Sebby Kowal - Cherry Blossom (Ambient Cat) [Ambient]

Sebby Kowal is an American electronic music producer and no stranger to TSMM, having appeared in the blog last year with his ambient collaboration with KapTep and in various playlists over the years. Although a relatively new face in the horizontal music world, he's hit the ground running, working with some notable labels like Florina Cassettes and ROHS. Initially ambient-focussed, in recent times he's been dabbling in the world of dub techno, and pleasingly on this new release for Ambient Cat, has decided to melt the two together.

I hope you're listening on some decent headphones or in front of some reasonable quality speakers, or this album won't make music sense. The recording starts how it means to go on with the simultaneous, gradually rising sounds of dub techno pads, some field recordings that sound right of your local swamp, if you live in Louisiana that is, and some somewhat overwhelmed lower gravity ambient atmospherics. Looped and repeated, it's quite the slice of after-the-after-party, hypnagogic ambient throb.

Next up is "Shoreline" which lowers the intensity, but has a gentle rhythmic pulse, some pleasing bass frequencies and more of a coastal vibe. "Expand" then got my desk surface vibrating as Kowal flexes his dub techno production chops with a throbbing bass refrain, aquatic field recordings and politely insistent synth pad refrains - simple but effective. Next up, "Moving Forward" has a chopped and seriously screwed Detroitian ambient techno aura, the sounds of rain on a windless night through an open window (I think!?) pitter-pattering and a lowish frequency pulse. But hold tight, spring arrives in the album-closing "Cherry Blossom", the Berlin clouds lift and those petals finally appear, brightening up the previously gloomier, but very listenable album.

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Playlist Companion

Find Kowal in the Slowtronic Playlist.