Darkroom ambient podcast - free music from ambient/avant-garde improvisers Darkroom

Another bass clarinet and guitar duet, rehearsing for our two Tuesdays Post gigs at the start of November. Recorded in rehearsal, 29th October 2014. Photo credit https://www.flickr.com/photos/balladist/2409358994. Copyright 2014 Darkroom.

An unusually major-key bass clarinet and electric guitar duet. Recorded in rehearsal, 2nd March 2014. Photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/zebble/7412947/. Copyright 2014 Darkroom.

A sampler of Darkroom's album Gravity's Dirty Work - a continuous edit from the tracks - strung with black nylon - baby armageddon - karhupuisto / beautiful retreat - a pair a part The album is available on CD, double heavyweight vinyl or digital download from http://darkroomtheband.bandcamp.com/album/gravitys-dirty-work "The Darkroom duo of Michael Bearpark (No-Man, Henry Fool) and Andrew Ostler (Expert Sleepers) return with their first double album. "Begun as an exploration of early 90's electronica and its many sources, the album developed from extended improvisations through meticulous editing, layering and post-production into a coherent and timeless suite. "The trademark blurring of guitars, synthesiser and found sounds moves from the heavenly Beck meets Talk Talk atmospherics of Karhupuisto / Beautiful Retreat through apocalyptic foot-on-monitor fuzz mayhem at the end of the title track before closing with the eloquent scandinavian jazz-electronica fusion of A Pair A Part. "Also featuring Andrew Booker (No-Man, Henry Fool, Sanguine Hum) on percussion and Simon H. Fell (Keith Tippett, Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill) on double bass, the album is mastered for all formats by Jon Astley (The Who, George Harrison, Tori Amos). "Artwork by the inimitable Carl Glover." Copyright 2013 Darkroom.

A rehearsal recording from July 2013. This was intended to be the ambient start and ambient end of a 30 minute set, which would get noiser in the middle. The loopfest was to be the debut of Os's bass clarinet, and indeed this recording is the first published Darkroom recording featuring the bass clarinet. Let us know if you like it. Copyright 2013 Darkroom.

An excerpt from a rehearsal for Darkroom's forthcoming gig at Tuesdays Post. We were mainly testing that we could sync Mike's Timefactor pedal with the laptop, which generates the loop that you hear through most of this piece. The drums are from the modular. The bassline was added afterwards in the studio, by recording a clarinet loop and then tracking its pitch and envelope (using Silent Way Follower), and using that to drive the modular (in a lower octave). Copyright 2013 Darkroom.

The end of the first improvisation from the December 30th 2009 session. You can download a higher quality version of this track from darkroomtheband.bandcamp.com Copyright 2010 Darkroom.

Another section from the December 30th 2009 session (the clue is in the title). You can download a higher quality version of this track from darkroomtheband.bandcamp.com Copyright 2010 Darkroom.

We’ve put most of our catalogue up on our Bandcamp page. Bandcamp is a great service that allows musicians to sell directly to their fans. It also offers downloads in much higher quality formats than other services - up to and including lossless formats such as FLAC, so for example you can now go and get Some Of These Numbers Mean Something in 24 bit FLAC, better than CD quality! The downloads are also cheaper on Bandcamp. Well, to be accurate, the downloads can be as expensive as the band wants them to be, but I’ve set ours so you pay about what we would get from iTunes for a sale - because on Bandcamp we get all the money (none goes to Apple etc.) we can afford to do that and not lose out. We’ll also be putting up most of our podcast tracks on Bandcamp from now on. The podcast will remain as 128kbit mp3s (i.e. low quality by today’s standards) but you’ll be able to download the higher quality versions from Bandcamp if you want. Copyright 2010 Darkroom.

On December 30th 2009 Mike and I got together for an old-school Darkroom ambient jam. This is a section from right at the start of the evening - some gentle, tentative even, guitar that finally builds up into a majestic loop. Copyright 2010 Darkroom.

A rather pretty combination of modular synth loops and simple picked guitar arpeggios. Mixed with assistance from Melissa Terras. Copyright 2009 Darkroom.

A bleepy electronic construction using many elements generated by the Darkroom modular synth. Plus a slide guitar part from Mike. Copyright 2009 Darkroom. By the way - follow Os on Twitter: @expertsleepers

A section from somewhere in the middle of the 1st July Improvizone gig (http://www.vimeo.com/album/108940), with drums removed, and processed into a somewhat dense and noisy drone rock-out. Copyright 2009 Darkroom. By the way - follow Os on Twitter: @expertsleepers

This is a slightly processed/tweaked/warmed-up version of what Mike and I played at the start of the last section of the 1st July Improvizone gig (http://vimeo.com/5513010). Andy left the stage for a bit so it really was just a duo at that point (unlike what usually happens in these podcasts which is that I just leave Andy's playing out). Copyright 2009 Darkroom. By the way - follow Os on Twitter: @expertsleepers

The third and final part of our set at The Antwerp Loopfest, which happened on May 30th 2009. You can watch the whole set at http://vimeo.com/4960054 - Copyright 2009 Darkroom. By the way - follow Os on Twitter: @expertsleepers

The second part (of three) of our set at The Antwerp Loopfest, which happened on May 30th 2009. You can watch the whole set at http://vimeo.com/4960054 - Copyright 2009 Darkroom.

The first part (of three) of our set at The Antwerp Loopfest, which happened on May 30th 2009. You can watch the whole set at http://vimeo.com/4960054 - Copyright 2009 Darkroom.

From the 25th March 2009 Improvione gig. This piece was shaping up quite nicely when Mike's RE-20 Space Echo pedal had a catastrophic failure and started producing a nasty click followed by screaming feedback - and not the good kind. Trumpeter Simon Taylor carried on gamely while Mike and I discussed what was going on but in the end we gave up on it and took a break while Mike reconfigured his pedals. Since Andy therefore probably won't be using this section as an Improvizone.com download, I thought it was fair game to edit up into a Darkroom podcast. Oh, fake wind and real wind? The real wind is obviously the trumpet. The fake wind is my Akai EWI (making its debut appearance) which is making the cello noises. Copyright 2009 Darkroom.

This material comes from the end of our November 2004 gig, where we supported Steve Harris's Zaum. We were joined by Peter Chilvers on bass and keyboards. The end of the gig was particularly magical, as Peter left the stage and went off to play the piano in the adjoining hall (the venue was a converted church, and the piano was in the more churchy bit). Of course the piano wasn't mic'd up, so Mike and I had to simply play very quietly to allow the piano (complete with all-natural church reverb ambience) to be heard. For this podcast I've filled in the gaps left by the unrecorded piano with copies of bits of the live recording. Copyright 2009 Darkroom.

As you might guess from the title, this comes from the same Improvizone gig as the earlier iz20080528_0031resample track. Andrew Booker posted a different mix of this section, including the bass part, on the Improvizone site recently, and I encourage you to go and check that out as it's rather lovely (the track is called "Upload 2 from 2008-05-28 at Ember EC1M" and you can find it at improvizone.com/downloads.php or on the Improvizone podcast). Copyright 2009 Darkroom.

We recently released our 8th album, Some Of These Numbers Mean Something. You can buy it from burningshed.com, or from a download retailer such as iTunes. More info from our website, darkroomtheband.net. Copyright 2008 Darkroom.

From the 30th July 2008 Improvizone gig. This was the last section of the night, though there were bass, drums and sitar playing too. This podcast just takes Mike's guitar and my processing of Mike's guitar, for a more ambient experience. Copyright 2008 Darkroom.

Apologies for the long delay between podcasts this time. My main excuse is that as of about two weeks ago I now have a baby boy on my hands. Expect to hear lots of cute baby gurgles on future podcasts. Anyway - this podcast is similar to the last, in that it consists of a semi-random ambient thing I left playing during a pause in a recent Improvizone gig. In other news - our new album is nearing completion. Keep an eye on the blog for more information. We may also put one of the album tracks on this podcast as a free download. Copyright 2008 Darkroom.

This comes from the May 23rd Improvizone performance at the Design Museum, London. The line-up was Os, Andrew Booker and Steve Lawson, but Mike was there in spirit since Os, without any keyboard to play, was spending half his time processing bits of Mike's guitar parts from the forthcoming album. We played pretty much constantly for 3 hours, except for a 15 minute break, during which Os left a semi-random ambient thing happening on the laptop - 2 minutes of which was recorded, which is what you hear in this podcast. Copyright 2008 Darkroom.

This little track is the sound of Os getting to know his new Prophet '08 keyboard. The first track on this podcast so far to feature no guitar at all. Copyright 2008 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Andrew Ostler.

In contrast to the ambient miniatures that have been the last few podcast episodes, here's an entire track from a recent gig (Croydon, 27/2/2008). We played 3 tracks (i.e. we stopped for applause 3 times - given that it was all improvised the concept of a track is moot) and this is the middle one. What you hear here is unedited but quite heavily mixed, mainly to beef up the drums. Personally I was rather pleased with the Tangerine Dream-esque synth choral sound that builds up later in the track. Copyright 2008 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark, Andrew Booker and Andrew Ostler.

The final track that we'll be uploading from the recent BBC soundtrack. Unusually for Darkroom, this is entirely acoustic guitar. Copyright 2008 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

Hello, and welcome to the Darkroom podcast for February 26th 2008. We're breaking with tradition tonight by recording this introduction, rather than just giving you the music by itself. We're doing this because there's actually quite a lot going on in Darkroom-land right now, and we wanted to tell you about it. First, and most importantly, Darkroom has a shiny new website, which you can find at darkroomtheband.net. Central to the site is our blog, which is being updated quite regularly at the moment, with news of our own doings, including progress on the new album, as well as various other bits and bobs of potential interest. We heartily encourage you to subscribe to it, and if you're not sure how to subscribe to blogs, my personal recommendation is to check out Google Reader. Secondly, we recently made available a free download-only release, containing tracks that didn't quite make it onto our album "The DAC Mixes". You can get it for free from burningshed.com, or read about it on our website, which once again is darkroomtheband.net. We also wanted to mention that we've recently put all our material up on Last.fm, so you can now go there to listen to bits of all our albums, including some full tracks. If you're not a Last.fm user, check it out at www.last.fm. It seems to be a pretty good way of discovering new music, as well as keeping tabs on bands you already know you like. So now to the music. This is the third track taken from our recent BBC soundtrack commission, and was supposed to convey wistful sadness. You can download a version with just the music, without this introduction, from our page on last.fm. Incidentally, please do mail us and let us know if you like having an introduction like this on your podcasts. Contact links are on our website, which once again is darkroomtheband.net. That's it from me, and I by the way am Os, not Mike. I leave you with the track "people you look for". Cheers! Copyright 2008 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

The second track from the recent BBC soundtrack. The brief for this one was 'screaming guitar'. Copyright 2008 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

We recently did some music for a BBC television news programme - read all about it on the darkroomtheband.net blog. This is the first of several sections that we're going to tidy up and post here. This one's brief was to be ominous and brooding - low hanging fruit for an ambient outfit like ourselves, but surprisingly hard to do when you only have 30 seconds to work with. Copyright 2008 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

About a third of our set from the Festival of Live Looping held in the Norwich Arts Centre on Saturday 17th November 2007. Once again, we were playing with the drummer Andrew Booker. Copyright 2007 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Andrew Booker, Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

After something of a long break from the podcast, here's a bang-up-to-date rehearsal recording from yesterday (13th October 2007). We were rehearsing with an electronic drummer by the name of Andrew Booker, with whom we'll shortly be playing a number of gigs, including at the Improvizone nights (http://www.improvizone.com/) and at a loopfest in Norwich. Copyright 2007 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Andrew Booker, Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

This track has its basis in the same session as the last episode (that of April 4th). It's been doubled-up in the studio and had another layer of keyboard added. This track is dedicated to Paul Needler and his Ambientia podcast, since he was kind enough to feature the music of Darkroom in a recent episode (see http://www.armsfullofsound.com/). Copyright 2007 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

Mike and I got together on April 4th with the intention of creating some classic Eno-esque ambient. Instead we produced some rather nice drones. This is the last 10 minutes or so of one improvisation. Copyright 2007 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

I was listening back to some old recordings that had yet to be turned into anything, when this short section jumped out at me. It was recorded in a hotel room (rock and roll!) in Zürich - we were over for the '1st International Loopfestival Zürich' (http://www.loopfestival.com/) and were rehearsing for our performance there. The track sounds like it has a piano on it but it must be slowed down guitar - there was barely room for the two of us in the room, let alone a piano. Copyright 2007 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

Following on from the last episode, here's some more of what Mike and I got up to with Daryl Shawn. A little more edited than last time, and with some drums overlaid. Probably the least ambient thing on this podcast so far! Copyright 2007 Darkroom and Daryl Shawn. Composed and performed by Daryl Shawn, Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

More NINJAM-ing, this time using it to its full potential for long-distance collaboration. Mike and I (in the UK) jammed for an evening with acoustic guitarist Daryl Shawn (in Mexico). This episode is a slightly edited section from right at the start - Daryl had been up and running for a while, whereas Mike had just plugged in. More to follow! Copyright 2007 Darkroom and Daryl Shawn. Composed and performed by Daryl Shawn, Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

A section of an improvisation Mike and I did using NINJAM, a clever bit of software that lets musicians jam over the internet. (Some bass subsequently added in the studio.) This track is an audiophile's nightmare - the sections of audio that were transported over the net were Ogg Vorbis compressed; the whole jam was recorded to minidisc; and now you're listening to an mp3. That's 3 different kinds of lossy compression! Copyright 2006 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

A section from an extended gig at a Norwich shoe factory in September 2005 (extract code bata42_36.30_41.30), with some additional bass, synth and vocal added in the studio. Copyright 2006 Darkroom. Original material composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler; vocal by Melissa Terras.

Finally, a track which is more than just a quick edit from a rehearsal recording. Though still based on material recorded in rehearsal (the "bass and meringue" session from May), this track adds layers of drums recorded way back in 2004. Copyright 2006 Darkroom. Original material composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler; drums by Diego Mancini.

The second part of a two part rehearsal extract from May 2006. This is the prettier of the two parts. It picks up about 3 minutes on from the end of the first part. Copyright 2006 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

The first part of a two part rehearsal extract from May 2006. This piece is driven by a nice bass pulse from about 2 minutes in. There are some sequenced-sounding elements but it's all guitar, processed live in Ableton Live. We were also trying out a new version of my alternating delay plug-in, 'Meringue'. Copyright 2006 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

Essentially a segment of a rehearsal recording from November 25th 2004, edited and with a few extra layers applied. Copyright 2006 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

Recorded in a rehearsal session 11th May 2006. What you are hearing is Mike's guitar being processed and looped live by Os's laptop. Despite the elapsed time since the original two 'calling cards' were recorded (almost a year), this seems to fit very nicely alongside them, hence the name. Software: Ableton Live, Expert Sleepers Augustus Loop. Copyright 2006 Darkroom. Composed and performed by Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler.

Excerpt from a rehearsal for the Zürich Loopfest 2005 (see http://loopfestival.com/). The two "Calling Card" tracks were prepared for a pre-festival promo cd.

Excerpt from a rehearsal for the Zürich Loopfest 2005 (see http://loopfestival.com/). The two "Calling Card" tracks were prepared for a pre-festival promo cd.

Track 1 of the free album 'Freefall' by Darkroom. Features Mike and Os with Simon H. Fell (acoustic bass). See http://www.collective.co.uk/darkroom/freefall/

Track 2 of the free album 'Freefall' by Darkroom. Features Mike and Os. See http://www.collective.co.uk/darkroom/freefall/

Track 3 of the free album 'Freefall' by Darkroom. Features Mike and Os with Peter Chilvers (electric bass). See http://www.collective.co.uk/darkroom/freefall/