Ambient Composers Six Missing and Clariloops Announce New Album ‘counter:point” Out 4/26; Share “Timely Bliss”

Today, Austin composer TJ Dumser aka Six Missing and Australian artist Ruby Lulham aka Clariloops are proud to announce their collaborative new project counter:point, arriving April 26th via Nettwerk. They offer a new glimpse into the joint effort with the delicate “Timely Bliss,” three minutes and fifty seconds of aural heaven. What started as a chance online encounter over mutual admiration blossomed into a truly mesmerizing release that is equal parts ecstasy and tranquility. Listen to “Timely Bliss” on all digital retailers (here).

Inspired by the “cyclical feeling of time,” counter:point illustrates a narrative on loop. A beginning – middle – and end, ready to be told all over again. TJ and Ruby offer insight into where “Timely Bliss” fits into the story: “Softly floating upon the evening waves, the tide is gentle now and keeping us nearly still. But yet, we bob and sway up and down, a part of the dance – a dance that begins and ends like clockwork, each revolution around the sun. The moonlight casts a soft glow on our face and we notice the seafoam has begun taking us ashore. The band plays its lullaby for the moon, putting it to sleep for the day and thanking it for its majesty and pull. The clock winds itself back, getting set for another day. Once again, the guitar has been introduced to this piece as have the effect pedals but now with the introduction of the synthesizers and modular rack. The clarinet loops are processed through effects and tape, transforming them into yarn that weaves the quilt.”

“Timely Bliss” will accompany recent releases “Sitting Beachside” and “Balloons” on Six Missing and Clariloops’ new release counter:point due out on April 26th via Nettwerk.

LISTEN & SHARE “TIMELY BLISS” HERE:
https://sixmissing.ffm.to/timelybliss

counter:point is a soft and stunning revelation, as Six Missing and Clariloops blend naturalism and technology to the point where the line on the horizon that they meet at becomes totally blurred. Reminiscent of the psychedelic hypnagogia of Boards of Canada and Bibio, as well as Nils Frahm’s holistic thump and the rustic ambience of Florist mastermind Emily A. Sprague’s solo work, the six pieces on counter:point are striking in the blooming melodic shapes they conjure. Yes, this is ambient pop at its finest, but there’s nothing about what Six Missing and Clariloops are accomplishing here that would suggest mere background music. counter:point’s lush, spacious textures fixate the listeners’ aural gaze like clouds passing on a bright spring day—the force of motion is undeniable, and its application results in music that is crushingly beautiful.

Dumser and Lulham’s creative collision took place almost by chance, as the former discovered the latter’s music while checking out some new music on an airplane. “I was recently placed on a playlist, so I started listening to it, and one piece stopped me dead in my tracks. I was like, ‘What is this?’” he recalls. “I was hearing tones and textures I didn’t normally hear—and it was Clariloops.” Dumser reached out to Lulham to see if she wanted to collaborative on some music together, and counter:point was born. “Just having someone say to me, ‘I want you to send me a bunch of your sounds and do something with them,’ it was really cool,” she says while discussing what makes their collaboration work so well. “This has been my favorite project to date when it comes to that approach.”

Inspired by the “cyclical feeling of time” as well as the mesmerizing qualities of our natural world, counter:point was assembled over the course of 2022 as the pair broke new ground in collaboration while also extending their own singular perspectives. “When I write, I’ll start with either a loop or a melody, and I’ll build around it,” Lulham describes. “Then, I delete the first thing I came up with and turn it into something else. I turn stuff on its head all the time.” “Ruby was taking risks and stepping outside of her comfort zone,” Dumser adds, “and she had trust in giving someone like me her ideas—and I was really grateful she let me do that.”

The point of convergence between two distinct styles that counter:point represents is something to truly behold; from the piping orchestral swells of “Sitting Beachside” to the glassy, rounded tones of “Timely Bliss” and “On The Way”’s warm, warped confines, you can really hear Dumser’s technological wizardry and Lulham’s flesh-and-blood tone manipulation collide with smashing results. “I like to blend the human and the synthetic a lot,” Dumser explains before summing up the otherworldly-yet-elemental appeal of his and Lulham’s creations: “Wind instruments are generated in such a human way. The breath is such a sacred thing. I felt so honored to work with that and turn it on its head with electronic instrumentation. It felt truly organic in the sense of the word.”

Track List:

1. A Wave Hello [Intro]
2. Balloons
3. On The Way [Interlude]
4. Sitting Beachside
5. Timely Bliss
6. A Nod Farewell [Outro]

More On Six Missing:

The new music from ambient artist TJ Dumser is a reflection not only on our current life and times but the totality of existence itself—what it means to face true transience in an ever-changing world, and how to welcome impermanence as its own holistic virtue. These sounds are all-encompassing in their beautiful ability to fill every inch of sonic space in their surroundings, composed with a lushness and an intuitive touch that only a truly thoughtful soul such as Dumser could provide.

The Austin-based Dumser began releasing music under the name Six Missing in 2017—a moniker that possesses a literally otherworldly meaning to him. “One of our members had a studio in Pennsylvania, and one of the weekends we’d been out there we were recording for 14 hours and were exhausted,” he recalls on the incident that inspired him to take on the namesake. “We went back to the cabin, everybody went to bed, and I heard the front door to the cabin open. As I went to see what it was, I was frozen and felt this searing pain in my back, as well as an endless sadness. I was having a supernatural experience, and it really shook me.”

Further research revealed that the cabin was near the site of the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Brandywine, in which six participants remain unaccounted for—and, when combined with Dumser’s hair-raising experience, the name Six Missing came to be. “I thought it was a great way to pay tribute to that experience, which had this supernatural tilt that was also in touch with the human experience,” he explains. “It’s what I aim to do with this project in general—to usher people to go beyond what our day-to-day life looks like.”

More On Clariloops:

Clariloops iis the project of Australian neo-classical/electronic artist Ruby Lulham. Clariloops combines the organic sound of the clarinet with electronics and synthesized sound. The project started as a way of bringing stillness and creativity into Ruby’s classical music practice. The resulting sounds are rhythmic and calming, unique yet familiar, existing between genres.