Illusions In Retrograde Remastered

This is a re-release of an album created with my close music friend Andrew Janik (aka Soundpainter).

The Oxford Ambient Collective

This is the first album I have released on Bandcamp in about three years. The whole album took just under a year to create. Each track on Souncloud has totalled around 3500 plays.

A meditative journey through the ghosts and memories of early computing. The whole work was inspired by a visit to the National Computer Museum in the UK in 2024. Compute Echoes blends warm drones, shimmering synthwork and atmospheric textures inspired by iconic machines—from the Bombe and Colossus to EDSAC and the IBM 1130 to the ZX80. Each track evokes a different fragment of digital history, reimagined as spacious ambient soundscapes.

Immersive, reflective, and quietly futuristic—perfect for late-night listening, deep focus, or drifting into the circuitry of old machines.

The track was created in AUM and used apps such as Stria and ID700 with MIDI notes from Harmony Bloom and effects from Bleass Motion EQ, Bleass Delay and Otherdesertcities. Here is where to find out more about The Bombe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1487969254&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true

TheOxfordAmbientCollective · Butterfly And Ship (with Pete Swinton) 1. Sinyphasia

“The Oxford Ambient Collective and Pete Swinton are two artists of a similar mind. Using whatever tools are at hand they both sculpt evocative soundworlds in which the listener can lose themself. ‘Immersions’ is a seamless blend of their respective strengths, combining to make an album which ebbs and flows organically across electronic soundscapes, dark, gentle rhythms and glacial harmonic shifts.“

I must confess that I am not very good at all of the social media stuff when it comes to my music persona – The Oxford Ambient Collective – I basically keep forgetting. So – I thought it was about time that I actually posted my latest track and more information on how I created it (something I don’t always do that well when I post tracks to Souncloud.

This track is called Estuary Fog and it is the fourth track that I have collaborated on with a music that goes under the name of Encym (aka Roland Rienke).

Roland is always sharing samples and loops with me and I don’t always have the time to do anything with them. (It should be noted that this is nothing to do with the quality of Roland’s work – it is usually down to my own occasional lapses into have no creativity.

In the later part of last year Roland sent me a few loops – all based on his guitar – mostly his own improvisations. This track (below) is based on one of these loops. I then found some excellent samples/recordings of old computing equipment).

Old Computer Recordings 

I downloaded two of these samples which I thought might blend in with Roland’s loop. With all of this in mind I then loaded them into the Soundscaper app.  Soundscaper is basically an “An experimental sound mini lab”. It has three slots in which you can load samples and then do a whole load of morhping with the sounds – it is all pretty experimental. It is a great app to work with  – I have no real idea on how it all work.

I then went into a truly amazing app called AUM. AUM is a very powerful audio mixing and is used by many iOS musicians. I loaded an instance of Sounscaper into AUM. Once in AUM I added two instances of another app called Ripplemaker. This best way of describing Ripplemaker is that it is a modular app and by sheer luck I found a preset which I had used before which worked so well with of the work that I can done with Sounscaper. To cut a very post short I then finished off with a few effects plugins – Eventide Blackhole – EOS 2 and K7D. Here is the track!

 

 

It has been..well to years since I made a post…so here goes! The track below (Solace III) invloved me recording me playing my Early LearningCentre keyboard (basically two sessions). These were recorded into Auria abd the live mixed into Audacity (making use of some delays and choruses). Once it was in Audacity I palyed around with the wonderful PaulStretch effect to mostly make it longer but to add to the dynamics. I then loaded int into FL Studio for some EQing, mastering.

 

I appeared (well my track Névtelen) on a site called “Little Water Radio” on a show called “Alreaon Musique”. My piece appears about 45 minutes into the show.

http://littlewaterradio.com/playlists/2015/6/18/alrealon-musique-june-13-2015

 

I must admit that I am very bad at keeping this music blog of mine up to date with my new tracks. Here is Spirit III which will hopefully appear on my Spirit album. Played in Thumbjam and mixed in auria. F2 hold a4 g4 f4 c4 twice E2 hold a4 a#4 c5 (that’s the melody).