This collection of outtakes and revisions was released last year by the Massachusetts-based musician Off Land. If the moniker suggests a variation on one of the founding ambient works, Brian Eno’s album Ambient 4: On Land, then it’s not without reason. The music on (Drone Variations) Vol. III suggests an ethereal take on ambient, less field recording than vapor exploration, less landscape than cloudscape. These are drones with an emphasis on vast choral effects and upper register accent marks. They unfurl very much like clouds — albeit entirely fantastical ones — the layers interacting and creating momentary densities, gaps, and blurs, all rendered here as sonic images of slow motion splendor.
Album originally posted at offland.bandcamp.com. It’s nine tracks in all, and available for just $1 (US). More from Off Land, aka Tim Dwyer, at offlandia.tumblr.com and twitter.com/OffLandMusic.