Over the years people have said to us: it would be cool if Atomic Unit wrote some tunes that had vocals. Over the next few months, that's exactly what you'll be hearing from us!
Our first big collaboration was with Zaa Nkweta under the band name AU45, co-producing a song that he sang in the recently released film "Can I Get a Witness" starring Sandra Oh.
Here's the story of how the song came about, straight from Zaa:
"Day one of the film shoot for Can I Get a Witness began and my scene was first on the call sheet. I had auditioned singing a Depeche Mode song and the Director had pegged me as a musician. 'I want you to sing something before you start the scene,' she said. 'You must have written a song.'
I had a verse and chorus kicking in my head, so out came Thank God It's Friday and her eyes welled up. 'Sing that and keep singing it!'
And so it began—a few months after the shoot I hummed the song into my iPhone and asked my friend Haig to make it real. We met and finished the bridge. He contacted David who laid down drums, guitar, and co-produced the track. And here we are—Thank God It's Friday, my little anthem!"
Link in the comments...
New year, new album! Today we released Borderlands, our exploration of the spaces between electronic, acoustic, and ambient genres of instrumental music. Each song combines live improvisation with synthesizer sorcery, translating familiar instruments into lush, glacial soundscapes.
While written and recorded at the same time as our postrock album Then & Now, this album shows a more experimental side of our songwriting and live performance.
Check out the record today on streaming services, link in bio.
#newmusic #newmusicfriday #ambientmusic #experimentalmusic #instrumentalmusic #ambientexperimental #newmusicportland #pdxmusic
https://album.link/us/i/1786882961
Our new album “Then and Now” is out today on all streaming services and Bandcamp. Link in bio, check it out!
/atomicunit/then-and-now
Many thanks to @demistradio@radiohottubpdx@freeformpdx@postrockcentral for sharing songs from this release in advance.
Track listing:
01 The Getaway
02 Patience, My Friend
03 Fast Travel
04 Rusty Road
05 Future 76
06 Evaporated
07 Willow Tree
08 Sunday in the Park
09 Toujours
10 Then and Now
11 Liminal
#newmusic #postrock #instrumental #vancouverbc #portland #pdxmusic #wherepostrockdwells #synthesizer #synth #postrockdiscovery #newmmusicfriday
New song “Fast Travel” out today on streaming services - link in bio.
This song started out as electronic music, then transformed in the studio into a monster rocker that marries massive, crunchy guitar riffs with warbling ambient synths.
Our third album “Then and Now” will be released next week on June 21st, 2024.
#newmusic #postrock #instrumental #guitarrock #synthesizer #vancouverbc #portland #pdxmusic #newmusicfriday #wherepostrockdwells
New song “Rusty Road” out today on streaming services - link in bio.
We wrote this song as a cinematic, immersive journey with shimmering guitar and hypnotic Rhodes keyboards—evoking some of our Americana and jazz guitar heroes such as @bill.frisell and @snarkypuppy
Our third album “Then and Now” will be released on June 21st, 2024, and you can stream it right now on our Bandcamp page.
#newmusic #postrock #instrumental #vancouverbc #portland #pdxmusic #wherepostrockdwells #americana #guitarsolo #newmusicfriday
New song “Future 76” out today on streaming services - link in bio.
We wrote this song as a pure shot of 80s nostalgia, with analog keyboard solos in the vein of Vangelis and drums like early Peter Gabriel.
Our third album “Then and Now” will be released on June 21st, 2024, you can stream it right now on our Bandcamp page.
#newmusic #postrock #instrumental #vancouverbc #portland #pdxmusic #wherepostrockdwells #synthesizer #synth #vangelis #newmusicfriday
New song “The Getaway” out today on streaming services - link in bio.
Keywords: surf guitar, chase scene, tasty synths, slammin’ drums.
Thanks to @radiohottubpdx for playing us on today’s @freeformpdx local music show!
Our third album “Then and Now” will be released on June 21st, 2024.
#newmusic #postrock #surfguitar #instrumental #vancouverbc #portland #pdxmusic
Hello friends,
We are excited to announce that our third album “Then and Now” will be out on June 21st, 2024.
You can check out the songs in the release starting today on our Bandcamp page (link in bio).
Track listing:
01 The Getaway
02 Patience, My Friend
03 Fast Travel
04 Rusty Road
05 Future 76
06 Evaporated
07 Willow Tree
08 Sunday in the Park
09 Toujours
10 Then and Now
11 Liminal
Looking forward to sharing this music with you soon!
All best,
Atomic Unit (@haig & @dksherwin )
#newmusic #postrock #instrumental #vancouverbc #portland #pdxmusic
There’s plenty of talk right now about using AI to generate art, music, you name it. Using AI and machine learning to generate music isn’t new—it’s baked into many of the tools out there, such as Ableton Live and Max/MSP (which we use). The question that interests us is: how do you use AI-supported tools to generate music that people respond to on an emotional level?
In answering that question, it’s not just about creating great melodies and arrangements—it’s often about the subtleties of feel and performance, those little human imperfections that we can sense in how a song unfolds. Which brings us to this week’s song that we’re sharing: “Ghost Writers”. This is probably our purest ambient song we’ve put together, and it’s an experiment in AI-supported generative songwriting.
The seed of the track is a human-performed 30-second piano melody, which we fed into an algorithm to generate new complimentary melodies. The output of that, we ran back into the algorithm over and over again. We then strung the melodies together in reverse—so what you’re hearing in the first three minutes of the song moves from computer-generated to human-composed ambient music.
Past this point, we experimented with running the performance through tape loops—first at a much slower speed, then in a feedback loop, with the analogue decay creating a sense of time passing in the piece. The track then ends with the initial seed melody performed on piano.
This is part of an ambient series we’re releasing over the spring and summer of 2023, including “Borderlands” and “Icefall”.
#ambient #ambientmusic #experimental #experimentalmusic #piano #generativemusic #instrumental #newmusicfriday
Here’s a new ambient soundscape from Atomic Unit called “Icefall.” This track came together after an odd winter and contemplating its relationship to the climate crisis. Composed of a single guitar take, piano and electronics, along with a field recording from last year’s ice storm by @mpsherwin . The music was set to the backdrop of public domain footage from @calacademy in the @internetarchive , filmed circa 1956.
This is part of an ambient series we’re releasing over the next few months on @atomicunitmusic and our Bandcamp page at /
#ambient #ambientmusic #experimental #experimentalmusic #instrumental #climatechange #newmusicfriday
#vancouvermusicians #vancouvermusicscene #portlandmusic
New album out today! Link in profile, here's some deets on the disc:
Atomic Unit is a multi-instrumentalist duo from Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, BC. On their new album, Breaking News, Volume 2, they’ve created 12 instrumental rock soundscapes that take the listener on a cinematic trip.
Atomic Unit’s music touches on genres such as psychedelia, modern guitar rock, krautrock, and chillwave—equal parts melodic and tricky, keeping listeners surprised with each twist and turn. This disc also sees more sonic experimentation, including a palette of hand-built guitar effects, vocal harmonies as background textures, and overdriven vintage keyboards.
All the songs on this album began as loop-based improvisations, and evolved organically by sending tracks back and forth. Many were then re-recorded live, capturing deeper grooves from each other’s performances like in a live setting.
The album artwork is a collaboration between Atomic Unit and data artist @nickrougeux . Nick took the raw musical data from the sessions for this album and used them to create abstract landscapes that visually represent aspects of each track’s arrangement, tempo, key, and mood variations.
Peruse some of the tracks like "Breathe", "Keep It Sneaky", "Midnight Sun" and "Switchback" on our Instagram account @atomicunitmusic .
#newmusicfriday #newmusic #bandcampfriday #indierock #postrock #instrumentalmusic #instrumentalrock #chillwave #indiemusic #pdx #pdxmusic #vancouverbc #canadianmusic
It's Friday! New song: "Keep It Sneaky". Love @Haig 's gritty guitar swagger on this one, it's a favorite from our upcoming album "Breaking News, Vol. 2"(out 2/4/22).
Available on your favorite streaming services, link in profile.
#newmusicfriday #newmusic #indierock #postrock #bluesrock #instrumentalmusic #indiemusic #pdx #pdxmusic #vancouverbc #canadianmusic
