Ambient offering comes with added VR
Who they?
A collaboration, forged in Cornwall, between experimental ambient producers db (aka classically trained Dave Bessell, who you will know from his solo releases on DiN and as part of synth supergroup Node with Flood and Ed Bueller), and Ishq (aka Matt Hillier, who has been creating ambient soundscapes for the past 20 years).
Why db And Ishq?
The duo’s new album, ‘In Between’, comes as a CD/download and a virtual reality experience. Viewers are transported to a series of immersive landscapes, which serve as a backdrop to the expansive and sometimes unsettling music. The mood is psychological sci-fi – blasted, post-nuclear skies meet standing stones and alien symbols. Think ‘Day Of The Triffids’ or ‘Children Of The Damned’ given an electronic makeover.
Tell us more…
“The album is about the intersection between internal and external landscapes,” says Dave Bessell. “In Cornwall, the landscape is wild and rugged. You are constantly aware of its elemental nature. Alongside that, the psychological landscape leaks into the real world, in the form of standing stones and extraordinary natural formations.” Matt Hillier describes the glitches and atmospheric shifts that pepper the songs as “anomalies”, cracks in the VR matrix. “It’s an album for late at night when you’re looking for some mystery.” As a VR experience, ‘In Between’ is straightforward – static skyboxes that you view as you listen – but Bessell sees a power in that. “It wasn’t a question of dazzling with whirling bright colours or vertiginous perspectives. We wanted an individual immersive landscape for each track. If it takes the listener out of themselves and immerses them in a world of imagination or slows time for a moment then it will have made a positive creative contribution to the world.“
‘In Between’ is out on Virtual
