Tag Archives: tension in music

Album By Yellow Salamand’r 4 Is More Than Soundscape

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I really like this album, there’s some great soundscapes but also a sparseness and edge of tension at times. The production is excellent allowing sounds to evolve and grow.  Fact: you will find a variety of recorded sounds that combine with layers of  noise and drone elements and this results in the expected elements of experimental but yet retains a solid coherence.

Ohms Per Swamp Cubed

This song uses field recordings and subtle noise / drone elements, it has a stripped back feel but this is done very effectively.

Melancholic Transistor

This also sounds like another field recording and has excellently layered noise / drone sounds and a subtle emerging lead which adds a great tension.
My Role…

A great spoken recording, although I’m not sure where it was taken from. There’s effective layering of sounds again, and there are looping elements and bass and percussion sounds. Take note of the processing of the vocals towards the end because this is excellent too.


Laminated Numbers
The processed vocals have an ethereal, spooky feel. Again- more layering of sounds, butfor this time there’s an Eastern feel to the background sounds and the song captures the mood of a “half-heard” conversation. All of these different elements are combined really well.
We Interrupt This Broadcast

The striking percussive sounds heard here are layered logically against a recording of a public news report that warns of an impending nuclear strike. There’s a effective tension to this song.
Drone #4
Opens with a string type sound layered over a field recording and a warble like sound that serves to remind the listener of hand-tuning an old radio while searching for a clear station or trying to remove static caused by radio wave interference. Overall, a nice bit of tension to this song.
Lo Fi Left Over Laminated Loops
This song has a big atmospheric opening, slowly evolving sounds and dense layering.
Sophisticated Babble
A slowly revealed opening and then sounds panned really well create a broad stereo spectrum. This track has a sparse feel and yet the recorded vocals are richly layered. There is a sense and feel of being a removed outsider listening in from afar.
Radio Waving

Strong combinations of radio recordings and noise, the layered percussive rhythm works especially well and provides a contrast to the harsher radio sounds.

There’s lots to consider here. For the Silo, Mike Fuchs. Yellow Salamand’r 4 on facebook