Pteranodon >> Sunburst and snowblind

Pteranodon - "Adrift"

(Flight Approved Records, 2001)

Here's one of the best ambient / drone tracks I've ever heard, and it's even more impressive considering that it was created by "rock" people who were simply on hiatus from rocking out.  It really reflects the coldness and bleak majesty of the Colorado mountains, where I skiied a few times ('93 and '95) and where my uncle Mike and aunt Christy live.  You can even sort of get the sensation of snowblindness, which is when all the light hitting your eyes from the sky and the surface of the snow fries your retinas.

Not to brag, but for a blog that doesn't even focus on ambient music, I think this one has posted some incredible ambient tracks this year, and it feels really good to spotlight an essentially unknown artist like Pteranodon, since I doubt anyone ever has before in the history of internets.  In terms of quality vs. quantity, I doubt many actual ambient blogs have posted better stuff than Blowtorch Baby has.  This field of music has so many mediocre tracks / artists, and so few true gems.  Maybe I should've done a separate ambient blog, but I like combining it in with all the other song-based stuff on here.  "Adrift" is the most densely layered, and therefore the "warmest" or most "womblike," one on the album.  Most of the others are quite minimalistic and downright eerie.  I guess I got into this group in 2003, when I got into Volplane and Bright Channel, since Pteranodon is made up of the core duo of those two bands.  Not long after that, I bought Pteranodon's actual self-titled CD, probably on eBay. It comes in a cool silver gatefold paper case with some flowers on the cover.  At first I thought they were opium poppies, which would be fitting, considering the album's narcotizing effect on the lucky listener; but I think they might just be some kind of thistle or thistle relative.  Other good cuts from this album are "Periodic Rise And Fall" and "Distances."  (The latter might have been named in honor of the Flying Saucer Attack LP of the same name.)  "Adrift" just hits me with more emotional impact than any of the other ones.  As their bio says, "pteranodon is the brainchild of jeff suthers and shannon stein, former members of volplane and bright channel and current members of moonspeed.  in the fall of 2000, after the departure of volplane's drummer, jeff and shannon set out to pursue an ambient musical venture that combined their love of minimalist musical styles with their equal appreciation for maximum volumes. with only one organ and one guitar, pteranodon was designed to be a lush (but gigantic) listening experience, both live and on disc.  their self-titled debut album was released in 2001, with a follow-up appearing in spring 2005."

Inside view of the minimalist gatefold packaging

Click on the "sound" link over here to listen to each album in its entirety.  You can even play one song from each album simultaneously to make your own exciting Pteranoremixes.

Today my sister and I went to the Prospect.2 art festival.  I had gone to Prospect.1 three years ago, which was at least twice as big as this one, but this one was still pretty good.  We went to the Contemporary Arts Center, the Ogden Museum, and the Old U.S. Mint, plus some little new art studio down in the Holy Cross neighborhood.  Duane Pitre (a.k.a. Pilotram), former guitarist of ILYA, had an interesting self-generating ambient sound installation at the CAC.  The Mint was screening William Eggleston's famous and extremely overrated film Stranded In Canton.  We walked up on the levee and petted someone's three-legged dog, saw white pelicans, and saw a guy mooning a friend a few hundred yards away across the canal.  I also took her to American Aquatic Gardens, Harold's Nursery, and Euclid Records.  I bought an awesome picture disc 7" of Simple Minds' "Someone Somewhere In Summertime" at Euclid for only $3 and gave them two David Bowie 8-tracks as thanks for pricing it so low.  In the car we listened to Cleopatra Grip by The Heart Throbs, which I just bought this morning, and then to Pteranodon.  Check out the video for "I Wonder Why" by The Heart Throbs, a song which I would describe as Best Coast meets My Bloody Valentine.
Here's an excerpt from a cool 2-minute video I saw today at either the Ogden or the CAC; I think it was made by someone named Jeff or John, with the last initial G.:

Planets with similar climates: Rapoon - "Hollow Flight" (1997), Plexi - "Bunny" (1996).