Odd Nosdam - LIF (2017)

Confusion. Longing. Confidence. Loneliness. Fear. Love. These are but a few of the emotional states absorbed when encountering LIF, the new ambient and minimal album from the Bay Area's Odd Nosdam. As an artist that's presented sonic portraits coalesced in the legacy he's carried with the co-founding of Anticon, LIF finds connectivity to new roads and ethos within the body of electronic. A bridge to universal emotions and boldness, displayed in a state of duality with the tenderness and delicacy of a dandelion and the power and magnetism of solar winds.
Creating some of the world's most respected experimental music of the 21st century, Odd Nosdam is still climbing mountains through this phase of his career, adding to the spiritual body of the electronic genre and keeping the sound of the Bay embedded at the core. This is an ascension that initiated with his last LP Music For Raising, drawing together raw tones, complex shapes, and vivid color schemes into interwoven auditory bliss. A medium where drums are removed from the canvas and the imagination stretches to the infinite. Sourcing a bulk of his most well known releases through groups cLOUDDEAD, Reaching Quiet, and the various Anticon compilations and solo releases, LIF was created in a state of foundation pouring.
The sound of LIF can be described as the continuation and expansion of Music For Raising, blistering with analog loop chains that soak in the resonance of tremolo, tape-delay, space echo, distressors, and many other trusted devices in Odd Nosdam's toolkit. Very little computer processing occurred during the making of LIF, relying heavily on hand triggered elements that cycle into an endless bridge between pulsing loops and shape shifting overtones. Imagine a horizon where sunrays find traces of openness around gloomy backdrops of clouds, organically centered as a jump off point into another realm of existence.
LIF was recorded during a unique stretch of time, put together between January and March 2017 when the Bay Area was experiencing a stretch of nonstop rain fall. The earth's cleansing process compelled Odd Nosdam to create sound that would mirror the emotional states his environment was providing. Each loop pulls the listener into that atmosphere, drenched by the rains and winds of the west coast as the album cycles through multiple repeated listens. Another important source of influence is the works of sound sculpting master William Basinski, and particularly, the breathtaking forty minute experience known as "DLP 6" (from The Disintegration Loops IV). Building loops on LIF that reflects the raw, rustic and atonal landscapes Basinski cleverly devised by capturing old tape loops degrading live, Odd Nosdam finds the same sonic territory by his own means and vision. A musical road map that the adventurous and creative souls of this era are paving with a sense of oneness.
Odd Nosdam's LIF will see release on multiple formats this fall, including digital streaming platforms with his imprint Burnco Recs (distributed by Alpha Pup Records), and a limited edition CD pressing from the Athens, Greece label Sound In Silence.