ASC – "Loss"

ASC will release "Loss" tomorrow on Past Inside The Present. In case you're wondering, who is the artist behind the project? It's James Clements. The record is a beautiful collection of picturesque electronic soundscapes that go straight to the heart and allow us to pause for a moment in our noisy world.

James Clements has made a name for himself with releases in various genres over the past decades—including Auxiliary and A Strangely Isolated Place. The fact that he has now landed on Past Inside The Present is a lucky coincidence, as his way of turning music into something intimate, sensitive and emotive fits perfectly into the ranks of exceptional talent within the label.

A large part of the Past Inside The Present family contributed to the album. Cynthia Bernard awakened-souls, From Overseas & City of Dawn has enriched it with her photographic art. Her husband, James, did the mastering at Ambient Mountain House. Zakè did the design.

"Loss" by ASC is a sound journey with a gripping arc of suspense

With "Loss", ASC has set the feeling of loss to music—as pure, painful and all-encompassing as it feels and grips us when it shows itself. The nine tracks on the record are filled with a weighty vastness that runs from the first note to the last. At the same time, James has managed to interweave field recordings from nature to perfectly reflect the sea of thoughts in which a person struggling with loss constantly finds themselve. A particular highlight here is the last song, "Tears in the Rain", which begins with rain and ends in a sea of sounds. According to the artist, the piece is based on the old photographic experiment of showing different people the same facial expression and asking them what the person in the picture is feeling. The respondents' assessments range from happiness, tiredness, and relief to joyful amazement and abject confusion.

But it's not just the album's grand finale that has it all. The sound journey ASC has composed so marvellously leads you through all the different phases of loss while listening—corresponding to the emotional states described by the people in the photo experiment. The arc of suspense is perfectly crafted. Shadows from the past arise, enclose everything, and disappear into the nothingness of the uncertain future. Hope spreads, ebbs away again and finally manifests itself.

Music as the most empathetic narrative form

The musician Thomas Meluch put it into words flawlessly:

"In sections of this collection like "Sensory Disintegration" and "Fleeting Elation", with a bruised but forgiving heart, Clements boldly faces the void in order to create something where there is only a cruel nothing. There is no replacing a breath on the neck or that diffuse, gowned shadow along the wall, but there remains the hope that these compositions will sing beyond the stratosphere like any cosmically bound radio signal, outlasting their maker and all fleeting reminiscences that carry on in pure, vaporous vibration."

An instrumental project that conveys feelings so perfectly that it needs no words—that's how you could also describe "Loss" by ASC, I guess. However, the recording achieves much more: it translates experiences into music and thus expresses much more than spoken or sung words could. The pieces' complexity achieves this meditatively–sensitive and powerful, characterised by devotion and determination.

Ambient sounds full of harmony, disharmony, sound and ethereal moments await you—produced perfectly and composed by the exceptional sound collective from Indianapolis, Indiana. I guess this is exactly what I found a little challenging to put into words when I started writing this preview: Past Inside The Present, with all the artists involved in the label, expresses what music really is: the most emphatic narrative form.

You can listen to "Loss" on all music streaming services (I've included the Bandcamp link below). If you'd love to purchase it as a CD Digipak plus download card, you can order it via Juno Records (EU & UK) or A Thousand Arms (US).

ASC – "Loss"