Ambient music isn’t one of my specialties by far, but I have received a few such albums over the years to try to describe in a more or less accurate manner. One of them is this album, “In Between”, which was created by German sound artist Marcus Beuter and Macedonian artist Toni Dimitrov back in 2014 and released on Dimitrov’s own label Post Global Recordings.
Describing the music here is, on a superficial level fairly easy. We have a number of field recordings, which subsequently have been edited and then with various electronic sounds added on top. There’ nothing truly dramatic going on, and the word ambient is rather emphasized here. That being said, this isn’t exactly the kind of album I’d put on for a relaxing yoga session or when doing something else of a new age orientation. While a lot of new age music is ambient, ambient music doesn’t equal new age moods and atmospheres.
The main associations I get from this production are moods and atmospheres of a dark, dystopian nature. Sounds of water, birds and people talking and doing things is a consistent feature throughout, sometimes with a few layers of these existing at the same time it would appear, although this could also be a case of a lucky recording with multiple, interesting sounds.
The thing is, though, that they are mainly distanced sounds, with machine-like hums, cosmic twirps and static noise effects being the dominant sounds. As a sci-fi fan, this often gave me the association to humans and nature being observed by machines or aliens, and the nature of the sound constellations for me gave me a negative, dystopian vibe about this. Initially we have more ominous rhythm effects and static sounds and noises, and as this soundscape continues, the more alien noises dominating at first are replaced by effects that have a stronger association towards machines and, perhaps, robots. That the sound of buzzing insects takes over the dominant role towards the very end another details which gives me more of an alien and dystopian association.
Music of this kind will be experienced vastly different of course, and the associations one gets will most likely differ from one person to the other. Hence my subjective experience and association being just that, a subjective one. But if my descriptions and associations comes across as interesting, chances are that you will find this close to 38 minute long soundscape an interesting experience. Not a dark and dramatic ambient creation, but one that in my mind invites to associations towards the darker aspects of life, and then in a futuristic and possibly dystopian context at that.
My rating: 60/100
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Track list:
In Between
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Links:
https://marcusbeuter.fragmentrecordings.de/en/
https://post-global.com/
