Christian Groothuizen began his musical career in 1986 as the bassist of British indie rock band The House of Love, and remained a member until the band’s split in 1993. Following this, he created Offworld Communication Systems, an obscure label to distribute his solo ambient projects.

The first release was Offcomm 1, under the artist name Offworld Communications Systems. This would be the only release where the artist and his label shared the same name. Offcomm 1 was released in 1995, and re-released one year later on a British label called Creation Records, which had entered into a distribution partnership with Sony in the 90s. This reissue, called Another Planet, has different track timings and listing, but I am unsure whether the music is actually different.

In 1998, the 12″ Angel was released, containing the title-track along with several remixes. This was followed by another full-length album entitled A New Life Awaits You. I like to think that the title of the album was inspired by a line from the movie Blade Runner, but I have no idea: “A new life awaits you in the Off-World colonies.” For the 12″ and the album, the artist name became Offworld SE5.

In 2001, The House of Love did reform, but without the participation of Groothuizen. He is now a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. For people are interested in that sort of thing, there are several pictures of his various projects available on his website. I don’t know if he still makes music as a hobby, but I would imagine he would not have the time for a full-time band once again.

Both of these albums are classic examples of mid-to-late 90s ambient techno and IDM, which certainly do not deserve to continue to exist in obscurity. Used copies turn up for sale sometimes on Discogs and Amazon, so it’s worth a look to check them out.

Offworld Communication Systems – Orinoco

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Offworld Communication Systems – Net

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Offworld SE5 – Angel

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Offworld SE5 – Sweeper

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– Offworld Communication Systems – Offcomm 1

– Offworld SE5 – A New Life Awaits You

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Neon was an early minimal / new wave act that formed in Italy in 1979 and released a series of vinyl recordings from 1980 to 1988. In 2005, the cult Italian label Contempo, which also released material by Pankow, Clock DVA, Christian Death, and more) released Boxed, a seven CD boxed set that comprised the full works of the band up to 1986. I don’t know if this necessarily needed to be stretched over 7 CDs, as the bulk of them are 12 inch singles with only a few tracks, but they do come packaged in separate sleeves that are replicas of the original vinyl art. Neon is active nowadays with this retrospective album, released by Russian label Intuition, as well as a live release from Winter 1979, entitled Oscillator. More information, as well as details on European live dates, can be found on their Myspace profile, as well as the band’s official website. This CD also contains a bonus data track, which is the only official promo video the band released, for the song “Isolation”. It can be viewed on YouTube. Neon is preparing work on a new album at this time, but no word of when it will be completed.

Tracklisting:
1 Isolation
2 Information Of Death
3 Runnin’
4 Boxes
5 Last Chance
6 My Blues Is You
7 Drivin’
8 Dark Age
9 Spiders
10 Red Light
11 The Same Ritual
12 Harry
13 Lobotomy

Neon – Information of Death

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Neon – Boxes

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Neon – Dark Age

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Moz – Cloud Painting #8 is the first concept DVD by Canadian ambient duo dreamSTATE. It is a 12-minute ambient film by Scott M2, set to the track “For The Dreaming Dancers”, which may or may not be a different version than what is found on the release Om, which is currently out of stock. The DVD offers the ability to listen to the soundtrack in 24 bit stereo or 4.0 Dolby AC3 immersive mix with infinite loop option, which is nice for people that do have surround sound. Myself, I only have my television, so the stereo version was the way to go for me. The visuals are intended to be viewed as a “video painting” using clouds as a medium of slow transformation and what appears to be some sort of Eskimo moose god. I didn’t try the infinite loop option, but just on its own after one viewing, it’s a very interesting piece. It is relaxing to watch how the clouds morph in the background to the slow drift of the music. There are a few things that I would prefer that would make it better, such as a full-length audio mix and some more variety in the visuals, however, as Scott M2 seems to have an interest in developing more ambient video in the future, I am quite sure that the results will only get better with time. The DVD is available for the price of 4.95 plus shipping and a much larger view of the cover can be viewed at the link below, which is a screenshot from the video.

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Atmosphere is the second album released by Dutch producer Michel van Osenbruggen, also known as Synth.nl. After years studying electronics and data communications, he became fascinated by synthesizer music by the likes of Jean-Michael Jarre and set out to produce his own music. In 2007, he released his debut album on Dutch electronic label Groove Unlimited, followed a year later by Atmosphere. Osenbruggen describes the album as being “inspired by the different layers of air around our world, the different cloud formations that are encountered in these layers and the sounds of different weather phenomena.” I wanted to purchase the actual CD, but since it is an import, it can be rather expensive. Digital versions are available and I purchased my copy as 256 kbps mp3 from Amazon.com for $8.99. It’s not the same as having the actual CD release, but you still get the same music. Atmosphere is a wonderful journey from Earth to space and will definitely appeal highly to fans of artists such as Lightwave, Redshift, and Tangerine Dream. I just found that Hypnos Recordings from Portland, Oregon has a good price on the album, and I wish I would have noticed it sooner before ordering the mp3 version. Oh well.

Tracklisting:
1 Troposphere (5:54)
2 Cumulonimbus (5:30)
3 Stratosphere (5:50)
4 Stratocumulus (5:42)
5 Altocumulus (5:38)
6 Atmosphere (7:22)
7 Mesosphere (6:34)
8 Nimbostratus (6:21)
9 Altostratus (4:37)
10 Thermosphere (6:33)
11 Cirrostratus (4:37)
12 Exosphere (6:07)

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New Scene was an project from the early 90s that had elements of techno, trance, and New Beat (still don’t know what that is), but this was before such labels started to matter to people. New Scene was a duo of Arno Müller and Marcus Barth, who released numerous other recordings under different names for Germany’s BOY Records. They released three singles, before the ultimate release of this full-length album in 1992. Besides production as New Scene, their work can be found among many other releases all over BOY in the mid-90s. Interestingly enough, I heard of New Scene while looking for another “BOY group” (haha!) called Time Modem; Müller worked as a producer and mixer on several early Time Modem releases. While Waves has yet to be re-released, I’m sure that used copies shouldn’t be too hard to come by. I found this copy brand-new and still sealed on Ebay for 6 dollars. Can’t beat that!

Tracklisting:
1 Open (3:01)
2 New Age (6:01)
3 The Whale (6:58)
4 Sucken (4:54)
5 PSG 22 (5:26)
6 Impuls (4:58)
7 Waves (7:20)
8 Tonight (6:42)
9 The Walk (5:56)
10 Machine (5:20)

New Scene – The Whale

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New Scene – Impulse

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New Scene – The Walk

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FFWD was an ambient project from the early nineties that consisted of Dr. Alex Paterson, Robert Fripp (King Crimson), Kris Weston, and Thomas Fehlmann. Orbert is a demo version of the FFWD album, which was released in 1993. The demo consists of one 50 minute mixed track, while the album, which was released on Paterson’s own Inter-Modo label in 1994. FFWD was the only album the lineup produced, and after this, The Orb moved on and continued to release more material. Kris Weston, aka Thrash, was a live and studio member of the Orb from 1990 to 1994, as well as doing remix work. Fehlmann maintained a career of his own, aside from his contributions as a part-time member of The Orb, as well as being a resident at Tresor Berlin in the 1990s. I wish I had more to write about the album, but I really don’t. It’s a rare and early pure, beatless ambient work, and this release will please fans of early Orb works. This is a large file, so it might take the embedded audio player a few minutes to buffer.

Tracklisting:
1 Orbert (51:33)

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siglo.xx made this mix using Audacity sometime in the early 2000s from CD-Rs given to him by Adrian Smith. The source albums were Frey, Bug Sun, Sappho, and Sammlung. Details for each of these is on the Discogs page. Two of them, along with several others, can be downloaded for free from the Paperhouse Last.FM page. siglo.xx did not have the tracklisting for the mix, so I took on the time-consuming task of figuring it out. I am 99% sure that it is accurate and listened to it over twice to be more certain. Track timings are at what point in the mix the song starts. I had considered putting up the individual tracks for download, as well as the mix, but there’s really no point in that. Currently, the mix is on Rapidshare, but I will move it over to S3 as a torrent eventually.

Tracklisting
1. Sakotse 0:00
2. Art Is Life 8:38
3. Iguana 18:30
4. Energy and Fire 26:25
5. Spiritual 32:05
6. Black Shiny Bug 41:19
7. Sappho 48:25
8. Smackhead 54:50
9. One Thirty Eight 64:45
10. Onibaba 71:53
11. Get On My Knees/Game Overture 80:51
12. Shoot the Scene 86:38
13. Starless 92:55
14. Bug Sun 99:48