SubtractiveLAD Where The Land Meets The Sky CATMD165

Producing five albums of high quality in only five years is a monumental task. Yet, this is precisely what Stephen Hummel, who records as SubtractiveLAD, has done and with seeming ease. With "Where The Land Meets The Sky", Hummel's fifth full-length for n5MD, the SubtractiveLAD sound has been perfected to such effect that it allows Hummel to concentrate on conveying his deepest feelings rather than the processes that go into music making. The album serves as an extension of Hummel's previous album "Apparatus" (2008) and effortlessly flows between such genres as shoegaze, armchair electronica, post-rock, and classic ambient. Stylistically it seems far away from his debut "Giving Up The Ghost" and in theory it is. Yet, Hummel has lead us on a journey that for the patient has yielded great rewards. The first 1000 copies of "Where The Land Meets The Sky" comes with a bonus disc of over 45 minutes of subtractiveLAD style classically influenced ambient. [ learn more about SubtractiveLAD]

[sic] magazine

n5MD is a label that wishes to challenge perceptions. The majority of the artists there are doing something more personal, more emotive than the usual IDM crowd. There’s nothing cold about n5MD. Nothing robotic. Instead you’ll find warmth, personality and emotion at the core of each n5MD project. This is why I think the label is such a great entry point for non-IDM fans. After all I used to be one! I stumbled into this world through ambient and the electronica re-imagination of shoegaze. Like anyone, I have my favourites. Last Days, Bitcrush, and Lights Out Asia have all delighted me on different occasions. But if I had to choose one act, one artist who typified the label, then I stake my claim for subtractiveLAD.

subLAD (real name Stephen Hummel) must be the archetypal n5MD artist. This is the Canadians fifth album for the Californian roster and a culmination of Hummels life work to date. With a background in jazz and classical and a penchant for customising instruments (emulators in the main) the subLAD process is ever evolving. The mission however remains steadfast – namely to convey his innermost emotions through his sound – a sound by the way that has changed over each subsequent release.

So to the latest, Where the land meets the sky – a clear reference to the horizon. (From the ancient Greek – the apparent line that separates earth from sky.) And listening to many of these compositions is not unlike contemplating the horizon. The opener ‘Through the trees’ is a daybreak slice of IDM, after which things get really good. ‘Away from the brightness’, like many of the ambient pieces here, is an Eno/Vangelis hybrid of languid proportions. But the whole recording is a naturalistic flow. Tonal and textural in style ‘Land…’ eschews the psyche/drone dabbles that padded Apparatus. The closest we come here is ‘Each other in darkness’ which is just too blissful to aggravate.

One of the reasons we’re all drawn toward minimal or ambient music is that the space brings us closer to the infinite. (And therefore closer to God?) For the most part subLAD pieces are typically drifting, Eno-influenced soundscapes but the beefed-up percussion on this latest release pushes Land… further in the post-rock direction that parts of Apparatus hinted at. If we do meet a higher authority on ‘Land…’ then it has to be in the guise of ‘The slender stem’. This is arguably the best subLAD track of all time running the full gamut of nu-gaze electronica with its Ulrich Schnauss-like, agreeable atmospherics and a twinkling of Boards of Canada nostalgia.

We could even make claims for Land as a double album. (There’s a fine bonus disc on the limited edition) Hummel has done five albums in as many years but I’d be happy with another five. I’d love to see where the subLAD voyage takes us. For this is a truly ambient experience fusing feelings and landscape. And I suspect the journey isn’t quite over yet. textura

Though Stephen Hummel's fifth SubtractiveLAD album is a double-disc set, its second half—three long tracks of “classically-influenced ambient”—is being pitched as a “bonus” disc that's only included in the first 1000 copies of the release. That's a bit of a shame because every copy of the release should include both parts, the two together constituting a seemingly definitive artistic encapsulation of Hummel's SubtractiveLAD style.

Splitting the release in this manner might suggest that Hummel's would include the aggressive pieces on disc one and the quieter material on two but, in fact, the first half features multiple examples of both styles. The bruising opener, “Through the Trees,” gets things moving with a powerful dose of downtempo post-rock built from live (or at least live-sounding) drums, electric guitar, and synthesizers. Presenting an immediate contrast, “Away From Brightness” transports the listener to a heavenly realm via long, sweeping trails of synthetic washes and stirring tones. Subsequent pieces are as, if not more, grandiose in ambient soundscaping style, their panoramic character reflected in track titles such as “Falling Out Of the Sky” and “Something Like a Star.” Contrasts abound: “A Cloudless Distance” gathers force like a supernova, its synthetic layers swelling into an immense mass, unlike “Something Like a Star” and the elegiac outro “Till Break of Day” which are about as peaceful and tranquil as one could imagine. Throughout the disc, layers of analogue synthesizers, post-rock drumming, and slow-burning guitars come together in settings that at moments call to mind the work of Robin Guthrie, Tangerine Dream, and others. Hummel covers multiple bases, including epic ambient sweep (“Away From Brightness”) and stillness (“Each Other In Darkness”), shoegaze-IDM (“The Slender Stem”), and shoegaze-post-rock (“Filament”) in the first half. Much like Hummel's previous albums, disc one of Where The Land Meets The Sky unfolds like a carefully-conceived travelogue with the listener exposed to set-pieces of varying moods.

SubtractiveLAD takes a total ambient plunge on the fifty-five-minute second disc with two of the three pieces exceeding the twenty-minute mark. Crystalline guitar masses ripple and drift across shimmering synthetic landscapes in Hummel's reverb-drenched material, the meditative style reminiscent of Before the Day Breaks / After the Night Falls, Guthrie's recent two-disc collaboration with Harold Budd. The juxtaposition of icy guitar shadings and warm synthetic backgrounds is mirrored in very title of “Embers and Snow,” which segues without pause into the equally time-suspending, synthesizer-oriented dronescape “In The Tall Grass.” The unexpected inclusion of delicate piano playing in “Nocturne” imbues the shimmering backdrop with naturalistic quality (much as Robert Wyatt's piano playing does in Music For Airports) and helps brings the recording to a pretty and dream-like resolution. As stated, the nearly-two-hour Where The Land Meets The Sky is as close to a definitive statement of the SubtractiveLAD art as has been presented to date. It also bears mentioning that with the release Hummel realizes n5MD's “emotionally experimental music” credo in grand and seemingly effortless style.

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