Bridge To Imla - The Radiant Sea
  • €8.00

  • €13.00


Bridge To Imla - The Radiant Sea

  • Labels Winter-Light
  • Product Code: CD Digipak
  • Availability: In Stock

Winter-Light is extremely happy to welcome the duo 'Bridge To Imla' to our label, for their first full length album ‘The Radiant Sea’.

Bridge To Imla is the duo of Hans-Dieter Schmidt and Michael Brückner, created in 2017 to distinguish their particular style of cinematic ambient from their respective solo projects. Hans-Dieter and Michael initially met at ambient group improvisations by the Frankfurt based EK-Lounge community around 2010, and had already collaborated previously on several occasions.

The origins of the album go back to August 2013, when Michael Brückner produced a dark ambient track called "All The Weight Of The Sun" for a compilation by Jack Hertz' label Aural Films called "Fukushima Drones" that dealt with the (then recent) nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Whilst working on that track, Michael created hours of different soundscapes, most of which remained unused. Later that same year, Hans-Dieter and Michael started to make plans for recording an album together, and those unused soundscapes then formed the raw material for what finally became "The Radiant Sea". Expanding on the original theme of ecological concern, the album is both a contemplation about the current pollution of the Pacific ocean - not only caused by the Fukushima disaster, but by human influence in general - and is also a praise of the beauty of our planet's biggest ocean...

The album is a rich woven tapestry of dark ambient soundscapes and deep electronics mixed with more traditional instruments. It will pull you across the vast stretches of the mighty Pacific Ocean, dragging you down to it's murky depths and across it's vast plains before depositing you in to the deep trenches and ridges that lurk there. Polluted by radiation and man's indifference to nature, 'The Radiant Sea' continues in its struggle to restore the balance and maintain its beauty and dignity.

When it came to the question of who should master the album,’Bridge To Imla’ had already set their sights high and had just one person in mind; the ambient composer and mastering engineer Robert Rich. With over four decades of musical experience and knowledge to bring to the studio, Robert has applied his ears and talents to “The Radiant Sea’ and finely tuned and polished the tracks to bring out the best ambient feel and experience for the listener. We are extremely happy with the final results, as of course, are ‘Bridge To Imla’. We would like to say a big thank you to Robert, for doing such wonderful work. A true “master” craftsman.

Hans-Dieter Schmidt
Hans-Dieter Schmidt is a German keyboarder, flute player and electronic composer; from 1977 to 1984 he was keyboarder of locally successful bands like "Finnegan's Wake" and "Feinbein" (with the latter he released an LP). From 1986 on he was involved in different electronica projects, and since 1986 he works under the project name "Imaginary Landscape".

Michael Brückner

Michael Brückner started to be involved in electronic music around 1992 and has recorded a rather large number of albums since, with an emphasis on ambient and more recently "Berlin School" / retro space music. While most of his albums are self-released, since 2012 several of them also appeared on different small independent labels around the world.

All music by Bridge To Imla.
Mastered by Robert Rich.
Cover design by Midnight Sun Studio.

CD comes in a beautiful full colour 6-panel digipak, strictly limited to 300 copies.

Digital available via Bandcamp.


01 Prologue: The Kuroshio Current (06:40)
02 Tsushima Basin (03:55)
03 Shatsky Rise (05:09)
04 The Aleutian Current (03:15)
05 Hikurangi Plateau (03:05)
06 Mariana Trench (04:51)
07 Louisville Ridge (04:47)
08 The California Current (01:34)
09 Richards Deep (07:14)
10 Raukumara Plain (07:19)
11 Emerald Fracture Zone (06:43)
12 Fobos-Grunt (04:13)
13 The Humboldt Current (05:24)

14 Galathea Depth (05:22)
15 Epilogue: Ring of Fire (04:24)


Bridge To Imla - The Radiant Sea



Bridge To Imla - The Radiant Sea (Official Promo Video)


Reviews

Sonic Immersion


'And an adventurous, highly mesmerizing and imaginary aural adventure it is, matching beautifully with the fantastic album cover art. The alchemy of gentle waves, slight foreboding tapestries, captivating spherics and washes of emotive textures presented to the listener are compelling from start to finish. In addition, occasional ghostly/otherworldly plains are traversed along haunting passages of ascent and descent in the continuous gliding aural vortex.- Bert Strolenberg

This Is Darkness

'The music on the album is quite diverse. There are elements of many different sub-genres within the greater ambient spectrum. Fans of the Berlin School sound will find much to love here. It is also telling that they sought the mastering skills of Robert Rich, as much of the album fits nicely with his tastes and skill-sets. There are certainly elements of dark ambient which rise and fall throughout the album, particularly on the opening track, “Prologue: The Kuroshio Current”, we can hear some deep, menacing dronework which brings to mind the Northaunt opus, Horizons. Throughout the album, as well, we can hear drones which greatly relax the mind and lull the listener toward a sleepy half-aware state of consciousness.' - Michael Barnett

Ambient Visions

'The music of Radiant Sea creates sonic landscapes that are memorable with their subtle electronic changes that continually alter the scene that the listener is being shown. While you journey through the Pacific Ocean via the currents and the trenches and the plateaus you begin to feel the vastness of the kingdom of which you have entered. The invisible undersea world is one that most of us simply take for granted since all we ever experience of the water is view from the surface. Michael and Hans-Dieter have chosen to explore this darker, innerspace world of shadows and slow-moving sea creatures that would no doubt be present in a journey like this. The music is mostly generated via synths and through some sampling and much processed household sounds but it has all been woven together seamlessly into this otherworldly soundscape that is both haunting and soothing at the same time. This dark ambient album will be a standout for many years to come and should be considered a must have for your collection if you’re up for a sonic journey of discovery that will lead you into the depths of the Pacific Ocean and then bring you back out again.' - Michael Foster