Limited to 500 copies
Sublime debut of Environmental and electronic music from South Korea’s Salamanda, ushering a sylvan blend of wordless vocals and lissom chimes for Good Morning Tapes’ sought-after vinyl series. Highly recommended if yr into anything from the classic Environments (New Concepts In Stereo Sound) series to Sakamto x Sylvian, ISAN or even Orbital’s ‘Halcyon’.A serendipitous discovery for the quiet ambient dance haven, Salamanda unfurl 41 minutes of rhythmelodic charms drifting between pastoral and etheric headspaces that seek to capture the life of a bird released from its cage. The Seoul-based duo of DJ Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) gently muster lilting pulses and hazed vocal inferences, limning a bird’s journey from morning to night with an ineffable lightness of touch that will likely lure the ambient romantics deep into their fragile, imaginative soundsphere.There’s an almost folkloric appeal to Salamanda’s suggestive soundworld, from carefully minimalistic turns of phrase between the opening of the ‘Bird Cage’ and its skittish flight, to 12 minutes of airborne flows as enchanting as an anime soundtrack in the centrepiece ‘Allez!’ and ultimately into the nocturnal dimensions of ‘Hide and Seek’ or ’Shadow Dance,’ where their sixth senses really come into play with an allusive, FM synth evocation of tiny bird movements flitting in and out of moonlight.Like everything on this label, a proper charmer.
