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It´s been quite some years since I dug any further music by UK artist Llyn Y Cwn, aka Ben Powell, whose output is field-recording-based dark ambient with a focus on both atmosphere and environment. Most notably it draws inspiration from the composer’s native North Wales landscape and his participation on research cruises making oceanographic and geophysical measurements. Originally, this music was written as part of the “Du Y Moroedd” (2022) album, but it was far too long to fit on the cd so a 31-minute edit appeared on it instead. Now its music is finally presented in full bloom. “Stratigraphy” is another deep and abyssal ambient affair featuring three 20-minute tracks offering fascinating long-form widescreen soundscapes with definite immersive effects taking the listener into the great beyond in a captivating manner. According to the album’s notes, it follows the voyage of an imagined sonde dropped from the upper atmosphere through the clouds, through the ocean, and below the seabed, through the sediments and bedrock, through layers of increasing density and time towards the center of gravity, through stratigraphy. Moreover, the sound of air is heard as its boundary layer traverses geological features, recordings from a hydrophone attached to a CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth probe, an oceanographic instrument used to measure the stratification of the sea) as it descends to 100m below the surface of the Irish Sea. Manipulated samples of a sub-bottom profiler, a sonar system that uses acoustic energy to produce images of sub-seabed features as well. All in all, “Stratigraphy’s” massive, otherworldy, and occasionally ghostly-infused soundscape drift makes some intriguing headphone candy. |
| Website: llynycwn.bandcamp.com
You can see what reviews I have done of this artist on the Llyn y Cwn artist page
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