Mixtape: Tyler Nuffer’s “Anomalous Worlds”

 

Before the genesis of this project, I had found solace in ambient music and consequently wanted to create my own anomalous worlds. I set to work building three dimensional worlds within the limitations of a two dimensional stereo field.

When recording each performance, I imagined passively traversing a boundless, alien world accompanied exclusively by its landscape. Having only eight tracks available on tape I forced myself to create an atmosphere with no more than three fluctuating stereo sounds and three instruments: a pedal steel, lap steel, and guitar.

A center-focused drone mimics a single point perspective where the listener is approaching the piece’s vanishing point. The performed instruments echo across the stereo field to create a horizon-line, constantly shifting. All sounds reflect and meld into one another creating unpredictable harmony and mimicking terrain in flux. Using the tape machine’s “pitch control,” I slowed down each performance to reflect the pace at which I explored these worlds.

My hope is that the listener can find peaceful isolation in these imagined worlds.

 

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Credits:

Composed and Produced by Tyler Nuffer
Artwork by Alan Anders
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk

 

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