Carbon Based Lifeforms Stochastic, psybient textures from random synth functions

September 1, 2021 Synth Anatomy Synth Radar 1

The Swedish electronic music duo Carbon Based Lifeforms has today released its new album Stochastic with 10 new tracks. Consisting of Johannes Hedberg and Daniel Vadestrid, the experts of the Chillout/Psybient lead you this time into deep atmospheric soundscapes/textures that invite you to close your eyes and to relax.

The reason why I’m telling you about this new release is easy. Carbon Based Lifeforms is one of those bands that have taken me through my everyday music life in the last 2-3 years, especially the last album Derelicts. Whether on the plane to the NAMM Show, during a long walk, or just on the couch at home, they were often my best music friends. Their unique mix of acid-like sequences embedded in epic textures caught me quickly. However, the Stochastic album is different and only focuses on rich textures.

Gear

The Clavia G2 engine, Clavia Nord, Micro Modular, Teenage Engineering OP-1, and the Moog One polyphonic analog Synthesizer formed the setup for this new CBL album.

How Johannes and Daniel used these instruments is special. The concept of the album is also based on this way of working.

What started as an experiment grew into a concept for an entire album. By exploring the random functionalities on some synthesizers we had not used for a while, we found sequences that were best suited for passive listening whilst not stealing focus. It appeared as if the randomness kept our minds focused and relaxed at the same time.

For a few weeks we listened to the tracks over and over for hours while coding, emailing, packing and other tasks and found them very stimulating. We defined the sounds, harmonies and the frequencies of the random pulse generators and then let the synthesizers perform the actual tracks. Sometimes by using randomly generated sequences, sometimes by looped and randomly modulated envelopes.