Tag Archives: quiet details

Switched On – James Murray – Islands Alight (quiet details)

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Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

James Murray’s contributions to the quiet details series now number three, building on the Slowreels – Everyday Exotic collaboration with Ian Hawgood and Weeds, his debut solo album.

About the sequel, James has said, “Islands Alight making landfall amidst these relentless heatwaves and impending drought feels about right; environmental anxiety courses through the album like wildfire, consciously balanced only by the rising of pale, elemental waters.

Developed over four years, the origins go back further still. Drawing together wide- screen melodic, rhythmic and electroacoustic concerns, Islands Alight stands as a deliberate, defining work at the confluence of ambient dub roots and the artist I am now.”

What’s the music like?

Murray has a special way of working with deep musical ambience that combines both restfulness and emotion. Islands Alight is undoubtedly suitable for hot weather listening but has a cool edge to it, calming the fevered brow.

After Shallows sets the scene, its deep sounds in contrast to its title, before Becalmed builds with steady intensity, with stately and rather gorgeous shifting patterns. Whale Isles pans out again for an expansive view, and has real presence, glinting at the edges but underpinned by solid bass. Albatross soars but also applies a firm beat, before Murray goes for deeper bass with Sargasso, the dub elements coming through. In fact the percussion is deceptive, providing strong rhythmic profiles but somehow sitting in the background.

Does it all work?

It does. Murray paces things to perfection, and the overall ambience is lasting long after the album has finished.

Is it recommended?

Enthusiastically. The best ambient music manages to soothe but also inspire, and James Murray is capable of providing both in equal measure. An album to put on repeat, for sure.

Listen / Buy

Published post no.2,995 – Monday 24 August 2026

Switched On – Scanner – Forces, Reactions, Deflections (quiet details)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The enterprising quiet details label welcomes Scanner – aka Robin Rimbaud – to deliver the latest in their increasingly impressive series of albums.

For this particular opus, Rimbaud gave himself a brief: “This album is forged entirely from the resonant clangs, echoes, and whispers of a stainless steel staircase at home, transforming everyday architecture into an unexpected orchestra.

By coaxing rhythm, tone, and atmosphere from the metallic body of a staircase, the work reimagines movement between floors as a passage through sound.

No synthesisers were used in the creation, only the natural sound of the staircase using a geophone seismic microphone and the gentle assistance of the occasional resonant filter and sample software.”

What’s the music like?

Darkly comforting. Scanner’s music can be experienced on two levels – one immersive and one with a broader perspective.

The immersive listener will appreciate how each track changes in harmonic content and texture over time, the incremental changes small and gradual but also meaningful.

Meanwhile the listener approaching this music from afar will get a firm appreciation of the space Scanner creates but will more than likely move into an immersive experience due to the intensity of the music. The textures, together with an almost complete lack of percussion, lead to the listener being suspended in thin air.

Start Moment bears out the move from passive to active listening, its thick low range drone punctuated with one of the resonant clangs Scanner talks about. Then the sound begins to fluctuate, the perspective changing to suggest the listener positioned inside an enormous tube.

Riser Beam Connection dresses its persistent central tone with slow moving tones of glassy purity, but Base Plate has more ominous designs and is creepy when powering down at the end. Grain Stress has atonal, avant-garde designs throughout its unpredictable movements, with plucked strings here and gathering clusters of notes there.

Finally the spacious End Moment, Wires is an immersive drone spread across nearly a quarter of an hour, the drone supporting sonorous, bell-like sounds and the scattering of electronic debris in the foreground.

Does it all work?

It does – who would have thought a staircase could provide these moments of drama?! Scanner brings from his source material a remarkably wide range of textural and emotional responses.

Is it recommended?

It is – an inventive five-movement suite that really pushes at the boundaries of its components, making a whole that traverses some weird corners, but which ultimately provides its listener with a reassuring ambience. A fine achievement.

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Published post no.2,714 – Monday 7 November 2025

Switched On – Pye Corner Audio – Lake Deep Memory (quiet details)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

quiet details describe their temporary new signing, Martin Jenkins, as “a leading protagonist of widescreen dystopian electronica” in his Pye Corner Audio alias.

Lake Deep Memory, his contribution to the quiet details series, was inspired by a trip Jenkins made to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala in 2024, where he had played a festival – and the music is his capture of the volcanic landscape in the vastness and ethereal soundscapes across the album. He also aims to portray the spiritual importance of the lake to locals.

A crucial element of his process is the “noises and submerged sounds that a lot of artists try to eradicate, such as noise, hums and hiss. Those are the quiet details that I bring to the foreground”, he says.

The artwork originates from a photo Martin took at the lake, which was then captured with analogue photography and processed at the quiet details studios. The album is also available as a continuous mix, with all eight tracks running without a break.

What’s the music like?

Extremely relaxing – but spiritually invigorating, too. The title track forms slowly, the flowing water of the lake portrayed in musical form, while Pyroclastic Flow has the steadying presence of a slow, three-note motif, like a chime. The listener becomes enveloped by the 360 degree ambience of Beneath The Noise Floor, a surrounding cloud of comforting minor-key noise, hanging in the air. Similarly Memoria Del Agua is suspended, though its weight is heavier and nearer the ground.

Rich colours are introduced for Infinite Symphony, with synthesized strings in slowly shifting open-air chords. Fumarole has a brighter outlook, a bracing chord that grows in stature through its long, sustained duration.

Finally Volcanic Rock has a sharper edge to its sound, and more of a melodic pattern that comes through from low to high range, its intensity growing but beautifully managed.

Does it all work?

It does – either as individual tracks or as a complete whole.

Is it recommended?

It is. If you need some time out and want some new music to go with it, Pye Corner Audio offers a wholly enlightening experience.

For fans of… Bvdub, Scanner, Global Communication, Biosphere, Loscil

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Published post no.2,559 – Monday 9 June 2025