Loscil is the electronic/

ambient music Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It u ...

project of Scott Morgan from

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Canada. Morgan launched the project in Vancouver in 1998 while a member of the multimedia collective Multiplex, which curated audiovisual events at an underground cinema called The Blinding Light. The name Loscil is taken from the "looping oscillator" function (loscil) in Csound. Morgan was also the drummer for the Vancouver indie band

Destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

. As Loscil, he has also produced numerous special projects, remixes, and collaborations with other musicians, including Ryuichi Sakamoto,

Murcof Murcof is the performing and recording name of Mexican electronic musician Fernando Corona. Corona was born in 1970 in Tijuana, Mexico and raised in Ensenada. He was for a time a member of the Tijuana-based Nortec Collective of electronic musicians ...

/ Vanessa Wagner,

Sarah Neufeld Sarah Neufeld (born August 27, 1979) is a Canadian violinist who is known for her work with indie rock band Arcade Fire, with whom she is a former core member and currently a touring member. She has contributed to each of the band's studio alb ...

Daniel Bejar Daniel Bejar (; born October 4, 1972) is a Canadian singer and musician from Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the frontman of Destroyer (band), Destroyer, and is a member of indie rock band the New Pornographers. Overview In 2006, he joined ...

bvdub Bvdub is an American electronic music producer originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2007 he has released more than 40 albums and EPs under this name and other pseudonyms including his birth name, Brock Van Wey. Residing in Shaoxing, ...

, Rachel Grimes, and Kelly Wyse.

Career

Loscil graduated from Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts, where he studied with computer-music pioneer

Barry Truax Barry Truax (born 1947) is a Canadian composer who specializes in real-time implementations of granular synthesis, often of sampled sounds, and soundscapes. He is credited with developing the first ever implementation of real-time granular s ...

2000s

A self-released album titled ''A New Demonstration of Thermodynamic Tendencies'' caught the attention of

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

label Kranky, which signed Morgan on to release his debut album ''Triple Point'' in 2001. The album features six tracks off his first independent release as well as four new tracks. Loscil followed up the release with ''

Submers ''Submers'' is an album by Canadian musician Scott Morgan under the alias of Loscil. It was released in 2002 by Kranky (record label), Kranky. Production and style Large portions of the music on ''Submbers'' was from classical music that had been ...

'', an aquatic-themed album. Each track on the album is named after a

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

. The last track on the album was produced in honour of the people who died on the

Russian submarine K-141 Kursk K-141 ''Kursk'' (russian: Атомная Подводная Лодка «Курск» (АПЛ «Курск»), transl. , meaning "Atomic-powered submarine ''Kursk''") was an Oscar II-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine of the Rus ...

. Loscil's 2004 album ''First Narrows'' (a reference to the official name of the Vancouver bridge, also known as Lions' Gate Bridge) marked the incorporation of improvised performances by a number of guest musicians: Nyla Raney on

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

, Tim Loewen on

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

and Jason Zumpano on

Rhodes piano The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

. Consequently, the music pieces (or tone poems) on ''First Narrows'' are "more organic and looser in nature" than Morgan's previous work. Eight of Loscil's tone poems were featured on the film score of the 2004 documentary ''

Scared Sacred ''Scared Sacred'' is an independent film produced in 2004 and released in 2006 by director Velcrow Ripper. ''Scared Sacred'' is a feature-length documentary that takes viewers to many of the places in the world that have experienced great sufferin ...

'' by the award-winning documentary filmmaker Velcrow Ripper. In 2005, Morgan released ''Stases'', a collection of drones based upon the backgrounds of his work for Kranky. The album was made available as a free download-only release from One Records. The theme of Loscil's fourth major album, released in 2006, continued the conceptual ascent that each of his previous albums took, from the "subatomic level" and watery depths of ''Triple Point'' and ''

'', respectively, to the surface alluded to by ''First Narrows'' and the sky referenced in '' Plume''. '' Plume'' also continued Morgan's musical integration of other musicians' work into his ambient compositions, including those by Josh August Lindstrom on vibes and

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the ...

and Krista Michelle Marshall and Stephen Michael Wood on EBow guitar, as well as

Zumpano Zumpano was a Canadian power pop group in the 1990s. The band, whose music style resembled such contemporaries as Sloan (band), Sloan and The Super Friendz, consisted of vocalist/guitarist Carl Newman, keyboardist Michael Ledwidge, bassist Ste ...

again on piano.

2010s

In a 2014 interview with ''

Exberliner ''Exberliner'' is an English-language magazine published in Berlin that was launched in 2002. It is published monthly (except for the July/August double issue) and available for €3.90 at newsstands around the city or by subscription. The magazi ...

'', Loscil described a facet of his 2014 album thus: "Vancouver is the ideal setting, and I say that in a sort of ironic way. The nature is so beautiful but it’s coupled with human intervention.

y 2014 album Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate Letter (alphabet), letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some auth ...

''Sea Island'' is really inspired by that contrast. That area being a nature reserve as well as an industrial area and an airport is both beautiful and kind of horrific. I relish that contrast. There’s a balance there that I find interesting from a musical perspective. It opens the door to interpretation." In December 2016, American webzine ''Somewherecold'' ranked Loscil's ''Monument Builders'' No. 4 on their ''Somewherecold Awards 2016'' list. In 2019, Loscil released ''Equivalents'', a reworking of piano samples inspired by

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...

’ black-and-white photographs of clouds. ''Pitchfork'' described the album as "full of wispy high pitches that swirl around waves of pink noise and slowly moving tone clusters."

2020s

In March 2021, Loscil announced the May 28 release of a new 10-track album called ''Clara''. As basis for the tracks, Loscil used a short orchestral recording, which is from a single three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest. Upon its release, ''Clara'' was met with critical acclaim, attaining on reviews aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

a score of 85, indicating "universal acclaim".

Discography

Studio albums

*1999 ''A New Demonstration of Thermodynamic Tendencies'' *2001 ''Triple Point'' ( Kranky) *2002 ''

'' (Kranky) *2004 ''First Narrows'' (Kranky) *2006 '' Plume'' (Kranky) *2010 ''Endless Falls'' (Kranky) *2011 ''Coast / Range / Arc'' (Glacial Movements) *2012 ''Sketches From New Brighton'' (Kranky) *2013 ''Erebus'' (with

Bvdub Bvdub is an American electronic music producer originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2007 he has released more than 40 albums and EPs under this name and other pseudonyms including his birth name, Brock Van Wey. Residing in Shaoxing, ...

) (Glacial Movements) *2014 ''Sea Island'' (Kranky) *2016 ''Monument Builders'' (Kranky) *2019 ''Equivalents'' (Kranky) *2019 ''Lifelike'' (Frond) *2020 ''Faults, Coasts, Lines'' (bandcamp) *2020 ''Adrift'' *2021 ''Clara'' (Kranky) *2022 ''The Sails'' (Frond)

EPs and other releases

*2001 ''Involve Ep02 ( Involve Records)'' *2005 ''Stases (Drones 2001–2005)'' (One) *2009 ''Strathcona Variations EP'' ( Ghostly International) *2010 ''Versions EP'' (bandcamp) *2010 ''Untitled EP'' (bandcamp) *2012 ''City Hospital'' (Wist Rec) *2013 ''Intervalo'' (featuring Kelly Wyse) (Frond) *2014 ''Fury and Hecla'' (with

Fieldhead Fieldhead are a British band formed in Leeds, England, in 2008 and led by Paul Elam, a member of The Declining Winter. Paul currently resides in London, whilst violinists Elaine Reynolds and Sarah Kemp (both also of The Declining Winter) reside ...

) (Gizeh Records) *2015
ADRIFT
' (app for iOS and Android) (Frond) *2016 ''Suns'' (Frond - cassette only) *2016 ''The Air at Night (Live at Subtrata)'' (with Rachel Grimes) (Mossgrove Music) *2016 ''Lodge'' (1631 Recordings)

Tracks featured on

*2003 '' Saturday Morning Empires'' ( Intr Version) *2003 '' The Corporation'' documentary film soundtrack *2004 ''ScaredSacred'' documentary film soundtrack *2006 '' Idol Tryouts: Ghostly International Vol. 2'' ( Ghostly International) *2008 ''The Sleep Machine'' contributed to Chequerboards online Relay project *2009 ''

Osmos ''Osmos'' is a 2009 puzzle video game developed by Canadian developer Hemisphere Games for various systems such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, OnLive, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android. Gameplay The aim of the game is to propel o ...

'' computer game *2013 '' Hundreds'' iOS game *2014 '' Divergent (film)'' *2014 '' From the Sky (film)'' *2017 '' Suburra: Blood on Rome (Netflix) - Sturgeon Bank + Bleeding Ink (from 2014 Sea Island) / Anthropocene (from 2016 Monument Builders) *2019 '' Lifelike'' iOS game

References

External links

Official website
*

at Kranky
"Environmental Music: Loscil's Impressionistic Portraits
CBC Radio 3 Live Concert Session {{Authority control Living people Ambient musicians Canadian electronic musicians Musicians from Vancouver Year of birth missing (living people)