We establish 2017’s album of the week at a leisurely pace, dipping our toes into the cool waters of ambient music with Den Hague label, BAKK. Featuring a trio of artists that occupy the the more obscure corners of electronic music, Plafond 1 is made up of a protracted track from each artist, where they journey through some remarkable spaces between the music. Where tonality is in the abstract and a sonic environment is synthetic, Legowelt, SFV Acid and Haron create a record that re-contextualises the transcendental for the ascetic, a real-world ambience that engulfs rather than suspends.
There might be some elusion to the ambience of a previous generation in the kitsch artwork, but as Legowelt journeys through the notes of a detuned broken chord, there’s something present there that can’t be ignored in the way of Brian Eno’s ambient philosophy. Through Legowelt’s “Wild at Heart” and Haron’s “Marimbaman” Plafond 1 applies structure, while on SFV Acid’s “Offline Wave” it introduces tension through dissonant sonic indulgences that counter point each other. There’s an uncomfortable charm to Plafond 1, where a pseudo landscape exists, a virtual spirituality grounded in the cerebral where repetition is always on the cusp of evolution and the sonic signatures alien to anything we’ve come to know as natural or instinctive.