Weโ€™ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
Weโ€™ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/
1.
Desked 03:08
A boredom enforcement officer is tired of his cubicle and slumps in the corner. He hears droids chattering, sleepily smiles at the starfield unfolding behind his coffee cup, and maybe a better job opportunity calling during the recession. Reading self-help books leaks inspiration all over his worldview. Even the cleaning robots can't rouse him from this slumber, oh my!
2.
Magic Hours 03:38
It's either 3 or 4 AM, I forget now. But it's like, you're in the subway and you see these imposing figures that look like ninja-butchers. They walk on by and you've just quit smoking cold turkey, so your nerves are fired up and frazzled. Check out how things change by 2:05. The bass drop is a sly nod to both Eno via Apollo and Sakamoto via "The Beach". I love that noodly fretless and you should too; more ambient deserves rich, warm, sub tones.
3.
Satura 03:52
I saturated channels to give a rich, pulsating sound, hence the name. Subtle layers that can barely be heard but nevertheless have an effect are homeopathic, only true. Sometimes I like descending melodies in thirds, they have an open strength with intimacy. Trivia: the crackle at 1:48 and elsewhere was a limitation of a demo-version synth I used but I worked it in anyway. If you can tell me which one, you're rather observant. Sometimes you have to open your windows and record the birds singingโ€ฆ I mean that figuratively. (The ending is Vangelistic.)
4.
I saturated channels to give a rich, pulsating sound, hence the name. Subtle layers that can barely be heard but nevertheless have an effect are homeopathic, only true. Sometimes I like descending melodies in thirds, they have an open strength with intimacy. Trivia: the crackle at 1:48 and elsewhere was a limitation of a demo-version synth I used but I worked it in anyway. If you can tell me which one, you're rather observant. Sometimes you have to open your windows and record the birds singingโ€ฆ I mean that figuratively. (The ending is Vangelistic.)
5.
Otoro 03:15
There're these sushi places we go that always play the same music. If I had it my way, they'd be all cyberpunked out and the chef would be a cyborg who'd been through offworld battles. Why not? What's neat here is this track contains several repeating motifs that are staggered against each other so they feel less repetitive in a Reichian (Steve, not Hitler) way. I took sounds of chopping food on a board, wove them into a rhythm, and graced by shakuhachi, am hopeful I'll someday dine to this.
6.
If you like my solo piano stuff but yearn for glitchy growth, this is for you! Sometime ago when I was turned on by the Noto-Sakamoto alliance, I've been namedropping them ever since. Here, I felt a vibe like Eno's Music for Airports, but I wanted to take those tonalities and instead of a piano loop, dance them further and cut pieces into micro-rhythms. There's oodles of subtlety and it's amazing how much mileage you can get out of simply reversing a second-long snippet and bathing it in a reverb wash.
7.
Looseleaf 03:28
More piano, but different piano. The name refers to me literally shuffling paper and sampling that. It's gorgeously lowercase, and at times, I wasn't sure whether to remove background noises or leave them in. For the most part, they're included because here's the part where I SEE A NEAR-FUTURE CAMPUS WHERE STUDENTS ARE BEING DILLIGENT under warm lighting and the omnipresence of airscreen workstations.
8.
Voxin 02:24
A simple idea we had to rehearse. I had my wife sing a 7-note sequence. She wanted me to edit her breaths out but they're essential to the understated rhythm of the work. I couched her vocals in some synths and envisioned a floating space cathedral where the distant descendants of Zen monks would contemplate the nature of multiple realities while formulating poison. (Vox + toxinโ€ฆ I'm such a sucker for portmanteaus.) Listen to this with candles + scents.

credits

released March 24, 2010

license

tags

about

TORLEY ๐Ÿ‰๐ŸŽน Seattle, Washington

I make sonic science fiction: short sound stories with massive melodies and vibrant arrangements. Iโ€™ve discovered them from alternate realities, in an ongoing research project to expand the edges of expressive electronic music.

contact / help

Contact TORLEY ๐Ÿ‰๐ŸŽน

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account