Woob: Big Things In Tiny Packages

As a follow-up to a post from 2012 regarding Woob’s parallel-worlds style soundtrack music, today we consider a number of HD audio releases that have emanated from bigamoebasounds over the course of the last few years. As you may recall, after a long hiatus of 15 years Woob rebooted around the time of 2010’s Repurpose. Since then the recent efforts from Paul Frankland continue a decades-long intergalactic Woob mission into delicately crafted works of immersive cinemambient. Not that Have Landed or Return to the City were anything less than top quality productions, but the recent Ultrascope and Ambient Disaster Movie albums remind a dedicated audience just how far Woob soundforms have come, enhanced with renewed vigor and offering panoramic, behind-the-eyelid vistas through a modernized and CG-enabled HD lens.

Whereas Have Landed explored earthbound regions of lounge or jazz, and Return to the City sounded like a reasonable contender for the Tron 3 soundtrack, Ultrascope and Ambient Disaster Movie both prove to be immersive listening experiences that continue the trajectory of the Woob sound. From the evocative splendor of the Suns Fall cover art (by French concept designer Florian de Gesincourt) to the painstaking technical efforts made during the recording process, perhaps Ultrascope is the most ambitious Woob release to date, while Ambient Disaster Movie also turns out to be a pr woobskycountry ofound addition to the Woob discography. Drawing, as Woob music always has, from cinematic points of reference, the album sounds like music for an as yet unmade classic sci-fi film. Contributing to this perception is the myriad of multimedia items contained in the artifact editions, released in parallel to the digital download and CD editions. Short ‘reveal’ style videos, image files, and original 24-bit masters all make their way onto these tiny USB thumbdrives. The Ambient Disaster Movie hardcopy included extended versions of familiar passages from Max & Harvey’s Space Therapy Woob Remixes mini-album. Interested parties will want to check out the additional supplementary releases which are also well worth a listen, such as The Six Hundred, Lost 1994, and Time Paradox, all of which offer interesting alternate histories of other albums. The Woob biomachine let some new details out earlier today in a blog update, so for more info head over to Woob HQ and have a look.