Ambient Composers Six Missing and Clariloops Team Up For The Blissful New Effort “Balloons”

“A collaborative pen-pal exchange of ambient bliss between Australia and Austin.” That’s how Austin composer TJ Dumser aka Six Missing describes his breathtaking new project with Australian artist Ruby Lulham aka Clariloops. Today, the like-minded musicians are pleased to announce their joint effort with the blissful debut “Balloons.” The bubbling arpeggios and soft clarinets conjure an aural elevation that leaves the listener enveloped in a sense of calm. It’s hard not to crack a smile while listening to the delicate composition that feels like a renewed sense of wonder upon meeting a new friend. Listen to “Balloons” on all digital retailers (here).

TJ Dumser elaborates on how the musical partnership began: “Sometimes the internet can really work in magical ways. I was 35,000 feet in the air when I came across the music of Ruby Lulham aka Clariloops. We were both on a playlist together and as her track came on I opened my eyes to see who it was, I was completely struck by the atypical tonal qualities the clarinet brought to the ambient space – and hearing it blended with guitar effects and turned into loops was sonically adventurous and such a joy to listen and experience. I reached out via Instagram and asked if she’d be interested in working with me – with little plan and zero pressure, she agreed and sent me a few snippets of ideas she had captured.” 

Six Missing and Clariloops shared this meditative meaning behind “Balloons”: “Daybreak, we awake to find ourselves still on the beach – but now we are aware of textures and movements floating from the ocean. Wrapping and weaving themselves around our head. Distinct lines interconnecting and dancing against the others in a playful and joyous way. Harmony within nature and now within ourselves. With eyes closed we can travel safely into the performance and see the different pieces pass us by – floating like balloons. The making of this track was actually the first piece I had worked on once Ruby sent me her clarinet pieces. I rearranged her performance and processed a piece into a rhythmic element that keeps time but also plays with the reversal of time through the analog delay unit I’m using. Slowly fading in the Moog subtly at first to have it woven together with the clarinet. A beautiful reminder that not everything is as it seems. Our eyes deceive us.”

LISTEN & SHARE “BALLOONS” HERE:
https://sixmissing.ffm.to/balloons

More On Six Missing:

Sometimes we need music that stops us in our tracks… and reminds us to connect with the moment we’re currently experiencing, and that’s exactly what the compositions of Six Missing provide.

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.