Listening Diary

Krater Recordings

Grodock - Gesammelte Hintergründe (2025)

CD

Ambient, there are many styles, approaches and opinions on the genre but as much as some artists like to layer and layer textures over each other and perfect intricately detailed production often the best Ambient music doesn’t feature many layers, finetuning or any higher degree of shaping the music towards a certain preplanned goal. No, it is simply made to be felt emotionally and through the mind. Grodock has created Ambient like this on this album / compilation of Ambient works which he also mixed together into an almost seamless continuous flow of music. Whilst the 13 tracks have all been recorded in different years and collaborations Tholen and Omar Solar make for shifts towards a bit harsher Industrial Noise territory near the end of the album, there is a very personal and moving common approach Gridlock uses in all 13 tracks. It’s the feeling of having to fill an empty space, an abandoned room, an empty house with immersive waves of decayed, blurred sonic imagery that very much blends atmospherics with a filtered Industrial sensibility. The music rarely gets confronting or scraping against both the ears and emotions but forms Ambient into brown, green shades of textures, a sonification of past forgotten memories coming too life through their faded, crumbly and folded states. This is not music to fill up silence but rather music to comfort by confronting past pain and highlighting that it decays into mere dust with samples of warm music guiding you towards better times.

You can order the CD and get the digital download of this album from audiophob here: https://audiophob.bandcamp.com/album/gesammelte-hintergr-nde