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alm 70
mark bradley
"the gloaming"
7 december 2010

photography : delphine ancelle-b.

active for a few years only, mark bradley is a us sound artist with many releases on various labels such as basses frequences, ruralfaune, reverb worship or idrone park.
"the gloaming" is a soft synth based track that requires an attentive listening. mark partially defines his music as "moonlight ambient"; we couldn't find a better description. let yourself drown in this hypnotic piece...

tracklisting :
1. the gloaming

reviews :

Vital Weekly
Now that Drone records stopped releasing 7" records, there is only one long standing drone label left to follow, and that's Taalem, who reach now their 70th release with these new three releases. [...]
Mark Bradley seems to me a new name, despite his releases for Basses Frequences, Ruralfaune, Reverb Worship and Idrone Park. Bradley calls his music 'moonlight ambient' - which is something I never heard before. Gracenote recognizes this 'The Story Of Amazing Grace' by Pilgrim Bible Church, which may (or may not) put a smile on Bradley's face. I thought it was funny and perhaps even somewhat appropriate for the somewhat celestial drones played by Bradley. It starts out soft, but then slowly builds up. I am not sure if these are just one or more analogue synthesizers, or perhaps even digital ones, or wether some computer processing took place. It might or might not be. Peaceful music (except for that one bit which seems a bit too loud), quite nice and without any damage done. And as such nothing new under anything 'mood' or 'ambient'. (FdW)

Textura
taâlem's latest releases, which brings the label's total up to seventy, share many things in common. The three-inch format, of course, is common to all, but each release also features a single ambient drone-styled work of approximately twenty-minute duration. There are clear differences between them, however. Perhaps the optimal listening sequence is to precede the disturbing Ragel Gumm release with the less harrowing one by Encomiast and then conclude the session by basking in the serenity of Mark Bradley's. [...]
Mark Bradley's The Gloaming serves as the perfect antidote to Gumm's release, as Bradley's soft synth-based track—an example of his so-called “moonlight ambient” style—feels like a warm and soft blanket being draped over one's reclining body. Though the US-based Bradley, whose music has appeared on Basses Frequences and Ruralfaune, among others, keeps the intensity level down for much of the piece, it does undergo changes in volume without losing its generally hypnotic character. To his credit, the composer strikes an admirable balance in having the willowy ambient drone material hew to an overall mood without it becoming too static in the process.

Obsküre Magazine
Après une interruption de quelques mois, Taâlem reprend ses activités avec, comme à l'accoutumée, trois nouveaux mini-CD explorant les facettes les plus inventives du drone et de l'ambient. [...]
Plus serein, Mark Bradley compose ce qu'il appelle "Moonlight Ambient", un terme qui s'adapte finalement à merveille à une musique tout en drones célestes, construite à partir de nappes minimales de synthétiseur. Douce plongée dans une nuit iridescente, The Gloaming achève en beauté cette livraison hivernale, avec juste ce qu'il faut de retenue pour se rendre inoubliable. 86% (Jean-Fränçois Micard)