Tag: free music

Two new Venus Vulture releases

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

When taking breaks from tickling away at a Qwerty keyboard, I sometimes noodle around with music. It’s always fun to activate different parts of my brain and still be creative.

First up is “Coiled Within Mountains“, released on Zenapolae.

Four ambient tracks filled with drifty loops and occasional snatches of melody.

Free download.

The second release, direct through bandcamp, is Salt.

Six ambient tracks filled with drifty loops and occasional snatches of melody.

Free to listen to on bandcamp, $US4- to buy the download.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ecosystem 8 – new Venus Vulture album out on Zenapolae

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

New release – Zen240 – Venus Vulture – Ecosystem 8

Mostly here I’m talking about my writing – after all that’s my main focus. In the background, though, I’m an amateur electronic musician (good to have hobbies, right?). I record and release under the ‘band’ name Venus Vulture. Ambient electronica. I’ve written elsewhere about coming to make ambient music – enjoying listening to it while writing, but having trouble finding it… that’s changed with the advent of the internet, but in the meantime, I found I enjoyed it, so kept making music.

Some of my albums appear on my bandcamp page. Some have come out on netlabels (Resting Bell, Testtube, Zenapolae), and I collaborate with Kendall of December Nightskies as an actual band – Shadows on the Snow, and we have a bunch of releases both independently and on netlabels.

My thanks to arnd from Zenapolae for his patience and back and forth with me while I put together this release. I like his description – “a delicate ambience made with modular synthesis”. That’s what I’m aiming for – delicate ambience.

I’ll write again about the ‘modular synthesis’ side of it – a shift over the last couple of years from computer-based composition to building a modular synth rig. arnd’s put an image of my rig there on the release page.

Ecosystem 8 is free to download.

Venus Vulture album – Air and Eyes on Zenapolæ

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

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In between all the traveling and novel writing and trying to get my head around the general oddness of the world, I neglected to mention that the Zenapolæ netlabel released my Venus Vulture album Air and Eyes in May.  I’m grateful to Arnd for curating this collection of five tracks – in this case effectively becoming producer as we whittled the number of tracks, and worked a couple into better shape.

I’ve always made music to listen to while I write. It usually turns out that I can’t listen to my own stuff more than, say, once, but that’s okay, there’s more out there, including lots from my labelmates on Zenapolæ.

Air and Eyes is a free download.

New Venus Vulture track on Xernex compilation album – Into Hidden Visions

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

a3899940275_10With some upcoming writing news any day now, it’s cool to have some music news.

By day I’m a writer, by night I tinker with ambient music as Venus Vulture. There are a few Venus Vulture releases around, as well as numerous collaboration albums with Kendall of December Nightskies as Shadows on the Snow. I’m also grateful to Kendall for steering me toward some compilations (like this one).

The lastest Venus Vulture track, ‘Basalt Arches’, is out now on the Xernex compilation Into Hidden Visions – a free download from Bandcamp. My track’s a slight departure for me; less drone, more busy-ness. There are even some drums.

There’s quite a line up of artists there. I’m pleased to be able to discover some new people and new sounds.

Here’s the list, taken from discogs (link also includes more images).

Various  ‎–  Into Hidden Visions, Label: Xernex ‎– XE40
1 –December Nightskies – Then Darkness Covered The Land 05:29
2 –Badrich – Bog Corpse 06:15
3 –Grodock – Abgleiten 04:21
4 –Visqueen (2) –  Downers 03:35
5 –ELMA – The bridge 03:35
6 –BERTHELOT Perturbateurs endocriniens 05:53
7 –Jimmy Watt – Caronte on the banks of the seventh sea 06:36
8 –ZUMAIA – Intense Drama 02:11
9 –Twilight Of Emptiness – Black Stars 03:24
10 –Paranoid Movement – The Hunt 05:12
11 –Venus Vulture – Basalt Arches 03:32
12 –Nebelwächter, Thomas Bannier – Birdtalker 05:24
13 –Thlaaflaa – The Gospel 04:46
14 –Goat tunnel – Last Sorrow Drained 06:29
15 –VAULT (6) – Eridamus Weeping 06:10
16 –[ówt krì] – Attention 04:33
17 –Krāllār – Faster 02:29
18 –L_Arsenne – Âme noire 05:19
19 –No-Joy – Sperma 05:11
20 –PKWST – Untitled 04:06

Environments – experimental music compilation from Scriptsound Recordings.

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

environments - ArtworkI’m pleased to have the Venus Vulture track “A Sidelong Glance Reminds Jeanne of the Time She Lost Her Keys” appearing on the ScriptSound Recordings “Environments” compilation. This is a new venture for me – into some darker and busier sound work – and I’m pleased to say I feel right at home with the other artists there. Some familiar names too – nobodisounz, December Nighskies (thanks Kendall for the pointer).

It’s a free download from archive.org.

Full Tracklist:
1. La Horde Poliorcétique – Berthelot
2. A Sidelong Glance Reminds Jeanne Of The Time She Lost Her Keys – Venus Vulture
3. If I Were Invisible – Ricky Tesla & The Noise Generator
4. A Temporary Thing – Ricky Tesla & The Noise Generator
5. Spirits At The Crossroads – Ian Quiet
6. Consumed By Midnight – December Nightskies
7. Strangers In A Foreign Land – Ricky Tesla & The Noise Generator
8. Low Matter – nobodisoundz
9. Liberation – Dr. NoiseM
10. Abandoned Machinery Succumbing To Nature – Ricky Tesla & The Noise Generator
11. Esthetique Des Publicites Lumineuses – Painful Defecation
12. Matanza – 5ebuts
13. Sleepless Hysteria – Sir Edgar Carpenter

A music interlude

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

With all my focus on being a pulp fiction writer these days, on occasion I neglect the music side. Many years ago, unable to find enough ambient music to listen to while writing, I began making my own. Most of it was pretty awful – not even listenable by me – but some of it was okay. Over time, I got better too. Even to the point that some of my music has been released on some netlabels and has been played on the radio and by DJs. (This is also the reason why the blog URL is venusvulturenews – the music comes out under the moniker Venus Vulture, and music was why I first started the blog). It’s been a while since Pylon Suite came out on Zenapolae, but it was cool to see it very positively reviewed recently on acts of silence. I am slowly working on new music, but it’s more sporadic these days: more will definitely be coming.

Pylon Suite is about 40 minutes long and is intended to be background music while doing more concentrated activities (such as writing). It’s a free download.