On the one hand, the name of this project by Kinski guitarist Chris Martin tells you a lot. The mere mention of the words 'amp' and 'buzz'; next to each other is a Pavlovian bell causing salivation in DroneOn list regulars, and Ampbuzz delivers on the promise of its name, with plenty of long, extended chords to be savored. And yet, if you were to venture to guess what kind of drone music you'd expect from a band going by the name, you'd probably think of something subdued and quiet, with tones only slightly less uniform than the ones emitted by kitchen appliances. Not so with This Is My Ampbuzz.
Instead, this is dynamic, varied head music that looks back to the dawn of instrumental psychedelia for inspiration. Something about the vibe throughout the record seems very early 70s-- back when the Floyd and a few German pioneers were launching the longhairs into orbit. The retro vibe is apparent in the first minute of the album, as "Bubbles" opens with some heavily flanged keyboard squiggles that sound as though they come from a wire-ensnared black box the size of a small living room. The primitive nature of the synthetic devices on this track has a pleasantly historic trippiness that reminds me a little of Norwegian organist Bo Hansson's bent imaginary soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings.
Insofar as Ampbuzz is ambient, it's definitely on the darker side. The last three songs-- titled in sequence "Diving Instructions", "Welcome to the Ocean Floor", and "Underwater Bomb"-- hint that this isn't going to be a "let's drift gently through the clouds" sort of ride. "Diving Instructions" is a slowburn track, as guitar feedback and cymbal clashes gradually merge into some kind of death rattle. And then "Welcome to the Ocean Floor" is claustrophobic with endlessly pulsating echoes, as guitar groans and synth pulses (there has to be an ARP 2600 in their somewhere) evoke a pea-soup thick tension. It takes me back to the first Experimental Audio Research album, another dense drone classic that sounded out of step at the time of its release. The closing "Underwater Bomb" does not detonate as promised-- instead we get a yearning keyboard drone coupled with some melodic, Ash Ra Tempel-style guitar leads on top.
In a world of anal-retentive ambient laptop music, where each sound seems meticulously designed to seem 'alien' and difficult to place, Ampbuzz records an evocative instrumental album where all the sounds come from gear designed for making music. Guitars and assorted modular synths do the bulk of the work, I imagine, and the sleeve indicates that everything was recorded to \xBD-inch tape. I'm not sure if it works in spite of its throwback nature or because of it, but these frayed and slightly crude tracks sound damn refreshing.
