Sircle - A Relevant Space (2012) Ambient Album Review

**This review originally appeared on AmbientExotica.com - copied here to archive.

Sircle
A Relevant Space

2012

Sircle is the Ambient project of London-based James Mills whose album A Relevant Space was released in November 2012 on the Frozen Forest label in a digital-only version. It is available on Bandcamp. While the artist is also versatile and brave enough to venture into the genre’s next of kin called Tech House, I believe that Sircle’s beatless six-track album is much more aesthetically pleasing, especially so since it leads a potentially desultory listener on the wrong track: Mills created all six tracks with their usage in a floatation tank or isolation tank in mind. I know what you might think. This is esoteric New Age music with an all too narrow focus. I beg to differ, and strongly so. Not only is the album created for the usage in such tanks… it is already being actively used worldwide according to the liner notes. All tracks clock in around the ten-minute mark, and their formulaic runtime has a reason, for it takes about 40 minutes for the participant’s brain to adjust to the etherial, otherworldly experience and reach a quasi-narcoleptic state while being fully awake and aware of everything. The basic premise for this album might be off-putting to listeners who usually crave for progressive story arcs or artfully created themes and abstract viewpoints, but rest assured that the music itself is fantastic and works in places that have next to nothing to do with isolation tanks. Naturally, there are traces of New Age-oid specialties such as wind chimes or glistening stardust glitters, they are, however, skillfully woven into the densely layered wadded thicket of the Pop Ambient scaffolding, the latter of which frames each of the tracks. Pop Ambient is the important catchword. Sircle’s pieces are tremendously benign and gracious, the amount of the layers might be surprisingly low, but their surfaces are nurtured with haze and mist and seem much more orotund or humbly ostentatious than they really are, making A Relevant Space an unexceptionally synth-driven object of desire for this kind of Ambient listeners. I dare a closer look in the following paragraphs, and no, I have not listened to this album while being in a floatation tank, but that should not keep me off of reviewing it regardless.

A Lunar Decent is the opener of the album, and Sircle does not waste any time. He unleashes a thermal-aqueous duality right from the start. A dusky but warm drone layer marks the silkened aorta of the arrangement. Wraithlike wind gusts, whitewashed machine-resembling clatters and a bright polar light-lit river mesh with the hazy fundament. The ensuing aura is majestic and perfectly calm despite the superb entanglement and intertwining of the traversing machine layers. They seem to be taken right from the Space-Age era, some of the machines simulate fizzling warp engines, others resemble the dulcet susurration of ultramodern monorail systems, and even the distant evocation of a bustling bag of microwave-compatible popcorn is added at one point. It is the omnipresence of these machines and soft breezes that elevate an otherwise commonplace form of transcendence that has been heard and experienced through the power of Ambient music many times before. These engines and crisp drones really ennoble A Lunar Decent and even accomplish to inject sprightliness in a contemplative piece, yet another two-layered stratum of this album. The following Su Cielo changes the intrinsic superstructure, for it is a truly aquatic piece full of liquedous blebs and dripstone cave-like droplets. There are nonetheless many sizzling winds passing through the echoey cave. The synth work is noteworthy too, as Sircle meshes two warm layers of synth choirs. They are purposefully wonky and often out of phase, resembling the trade winds which flow through the fissures and cracks of the panorama. Su Cielo is also a nod to Brian Eno’s earliest Ambient pieces or the synth-fueled 80’s soundscapes which encapsulate a similar timbre. Of further interest is the wave-like structure: the incessant ebb and flow of the warped synths not only change the temperature of the track, but allows a closer look at the water streams which gurgle in the background.

Pressures Of Altitude is next, and it is an enormously ethereal piece… for better or for worse, as the seraphic angel synths are tremendously warm and mesmerizing, but have been heard before, for example in Wolfgang Voigt’s melancholic All project; Alltag 1–4 (2000) is not only based on the same textures, but the exact same timbre. This is no flaw per se, Pressures Of Altitude is not a mere copy and might well turn out to be the best track of the album. Firstly, James Mills places delicate clicks and crunchy scintillae in adjacency to the nostalgic snugness, again augmenting the mercurialness of the composition ever so carefully. Secondly, he does not shy away from confronting the listener with a pitch-black nothingness for the first time. While the black backdrop is camouflaged in all other wave-like arrangements with gentler noises of sound, there are moments of complete silence on this piece before the resplendent bliss in the form of Alltag-like synths returns. I really like this track, it is curiously heavy and embracing, yet the loftiest artifact of the album. Up next is the eponymous A Relevant Space which starts with a surprise, for Sircle lets in the real life into the transcendental ethereality. A field recording of frolicking children on a playground or in a lido is intermingled with an utterly gorgeous drone monotony. The synth gleams and shines in a blazingly vivacious color spectrum, starts with a bright and soft trait before a more dynamic stream is grafted onto it. The reoccurring screams of glee boost the excitement, the blurriness and the following clarity of the flamboyant synth let the listener feast on its altered characteristics, and I have to wonder why this is not the actual opener of the album due to its gradual transition from real-world experiences to amicable gateways to a disembodied nullity.

Under The Sand is the penultimate track, but the listener does not receive a beach treatment in the classic sense. There are no sunbeams or turquoise-tinged ocean waves. Instead, their cyberspace counterparts take over: a high-plasticity lapping of water greets the listener and turns into hazy pink noise streams a few minutes later, a warming two-note synth melody of pristine contentment flows through the ether, short bursts of twinkling starlights occur, and the distant backdrop of tape hiss eventually smoothens the auroral diorama. If there is one questionable inclusion, it would be the New Age ingredients such as the hollow goblet drums or the clave-like clicks which are presented at one point and are a bit too punchy plus overly esoteric. Don’t let my love-hate relationship with the New Age genre prevent you from thoroughly enjoying this song. The duration of their appearance does not even cross the 20-second mark in this track of ten minutes, so everything is perfectly fine in the end. I especially like the traces of melodies in this piece which break the spell of monotony. A terrific piece! The apotheosis to this album is called Reflection. Sircle moves into more rural and earthen climes by marrying a field recording of either footsteps in the sand or a walk through a wood over crackling branches with a shelter-giving sun-soaked synth string whirling that resides in the same tonal and melodious range as Markus Guentner’s solemn attribution for Pop Ambient 2003 called Chrom. It is the half-tones and the wafting luminosity that make this setup so ecclesial, thought-provoking and becalming. The addition of plinking-dewy piano notes expands the scope of this composition further, making it a Modern Classical piece of sorts, taking the focus away from the ethereal climes onwards to the impression that the listener or the floating passenger has reached a state that roots in more realistic, less transfiguring climes. There can only be one closer out of the six songs that feels aesthetically right in its place, and Reflection is it.

James Mills is a specialist when it comes to the utilization and application of floatation tanks in terms of the correct usage and treatment in order to prevent high stress levels and tension. Good thing, I say. Even more impressive, however, are the music-related aspects which are related to this form of relaxation. Sircle’s A Relevant Space is a beautiful Ambient work full of semi-saccharine, highly accessible and yet densely layered structures and coatings which are a feast for the followers of the formerly Cologne-based but now worldwide observed Pop Ambient movement. Yes, there are questionable New Age slivers in this album, but they never destroy the balance of a composition and are only whimsically used. They are perceptible and do not fit in the overall scheme in my opinion, but this is the only major thing I have to criticize; and this major thing is infinitesimal anyway. The good parts outweigh the lackluster ones by a wide margin, and I really don’t know where to start: is it the glaring nods to artists like Wolfgang Voigt, the similar synths, the refreshing coalescence of water drops – same old, same old! – with magnanimous portions of euphony and carefreeness, or the fact that despite the narrow theme, each track sounds completely different, features new layers, patterns, textures and surfaces everywhere? I cannot give a definite answer other than the assertion that I am definitely hooked. The following sentence might be of a conflictive nature, but it is not meant to be read as such: A Relevant Space is retrogressive. Not dated. It sounds top-notch, literally swallows the listener and fittingly allows him or her to submerge, but at the same time it kindles, maintains and nurtures a deliberate coziness and ubiquitous feeling of being save and worshipped. It has been done before. It won’t be en vogue in 2013 and the coming years where electro-acoustic Drone pieces full of excitement, acidity or a crestfallen melancholy will likely continue to impress the Ambient community. Sircle’s A Relevant Space is, well, a relevant counterpoint to it. Its synth-heavy appearance is a boon, and it only happened very recently that I made the same remark about Bristol-based John Doak’s aka Fontaine’s Delays (2012) which is built on similar premises: adjusting the synths rather than tinkering with the guitar. I am glad that there are still such albums out there. Wholeheartedly recommended to every Pop Ambient listener and Drone fans who favor a well-lit void à la Dreamfish (1993) over demonic darkness.

How to promote short animated films and submit to film festivals

A foreword for this write up - these are some raw notes and observations from my own experience when promoting 3 short animated films during my time at Nimble Collective. I’m calling these film 1, 2 and 3, for the sake of the article. There are many articles on how to take your film into festivals. I am sharing this as another reference point for independent artists and creators to think about your game plan and provide insight. This article was written in January 2018.

---

In 2017 I worked with 3 directors on the promotion and festival strategy of three animated short films, which were accepted and screened at around sixty film festivals worldwide. These films included Nick Arioli’s Coin Operated, and Dacosta Bayley’s Sunny and Gerd. The steps below are combined “leanings” and were not explicitly used for every film. There are many creative and traditional ways to gain traction, so my suggestion is to think long and hard about your release. This is my insight and some of the results achieved.

1. Open for business

Even before production is finished you can set up a simple homepage and contact email for the film. However simple or complex you make this site, make sure you have an easy way for people to contact you. You may be surprised by the number of emails your receive after festival screenings. Think about a social media channel for updates where people can keep up to date, my opinion is just do one, and do it well.

2. Tell the media what you’re doing

Industry news sites want new and untold stories, so don’t be intimidated to research editors/writers and pitch your project. Securing an “in production” or “nearly finished” style article can be an incredibly effective catalyst for the buzz around your film. Introduce the film along with its hook, the team, the goals and any other unique selling points you can think of. Stories that sell are often a first or only focus, so if you’ve got the first film to be made on the moon using only a smartphone and clay figures, you might get some attention.

Offer some exclusive first release of artwork as an incentive for the publication you’re targeting. This first article can be used to jump-start your social media presence and help create that buzz factor. It will also help your early audience and direct network to validate the project as a “real thing”.

3. Strategize your festival choices and timeline.

Research, plan and set goals. 
Shorts are often made as calling cards for directors and other artists onboard, in general, they are less likely to have a monetary goal. With this in mind, fulfill a twelve-month festival circuit - this will give the film time to breathe, find its audience and reach as many people as possible. Do not rush to release the film online as this could jeopardize options later on and possibly shorten the buzz building phase. If you don’t have plans for the film’s final resting place, these twelve months could help determine where it ends up.

The main goal for anyone taking the festival route is to create a splash in the industry and pick up media coverage in the process, maybe even a deal. This approach gives you a top-down route where large or small media outlets share your film with their audience, purely because of your involvement in the festival. The festival will also publish your film’s details and images (great for SEO). No pitch, no interview, just a free plug because you’ve been selected. One of the films i worked with now has around two whole Google results pages for its title purely from these passive festival listing posts.

So, let’s look at things to consider when deciding on your festivals.

• Be clear about your goals so you can measure success. Know premiere or release requirements that may affect you achieving these goals.

• Know your budget.

• If you’re gunning for it, submit to as many Academy qualifying festivals with animation categories as you can afford. Preferably ones that are local to you, that resonate with your work, or that you can attend easily. Check the Academy's annual list for applicable festivals.

• Research as much as you can on “paid for” submissions using articles like “50 Film Festivals Worth The Entry Fee” for some insider knowledge.


• Submit to all free animation festivals that fit your style of work. Do your research and make sure what you submit can actually move the needle and help with traction. Tracking, managing submissions and delivering material is time-consuming and there are roughly 3000 active festivals out there.

• Make as many early deadlines as possible. It’s cost efficient and puts you at the front of the queue.

• Programmers like the filmmakers to attend - think about if you could attend the festival when submitting.

• If you have any festival programmer connections, use them (so we’ve heard). Programmers do share films and take suggestions from their trusted network. If you’re aware of an “in” then try and use it.

Choosing festivals should be strategic and carefully considered, especially if you’re paying - Ideally, you have a wish list in mind during production. Do not disregard small or lesser known festivals, just make sure the juice is worth the squeeze. Assume your work is selected from a submission, consider how the association with that festival may reflect on the overall brand and values of your film. Try and make sure your submissions are somehow contributing to your goals.

One more time, in order to measure your film’s success, you need to know your goals.

Below is an example of a festival timeline and overall strategy we planned for one of our short films (Film 1).

Goal: Academy Qualifying Festival Circuit - 2017

With this goal in mind, we began work on noting all the Academy's 2017 qualifying short film festivals. We then drilled further into that list so we were left with just the festivals that had animation specific categories. One more step, we prioritized local festivals which the director could attend - programmers like to include local talent, it helps keep relevant to the audience and means you will probably attend the screening along with your friends - if you have any.

With this hyper-focused, goal driven, Academy qualifying festival list, we were able to plot the festivals onto a timeline. In the below image, submission opening dates are pink, and for the event date we used green. As a side note, we had no idea if any of these submissions would be successful to such high caliber festivals. We made a second list of our favorite non-Academy qualifying and smaller festivals. For namesake, these are called tier 1 (round) and tier 2 (square).

Disregarding whether we were accepted or not, this gave us a hypothetical visualization of how busy the calendar could be. We knew we wanted buzz and announcements every month to drive momentum, so ensured we were packing each month with valuable potential.

All this made the submission process simple; check through the timeline weekly, submit to the pinks, hope for the greens, plot dates of significance in between (premiere, articles, wrap party, etc). We also kept a spreadsheet.

Below see zoomed portion and full-size festival timeline

---

Channel efforts and focus

Once this ball starts rolling, we found it’s very much out of our hands in regards to the yes or no decision. No matter how many emails you want to send to the programmers and coordinators “checking” they got your submission, it boils down to the film impressing and them having enough space left in their program (submit early).

What you can do during this period is network, cultivate new relationships, nurture any inbound conversations and be an ambassador for your own work. Be proactive, pressing the “go” button and waiting in suspense does not drive results. You need to spread the word about your film, take rejection on the chin and keep plugging it until you find your champions.

Press during the festival circuit

Film 1 got into a majority of its festivals with no media coverage whatsoever, it remained under the radar and gobbled up awards before it was finally announced in Cartoon Brew’s shortlisting, “Unofficial 2018 Oscars: 63 Animated Shorts Are Competing for This Year (EXCLUSIVE)”. This was a result of winning the Jury Award at Rhode Island (Academy Qualifying) It was also the first official selection the film received in our submission strategy. Once this news was released, there were already a string of planned articles/interviews with the director across a few industry media outlets to complement the announcement and to add clout to the project.

On the flipside, Film 3 had an incredible establishing article in Variety before starting its circuit, but to date, it has achieved the fewest official selections. The proof is in the pudding, the quality of the work, the festival fit and the judges' taste.

Time for a trailer?

At this point for film 1, there was a need for the trailer, especially with featured articles on many online news sites. Releasing the trailer with the inclusions of festival success (sixteen laurels) added some hefty industry validation for anyone seeing the project for the first time.

Choose wisely when to release the trailer. Ideally, this would be accompanied by an article/interview in a preferred media outlet and including some recent festival success. Providing you are receiving official selections and have a few in the calendar for the coming future, use your original timeline and choose an effective time to announce between a couple of festivals, the bigger the better.

One topic I know to cause debates is whether to host videos on one platform or multiple. Personally, I like to make a master version and use that for all promo and posting. This means all traffic can be monitored and accumulated easily in one place. It might also help when pitching your next project allowing you to send one link with all the views and comments and letting the work speak for itself. Thinking long term, legacy and control is my preferred outlook, but by all means, plant it wherever you so wish.

I will mention that I’ve read in a few places that releasing your full short during the peak of your festivals is a nice way to go. If this does not affect any of your goals then I would consider doing it.

This write up is focused on festivals and the promotion surrounding them. What happens after the festivals? We’ll save that for another time...

Creating an Ambient Album for the UK's Largest Floatation Tank Centre

Between 2007–2010 I worked as a railway signalling technician. Progressing from trainee to certified installer, this involved me working mostly night shifts in Central London, wiring traffic lights for trains, dressed in a bright orange outfit. A lot of our work at the time was focused on two new platforms being built in Stratford for the 2012 London Olympics — What became the Olympic Village was a muddy wasteland when I worked there. This was not part of a planned career path. Previously I was working in a bar. A regular in the bar mentioned openings at his company VolkerRail (cheers, Des). I interviewed and got the job. Seize the opportunity — done deal.

After two years of night shifts, weekend work, winter stints in Glasgow and crawling around track side with a screwdriver in my hand, the initial draw of the competitive salary began to lose it’s edge and lack of job satisfaction and creative engagement began to take hold.

I met my wife in 2009 and she was a real catalyst for my decision to change the current path I was on…excuse the cliche — true story.

By August 2010 i found a job that bridged my railway engineering & electrical skills into a more customer facing role in the slightly more personable industry of health and wellness. I believe I was hired as a “Spa Technician”, but I can’t quite remember or confirm due to the lack of paperwork and removal of the Gumtree ad. In hindsight, the title was fairly insignificant considering my responsibilities.

I was employed by the “largest floatation tank centre in the world”, nestled next to London’s popular Borough Market. If you’re lost, I suggest reading this. We had nine operating tanks in one spot which I was now responsible for maintaining. We also had a manufacturing operation that sold our tanks to spa owners around the globe. I was the installer. Between these two responsibilities, my role also spanned from building the filtration systems of new tanks, repairing on-site facilities, customer service, receptionist and general evangelist — I enjoyed it.

Product Photoshoot in London, 2011.

This array of duties gave me incredible insight into worlds previously unexplored. I often traveled solo and my efforts would directly affect the company’s reputation. I installed tanks in the basements of Swiss riches, spas in Asia and private retreats in California — around twenty in total. Assembling a 1350 kg (2977 lbs) meditation machine full of salt water into a millionaire’s basement was worlds away from the previous years of clambering through ballast to unscrew a large magnet covered in human waste on a rainy night — yes, of course that’s what happens when you flush the chain on a train!

Our center in London had an incredibly wide variety of customers. Academics, creatives, yogis, and actors. One occasion I had to remove a necklace from a towel wrapped Ruby Wax. I used to set up the float room for Naomi Harris when she would visit between shooting for her first appearance as Money Penny in the Bond hit, Skyfall. I invited many musicians along, partly out of admiration for the artists, partly for our exposure and partly in hope to inspire them: Dan Snaith (Caribou), Peter Broderick and even an album launch press event for my favourite label, Kompakt Records. I started to realise I had found genuine passion in my work and my proactiveness was being fed by the enjoyment of making a difference. This is what was missing previously.

Whether my passion was for mindfulness, exploring thoughts or tranquility itself? Whatever it was, this combined with a strong desire to create music was the perfect recipe for me to focus on making a thing that might be useful, as well as finally finding an outlet for channeling some creativity.

The centre would play music for the first ten minutes of a customer’s sixty minute float session. This ten minute musical intro was streamed through underwater speakers to the listener and designed to relax and ease the customer into a tranquil forty minutes of meditative bliss. The only problem; bad, new age music that resonated and thumped its way through the warm salt solution. It embarrassed me. My last task before leaving someone to float would be to get their music choice from an illustrated, laminated card playlist with six choices like “Mystic Angel” and “Healing Crystal”. It was the weakest part of the experience with the least thought gone into it.

There it was, my goal was to create six new ten minute tracks for people to use in the tanks at the start of their float. The tracks would also be used as default music on the tanks we sold. I raised some funds via Kickstarter so I could get some much needed production gear, promotional wear and a mastering engineer for the project’s final polish.

I then spent the second half of 2012 making use of my free access to floatation tanks (when the centre was quiet) and began experimenting, sonically, playing and recording frequencies underwater. I submerged my sealed dictaphone into the salty water, recorded, and assessed my results. Noting resonating spikes, testing timing and cycles of repetition, and so on. I then implemented my findings across the six tracks.

One of my main rules for this album was not to drive the listeners’ emotions too far. That would be intrusive and too manipulative for the environment I intended it for. Instead, the work needed to be about space, time and timbre, leaving the imagination to do the rest.

I used to work the Sunday evening shift quite often and between myself and whoever else was on duty (normally my good friend Felicity from Australia), we would help each other to get sixty minutes of tank time each. When it was my turn, laying below London street level, in a womb-like cocoon, I would play back my weeks work through the tank and take mental notes for changes. I would then work on the material in my free time the following week and repeat the process until finished.

I released the six track album in November of 2013. The ambient genius and owner of Room 40, Lawrence English, took care of the final polishing (mastering) and to date, it’s had over 40k streams online. That was my journey from the railway to the salt baths, with a composition of ambiance.