MINOR SCIENCE - ABSENT FRIENDS VOL. III

1. Introduction
2. Dread The Evening
3. Sun Turn
4. The Dinas Walk
5. Summer Diary
6. Life Texture
7. Contingency
8. Gather Your Party (Dispersed Mix)

Spaced out / trippy ambient dreaminess from U.K.-born Berlin based artist Angus Finlayson aka Minor Science, who releases 'Absent Friends Vol. III' on Balmat Records.

The first Absent Friends edition was a recorded set for Blowing up the Workshop, and vol II followed in the form of a cassette on Whities (now named AD93). This was then developed into a live show, which were accompanied by visuals from artist Paul Witherden.

'Absent Friends Vol. III' is an album of studio versions of the music developed for the live show. But in Minor Science’s world, even a category as simple as “studio versions” is slightly opaque. “Most of these tracks weren’t ‘composed’ in the studio,” Finlayson explains: “The sounds started out as stems and source material for the live show, and might not have been intended to go together—but then through performance, they settled into shapes that worked. I then recreated those performances in the studio.”

That organic process of ideation and realization might help explain the unusual coherence of the album, in which sounds and textures flow seamlessly from one to the next, sometimes seeming to stand still, and sometimes looping back.

There are virtually no melodies, few recognizable motifs or riffs, yet the eight-track album nevertheless moves with a distinctive logic and a determined sense of purpose, from the frozen-in-time shimmer of the opening “Introduction” through the early cuts’ studies of space and light; from the seemingly autobiographical “Summer Diary” through the rushing trance (yes, trance) arpeggios of “Contingency” and on to the dulcet denouement of the closing “Gather Your Party (Dispersed Mix).”

If you like this, why not check out previous releases from Balmat Records, as well diving into our new releases within our ambient music category.