Sonus Umbra Whiteout

US based outfit Sonus Umbra started out as Radio Silence back in the early 1990's, and was founded in Mexico, where they were an active and increasingly popular live unit prior to breaking up in 1994. Shortly after the main members of the band relocated to the US, with a reunion seemingly unlikely. However, when bassist Nasser auditioned to become a member of Baltimore outfit Kurgan's Bane events started unfolding in unexpected ways. While recording the debut album of Kurgan's bane Nasser got to know John Grant, who worked at the studio, and also started discovering the underground progressive rock communities that had formed after the advent of the internet. They started to work on assembling earlier demo material of Radio Silence, and soon after Gomez and Aullet were back and Radio Silence resurrected as a band…

Sonus Umbra came to life in 1991, formed by a group of physics and math students in Mexico City who drew from their shared love for all things dark, hard rocking and melodic. 30 years later, now based in Chicago and including some of the most accomplished veteran musicians of the Chicago rock music scene, the band continues casting shadows made of sound.
Sonus Umbra has played many progressive rock festivals in North America, including RoSfest, ProgDay, FestivAlterNativo, Progtoberfest and Terra Incognita, toured Mexico and Canada with Discipline, and shared stages along the way with the likes of Spock’s Beard, PFM, Stick Men, Haken, Thank You Scientist, Necromonkey, Deus Ex Machina, Tiles and Glass Hammer…

Following in the precedent set by Enigma's remarkable success in the 1990s, Bella Sonus' Enamoured blends together the more ethereal side of computer-composed world music with a heavy dose of ambient electronica, while differentiating themselves from their obvious peer with the guitar work of Angel Suarez. As it did for Enigma and many of the successive artists to follow - Deep Forest, Sarah Brightman, Delirium - this stylistic template works well, evoking a substantial amount of tranquility and a bit of rhythm in the process. The man behind the bulk of the music here, Robert Smith (keyboards, synthesizer, programming, samples), deserves ample recognition for his accomplishments on Enamoured, but one can't help but find it a bit derived. Still, if one can look past this possible observation, the music gleams with a sense of beauty rarely found in modern music.

The Umbra Lucis Ensemble present an intriguing disc portraying the Anghiari Battle in works by Byrd, Dowland, Andreuccetti, Dufay, de Victoria, Hume and others. The relationship between music and war bears witness to the ethical dimension of music and its impact on the human. But warfare is also a metaphor and sign of the battles to which the existence is voted: amorous disputes, moral duels … In a word: the dialectic between shadow and light that which incessantly beats life. Shadow and light that has marked, according to the contemporary chronicle, also one of the symbolic events of the Italian Renaissance: he Battle of Anghiari.

Jah Wobble - Umbra Sumus (1998) {30 Hertz Records 30HZCD5}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 408 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 163 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 54 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1998 30 Hertz Records | 30HZCD5
Experimental / Electronic / Indie Rock / Dub / Synth Pop / Experimental Rock / Worldbeat

The strange, spiritual album that is Umbra Sumus is one of the more interesting items released in 1998. Bassist and composer Jah Wobble creates strangely compelling soundscapes that draw textures from a variety of ethnic traditions without explicitly evoking any one of them. The first cut, "Il Jevedro il Oblanco," sets the pace with a duet for what sounds like a toy music box and fuzz bass, but suddenly becomes a lush electronica-pop track as vocalist Amila Sulejmanovic begins singing in Bosnian. Elsewhere, Natacha Atlas croons in Arabic over a texture not of ouds and doumbeks, but of synthesized percussion, keyboards, and Wobble's own throbbing bass, and it sounds perfectly natural.

Ben Howard returns with his fourth album, Collections From The Whiteout through Island Records. Produced alongside Aaron Dessner (The National, Sharon Van Etten, Taylor Swift), Collections From The Whiteout heralds the first time Ben has opened the door to production outside of he and his bands closer confines.