's daughter battling a rare form of bone cancer. On this full-length, he gives that sense of sadness and frustration a global scope as he reflects humanity's toll on the environment. Monument Builders' grey and black vistas were also inspired by a moldering VHS copy of Koyaanisqatsi, the renowned nature documentary that expressed its themes as much through Philip Glass' iconic score as its striking visuals. Even without an accompanying film, the album feels like a lo-res sequel to Glass' music: Morgan makes it easy to envision the blighted landscapes evoked on pieces like "Anthropocene," a term referring to human-caused climate changes that rivals Koyaanisqatsi (a Hopi phrase meaning "life out of balance") when it comes to pointed titles. "Drained Lake"'s ragged, unpredictable beats suggest decaying foundations, while the arpeggiated synths on "Red Tide" feel like the unchecked growth of an invasive species. This is one of Monument Builders' clearest homages to Glass, but Morgan also riffs on his own body of work. He goes deeper into the dark, unsettled-sounding territory of Sea Island on "Monument Builders," girding its mournful trumpet and spectral electronics with sub-bass that adds to the sinking feeling he creates throughout the album. Indeed, no knowledge of Morgan's influences is necessary to understand the grief and anger radiating from Monument Builders -- this is the ambient music version of screaming at listeners to wake up. Since this is a Loscil album, there's as much lyrical beauty as bleakness within "Straw Dogs"' aching pauses or the gasping tones on "Weeds." Monument Builders is a powerful reminder that ambient music is a fine conduit for emotionally and politically charged messages, and it's one of Morgan's finest works yet.

<a href="https://multiup.org/4588000d4a029e2a7551cfaa7c8120b1"> Loscil - Monument Builders + For Greta + Suns</a> ( flac 359mb)


01 Drained Lake 6:47
02 Red Tide 5:26
03 Monument Builders 4:43
04 Straw Dogs 4:57
05 Deceiver 4:42
06 Anthropocene 4:40
07 Weeds 6:30

For Greta
01 Pearl 6:28
02 Luna 7:03
03 Lucioles 5:47

Suns
01 Monument Destroyers 9:56
02 Edifice 5:45
03 Animal Silence 4:16
04 Anthropocene (Redux) 3:48
05 Béton Brut 6:54

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Many of the dozen albums that Scott Morgan has produced over the past two decades utilize two volumes: quiet and quieter. Morgan’s music as Loscil is defined by subtlety and understatement: His records tend to recede from the foreground, enmeshing themselves in their surroundings without demanding much attention. He has a rich compositional style that is intricate and deliberate, as well as an ability to conjure immersive atmospheres whose surprising depth is hidden by the music’s supine, almost narcotic, qualities.

Equivalents, Loscil’s first album in three years, is remarkably monochromatic music, full of wispy high pitches that swirl around waves of pink noise and slowly moving tone clusters. Almost all of the sounds were created by heavily processing and layering samples of piano that were originally intended for a Glenn Gould tribute curated by Japanese ambient legend Ryuichi Sakamoto. By focusing so intently on one source, Morgan has made one of the most homogenous albums of his career. It’s easy to regard Equivalents as one long composition that moves through several distinct but related movements. It has a lulling effect that allows space for the mind to wander. Yet what Morgan can do with that limited palette can be stunning. There are elusive melodic lines spread throughout the album, often so slow that they unfurl over the course of an entire track. “Equivalent 5” creates an effect similar to a Shepard tone, the buried melody, cloaked in hiss, rising but never quite reaching a climax before dissolving into nothingness. Each element seems purposefully placed, and sounds often ping between the left and right channels, such as the delicately pulsating static on the closer “Equivalent 4.” Morgan frequently juxtaposes blocks of sound shrouded in reverb with crisp, light tones that dance around the swirling mass.

Loscil’s albums typically draw inspiration from the environment (rain on Endless Falls, pollution and degradation of the natural world on Monument Builders), and Equivalents uses clouds as a conceptual nexus. The album takes its name from a series of the same title created by Alfred Stieglitz in the early 1920s, in which the photographer attempted to locate musical qualities in abstract forms found in nature. Stieglitz captured images of clouds mid-swirl, printing them in stark black and white, connecting their strange contours to his own “emotional and philosophical” states. Like clouds, the music on Equivalents is in constant motion but appears to be caught in stasis. Unique and beautiful contours appear and disappear without fanfare, smeared into other sounds or pure silence. What seems simple on the surface is detailed and textured under close attention. Like Stieglitz’s photographs, the music evokes a calm melancholy and surprising emotional resonance. Because of its indistinct nature, Equivalents feels infinitely deep, with details left undiscovered even after repeat listens. It is easy to get lost in its doldrums, and can sometimes feel inconspicuous to a fault. Brian Eno famously said that ambient music “must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” On Equivalents, Morgan’s careful attention to both those extremes continues to yield fresh ideas.



<a href="https://www.imagenetz.de/nFCRz">   Loscil - Equivalents  </a> ( flac 222mb)

01 Equivalent 1     7:18
02 Equivalent 3     7:22
03 Equivalent 6     7:03
04 Equivalent 5     4:23
05 Equivalent 2     8:14
06 Equivalent 8     3:26
07 Equivalent 7     6:50
08 Equivalent 4     8:02

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This is the music for a game of the same name composed by Scott Morgan, following soon after his excellent Equivalents album.  This album is worthy of attention on its own merits.  If anything it’s less ambient and more melodic than its predecessor.  Tracks like Persistent and Bipolar, Pts.1 & 2 float serenely by, despite their titles.  Rotator begins moodily before transforming into an almost club-like track. It hangs together well as a whole but that’s not to say there isn’t variety here, from the spooky Volcano to the melodic arpeggios of Sick Parrot.  On the other hand the droning keyboards of Dust Circles make a sound which is barely musical at all.  First Transformation sees the appearance of percussion for the first time, while Swipe Enforcer emerges out of pipe-like sounds to paint exquisite melancholy. The tracks are largely concise three or four-minute pieces barring the penultimate seven-minute epic Swarm Around, making this a very digestible listen.  The music is so well put together each listen yields further results, you notice little details particularly on headphones.  If you have any interest at all in ambient or instrumental music, you need to get this into your ears.



<a href="https://mir.cr/KC7QM8PU">   Loscil - Lifelike</a> ( flac 243mb)

01 Persistent 5:17
02 Bipolar 1 3:32
03 Rotator 5:00
04 Pollen 4:07
05 Volcano 4:36
06 Water Parrot 5:06
07 Bush Five 5:08
08 Bipolar 2 3:29
09 First Transformation 4:33
10 Dust Circles 5:17
11 Swipe Enforce 5:42
12 Tunnels 4:36
13 Swarm Around 7:26
14 Aquarium 4:42


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