Falling by Mind over MIDI

Voices, analogue warmth and endless echoes are the order of the day on this new 10 track album by Mind over MIDI. Released by the Shimmering Moods label, it’s an ambient album that works essentially as a whole. Each track is around the 5-minute mark, but bleeds seamlessly into the next one with such ease that the collection feels like a single piece.

Track titles such as “Loss”, “Sorrow” and “Elegy” suggest a mournful theme underlying the music, and there is a melancholic vibe throughout. But it’s not gloomy, more like the feelings suggested by changing seasons.

The sound world on Falling is centered upon processed vocal recordings swamped in reverb and analog delay, the patterns repeating into foggy drones. Warm synths buzz and blur, washing through each track, adding little melodies that become more and more faded until they are smeared into a haze.

Helge Tømmervåg, the man behind the machines, has made a cohesive album of lush ambient material here. The overall sound is highly unified, each track exploring a similar terrain. I imagine Tømmervåg’s studio was set up in a very deliberate way to make these pieces, his collection of hardware synths and sequencers not being rearranged in the process of writing this record. This deliberate focus really pays off, and Falling is a perfect album to drift off to on Autumn evenings as the season hints at Winter.

(Darren McClure, toneshift.net)

In memory of Helge Tømmervåg (1961-2023)
Ambient music for daydreamers and nighthinkers, inspired by nature.

If you can picture the very furthest, coldest, darkest part of Norway, that's where Mind over MIDI resided. If you want to get an idea of what it's like there, and can do without the frostbite, then this is the perfect solution.

Produce sweeping, icy synthscapes, with digital snowflakes.

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