Tag Archives: Loscil

Switched On – Loscil: Lake Fire (Kranky)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Loscil’s music has always spoken vividly of its surroundings, bringing the wide-open panoramas of Vancouver and British Columbia to vivid life on even the smallest sound system. Here, Scott Morgan’s alias brings sonic despatches from the front line with a striking account and observation of the recent wildfires in the region.

What’s the music like?

As dark and thick as the clouds of smoke that were hanging over British Columbia when this album was made. Ash Clouds is the most explicit expression of the darkness that developed, with a deep chord that barely moves, hanging over the ground.

That isn’t to say that Lake Fire is depressing, mind, as there are shards of bright colour that draw the attention in spite of the thick, uneasy ambience behind. This is evident in the closing of Spark, where dark chords, low in the spectrum, are at odds with brighter chimes at the top, suggesting light peeking through the clouds.

There are some incredibly deep textures on Arrhythmia. Bell Flame flickers, with sonorities similar to a pipe organ in the treble but again with thick, almost oppressive drones beneath. Candling has an improvisatory feel, melodies rising out of the mists like peaks of a flame before subsiding again. Most moving of all is the closing title track, barely audible at first as it steals in on a breath of wind but soon growing in power, the dense cloud sweeping all before it – before retreating and fizzling out as soon as it began.

Does it all work?

It does – and in the process offers an affecting counterpart to the clarity of albums like Sea Island.

Is it recommended?

It is. If you take in the album with its accompanying images and video content, Lake Fire is an intensely moving experience, a tale of man-made and enabled destruction that is truly heart-rending. And yet within the depths of this music there is still some elemental hope, and that shines through in Loscil’s remarkable music.

For fans of… Tim Hecker, Stars of the Lid, Machinefabriek, Fennesz

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Published post no.2,540 – Wednesday 21 May 2025

Playlist – InFiné Ambient (InFiné)

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from our friends at InFiné:

“We Are Emotional People.”

Ambient music lies at the very core of InFiné. We’re devotees of the great Brian Eno, raised on the 4AD label, and nurtured on KLF’s pioneering Chill Out and Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works on Warp. Ever-curious listeners, we soaked up the German vibrations of early Ash Ra Tempel before diving into the abyssal basslines of Moritz Von Oswald or the stark minimalism of Pole.

Later, we encountered other wizards around the globe: Murcof in Mexico, Loscil in Canada, Kaito in Japan, Biosphere in Scandinavia, and more recently Kmru in Kenya. This music forms a central thread in our catalog, sitting alongside more rhythm-driven electronic styles, innovative classical hybrids, and increasingly even pop. In Ambient, the role of sound is more vital than in any other genre! Each note needs ample space to resonate, and every piece immerses you in the pure essence of its sound. These tracks stretch time by using minimal resources to create a profound experience. Here, silence is part of the composition, offering a depth and richness unlike anything else.

What seems simple often takes hours in the studio to refine and place each note, adjusting the movement of a resonance like an architect shaping a structure. Everything must be perfectly calibrated, without artifice, like a zen garden where the tiniest imperfection disrupts the harmony. Ambient goes straight to the heart of music: emotion! Sound becomes a safe haven, a powerful instrument for resilience and introspection, bringing us together to face personal or collective challenges. Fueled by this conviction and countless hours of practice, InFiné developed its own “medicinal music” series. We’ve carefully selected audio potions from our catalog—often electronic, sometimes more organic or experimental—to guide you through beneficial emotional landscapes. InFiné Ambient is an invitation to travel without moving, a moment to reset our humanity in a world assaulted by outside turbulence.”

#WeAreEmotionalPeople

Published post no.2,471 – Wednesday 12 March 2025

Arcana @ 10… Musical moments: Loscil

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As part of Arcana’s 10th birthday celebrations, we invited our readers to contribute with some of their ‘watershed’ musical moments from the last 10 years.

Editor Ben Hogwood, after much consideration, has chosen a piece of immersive ambience from the Pacific coast.

“Getting to know new music is one of life’s joys – but it does bring with it a danger that the listener does not return to their successes as often as they might or should do. When I was thinking through my musical highlights from the last 10 years it was difficult to bring one specific artist or event to mind. There have been several from my work elsewhere, writing for musicOMH – discovering Bruce Hornsby’s new direction, or following the music of Erland Cooper and its Orcadian connections. Western classical music has provided some memorable moments too, few more so than Sir Simon Rattle conducting Mahler at the BBC Proms.

Yet the one I settled on for Arcana’s 10th anniversary is a thread running through the site’s whole decade, my love of the extraordinary music of Loscil. This is the alias used by Scott Morgan, a Canadian who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia – and whose music is like none other.

Perhaps it’s the fact I have been to Vancouver on several occasions, visiting relatives, that I feel such a strong connection to Loscil’s music. But there is something primal about it that really tugs not just at the heart but at the very fibre of our being, a connection formed between music and the earth. It is the deepest ambience you can imagine in music, an extraordinary achievement when you examine the relatively simple tools used in its construction.

The best example for this is the third section of the Equivalents album from 2019 – a timeless wonder that is deep as the ocean, as wide as the sky. There are clouds on the horizon, and the music paints all these and more in its extraordinary span.

In a memorable interview for Arcana, Scott summed it up. “There is a way of using the creative process and the creation of music to express that which you can’t express in other ways, and that’s what ends up coming out a lot of the time.” Later he noted, “a lot of my work accidentally plays with the spectrum between the natural world and the industrial world…ultimately I think I’m after some sort of balance of what it is to be human, and what it is to be human inside of this natural world we live in.”

I saw Scott perform this music live, at Rich Mix in the heart of Shoreditch – and it was only seconds before we were transported away. In my head I was stood on a beach at the far west of Vancouver Island, experiencing the weather with all its primal force.

You can listen to the album on Tidal below:

Published post no.2,439 – Saturday 8 February 2025

Switched On – Loscil: ALTA (self-released)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

On his Bandcamp page, Loscil describes this self-released single track as ‘a generative music piece originally part of an audiovisual installation at the Libby Leshgold Gallery on the Emily Carr University campus in Vancouver BC, in March 2023. The installation was designed as a 4-channel piece of endless music. Presented here in stereo, it can be thought of as a long exposure capture of the otherwise continuous music from the installation.’

Moving on, he says, ‘ALTA is an addition to the ADRIFT series of generative music pieces named after abandoned sea vessels. Originally released in 2015 as a mobile application, and redesigned as a Max patch for the installation, ALTA/ADRIFT uses structured random selection, mixing and panning to weave together the sonic phrases and layers.

The MV Alta was abandoned at sea and set adrift in 2018 near Bermuda, eventually reaching the shores of Ireland in 2020 where she remains shipwrecked.’

What’s the music like?

Few artists have the ability to capture a listener’s mind as Scott Morgan does. Only a second or two into ALTA and his music as Loscil has cast its own inimitable spell, setting out its considerable structure and declaring – in that instant – that it’s time to slow down.

ALTA certainly takes its time, the single track running for just over 42 minutes, but in that period it calms the mind, slows the thoughts, and pans out to take a broad overview of its watery panorama.

There is an otherworldly presence in the treble tones that cross the sound picture from one side to the other, and also in the held middle ground sounds that give such a detailed and focussed perspective. Once again the listener can zoom in to forensically examine the properties of each sound, or they can draw back to take in the vast panorama, which the music does frequently.

As the single movement progresses, so the music starts to follow the pattern of breathing – with long inhalations, full of consonant harmony, followed by silence – and then a similar, sonorous exhalation. This supports a meditative process for the listener, shutting out the noise outside. By the end the timbres are like the softest panpipes, given the longest possible sustain.

Does it all work?

Yes – as one track that ebbs and flows over a vast span, switching between detailed close-ups and big, spray-painted panoramas.

Is it recommended?

It certainly is – an addition to the Loscil discography showing once again his ability to hold the attention for longer spans. ALTA might be the length of a romantic symphony, but it has a similar impact in its subtle but intense means of expression, simultaneously inward and outward looking. An essential encounter for fans, and those new to Scott Morgan’s music.

If that hasn’t convinced you, head over to Bandcamp, where the music is available at whatever price you wish to pay!

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Switched On – Loscil // Lawrence English: Colours Of Air (Kranky)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This collaboration between Canada and Australia, between composers Loscil and Lawrence English, was born from a long-running conversation on electronic music. It gives both musical minds a chance to explore together the sounds of a pipe organ from the Old Museum in Brisbane. While Lawrence English’s work of the past decade has centred on the sounds of instruments such as this, Loscil’s has tended towards less analogue keyboard instruments.

Here the two combine their unique and deeply personal approach to music, taking the source recordings and manipulating the organ sounds into personal and uniquely colourful responses – hence a different shade for each of the eight tracks.

What’s the music like?

Perhaps inevitably, colourful. However there is something about the way Loscil and English bring colour into their music that sets it well above the ambient ‘standard’. These tracks really do live up to their names, and with eight different hues throughout the album it is certainly one for the mind’s eye.

The Brisbane instrument makes a major contribution, but not just through its resultant music. The mechanical actions are part of the recording process too, so on occasion the very instrument is inhaling and exhaling, providing a white-noise percussion along with the pitches.

Without ado, Cyan allows us to dive straight into these wonderful textures, a glittering array of musical shades that soon become punctuated with soft chimes. The music shimmers in a way that the organ music of Philip Glass does, but the motifs are blanketed, the shape shifting chords taking place like billowing clouds.

As the eight-part suite progresses, so we get to hear more of the nuances of the Brisbane instrument, with varying levels of attack and depth. The pitches stay relatively static, often in a drone-like stasis, but some allow for greater, mysterious movement – such as Aqua, with its ethereal sighing motif. Sharper tones are used for the brightness of Pink, a vivid contrast to the relatively withdrawn colours of Grey and Black that went before.

Black, the longest track of the eight, is a majestic piece of work, dark as space itself but panning out to the edge of perspective. Of a similar dimension is Magenta, whose slight pitch bends create a drawn out and very intense sonic drama.

Yellow is another standout moment, and it just so happened that I experienced this piece of music during a sunrise, which it most certainly evokes – one of those wonderful moments where sound and nature are as one.

Does it all work?

Yes. There are some fascinating processes at work here, and the feeling persists that the outcome is an equal musical agreement between the two parties. The listener still gets Loscil’s uniquely wide, weather-beaten panorama, but the pipe organ adds something special, Lawrence English securing his timeless response in a different and slightly more mechanical way.

Is it recommended?

Without hesitation. A mandatory purchase for fans of either – and for those in need of some musical balm to mark the end of January.

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