Album Review: All Around Me by Bob Ohrum

Bob Ohrum’s albums combine urban field recordings with drones, bass and keyboards in a highly personal, alchemical fusion. (I’ve reviewed Bob’s albums Elevated and Subliminal Listening.) Bob’s latest release (Relaxed Machinery 0020) is All Around Me.

As he always does, Bob carefully weaves each piece from a few simple, minimal elements. There’s nowhere to go – you’re already there; it’s a sonic portrait of a location. As with Elevated, there is a strong melancholy element here, at least to my ears – but Bob’s music is quite like a mirror: your mood will greatly influence what you hear. The music can be alternately serene and depressing.

Last Breath Before opens the album with a downpour. As usual, we know we’re in the city, with Bob’s characteristic urban, industrial-humming atmospherics sketching our location. (I almost said “echo-locating”, which is how bats navigate – it would be apropos since this is a nocturnal cityscape.) A key element here is a single high note which echoes away over two dozen times. A set of three-note piano motives in the bass move the piece to an unexpected (but appropriate, given the title) cut-off.

For Dan (Excerpt), from a recent EP of the same name, is a memorial for Bob’s brother Dan, who passed on in 2008. A melancholy line sings over a hollow-metal low chord and a pitch-bending buzz. This grows to a searing intensity before the piece fades away.

Overpass Symphony #2 (All Around Me), the album’s longest piece at 17 minutes, is also saturated with water, streaming by over a quiet hum, which slowly blossoms into a harmonium-like chord. Scudding effects skid by on alternate sides.

The Mess (You Left) has the strongest industrial feel on the album, with a buzzing, crackling, rotary-saw drone. A swelling bass drone that takes over late in the piece is one of my favorite elements on the album. A chord progression on bass guitar closes it out.

Beauty in the Aftermath by Bob Ohrum

My favorite piece on the album (and one of my favorites from Bob overall) is the closer. Beauty in the Aftermath begins with birds and chiming, and a high hollow tremolo, before a wonderful power bass drone kicks in. This isn’t constant, it comes and goes, which is hugely effective here. It’s only one note, and that’s plenty. A bass guitar melody carves out a tranquil space. The mood here is the polar opposite of the rest of the album: it’s the morning after a big rain, and the sun and birds are out. The power drone and bass playing are perhaps Bob’s strongest tools. I would love to hear a whole album from him of just drones and basses.

As always with Bob’s music, in the dead of night it’s the city that’s real; we are the shadows. The city’s not permanent, but it will be here for quite some time. We, on the other hand, are just passing by.

If you like your atmospherics urban and minimal with an industrial touch, you should definitely check out this album.

All Around Me is available by download from CD Baby, and is coming soon on CDR from Hypnos and in FLAC from AD21 Music.

Album Review: Subliminal Listening by Bob Ohrum

Bob Ohrum, whose 2010 release Elevated I recently reviewed, returns with a reissue of his 2005 album Subliminal Listening, also on the Relaxed Machinery label.

This album is Bob’s love letter to his hometown of Buffalo, NY. It plays like an urban version of the Solitudes nature series, built on unprocessed field recordings and mechanical drones, embellished with darklit synth chords whose tone and texture sometimes recall Pink Floyd. The effect is that of a city-noir soundscape at 3am, with your back window open just before (or after) the rain. The sense of urban location is uncanny and – unaccountably – mesmerizing. It doesn’t make sense, it just is.

The opening track, Day of the Locust, was also the first one recorded, and immediately establishes the focus (as it did for the project’s creation). We land suddenly in Bob’s environs and begin taking it all in, getting our bearings. The breathy drone expands and shimmers, pulsing slowly. The place is alive.

As with Elevated, a few simple elements are all Ohrum needs to carve out his cityscapes. Overpass Symphony #1 features a drone slowly oscillating on two notes, punctuated by some resonant rock-on-bridge-girder clanks, with a pair of recurring, climbing notes hinting at something symphonic. Nightwalk has a softer drone with muted sirens and a lightly pitch-bent synth chord used to good effect. This night is bristling with activity, slow but not so quiet.

Subliminal Listening by Bob Ohrum

The two-part, 15-minute title track is my favorite, with a two-part droning chord, birds and thunder. Its second part section is more lit up, with a more energetic drone chord, as we see a break in the cloud cover. To my regret, the two-minute Rain cuts out too soon, just as it was getting nicely established, with its industrial atmosphere and two-tone line.

The closing Super Secret Bonus Track with Crickets, after two minutes of silence, brings a nice, breathy drone chord, light strings and crickets sounding like a big rainstick.

Kevin Pletcher’s photography captures the spirit of the music perfectly; it’s a visceral, intuitive connection. The sculpture is by American artist John Vasser House, a lost piece that Kevin has restored, in a way, by publishing it here.

“Subliminal” means “beneath the threshold of consciousness”; you can listen to this album as quiet background, let it get under your skin and color your space. If you’re in the city – especially if you’re alone, on a rainy night – these urban atmospherics can be your soundtrack, bringing the city’s slow, nocturnal pulse right into your listening space.

Subliminal Listening is available by download from CD Baby, and is coming soon on CDR from Hypnos.

Photos by Kevin Pletcher; sculpture by John Vasser House