Tim Gray aka Ethernet has put out some beautiful works over the last few years on labels such as Kranky and Tamarack music. Even though I have never met Tim in person we have formed a friendship (via the net) and I have really appreciated his words and creative encouragement too. Tim recently asked me to remix a song off his new tape cassette release. Titled “Into the Woods”, and released on Tamarack, here is what the official press release says:

“Harvested from the trees and picked from the ground of the forest floor. in these nine deep excursions the listener ventures into the heart of the Woods with Ethernet to forage for the sublime. This epic assemblage clocking in just under 80 minutes represents over 2 years of creation; the birth of Ethernet to the settling in a new land and entering into the woods. Each track is its own sweeping ambient meditation rising up from silence to form massive intricate drone structures and deep trance inducing pulses,all together they form an epic of sonic immersion.”

I was asked to remix the track “Current”. What resulted was something completely new for me but still grounded in my ways of building sonic structures. The remix has a lot of field recordings I made last year in Japan, London, Croatia, Paris and Amsterdam. Here are the results…

Well it has been about 2 years since I have played out live in Sydney. Gentleforce gigs are rare for me and I still struggle with the thought of live performance. However I’m super excited to be supporting Cold House (Canberra) as they launch their new tape/digital release “Chomp Technical” on Moontown Tapes. Also the newly formed group Haunts (Sydney) will be in support too! I’ll be performing some newer pieces I have been working on over the last few months. Come down if you can. Starts at 7pm and its a $10 entry fee.

I recently presented some new material for a radio show called Ears Have Ears on local Sydney radio station FBI. The concept was to present a soundtrack of my own thoughts/theme for the show. I decided to use new material I have been working on for my next album (TBA). The piece is titled “Before Us” and is based around field recordings I made around Gunning, NSW, back in 2010. The piece is now uploaded for streaming on their Sound Cloud page…

EHE 02.08.2012 – Gentleforce – Before Us by Ears Have Ears

I was recently involved in a remix collaboration between Feral Media and LoFly titled “Strain of Origin II”. The idea was artists from both labels swapped tracks with one another to remix. I was given a track called “Blackheath” from the super talented beat maker Restream. I ended up taking a small snippet of synth that Restream had played and melted that together with field recordings I made in Paris last year. The results made me feel strange, otherworldly and sad all at the same time. I opened a portal and now it can’t be closed…

The full album was released today to the public and is available as a FREE download at Feral Media’s Bandcamp page here.

Some very lovely words have been written about my recent tape release. Brian at Norman Records has described the work as “a spiritual aural love letter to the light and dark of our hidden surroundings” and given it 5 stars… read the full review below:

“A lovely tape from Eli Murray AKA Gentleforce here. I know nothing about the chap as my hotwired laptop is not intereneted up in any fashion so I’m sat here hungover and bewildered on my bed confronted with some seriously radiant and eerie dawntime drone and shimmering majestic  scree which would suit an early morning’s  investigating of unspoiled woodland glades. The digitized sound of nature unfurling around a sweet discreet techno pulse creates some delectable patterns in my mind, an enchanting aura iof hopeful and reflective moodscapery. There’s such a lush thought-provoking  tapestry of rich peaceful sound being woven here as this live piece gradually encompasses smatterings of discreet chamber strings and eventually succumbs to a wall of grainy looming fuzzy swells as the beat ebbs away leaving just a flurry of singing bowls and eventually stately dark cosmic ponderings entice you into eerier realms. Later the piece evolves into a stumbling chiming folk-noir style thing with a fresh convergence of more implicit beats and some almost operatic vocals emerging from the ether. I’ve tried to convey here what a magical piece of work this is but as always words will never describe the sonic beauty of what I’m hearing here, a spiritual aural love letter to the light and dark of our hidden surroundings.”

To read more about the release and buy the tape go over to their site here.

So, after many full moons have past I’m happy to say my live piece “Looking Through New Window” (created for the night Refraction @Serial Space) will be released this week on Exotic Pylon Records. It feels good to finally let the recording go after completing it way back in September, 2010! I had moved to London in early 2011 and brought the recording with me in the form of a box of tapes. It was through meeting the wonderful Jonny Mugwump that the recording has finally found a home.

The tape will be available through Exotic Pylon’s Greedbag page, as well as digitally through other online sellers. Below is some very honest and lovely words written by Loki (An Idiot’s Guide to Dreaming).

“My youngest child had a Gentleforce t-shirt by the time he was 3 months old. Sacred Spaces was the second album he ever heard (the first? Coil presents Time Machines). It was one of only a handful of records in those first days of his life that he understood, that hummed with the same rhythmic shifts as his emergence. He wasn’t quite in the world yet but this music eased his passage, settled him. He never slept but he listened and at heinous hours, as the clocks dripped and we all fell in and out of consciousness, Gentleforce played out, over and over, keeping everyone calm. This is music that will, for me, always be associated with the slow, Eternal time between 3 AM and sunrise; it’s music for dawnings, for new beginnings, for Terence Malick films. It’s a resolutely benevolent kind of music, perfect for babies and munkins and lost boys recovering from their acid supping. Gentleforce is cosmic music via Kepler; music that works in spheres, that unfolds gently, that announces itself by absence; of inferior beasts, of dissonant planes. Even the name is perfect; this gentle force, this incline, this guiding hand. More people need this music than realise it. Listen, learn, make the t-shirt.”
Loki (An Idiot’s Guide to Dreaming)

Boomkat review:

“Eli Murray aka Gentleforce defies easy categorisation, which means he’s right at home on Jonny Mugwump’s righteously deranged Exotic Pylon label. ‘Looking Through New Window’ is a half-hour symphony in which Murray throws everything he’s got into the pan – eerie field recordings, neo-classical overtures, crackle-infused deep house romanticism a la Lawrence/early Kompakt, shoegazey vocal textures and kosmische synth-drift – and it’s testament to his talent and maturity that the whole sounds coherent and concise rather than saggy or self-indulgent. Gentleforce is an apt name for the project – for this is music that’s soothing and sensuous but also very much sure of itself, with serious momentum, and not a dull moment, throughout. Recommended for fans of Fennesz, Four Tet, Border Community and other agents of dreamy, emotive electronics.”

A snippet of the live set that is available for free download too…

Ascension (live version) by gentleforce

Several months ago our server was changed and I lost all my picture/art content.

I was very sad.

I will however be giving this site a revamp soon.

Until we meet again my friends…

 Earlier this year Rhyece O’Neill aka Westernsynthetics asked if I would like to design the cover for his up’n'coming EP project “No Holiday”. I love Rhyece’s musical output and naturally said yes to such a offer! Rhyece gave me total creative control over the design and his only request was it had to be in black and white… perfect for me as I only really use black ink and pencils for my artworks.

Once I took on the project the first thing I asked Rhyece for was a copy of the EP to listen to whilst I made the drawing. Within a few days I had the EP blasting through my headphones as I started to create the images. I decided like in the past I would document my creative process as I went along. The following are a series of pictures that capture the creation…

At the time of creating this cover I felt quite emotionally drained and stressed. I had arrived in the UK in early Feb. and I hadn’t found any work for over 2 months (I’m happily employed now though!). I felt quite down, depressed and trapped. I too, like Rhyece, needed a holiday. I was just craving some open space. A seaside to stare at… and hoping all my problems would disappear into the sunset. Those feelings came out through the artwork…

 Lastly after finishing the drawing I asked if my talented flatmate Denitsa Blagoeva could add some subtle textures to the image using photoshop. Denitsa did a amazing job with the artwork and I’m really happy with the results!

If you haven’t listened to the “No Holiday” EP yet (which should be out on the 1st of July) do yourself a favour and seek it out as soon as possible! To me the two tracks are just loaded with pure emotional weight and massive open sonic landscapes to which the listener can get lost in. There are multiple layers of sound to explore within the two tracks which creates a lovely effect on your mind when listening to the music. I for one love music that has no real sense of beginning or ending… it just is. Rhyece has created something exceptional within these songs, it is personal and mysterious and I genuinely hope more of the world gets to hear Westernsynthetics beautifully crafted sounds in the future.

Once I finished the artwork I emailed Rhyece over a few questions that I hoped he would answer. Here is the following Q & A we exchanged:

1. I just wanted to see if you could explain in detail your feelings and thoughts about the statement “No Holiday”. What does this mean to you and what was the process of creating the music for it?

I wrote the songs while on “Holiday”. But Holiday for me over the last 5 years has been the odd weekend away maybe once or twice a year. The beach house that it was recorded in was in Kiama on the south coast of New South Wales. It was surrounded by these massive mansions and “holiday houses” and it reminded me that holidays are really the domain of the rich. I’m about to go on holiday to Europe however its taken 12 months working 6 day weeks and living like a pauper to save for it. Now, can that really be called a holiday or is it better described as rehab? Prior to this I have not had any substantial time off for 5 years. This is the case for most working class people not just me. And I don’t even have kids or mortgage repayments.

The other element to the No Holiday concept is how holidays and time off relate to artistic production. The only time I get to make art is on the weekends and the rare holidays I do get. It remains the case that art is the domain of the bourgeois.

2. The music on the EP feels like it is loaded with emotion and feeling. What were you feeling at the time of creating such beautiful pieces?

Thanks. Well I was on holiday! In an amazing beach house right on the beach and I set up my studio on the balcony:

I have no doubt that the context I was in at the time both physically and emotionally had an overwhelming effect on the production of these tracks.

3. Both songs have a lot of analogue sounds/equipment being used. Was this a conscious decision you made before writing the pieces and has this differed much form your music making process in the past?

As you can see from the video above I am using mostly analogue gear through a laptop. It was not a concious decision as so much as I have been using analogue gear all my musical life and not just in electronic music production. Software certainly opened the door to electronic music production for me but it didn’t take long for me to incorporate my guitar pedals and synths into the software. In terms of this EP it differed alot production wise from the album May Day Radio in that both pieces began life as ambient/soundscape/drone pieces with no beats at all.

I didn’t put any drums to No Holiday until later on although KMADMG I did start with using a metronome where as the album was more of a western pop song writing approach. On alot of the tracks id write them on piano or guitar first and then try and produce them later on the album. In the production stage in the past for Westernsynthetics compositions, I had always used the drums as the foundation stone and then build the chords and basslines around the drums. It was the other way around for the No Holiday EP.

4. What is your plans for the EP? When is the release date (digital/physical) and whom will be distributing and stocking it?

The EP will be out in all stores digitally on July 1. As Iv’e been working so much to save for my “holiday” (!) I don’t have the funds to press it on vinyl this time around. It will be released on Sub Continental Dub and is distributed through Cargo records UK. You can download a free track on westernsynthetics.net from the release date and if you like the free track it is hoped that you may want tol then go on and buy the ep. The free track is a track called New Fuse I wrote in 2006 but never released. All tracks are mastered by the wonderful Tony “Jack The Bear” Mantz in Melbourne.

So, I was quite excited about the prospect of using Rhyece’s sounds to create my own take on his unique sound… but was even more so when he said I could pick any song! I listened to all his tracks but kept coming back to a shorter sound piece titled “101010″. The track is more of a guitar/drone piece compared to most of the albums beat driven sounds. I liked the feel of it and asked Rhyece if I could remix it. Rhyece agreed and after a about a month or so, I came out of the studio with the following results:

101010 (Gentleforce’s “Hidden Basement Tape” refix) by Gentleforce Mixtapes

My track and many others will be released on the May Day Radio remix album later on in 2011. I’ll post up release dates as it comes.

Finally, here is the main single, “the machine”, from the album. The amazing video and imagery was created by Mark Reid.

Westernsynthetics feat. Charles Smith – The Machine (official music video) from mark reid on Vimeo.

A few days ago I was directed to the site You Are Listening To Los Angeles by my brother in law. I was amazed at the sounds I was hearing. A constant stream of the LAPD’s radio system flowing out into the webs ether, fused with ambient drones, noise and synth based music from various artists through the soundcloud website. In the process creating a ever-changing film score where the sound of crackled ghost like voices echo throughout forgotten soundtracks to movies that were never made.

On top of listening to Los Angeles , you can now listen to sounds from New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Montréal!

After listening to these sounds all day I was intrigued to find out whom had created such a fantastic site. I emailed Eric aka idontlikewords to find out more about the project and how it came about. Eric kindly answered some questions and here are the results;

GF: Ok firstly, your name, where you live and what are you up to at the moment?

Eric: Eric Eberhardt / San Francisco / Digital Product Manager for a entertainment & publishing company

GF: How did the idea and concept come to light? Who was involved or was this a solo project? How long has the site been up for?

Eric: When I first put the site up I posted a brief explanation here. So far it’s just been me involved & it’s been less than a week since the launch!

GF: Was there any legal issues with streaming Police Radio over the web? Have you had any officers of the law contact you about it?

Eric: Haven’t heard directly from any officers but I would think they are already aware of the existence of sites like radioreference.org and if there were legal issues they would have come up already. Still I certainly don’t want to be on the “wrong side” of a disagreement with the police and if anything I hope this site increases awareness of the huge 24/7 commitment they have made to help deal with all the craziness that happens every day in our cities.

GF: There seems to be a lot of unknown/underground artists streaming on the site. How did you go about finding/sourcing music for the site and how many artists are now streaming through it?

Eric: I originally got inspired by the SomaFM ambient streams as mentioned in the above link but since I didn’t want to just “hijack” their stream & bandwidth I started looking for other alternatives. A friend suggested SoundCloud which I had used a little bit before but was amazed to find out just how much great ambient music was available on the site with a “remix-friendly” Creative Commons license. Initially all the music came from searching the SoundCloud “ambient” tag and then hand-selecting tracks that I thought would work well and since launch I’ve been contacted by many artists who have enjoyed the project and asked to be included. If the music seems like it will work I’ve been adding everyone who asks!

GF: The pictures for each city are beautiful! How did you source these artists for your site/project?

Eric: The site launched with LA first & I asked my friend Hyperbolation on Flickr who lives in LA if she had any good photos of the city at night. Turns out she had a bunch and I selected the one you see now in order to fit with the other elements on the page. The rest were selected pretty much the same way as the SoundCloud tracks, by searching Flickr’s CC-licensed photo collection.

GF: Is there any funny or strange stories to tell us since the site has gone up?… any strange emails or people contacting you about the site?

Eric: Been getting loads of great comments & tweets from people all over the world including some musicians & web entrepreneurs that I really respect and admire so it’s been very rewarding. Possibly the weirdest one was from M. Doughty of Soul Coughing, whose song “Screenwriter’s Blues” provided the inspiration for the title of the site. Apparently he’s not fond of being reminded of his past works and so after countless people sent him @replies on Twitter he posted this message:

“Dudes. Please DO NOT tweet me about the listen-to-LA tumblr. The very thought of that song makes me want to rip out my own eyeballs.”

I also spoke to Eric about the incredible exposure he has given to the musicians that can be heard through the site. In creating such a project, Eric has given a platform for many relatively unknown or underground artists to be heard by a much wider audience. For the many ambient/bedroom artists out there on the web, there isn’t many opportunities/places to be heard like this!

Here is one of my favourite discoveries since listening to the site. The sound of warm drone static with deranged sad flutes and tv transmissions! The artist is called Dj Derrida, the track “In a silent way”…

DJ_Derrida — “In A Silent Way” by DJ Derrida.

Lastly whilst searching the web for peoples reactions I came across this comment from a ex-policeman, whom shared his experiences whilst working with the LAPD;

“The seeming incongruence of the police calls and the music selections is just that: “seeming” but not as dissonant as one might think. Having been a dispatcher for LAPD, I can assure you that nothing would have been as welcome in my ear as these mellow tones as I handled radio and 9-1-1 calls ranging from the absurd to the heartbreaking to the truly devastating. We frequently found ourselves as literally the only lifeline available for citizens and officers who were in genuine life-or-death situations. The ability to maintain our own calmness was often the very thing that made the final difference.

Looking back on those unforgettable years and some specific moments, I think I – like my successors we’re listening to today – must have kept within myself some subconscious stream similar to this music as we forced ourselves to remain calm. And when some of the worst of events were finally finished, only then could we ask for a break and step outside and once again breathe. And (always) ask ourselves “What could I have done better?” Or just cry. Even us alleged tough guys.

For me, your work here is a masterpiece. Thank you.”

… as well as this comment from another user called PastaBagel

“The iconic image of Los Angeles is the one used here. An image of lights in an infinitely receding distance, out of focus, out of reach. Points of light, rivers of light, like dreams. But the lights move and drift throughout the city over time. The lights are never all in the same place twice, so Los Angeles is never the same place twice. The buildings, the geography are of no consequence. Los Angeles is twinkling starlight reflecting off the surface of the ocean.

This site is the sound of that ocean, the rippling of waves. A thousand tiny calamities dissolving into the surface of the city.

I have never been to Los Angeles. No one has.”

So there you are peeps. Check out the site for yourself… oh, and if you listen long enough, you might now hear some Gentleforce sounds over Los Angeles too!