#100 Top Releases in Ambient / Experimental

Music creation is not all hype and roses, and few understand it as deeply as Harmonious Discord owner and synthesizer composer Sean Anderson aka PointBender. His 4th artist album is a 2.5-year journey into a growing studio discipline formed by a worldwide pandemic. In a time where humans felt so lost the importance of being close to music and the artist community was a healing force that was ever powerful. Calm, almost serene at times, to points approaching mania. Sean encompasses the entirety of the spectrum of human emotion in sound. Violaceous is a journey through deeply moody ambient, heady electro, and boundary bending house and techno music. Creative concertos that process moments of joy, grief, and experimentation. The stand-alone album offers a musical listening experience all its own. From the ambient and melodic beginnings of Conflict and SY35 which feature live clarinet instrumentation, experimental synth applications, and manipulated field recordings to the deeply textured electro offering CBD. For Agent of Peace, we see PointBender partner with longtime collaborator KiloWatts for beautifully constructed ivory implantations that elevates the bliss factor. Plastic Cities is an homage to early Plastic City records featuring the reunited vocal stylings of Suza Kanon who originally released early recordings with Sean on the Guidance and Fair Park imprints. Shifting powers to more playful arenas is Mistakes are OK, a fun and bass centric smooth mover that progresses into haunting overtones. Keeping it light, the undeniable weightlessness of The Bells Found Me Motionless collides staggered bells, growing pad tension, and sonically special drums into a growing cacophony of layers. Capping off our ascent is Altocumulus, an homage to early hard techno composed on all hardware and recorded linearly in real-time with friend Harmon Giddles. The final descent offers a sonic reminder of forgiveness and understanding channeled through a synth driven ambient outro. The collection of creative curiosities aims to please the ears and at times tickle the cerebrum, a familiar formula from PointBender.

Pointbender