June 8th, 2008 by niwa | posted in albums, beats, download, downtempo, free music, hiphop, jazz, triphop |

Ahh the good old triphop sound. The vibe which hasn’t been forgotten, but which few producers now (including myself) are capable of recreating. So we’re going back to 2004, ten years after the release of Portishead’s trend-setting album “Dummy“. In the span of one decade, triphop evolved from a dark, minimalistic and lamenting genre to a more laidback and melancholic layered sound.

In this year, not knowing it at the time, I made my first track that would go on to define the style I would progress in. It was also the year that a lot of pc tracker-groups would transform into the phenomenon we now know as netlabels. Notable names are Tokyo Dawn Records, Thinner, Kahvi, and a lesser wide-known netlabel which goes under the moniker of ‘Miasmah‘.

Founded by Erik Skodvin aka Xhale, the label aimed at pushing the more abstract approach to chilled out triphop and downtempo which was at that time barely supported. Xhale had done a lot of releases with various tracker-groups and built up friendships with artists in the same corner of music. This allowed him to quickly assemble an artist roster of skilled musicians which fit the Miasmah profile. Gathering the likes of Distance (aka Lackluster), Opiate (now running the ‘Serein‘ netlabel), Muhr, Nagz (of MusicOnPurpose) and Transient, the net-label quickly gathered an underground cult-status. I had the privilege of appearing as a guest with my track ‘Gazing Asteroid‘, which is the track I mentioned earlier.

In 2004 Miasmah released an EP by a Finnish producer’s duo under the name of Aphilas, called ‘Instrumentally Ill”. It’s a 6-track diamond which would later be released on Merck as a 12″, but which is still available as 160kbps MP3s by the netlabel.

The Miasmah release

‘Instrumentally Ill’ is perfect representation of what downtempo and non-vocal triphop is about. Heavy atmospheric moods are accompanied by jazzy, but real hiphop-like drum programming, and everything sounds like it has been sampled from records that haven’t seen daylight in 20 years.

The Merck release

The EP is perfectly balanced, playing well as background music that will catch your focus every so and so second. Dim the lights, burn some incense and space out!

Get it here