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LS-TTL: El Es Tee Tee El Release year: 2000 Format: CD Tracklist: 1: drktual 07:08 Total length: 68:54 min General facts: LS-TTL is the Electronic/Dark Ambient project of a guy named Brian Coffee. Brian started composing music which he loaded up on MP3.com but eventually, Clint of Dragonflight Recordings offered him to release an album. The result was El-Es-Tee-Tee-El, released in 2000. Review: Another of those really dark albums that demands extensive listening to really become interesting. LS-TTL presents a nice brand of Dark Ambient and Electronic music with a lot of atmosphere. It seems to be composed of sounds from synthesiser banks as well as several environmental sounds, synthetic or natural, I dare not say. Nevertheless, they fill a great purpose; namely making this journey as suggested by Mr. Coffee, an interesting one which is both rewarding and inspiring. Sounds like howling winds, electric tension and metallic ringing twirl around in a vortex, creating an almost hypnotic flow of sound that transports the mind to visualise desolate sulphur wastes and dark, mechanical nightmare phantasmagorias. The flow of sound never rests totally. It is maintained throughout the entire album, yet not always in a relaxing way. Instead the word "obtrusive" may be more appropriate; music that sometimes generate feelings of paranoia, claustrophobia or plain fear. From the start, the atmosphere grows so carefully that one hardly notices that it is actually becoming more and more soaked with the above described emotions. It never really explodes though. Instead, the music lays silent in the background like an almost subconscious mental challenge. The only exception comes during the sixth and seventh tracks which either have a stressing beat or a ringing electronic sound pulling you out of the obvious effect this music has - not into gardens of green but into a more apparent array of sterile sounds. I fell asleep while playing this album when I was resting. I started to wake up during the fifth track Tro but I was still inside a dream: I was in a dark (perhaps even subterranean) factory local. I was all alone, sitting down on the floor, listening to the humming of the air condition and the typical, very mind-piercing factory ambience. Then suddenly in my dream, I realised that I wasn't alone but that there was movement everywhere. Deformed, human-like atrocities were all around me, making metallic noises against the walls as they were trying to get out, moaning and suffering from some claustrophobic torment. By this time, I woke up pretty fast, still half inside that dream. Yet it soon became obvious that I had suffered from an LS-TTL provoked nightmare, then waking up, being scared for a couple of seconds - only to then realise that there was an artist at work all the time. A dreamweaver, nothing more. I can't say that this realisation made me loose respect for Mr. Coffee's music, absolutely not. I have only experienced similar sensations with Dark Ambient music while listening to Lustmord's The Place Where the Black Stars Hang and raison d'être's Enthralled by the Wind of Loneliness before and thus it must be a skilful craft that is being displayed here. I think the atmosphere which is conjured up on El-Es-Tee-Tee-El is quite akin to the atmosphere of dark video games like Resident Evil or Silent Hill. Sometimes the music also makes me think of various dark Sci-fi scenarios, for example the contaminated space-colony or subterranean caverns from Alien II. It is not the actual characters or story of this film but the atmosphere of these locations themselves - and trying to imagine how it must feel to walk there alone, knowing that painful death may lurk behind every corner. This music could very well be a soundtrack to such a moment. Perhaps the music of this album could be labelled as Nightmare Dark Ambient; I think this term says much about the overall atmosphere of this album. In the end, I definitely approve of it. It maybe isn't striking new ground but it is interesting, well written and full of effects. The sound quality could have been a bit better but overall El-Es-Tee-Tee-El is a great Dark Ambient album that I recommend you to become familiar with if you like really dark music. Do also remember to check out LS-TTL's track on the Dark Seeds compilation The Sowing. Brian has contributed with a track named Stipon, actually my first encounter with LS-TTL's music. This track may not be as Dark Ambient as the tracks on El-Es-Tee-Tee-El, yet it has a quite twisted sound and a lot of that sick atmosphere I have come to link with my precious late hours alone these days. Ah, what a wonderful world after all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Five questions to LS-TTL: ECTONAUT: Please introduce LS-TTL to the Ortus Obscurum readers. What is LS-TTL all about? For how long have you been doing this and for what reason? BRIAN: LS-TTL is my own personal experiment in sound structure and composition. I've used it to develop my own personal knowledge in waveform synthesis and as a tool to display my creative artistic expressionism. Originally I had never intended to release anything professionally. I started to upload some of my songs to mp3.com in ECTONAUT: Tell us something about the tracks on El-Es-Tee-Tee-El. Did you work with specific methods when you composed them? Is there a concept behind this release or anything else interesting that you think we should know about El-Es-Tee-Tee-El? BRIAN: To put things simply I explained the concept of this album with some esoteric scribblings inside the CD sleeve which said, "soundtrack for the untitled film of the mind." The intent I had in mind was not to create music, but rather to create a speechless, imageless film for peoples' minds. It was very important for me to have a continuous album with no silent gaps so that the dependency upon all parts as a whole was noticeable. Other than that, I had hoped that the rest of the interpretation was done by the listener. I was very hopeful that I wouldn't display any political or religious meanings in the sound. My goal was to create pure sound unlike modern music, which is created to influence peoples' beliefs. ECTONAUT: How would you describe the music of LS-TTL to completely new listeners? Do you feel that LS-TTL belongs to a certain genre? Are there any bands that you think you can relate to soundwise and conceptwise? BRIAN: If I were to describe LS-TTL to a new listener I often would find myself saying, "crappy noise music." If they wanted more I would usually say that it's like the sound you hear in the background of a horror movie. Not the music that they play, but the noises you hear as doors open, or close or as strange insects hover near unidentifiable bodies, or as machines buzz and clank while wandering through a factory. A friend of mine once said that listening to LS-TLL made him feel like he was lying in a cot in the back of some manufacturing plant just listening to everything within the ambience of his surroundings. As far as genre goes I usually like to say that it's some hybrid of noise and dark ambient. Some of the artists that I've found most similar to my sound are Megaptera, Brume, and possibly some Telepherique. ECTONAUT: What is most important in music according to you? How do you define quality music and what are your musical influences? BRIAN: I find that uncompromised sound is the most important aspect of music. I enjoy things which re-define the term music to the point where many people refuse to call it music at all and conveniently label it "anti-music." Some of my primary influences were Brighter Death Now, Lustmord, Throbbing Gristle, Numb, Scar Tissue, and Decree. There's probably a lot more that have contributed to my ideology, but they are far too many for me to mention. Currently, I'm very obsessed ECTONAUT: What plans do you have for the future? Are there any new LS-TTL releases planned? Anything else you would like to add? BRIAN: Many releases are highly unconfirmed at the moment so I won't mention any of them at this time, but I do plan on putting some things out on different media that becomes available as people show an interest in releasing something for me. - Click here to visit the official LS-TTL homepage - Click here to contact LS-TTL |
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