AL_X – Low Clouds

LISTEN

Track List

1. Auf Ver Loven
2. A Time To Wait
3. Onwards Parts 1 and 2
4. Low Sun
5. The Wait
6. Singularity
7. Into The Hills And Trees
8. Untitled
9. Endless Sleep Ensemble
10. Low Clouds
11. Leaving The World Behind
12. Dissemble
13. Intermission
14. Beyond Perception
15. La Ment
16. After The Rain
17. For Ed

AL_X

Low Clouds

Alex Dunford from Liverpool, England is ending a six year silence with Low Clouds. AL_X come back in from the cold with a seventeen song strong release, perhaps his most melodic, polished and atmospheric music to date.

A continuation of sorts from 2014’s Shunt, Low Clouds takes the familiar orchestral electronica of AL_X’s previous works and infuses it with a more textured, layered, sound. “It’s a lot calmer than previous albums, more ambient – perhaps a more cohesive album as a whole…I started listening to more drone based music, often to get to sleep! I think that subconsciously had an influence on the whole project.”

Despite this sense of serenity Low Clouds’ recording wasn’t without incident. “I wiped songs hundreds of times and started from scratch. I did struggle for a while, so I cracked open Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategy cards and used them from time to time when I hit a wall. They’d give me an answer of sorts. ‘Beyond Perception’ is a track which benefited from that as did ‘Auf Ver Loven’, That started as a techno track!’ Then there was ‘Endless Sleep Ensemble’ – the last thing to be finished, that came from a session with a string section I recorded in 2014 that I assumed I’d lost.”

Consisting of sessions at AL_X’s home studio and Salford’s Peel Hall, Low Clouds sees the return of key collaborator Jeff Jepson who lends his vocals to stand out ‘Leaving The World Behind’ as well as the most frequent contributor to his work – his environment. “I’ve been making field recordings for over a decade now. I think it adds a sense of place, helps to cultivate an atmosphere. I add some dynamics to them, more reverb, or more of a stereo picture of them. They’re all over the album.”

A unique album that manages to place evocative, pastoral, acoustic pieces next to pulsing, rhythmic, electro as a coherent piece; Low Clouds is the latest step of AL_X’s artistic journey.

FLTTRY182
Release Date:  October 30
© Fluttery Records

Also available on:

AL_X – Shunt

LISTEN

Track List

1. Stromness
2. Too Late, Too Far
3. Takk (En Sens)
4. Into The Trees
5. Shunt (Part I)
6. Faux
7. Klomino
8. Interlude One
9. Colder
10. Screaming Across The Sky
11. Theme From Fractal
12. Who Now? When Now?
13. Shunt (Part II)
14. Blindness
15. Strond
16. Back Into The Trees
17. (I Was) Supreme
18. Stromness Returns
19. Ghosted
20. Interlude Two
21. Striking Thirteen
22. Bain

AL_X - Shunt

Liverpool electronic music artist Al_X (Alex Dunford) returns with a new 22 track album, ‘Shunt’. A less ‘song’ oriented album that his debut release, but it sees him move into a more comfortable soundtrack based genre.

The album started life as a small 4 track EP, but over the last year, grew to a huge 70 minute soundtrack to Al_X’s dreams and nightmares. “I always have trouble sleeping, and when I do, I have very vivid dreams and nightmares, and they stay with me for a few days. The subject seems to be quite dark or deals with large spaces, so I can try and work with what I can remember, and attempt to put that into music with various instruments and textures”, Alex states. “It’s a concept album, I suppose, but a very close one at that”, he adds.

Recorded towards the end of 2012 and most of 2013, utilising large halls, field recordings, analogue equipment, AL_X has produced an album that would grace most soundtracks.

Starting with ambient textures, Al_X takes us on a journey through folk, electronica, ambient, new age, but to name a few, and then back to his signature folk / electronica, to end the album on a rather uplifting tilt, taking us through a lot of emotions along the way.

Shunt once again features collaborations from Jeff Jepson, Dom Kearne and Kirsten Sharp.

FLTTRY057
Release Date: January 24, 2014
© Fluttery Records

Also available on:

AL_X – AL_X

LISTEN

Track List

1 - Intro
2 - Here Before
3 - Bloom
4 - Lose You
5 - L.A.G
6 - Prize
7 - What Is To Be Done
8 - Failed
9 - Roadkill
10 - Righteous Path
11 - Honey Trap
12 - If I Did
13 - Hymn For Moya /If There Is A Light

AL_X - AL_X

"Writer, electronic music producer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and serial collaborator Alex Dunford has, after a long and tortuous gestation period, finally released a masterful album of exquisite, reverberant melancholy, full of keen, persistent melodies and darkly sculpted, piano-driven soundscapes under the name of Al_X.

With the aid of co-writers and vocalists (Jeff Jepson, Dom Veron, Kate Smith), themselves coming from worlds more akin to folk/blues/jazz/other, the album brings together vintage drum machines and synths, toy instruments, strings and string loops, acoustic guitars, Reverbs, Delays, and miscellaneous tools from Alex's menagerie of gear into a seamless and cinematic whole. The album is reminiscent of Brian Eno, Sigur Ros, Depeche Mode, Radiohead and Recoil. With these influences in mind, Alex takes us on journey through his tastes, his mind, and his favorite instruments in this collection of cinematic pieces and soundscape driven songs".

REVIEWS

Evil Sponge

The record kicks off appropriate enough with Intro, a nice ambient upswell to start the album. Then he launches into it with Here Before the centerpiece of which is a female vocalist, who has a high-pitched girly voice, like Alison Shaw from The Cranes. The music grows until it achieves a nice density, with layers of synths almost swamping her voice, before fading out to an outro of strings. Very lovely.

Bloom takes some mid-tempoed beats and the fast tremoloed guitar from a Lights Out Asia record, and adds in layers of strings and keyboards. There is one point that is gorgeous -- the guitars are whirring so fast they create a faint ambient blur and Dunford adds in a tinkling keyboard bit. Very nice. The general Tortoise-ness carries on in our fourth track, Lose You, which features our second vocalist. I think. It is another female voice, but she sounds a little higher pitched and more human as opposed to that Alison Shaw little girl/pixie squeal. Under this, there are some spacey electro sounds, a deep bass beat, and loud strings. This song gets loud and fun, like Tortoise remixed by late era Underworld.

Overall, i have to say that i enjoy most of this record. It gets a little dull in the middle, and i do wish for some kind of liner notes to explain what the heck was happening with the vocals. However, if you like electro pop, then this is a pretty fine choice.

Sea of Tranquility

AL_X is multi instrumentalist Alex Dunford, from the city of Liverpool England, hometown to many a famous artist. The music AL_X makes on his selftitled debut album can be categorized under Electronic music, influenced by famous electronc bands as we have like Sigur Ros, Depeche Mode and the like.

The music is a combined effort of great synth tones with nasty twists & turns as we also hear drum machines, music loops etc. All the music is composed, produced and all instrumentation played by AleX Dunford.

A bundle of nicely composed soundscapes is brought to the listener and I must say it is really really entertaining to listen to this music. It has an enlightning feel to it, and truly is able to cheer you up when you are having trouble enjoying yourself.

A Nasty Suprise

Fluttery Records is a most appropriate label for one-man-band AL_X, Alex Dunford. On February 10, the writer, producer and all-around instrumentalist from Liverpool released his first LP, and it is certainly fluttery. The self-titled album has a unique ambiance that flutters through your head, droops your eyelids lower, and floats you almost to serenity.

On the surface, “AL_X” is an experimental electronic album; Dunford uses plenty of synthesized sounds and drum machines along with strings and a piano. The tracks vary from heavily industrial, tech tunes to overproduced sonatas.

The tracks that sick to either of those extremes, though worth listening too, are not the strength of “AL_X.” The beauty of the album comes from slowly meshing the harmonies of digitalism with orchestral strings and piano. This is most apparent in the first four tracks.

The song “Intro” would fit seamlessly to the soundtrack of a psychologically thrilling movie – just at the final plot twist. It rises in intensity as the wandering ambiance builds up with more and more layers of repetition.

The third track, “Bloom,” is for the movie’s happy ending. It is the loveliest track we’ve heard this year, and is the highlight of “AL_X.” It is led in by a new wave hum akin to the sounds of M83. It rises and falls throughout the track, much like the whir of Sigur Ros’s “Takk.”

Once Dunford starts adding to the groundwork of “Bloom,” it results in a digital sonata. Bells chime in, piano chords strike, and orchestral strings shout. Dunford scratches a beat around the harmonies making a song you can both groove and cry to at the same time.

The closing track, “Hymn for Moya / If There is a Light,” is as weak a closer as there is. There is a haunting hymn with piano atop that doesn’t go anywhere. It is more of a rambling song that could have been condensed and used as a dividing track on the album.

But that’s what “L.A.G.,” a two-minute piano solo, already does; in the fifth slot, it divides the memorable songs from the forgettable songs.

The latter half of “AL_X” does have two bright spots. The glitch-tune “What is to be Done” and the humbler “Roadkill” are enjoyable.

FLTTRY034
Release Date:  February 10, 2012
© Fluttery Records

Also available on:

AL_X release “Shunt”

Liverpool artist Al_X (Alex Dunford) returns with a new 22 track album, ‘Shunt’. A less ‘song’ oriented album that his debut release, but it sees him move into a more comfortable soundtrack based genre. The album started life as a small 4 track EP, but over the last year, grew to a huge 70 minute […]

Read More

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