Formal and algorithmic experiments, ambient, microdub.
We are releasing 4 albums a year, 2 at a time, for 7 years, starting 2023.
Releases happen on the new moon after an equinox.
Download or stream for free here, or find on streaming platforms.
If you'd like to buy them, please use bandcamp.
'Infinite' versions, which compose and perform the pieces in real time, are available here only.
Any questions or comments, please email celestial at this domain.
Release date: April 10, 2024
Also on Apple Music, Spotify and all other streaming platforms.
Or just download it directly from us. (This link is to a zip file, download to your computer, unzip, add to your music player. Congratulations on dealing directly with the artist and controlling your own listening!)
If you would like hi-res audio files, please email celestial at this domain
Is perception already structured to such an extent that it stops us from listening properly? Fourteen structures laid out in ever diminishing, repeating patterns of threes. Trees of samples, flown through live, restructuring memories on the fly. Can you hear your expectations?o
Hearing and Expectation is an ambient odyssey, a 14-part exploration of sample structures in time and space. It wanders around the borders of ambient, electronic and experimental music. Celestial Messenger have dedicated their long career to the exploration of algorithmic virtual reality as both instrument and spatial composition environment. In 2023, they embarked on a series of four albums a year, each exploring a specific aspect of the triangular relationship between digital spacetime, coded algorithms and ambient music theory. 'Hearing and Expectation' is album number 6 in that series.
Composed, programmed, performed and recorded by Celestial Messenger.
#ambient, #electronic, #microdub, #generative
Release date: April 10, 2024
Also on Apple Music, Spotify and all other streaming platforms.
Or just download it directly from us. (This link is to a zip file, download to your computer, unzip, add to your music player. Congratulations on dealing directly with the artist and controlling your own listening!)
If you would like hi-res audio files, please email celestial at this domain
Momentous purple top gravity, pulling memory apart, pulling you down into insignificant places that are there still. Give those memories away now, so they may maintain elsewhere, away from gravity. Decades and deaths scour them, and the world cannot claim them anymore.
Six self-assembling sonic structures, several samples each - as dusty, broken, glitchy and clicky as memories are - flown through live as they fall apart, given away. In memory of Karen, and given to Leo, who has this memory now.
These are best experienced as self-composing structures, which you can download from below as 'infinite versions'. The tracks on this album are captures of one performance amongst an infinite variety.
These are desktop apps that will endlessly compose and perform it in realtime:
- Momentous Gravity Of Given-Away Memories (Infinite MacOs)
- Momentous Gravity Of Given-Away Memories (Infinite Windows)
This infinite version starts with Momentous Memory: Heavy Purple Top Gravity, then randomly starts another of the compositions every 7 to 11 minutes infinitely until you quit the application. Download zip file, extract, run "app" (Mac) or "exe" (Win). Mac users note, you will have to right click or control-click on the app, choose "open", and then allow the app to run.
#dark ambient, #drone, #generative #experimental
Release date: October 15, 2023
Also on Apple Music, Spotify and all other streaming platforms.
Or just download it directly from us. (This link is to a single mp3 file, right click or control-click, download to your computer, add to your music player. Congratulations on dealing directly with the artist and controlling your own listening!)
If you would like hi-res audio files, please email celestial at this domain
Under Kind Stars is a quartet for ambient algorithm playing piano samples, surf field recordings, shortwave radio and altered sine waves. The generative algorithm creates an endless ebb and flow that will have your mind floating off amongst the kind stars while your brain follows the ineluctable logic of the algorithm's exploration of tonality and direction. Mostly it drifts under kind stars.
These are desktop apps that will endlessly compose and perform it in realtime:
- Under Kind Stars (Infinite MacOs)
- Under Kind Stars (Infinite Windows)
Download zip file, extract, run "app" (Mac) or "exe" (Win). Mac users note, you will have to right click or control-click on the app, choose "open", and then allow the app to run.
Composed, programmed, performed and recorded by Celestial Messenger.
#ambient, #electronic, #microdub, #generative
Release date: October 15, 2023
Also on Apple Music, Spotify and all other streaming platforms.
Or just download it directly from us. (This link is to a zip file, download to your computer, unzip, add to your music player. Congratulations on dealing directly with the artist and controlling your own listening!)
If you would like hi-res audio files, please email celestial at this domain
Microtonal Experiments with Piano Samples, Rainfall and Sine Waves, the third release from Celestial Messenger, is a deeply exploratory wander around the borderlands between ambient music and contemporary experiments in microtonal and generative composition.
For Experiment One we composed an algorithm to repeatedly play a low note of the so-called 'cosmic octave' (around a quarter tone below a low C#/Db), each time randomly choosing between four possible grand piano samples, then replying with a cluster of three grand piano samples two to four octaves above, each tone a randomly chosen frequency somewhere within that octave, unrelated to conventional musical pitch (so, 'microtonal'). Meanwhile, the continuously playing urban field recording adjusts its pitch to one of the three frequencies from the previous chord. In this way, hopefully the 'nonmusical' sounds of the city provide the 'traditional' melodic anchor while the traditionally musical sounds veer off to explore microtonal possibilities.
The repetitive and non-musical nature of the piano sounds is similar to drone in its affective drift and almost trance-inducing effect. Anyway, just listen and see what happens.
In Experiment Two, best in headphones. we composed an algorithm to randomly generate sine waves a few hertz apart slowly fading in and out in each ear, along with rainfall samples with similar behaviour. The differences in the waves are different from, usually smaller than, a whole tone (so, "microtonal"). Given the short durations of the waves, the algorithm might be said to be exploring the musical potential of so-called binaural beats simultaneously with the neuro-active potential of microtonal music. Again, drift is induced.
Experiment Three brings experiments one and two together in a live played experiment. We composed an algorithm to compose a three dimensional space of nested concentric spheres made up of a range of piano samples, synthesiser samples and rainfall samples. Then we navigated this nested spherical soundspace live, flying through each sample in real time until they all disappeared, which took about thirty minutes. Flying and drifting.
These are desktop apps that will endlessly compose and perform it in realtime:
Microtonal Experiment One - MacOS | Windows
Microtonal Experiment Two - MacOS | Windows
Microtonal Experiment Three - MacOS | Windows
Download zip file, extract, run "app" (Mac) or "exe" (Win). Mac users note, you will have to right click or control-click on the app, choose "open", and then allow the app to run.
Composed, programmed, performed and recorded by Celestial Messenger.
#ambient, #microtonal, #generative #experimental
Release date: April 21, 2023
Also on Apple Music, Spotify and all other streaming platforms.
Or just download it directly from us. (This link is to a zip file, download to your computer, unzip, add to your music player. Congratulations on dealing directly with the artist and controlling your own listening!)
If you would like hi-res audio files, please email celestial at this domain
Composed, programmed, performed and recorded by Celestial Messenger.
#microdub, #ambient, #electronic, #generative
Release date: April 21, 2023
Also on Apple Music, Spotify and all other streaming platforms.
Or just download it directly from us. (This link is to a single mp3, you can right click, or control-click and choose "Save as"). Congratulations on dealing directly with the artist and controlling your own listening!)
If you would like hi-res audio files, please email celestial at this domain
SIDEREAL TIME All Day Version (mp3, approx. 8 hours - this link is to a single mp3, you can right click, or control-click and choose "Save as")
These are desktop apps that will endlessly compose and perform it in realtime:
Sidereal Time (Infinite Windows)
Download zip file, extract, run "app" (Mac) or "exe" (Win). Mac users note, you will have to right click or control-click on the app, choose "open", and then allow the app to run.
Composed, programmed, performed and recorded by Celestial Messenger.
#ambient, #microdub, #electronic, #generative
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We're not very social, but you're welcome to email celestial at this domain.
These recordings are dedicated to all migrants, immigrants and refugees, everywhere in the world.
Made on the land and waters of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and the Kirrai Wurrung people of the Eastern Maar nation.
Always was, always will be.