it grows on each listening, it's a work full of details. That's a parenthetical aside made by Ubeboet in a brief email that I received from him after letting him know how much I was enjoying this wonderful piece titled A Map of the Ocean. His comment is illuminating and captures an important aspect of its contents.

A Map of the Ocean is the ninth release in Bremsstrahlung Recording's excellent TRANS>PARENT RADIATION series. Each release in the series is initially available as a high quality download which is then later re-released as a limited edition CDR housed in a custom-made cover. Previous releases in the series still on-line at the time of this writing include works by Rick Reed, Cory Allen, Bill Thompson, John Hudak + Shimpei Takeda, Duane Pitre, and SIRSIT (ensemble consisting of Josh Russell, Brent Fariss, Cory Allen, and Rick Reed).

It's a reviewer's delight when two of his favorite experimental music artists join forces. M. A. Tolosa (Ubeboet) is a sound artist who makes his home in Madrid. He's been involved in composing and releasing experimental/electronic music since the mid 1990's and is head of the well-respected Conv netlabel. Ubeboet's own work is centered around minimalism and Musique concrète and as been released on several labels including NonVisualObjects, Twenty Hertz, Zeromoon, and Retinascan. In addition to his collaboration with Asher, he has also teamed up with Dale Lloyd and Pablo Reche.

Asher Thal-nir resides in Somerville, Massachusetts. Asher's work is quite minimal and is constructed mostly using recordings of acoustic (piano) and electronic instruments, local field recordings, and found sounds. These recordings are then meticulously edited, mixed and lightly processed to various degress. He often juxtaposes the organic with the inorganic and the urban with the pastoral. A hazy layer of static hiss is a recurrent element found in many of his compositions. Asher has released work in both online and physcial formats on various labels including Conv, Leerraum, Mystery Sea, Laboratoire Moderne, Term, Homophoni, and, most recently The Land Of. He has upcoming releases scheduled for publication on several labels including Einzeleinheit, and/OAR, Winds Measure Recordings, and Gears of Sand. Asher also operates the Sourdine label.

A composition full of details to be sure. A Map of the Ocean is a beautiful and exemplary instance of modern-day digital Musique Concrète - concrete sounds blended with sinuous melodies and drones - a 40+ minute piece richly textured with detailed field/location recordings, found sounds, and voices and punctuated with repeated segments of gentle musicality and episodic water-based sounds. Moments of melody and rich, gentle tones rise and fall periodically against a mottled backdrop of urban clatter, room noise, pastoral sounds, the slosh of waves, and the hiss and crackle of static interference. The ocean is an apposite use of the water symbol here with its positive connotations of life and renewal and because the music engulfs the listener in a generally bucolic ambiance.

Considering that Ubeboet and Asher have each established their own personal niche in experimental/electronic music and have taken slightly divergent paths to reach similar ends, A Map of the Ocean comes across as a very fluid, harmonious work. The transitions from the discordant to the musical are smooth and effortless. Each artist's contributions complements those of the other and their efforts merge into a wonderfully unified extended composition of contemporary Musique Concrète and sound art that flirts with ambient, noise, and minimalism.