For my last pick from Rod Modell’s catalog, I would like to pick one of his other aliases: Shorelights. Under this moniker, Rod Modell releases his ambient stuff, which basically means things very similar to his dub techno stuff, stripped down to the ambient layers, no kick nor any groovy bassline on sight. Most of his releases are hour-long seemingly live sessions, without any separation between tracks, which is why I am sharing this entire session here.

Shorelights - Summer Cottage Soundscapes (2017)

This release sure knows how to nail down an atmosphere, and it’s choke full of nice field recordings, wind, rain, all of it. My favorite part is the bit between 18:00 and 26:00 or so, when the wind starts to pick up, and a repeating, heavenly synth seems to descend from the sky to unleash a heavy storm, washing ashore any negative thoughts. This moment is so deep and reflective, I can picture myself trailing in a mountain hearing the distant thunder under a heavy rain, feeling alone against the immensity of nature.

I have used this bit in the small half hour ambient set I release on my YouTube channel, where the true attraction is my mate Boyan’s visuals. I highly recommend watching it, the part using this bit comes near 07:00m where Boyan went crazy with the visual filter, implementing some kind of pixel diffusion algorithm in Processing, which seems to marry JPEG / HEVC compression artefact and water painting. Funnily enough, the video is from his long trail in the Bulgarian mountains.

naif x directive01 - ethereal spaces (2018)

Hope you enjoyed this week long journey in Rod Modell’s world, hope to see you soon in another article. Until then, peace out.

PS: remember to check out echospace detroit bandcamp if you want more stuff just like Shorelights. I think the label is run by Rod Modell, although I could be wrong. Plenty of stuff from all his aliases on there.