Disquiet

If you listen to experimental music in public, you might be familiar with being helpfully informed that what you’re listening to isn’t actually music. That approbation takes on a different meaning when it comes to another sort of listening, which is when musicians post rough initial takes of new equipment. Take “Tensor 1 02-18-2018,” which is a guitarist running through settings in a new effects pedal. The loping, sinuous tones are sent backwards and forwards, turned into dense guttural utterances and glitching broken figments along the way, but generally resting in a diffuse, reflective zone. The very shape of the [depicted waveform](https://soundcloud.com/roofhare/tensor-1-02-18-2018) makes it clear this isn’t a single work, but a collection of pieces, of attempts: it is broken into distinct segments, each with its own visibly evident start and end. Yet, while this isn’t even an étude, per se, it is an example of study, and there’s a pleasure to be taken in studying the study, to appreciating the sonic transformations afoot as the musician comes up to speed.

Listen to the track at [soundcloud.com/roofhare](https://soundcloud.com/roofhare/tensor-1-02-18-2018). The audio is by Kees de Goot, based in Rhode Island. More at [twitter.com/Groovehare](https://twitter.com/Groovehare).

The talented synthesizer creator Meng Qi is known for crafting a variety of musical equipment, often one-off projects that mix noise and design, touch and technology toward unique creative ends. Based in Beijing, China, Meng Qi also releases music that combines these instruments as part of larger arrays of equipment. Out this past week is a single, “Lights Are from a Window,” [self-released on Bandcamp](https://mengqi.bandcamp.com/track/lights-are-from-a-window). The music emerges from a thick hum, filling the void with short-circuit fidgets and a melodic drone that brings to mind mid-period Aphex Twin. At just over three minutes, it ends like it’s just getting started, leaving the listener primed for what comes next.

Track available for one dollar (U.S.) at [mengqi.bandcamp.com](https://mengqi.bandcamp.com/track/lights-are-from-a-window). More from Meng Qi at [mengqimusic.com](https://www.mengqimusic.com/).

A lot of the “is it or isn’t it” discussion that surrounds ambient music comes down to the matter of rhythm. The presumed background-ness of ambient music runs into a seeming — that is: a perceived, if not true — conflict with the presumed present-ness of more overly rhythmic music. (I go into this in some depth in my book on Aphex Twin’s *Selected Ambient Works Volume II*. Extremely short version: even sine waves have rhythms, so the idea of the absence of rhythm in ambient music is somewhat moot.)

What gets lost along the way in that emphasis on rhythm is the potential conflict between melody and ambient-ness. Melodies have a rhythmic component, certainly, but there’s more to melody than rhythm. There is a sense of narrative, of development, and of transitions, among other facets, that collectively run in contrast with the sense that much ambient music aspires to the opposite, to something akin to stasis.

A track like “20180215” by Istanbul-based musician Gurur Gelen, working under the name Pullahs, manages, through its slow pace and it’s muted voicing to insinuate a melody, a genial if sad-toned one, with something of a Celtic lilt, into the mix of hazy synthesis and what may very well be processed birdsong. The melody is certainly hummable, and yet its extremely relaxed cadence and its circular quality keep it from becoming the sole focus of the listening experience.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/pullahs](https://soundcloud.com/pullahs/20180215a). More from Gelen/Pullahs at [twitter.com/Pullahs](https://twitter.com/Pullahs), [youtube.com/user/Pullahs](https://www.youtube.com/user/Pullahs), [vimeo.com/pullahs](https://vimeo.com/pullahs), and [pullahs.bandcamp.com](https://pullahs.bandcamp.com/).