Dwight Ashley - Discrete Carbon FLAC

A journey into the dark infinity of inner space, Dwight Ashley’s premiere solo recording is an aural world rich in paradox and contradiction.

Horror and ecstasy cohabit Discrete Carbon’s vast electronic landscapes, a tension-filled pairing that yields an unexpected, transcendent beauty. Simultaneously disquieting and cathartic, expansive and intimate, Ashley’s arresting compositions move through a dream-sequence of sonic dark alleys and auditory halls of mirrors, to arrive at an eponymous conclusion that offers no salvation.

Ashley’s rendering of the ambient art form on Discrete Carbon resists clichés at every level. Rejecting the meandering “space jams” sometimes associated with the genre, Ashley produces compositions that are focused, structured, and coherent. Ashley’s “experimentalist” nature is evident in his instrumentation: source instruments are frequently indistinguishable as such (to wit, the oboe-cum-cello sequence on Katalepsis), rhythmic textures stand in as melody on a number of tracks, and the album is punctuated throughout by textural detail that is at once subtle and sublime.

With Discrete Carbon, Dwight Ashley demonstrates himself to be a significant ambient artist in his own right, a persistent visionary whose goal it is to take us into uncharted interior worlds. We may go quietly and serenely — or kicking and screaming — but he’s determined we make the trip.