V-STÓK - Ambient Liminalities

CLOT Magazine

The next mixtape arrives from V-stock, aka Valentin Doychinov, an electronic musician, guitarist, producer and film score composer. With an interest in nature, mathematics and of course music, he finds inspiration in a diverse set of influences that range from the fringes of experimental club music, noise, and ambient to instrumental genres such as jazz fusion and post-rock. V-stock has released several EPs and albums for several experimental labels, and he has just published a new LP, Liminal (Position Disposition, 2022) where he combines his recent jazz fusion influences with the noise, ambient and broken electronics sound he developed during the last LPs. Incepted during pandemics, the album title Liminal refers to a state of ‘occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold’ and very trivially, the spark of inspiration came from a Facebook group called ‘Liminal Spaces’ which I came across at some point over the lockdown period. In this group people generally post pictures of cities and buildings when they are devoid of people – these both convey a certain emotion that combines a sense of loneliness, isolation and also otherworldliness which I was also feeling during this year, but I didn’t know how to express. The artist also shares that the way the tracks were made is also a result of a very improvisational approach both with the synth and other production gear he was using; the tracks were recorded live and improvisations were layered on top of each other. I also experimented with techniques for creating very broken and unpredictable beats. Valentin’s daytime profession as a wind energy project engineer allows him to contribute to another cause that is massively important to him - the decarbonisation and transition to clean energy sources for society. For our mix, he’s prepared a selection of tracks from albums he has been enjoying lately; mostly made of atmospheric tracks that have a certain ambience that communicates well with his approaches to production. Tracklist: Benoit Pioulard - Whose Palms Create Vanessa mara - Piano & Accordion, Pt. 1 Richard Skelton - Pariah Fennesz - Endless Summer V-Stók - A pocket within a pocket Eli Keszler - The Accident Jon Hassell - Picnic Death in Vegas, The Two Lone Swordmen - Neptune City - Concrete Funk 2 Pan-American - Het Volk North Americans - Furniture In The Valley Okkyung Lee - Another Old Story Jean-Claude Vannier, Mike Patton - Insolubles