Release data: Loneward – Pallid Memories CD-r/DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, Private Release, 2022 At the end of 2021, Canadian composer Mike Carss announced he quit his job and would fully focus on making music from then on. As far as I know, this Loneward-release is the first one out since that decision. The concept of the 66-minute “Pallid Memories” deals with the composer’s fascination with how human…
Release data: Loneward – Pure CD/DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, Private Release, 2021 Emotive, elegant, absorbing, and intrinsic are keywords applying to the music of Loneward’s fourth album “Pure”. The 6-track/58-minute outcome of clouds of sound –with the aim to hold the listener in stasis- is a panorama of drifting, expansive, full-blow, slow evolving textures where the sense of calm is imminent and all over the place. Layers…
Release data: Loneward – Moongate CD-R/Digital Download, Private Release, 2020 As Loneward, Canadian synthesist Mike Carss started a new sonic journey in 2018 into what he referred to as purer ambient. “Moongate”, where processed guitar (both electric and acoustic) and soft synths taking centre stage, is a drifting, slightly pastoral-oriented affair of slow moving textures that come and go. It’s a soft breeze of pastel-coloured…
Release data: Matt Borghi & Loneward – The Still Guardian DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, Private Release, 2019 Mike Carss is known as an ambient artist who chooses to work on his own, which applies to almost all his recordings he made under the Altus-moniker. Now here’s the first collaborative effort he took on with musician Matt Borghi for the Loneward project painting an evocative, uplifting and expansive aural…
Release data: Loneward – Home DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, Private Release, 2019 One of the worst fears a musician may have is to (nearly) lose music still in the works or not yet released. This is what happened to Loneward’s second release “Home” where the majority of the music was nearly lost to a severe hard drive issue (the mainboard in the NAS had died). Fortunately after…
Release data: Loneward – Protection DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, Private Release, 2018 Loneward is a new side-project by Mike Carss (aka Altus) launched in August 2018. As the composer elaborates it will exist alongside Altus, however from this point on Loneward will be the source of Carss purer ambient and drone works. Recent examples would be “Innerspace” (2016) and “Komorebi” (2015) as well as the bit older…