Marcel Sletten - Mare
- 1Marcel Sletten - Mare
PV-60
•
Open edition
From the upcoming album 'Marcel Sletten / Ohmu', out digitally on July 25th via Primordial Void: https://primordialvoid.bandcamp.com/album/marcel-sletten-ohmu
MARCEL SLETTEN / OHMU - MARCEL SLETTEN / OHMU (PV-60)
Athens, GA electronic producers Marcel Sletten and Ohmu (Winston Parker) have teamed up for a new digital-only split album. Composed of material recorded within the past year, Sletten and Ohmu explore the harshest depths of ambient and drone on their respective sides, utilizing crackly digital distortion and plugin-based freeform jamming to dazzling effect. Both sides were extracted from solo jam sessions by the artists, highlighting a distinctive sound presented by Sletten and Ohmu at their many shared live bills over the past couple years.
Sletten’s “Lipstick and Leather,” an extended live version of a track from the producer’s forthcoming Chinatown Hennessy album, is one of his most intense cuts to date, taking influence from the brutal sounds of Merzbow, Ramleh, and Tim Hecker. A chopped and screwed piano loop disintegrates under washes of low-end rumble and “virtual amplifier feedback,” which the artist describes as a “generative result of a custom VST pedalboard within Ableton, painstakingly assembled over the course of several months.”
“Mare” is a prettier ambient piece built around a Go-Betweens sample, blending sped-up guitar with layers of reverb feedback and infinite loops of echo. It’s more reflective of the melancholic folktronica sounds of Sletten’s Mammatus Clouds album, and, like most of the artist’s ambient material, was recorded in a single take.
Ohmu’s “The Three Beggars” was also born out of studio improvisation, which then led to the track being incorporated into the artist’s live set for further refining. “The main motivation stemmed from a recording of a late night singing bowl and chant session I recorded during one of our parties and I really wanted to sample that,” Ohmu writes. “There are three main sections of the song and its dark overtone really reminded me of the settings of one of my favorite films, Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, so it was named in direct homage.”
“Hexachrome Listlessness” also delves into some gorgeous, Heckerian sound design, fusing twinkly synth pads with staticky white noise and pummeling sub-bass. “A really big favorite of mine,” Ohmu says. “It came at a time where I was experiencing a lack of creativity and I felt as if I was really just watching a movie with really vibrant color grading but feeling fairly numb about everything else.”
Along with fellow PV affiliates Organically Programmed and Belgium Limp, Sletten and Ohmu are at the forefront of Athens’ minuscule yet boundary-pushing electronic scene. This split album highlights the darkest, most enticing elements of each producer’s sound, culminating in a technicolor prog-electronic symphony.
Music by Marcel Sletten and Winston Parker
Artwork by Winston Parker
MARCEL SLETTEN / OHMU - MARCEL SLETTEN / OHMU (PV-60)
Athens, GA electronic producers Marcel Sletten and Ohmu (Winston Parker) have teamed up for a new digital-only split album. Composed of material recorded within the past year, Sletten and Ohmu explore the harshest depths of ambient and drone on their respective sides, utilizing crackly digital distortion and plugin-based freeform jamming to dazzling effect. Both sides were extracted from solo jam sessions by the artists, highlighting a distinctive sound presented by Sletten and Ohmu at their many shared live bills over the past couple years.
Sletten’s “Lipstick and Leather,” an extended live version of a track from the producer’s forthcoming Chinatown Hennessy album, is one of his most intense cuts to date, taking influence from the brutal sounds of Merzbow, Ramleh, and Tim Hecker. A chopped and screwed piano loop disintegrates under washes of low-end rumble and “virtual amplifier feedback,” which the artist describes as a “generative result of a custom VST pedalboard within Ableton, painstakingly assembled over the course of several months.”
“Mare” is a prettier ambient piece built around a Go-Betweens sample, blending sped-up guitar with layers of reverb feedback and infinite loops of echo. It’s more reflective of the melancholic folktronica sounds of Sletten’s Mammatus Clouds album, and, like most of the artist’s ambient material, was recorded in a single take.
Ohmu’s “The Three Beggars” was also born out of studio improvisation, which then led to the track being incorporated into the artist’s live set for further refining. “The main motivation stemmed from a recording of a late night singing bowl and chant session I recorded during one of our parties and I really wanted to sample that,” Ohmu writes. “There are three main sections of the song and its dark overtone really reminded me of the settings of one of my favorite films, Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, so it was named in direct homage.”
“Hexachrome Listlessness” also delves into some gorgeous, Heckerian sound design, fusing twinkly synth pads with staticky white noise and pummeling sub-bass. “A really big favorite of mine,” Ohmu says. “It came at a time where I was experiencing a lack of creativity and I felt as if I was really just watching a movie with really vibrant color grading but feeling fairly numb about everything else.”
Along with fellow PV affiliates Organically Programmed and Belgium Limp, Sletten and Ohmu are at the forefront of Athens’ minuscule yet boundary-pushing electronic scene. This split album highlights the darkest, most enticing elements of each producer’s sound, culminating in a technicolor prog-electronic symphony.
Music by Marcel Sletten and Winston Parker
Artwork by Winston Parker
