Various Artists - Quiet Drones 5

Paper+Sound is one of the most primitive sounding names for a record label that I have ever heard of, but it's also one that fits. Formed around 2009, the label has regarded itself as an outlet for ambient, techno, house, dub, downtempo, experimental, and all other forms of music that fit in between the nooks and crannies of those genres. While not boasting the longest list of artists signed to them, the few that are come off as quite unique.

I suppose, in a sense, to clelebrate all these artists (as well as friends of the label), there has been quite a few compilations under the Quiet Drones name. This is the fifth installment, and while I haven't had the chance to look over any of the previous entries, much less any of the label's other releases, I dived right on in to discover what awaited me.

And I found that drones are exactly what I would collapse into. DE HAGA's minute and a half short, Melt, came up first. Gentle. Touching. Relaxing to the ear. It was a gift to spend time with the song. However, even at such a short length, I could tell this song would have gotten boring should it have extended itself. Kudos to the artist for knowing when to end a sound.

Next up came HOZERZ's significantly longer Freyr, titled after the Norse pagan God himself who bestowed peace and pleasure upon mortals. However, as peaceful as the song that I listened to was, I cannot say I derived much pleasure from it. The lack of differentiation throughout the song led to a fairly linear path which did not sit too well with me.

Redeeming the album for now, SEVA managed to turn my head with Act 3. Not necessarily drone in nature, but coming off with a bit of a ritualistic edge to it, the song soothed me over and had me wanting to rest. The slight shifts and changes in it, getting rid of and adding sounds worked well within the song.

Threatening to take the top spot on the album came the fantastically played out Laurentide, which was created by both dreamSTATE and HEIKI. Creating a wonderfully spacious sound, every sound just reminisces of a real life event. Whether it sound like a rock shifting on the ground, or wind passing through your ears as you stand in the midst of a plain, nothing is quite as satisfying as this song.

What I felt belonged in a monk monastery was NORTHUMBRIA's Ostara. That's the old High German way of saying Easter, by the way. And, for such a happy and joyous occasion celebrated through various religions, the song does well to shine a nice ray of light on my day. It's mystical and fascinating.

The next song took its name from stars named after Greek figures; both names were used to identify various men and women throughout the mythology, but none of which had relevance to one another. Mapping the Merope-Calaeno Corridor took me in as a sort of "exploring the unknown" type of song. And, the mood to the song was both forbidding and dark at first, but soon transformed into one more keen on discovery. I would like to include MICHAEL HOLCER's First Landing on NEO with the same description as above; it almost serves as an extension to the song before it.

On a solo outing shot HEIKI with The Passing Window Drone. While I appreciated the previous effort of the artist on the album, I did not like this song at all. It's completely drone, and drone is hard to pull off when you're just trying to play off one main sound for the entire span of a song. However, this bored me to death and was not pulled off right at all.

The final, 32 minute track was compiled by HEIKI, and pretty much seemed like a mix of everything presented on the album. I liked the idea, as it definitely gives off a good track to listen to when you need to study or what not, but was somewhat pointless in the sense that all the tracks could all be listened to on a playlist of their own.

And that takes care of that. This is a pretty decent compilation of songs that can easily set you to fall asleep. Or at least be a study/writing sort of playlist. Whatever you're doing, if you need to be at peace, I'm sure you'll find plenty to love in this release. May 05 2014