Insight Music is extremely proud to present this top notch 4 track ambient EP by Belarusian producer Tiikk, and encourage all to find time to listen.
Tiikk has proven time and again to be a highly capable ambient and future garage artist, and has presented some of his finest work here in ‘Beyond Ourselves’. He must have truly known his audience, because this EP’s bookends are beautiful atmospheric pieces that alone have me repeatedly listening.
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Banner from Tiikk’s Bandcamp account
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EP Breakdown
This EP structure is one of my favorite ways to write an EP. The intro and outro are pure atmosphere that both ease you into the work as well as ease you out, it’s a wholistic experience.
This first piece, ‘Night Park‘ is reminiscent of something out of a film soundtrack. You feel like an explorer discovering new lands or an astronaut gazing into the unknown. The track gradually builds with synths and pads multiplying and expanding, and gentle ARPs leading the pieces evolution. Combining with this, my favorite aspect of this track is how it leads into the next piece.
While the second track ‘Wasteland‘ is a garage piece, it starts with an atmospheric fade in that almost feels like an extension of the previous track. I love it when artists do this with EPs or albums, it feels so seamless throughout the entire thing. The body of this track is your classic ambient garage with leading sub-bass and an intricate percussion and foley pattern. The percussion is extremely clean and crisp, the production of this EP is wonderful. The atmosphere throughout this piece is also notable as much of it is made up of reverbed vocals that pan here and there in your headphones. Absolutely a top notch way of establishing your background ambience.
The third track ‘Breathing In‘ is more strictly future garage. Lead by thickly processed vocal samples, this piece features heavy percussion and bass that gives it a buried feel. The breakdowns are my favorite bit of this piece as Tiikk added in some beautiful lyrical vocals that add great deal of character not only to the track but the EP as well. Give the lyrics a listen!
The final piece ‘Feel Free‘ is once again another beautiful and deep atmospheric piece that has a lot of natural foley. A buried synth lead coupled with airy spoken word drive the track along. I truly envy producers who can make an atmospheric piece feel so structured and evolving. While both the first and final tracks are atmospheric, they are definitely in the right spots. This final song feels much more hypnotic and deep, it fits perfectly in the track that waves farewell to the EP.
What a fantastic project by Tiikk this is. Words will never accurately describe a musical work, so please check it out.
Where to stream/listen
As always, follow any embedded links to get to a SoundCloud page, or click the Bandcamp link below.