strom noir strom noir comes from Slovakia and was formed in the beginning of 2007 by E. Maťko. Emil has been composing music since 2000 when he founded down-tempo / trip hop band called mindMap. in 1998 he also established tape/cd-r label called black orchid productions focused on ambient, industrial and experimental music with more than 60 releases out today. music of strom noir sits somewhere between ambient electronics and post-rock minimalism.  tracks are primarily relying on synths and guitar loops integrated with field recordings and various abstract sounds. result can be probably best described as the minimalistic melancholic atmospheric soundscapes.    [news] [discography] [reviews] [contact]

  [reviews]

  "luvyoo"

Up until a few weeks ago I had never heard of Strom Noir and I really had no context for who they were or what they do, but listening to their latest release "Luvyoo", I'm quite pleased that they took the time to contact me and tell me about their music. On this disc Emil Mat'ko of Strom Noir has created an impressive collection of songs that uses guitar based drones as a foundation and builds up melodically and tonally from there.
"Sunday Soul" opens with a repeated tone with quiet intervals between notes, eventually building up into something more, other tones slowly added to the sound. Eventually a full space is created within the soundfield and there is a sense of a lush environment that's being presented. A very delicate and beautiful piece of music.
"Nothing Really Happens" has a warmer feel to it, again very natural organic sounds and tones, the sound of guitars lightly strummed and processed, field recordings, more. It's a warm and inviting sound, something that envelopes the listener in a soothing embrace.
"Ratatongua" has a decidedly metallic sound to it, though not in the way you'd normally expect. Chorused guitars play nicely throughout the track, a feeling of natural acoustic energy processed and effected in subtle but engaging ways. An interesting use of delay breaks up the track and moves it into a new space but ultimately the track remains steady along an established path. Nicely done.
"Jazzyk" rises up out of nothing, a steady drone growing from silence. Tones wash up against a liquid backdrop, the sounds of falling rain and water. As it progresses, the track seems to rise up from the water, eventually elevating high engough to evoke a feeling of space until it ultimately echoes out into silence...
"Morning Deja vu" begins with a steady pulse that plays throughout it's length, a deep tone that both mesmerizes and keeps the beat. Drawn out notes on the guitar elongate and echo, wrapping around themselves and reversing in ways to create a haunting experience for the listener. An aptly named track, well worth further listening.
"Planet Catcher" features echoing guitar sounds and the suggestion of reversed tracks with subtle starts and abrupt stops of notes. It's a nice space, a kaleidoscope of sounds that envelops the listener quite effectively. I like it.
"P.S. I love you" begins with a warm drone, little bits and pieces of sound playing along with it. As the sound builds, details become more clear, wavering and flowing throughout to provide focus for the listener. There's a warmth being presented, a loving embrace for the listener.
"Quiero ser Santa" opens with the sound of the sea and an echoing drone. There's a feeling of bending metal here, a quiet sound, all combining to create a very delicate track that entrances and hypnotizes.
"Wash their Souls" is another nice piece, a subtle drone melody in the forefront, with quiet seasoning in the background. There's a haunting sound to the piece, the feeling of walking down an underground tunnel late at night, the occasional clang or drip adding to the atmosphere. Given the title, I can't help but think this one is the soundtrack to a slow drip purge of sins, the error of one's ways slowly sweating out of the body.
"za chvilu je koniec dna" is an interesting piece that begins with a slightly buzzing drone underneath a field recording of a crowd. Eventually the crowd disperses to be replaced by a subtly ebbing drone where melody can just be imagined right on the edge of the soundfield. A repeated arpegio drifts in, adding a certain light and order to the track.
"Heartland" closes the disc, a slightly more defined track than previous pieces, where the music seems to be more clearly presented and distinct in the soundfield. Drawing from sound sources heard in earlier tracks, "Heartland" acts as a nice sampler for the disc, a wonderful summation of what's happened earlier and moving the music forward. Simple melodies, light drones, subtle guitar echoes, crowds, it's all here, blended together in a beautiful way.
Needless to say, "Luvyoo" is a rich and fascinating release that demonstrates an impressive understanding of musical forms and shapes. Over the course of its length, Mat'ko has done an admirable job of engaging and inspiring the listener, and if this disc is any indication of his earlier work, I will definitely make the effort to hear more!
Rik / ping things

Strom Noir is a young – but prolific – one-man band from Slovakia performing a particularly emotive style of ambient music. Luvyoo is a subtle affair, an exercise in restraint and tasteful composition. The music is woven from both the kinds of drones that do not seem to have a recognisable instrumental source, as well as a range of definitely organic musical tools and well-chosen field recordings. The application of wind instruments in slow-moving swirls of music is deftly done; guitars drift seemingly aimlessly across the music, creating a feeling of both space and familiarity. The idea of using acoustic guitars in ambient music in particular deserves mention: this is not something one often hears and it adds a richness and earthiness to the proceedings. Likewise the airy electric guitar performances impart a genuine intimacy to the release. Luvyoo moves through a wide span of emotions – some melancholy, some misty-eyed, some dreamy. It has a certain innocence, a certain openness: its very honest music, without pretence. I like the vulnerable pensiveness that it invokes – Strom Noir walk a delicate line of personal expression, and where ambient music often seems to be about grand ideas, this album invites the vistas and horizons of ambient music back into the realms of subjectivity. The moods and atmospheres shift very smoothly as the album progresses, and it’s a very gentle, smooth journey. The tracks, though much more varied in instrumentation and feel than you’ll find on many ambient releases, nevertheless blur together easily, like water spilling across different colours of paint. The average length for each composition is about five minutes, and this is also refreshing. There is quite a “30 minutes or more per track” cult in the world of ambient composers, and really, almost anything can get trance inducing and atmospheric if it somnolently rambles without variation for that long. This release doesn’t rely on such chicanery and I rather like that. It is perhaps more connected to conventional music than most ambient releases and I think Strom Noir are onto a good thing by taking this direction.
Henry Lauer / Heathen Harvest

Slovakian electronic producer Emil Matko has been composing music since he founded the downbeat / triphop outfit MindMap back in 2000, as well as running his own independent tape and CDR label focused on ambient, industrial and experimental music Black Orchid Productions, with more than 60 releases to date. Matko first introduced his Strom Noir alter ego in 2007 with his 3” CDR release ‘The Strom Ep’, and he’s certainly been prolific under the name – in fact, this latest release ‘Luvyoo’ represents his second full-length album and fourth release in just over two years. The eleven tracks collected on ‘Luvyoo’ sit somewhere between ambient electronics and post-rock minimalism, with Matko primarily relying on synths and treated guitar loops augmented with subtly deployed field recordings to create the hazily melancholic atmospheres here. Throughout completely beatless ambient landscapes like ‘Planet Catcher’ and ‘Za Chvilu Je Koniec Dna’, Matko treats the guitar elements to a point where the original source material becomes almost unrecognisable and merges with the synths to become a single mass of flowing melodic tones – indeed, when a familiar pluck or sound of fingers on strings does venture in at the very edges, it sounds almost alien in comparison to its surroundings. Think of this as perhaps slow-motion post-rock to watch glaciers flow to; this is easily one of the most understatedly beautiful ambient releases I’ve heard in some time, with the distant wash of field recorded voices on gorgeous closer ‘Heartland’ simply adding to the sense of inner cinema conjured up here.
Chris Downton / Cyclic Defrost Magazine 

Strom Noir is the music project of the Slovakian Emil Matko. Musically, or this album at least, haven’t heard his other work, can be described as melancholic guitar-driven ambient, combined with field recordings. Perhaps akin to a project like Aidan Baker or Troum, only less dark. The album is divided in eleven tracks and clocks at almost an hour. The tracks are presented as separate pieces (as a lot of times in this genre it the tracks flow into each other), but they do work as a whole together. Though there may be more acts to deliver guitar-based ambient music, the melancholic touch of Strom Noir works really well with the music and makes for a somewhat own sound. It has its more abstract and darker moments, like in ‘Quiero Ser Santa’, but nice to listen to such work that does without the extreme darkness and here and there has a sadder feel to it. We heard lots of this guitar-driven ambient before, but this is executed so extremely well that it doesn’t matter. A very beautiful release that all lovers of deep and droning ambient should pick up! Highly Recommended.
Fabian / Gothtronic 

Emil Mat’ko finds a quiet spot somewhere between drone, drifting ambient and transmuted guitar textures on his new release, Luvyoo. Sculpted from a chunk of raw melancholy and painted in hues of peaceful brooding, Luvyoo eases past the listener over the course of eleven subtle tracks. Mat’ko builds his pieces in flowing layers culled from his virtually unrecognizable guitar and augmented with warm, watery synth pads. The sound is deep and constantly in motion-- each piece is pleasantly put together with no bumps or jarring. Mat’ko creates with a solid, even hand There are no real standouts here, although “Quiero Ser Santa” is notable for its darker tone—grim-edged, with the distinct twang of harshly played strings. It works, but it’s of a different feel than the remainder of Luvyoo. Overall, this is a suite of floating, richly textured, moody and largely unobtrusive ambient-guitar pieces that makes me ready to hear more from Strom Noir.
Hypnagogue

Outside its raining - the typical March rainfall. Grey autumn like weather. Inside its warm and on the stereo we hear have Emil Mat'ko, also known as Strom Noir. He pleasantly surprised us before with his      ambient drone music. He was a member of a down-tempo/trip hop band Mind Map and has its own label Black Orchid, which releases ambient, industrial and experimental music. As Strom Noir he picks up the six stringed instruments and synthesizers along with field recordings and electronics. Some of the pieces here were previously releases, but together they make a strong bunch of tracks that fit any rainy day. Slow, elegant guitar music, with an wealth, sometimes too much, of echo and reverb, and the guitar usually at the core of the music. Synths and field recordings are more ornamental in the music, they place accents on the music. Quite a lengthy release of lengthy pieces, all around five minutes of minimal changes, and its perhaps better to enjoy this as one long flow, one piece divided into various smaller bits. Not an earth shaking new release, but otherwise a fine one. (FdW)
Vital Weekly 672

Strom Noir also produces a species of ambient music, but does it in an ultra-slow way on his new album luvyoo (AMBSINE RECORDS). While his dense layers of treated and processed sounds may not be anything wildly innovative, I find the cumulative effect quite charming – heavy, dreamy, unreal, and suffocating. This Slovakian musician works best, I find, when he disguises everything through overdubbing, re-recording, looping and filtering; when you can occasionally recognise an instrument, such as a languid guitar pluck, it somehow breaks the spell. Note the cover art, where he has cleverly manipulated a landscape so that the trees spell out the title of his album.  (http://www.thesoundprojector.com)
The Sound Projector / April 2009                            

    "kueyen"

German netlabel Resting Bell have a reputation for releasing an unpredictable array of experimental electronic music artforms. Here, Emil Matko has created a beautiful drone album under the project name Strom Noir. 'Kueyen' throbs and swells between a wash of drone tones; at times dischordant and at times shimmering a lightness this album is a constantly interesting listen. Parts of the soundscapes are straight up dark ambience of the ghostliest kind and parts feature a murkiness that hides optimistic hints of light Ambience. There is always an underlying depth of darkness, sinister tones and noisy static to this record. But the sheer variation of sounds and those occasional silent, lighter moments will entice you to soak into this one.
Harry Salsava / (http://www.djforums.com/forums

    "kruhyNAvode"

On this second release for U-Cover, Strom Noir delivers another lovely selection of guitar-based ambient beauty. Stripped back and wonderfully atmospheric, the tracks play to their strengths by being simple, effective and well thought out. You couldn’t really call it drone (in fact I just straight-up *wouldn’t* call it drone) because it has a more melodic feel than that might lead you to believe. There’s a floating quality that recalls the sound of the sea or a windy day on the beach, which may sound overly poetic I suppose, but I really found it to be very evocative indeed. Occasional field recordings blend seamlessly into the mix along with subtle effects and (I would assume) some gentle processing to give it an organic and real feel that somehow seems totally appropriate. Sit back and enjoy some lovely atmospheres with this gorgeous release. Excellent music once again from Strom Noir.
Smallfish Records

    "ylomejja"

Ylomejja by Strom Noir (Slovakian Emil Matko), by comparison, is as distinctive sounding as its title. As a case in point, consider the droning “Sunday Soul,” for example, which sounds like the staggered     moans  of a foghorn choir. Working from a base of acoustic and electric guitar loops, synths, and field recordings, Matko produces blossoming fields of ambient haze that unfurl in slow motion, which in turn enhances their meditative potential and celestial character. Unlike many recordings, each of the album's pieces is a surprise and offers a new adventure: in “Planet Catcher,” clipped phrases of metallic sound shudder loudly, and then split into blurry shards of ambient material; blurry tendrils of vaporous tones stream through “Ylomejja” while planetary masses move glacially in “The Orbs.” Like Phosphorescence, Ylomejja closes with an Ontayso remix, in this case a meditative, fifteen-minute “Planet Catcher” treatment whose voice samples and slow-motion beats give the original a slightly different spin.
textura / August 2008                                                                                                                               

Finally, we have Ylomejja, by the Strom Noir project, under the curation of Slovakian Emil Mat’ko, who constructs flowing pieces of haunting, sometimes haunted, ambience from guitar loops and synths, adding detail with field recordings and sundry liminal sounds of otherness. Haunting, as in title track “Ylomejja”, a beauteous Enossified driftzone of resonating neon guitar plucks that outfold across the listening space. Haunted, as in “The Orbs”, which has the arcing lilt of a reverb-dripping motif slowly effaced by the cavernous resonance of overdriven echo. The same shadowy figures populate the psyched-out drone-blur that is “Nice to be here”. Ylomejja is strong on tenebrous atmospherics and a certain desolate drama effected by Mat’ko’s sombre poetry of movement and texture. Overall, however, a certain sameness of sound design means the album as a whole falls just short of attaining the heights initially promised, though it’s helped in this case by an addendum in the form of a 15-minute Ontayso remix, a slow and low trance-mission which sees “Planet Catcher” spirited away to a different darkside domain of shifting and tilting pitch-shifted soundplates.
e/i Magazine / September 2008

"the strom.ep"

Emil Mat'ko is the man behind Strom Noir and also behind the Black Orchid Productions from Slovakia, which has still a healthy view on the world of cassettes. The cover says just 'sounds and recordings', by which we are to understand guitar (slowed down), drones from field recordings and sound effects. In the four pieces he plays some nice slow music of an highly ambient and thus highly elegant nature. Not the louder segment of drone music, but almost sketch like pieces of music, slow and peaceful. Perhaps the tracks are a bit too short, and some further development could have been made, I think. I am not sure how long Mat'ko is doing music, but he surely does a nice thing here and a longer production could very well be made, I think. Nothing new as such under the ambient sun, but certainly a welcome new name on the horizon. (FdW).
Vital Weekly 599

Cовсем немного очень приятного материала от Эмиля Матко (Emil Matko), владельца хорошего словацкого лэйбла Black Orchid Prod. Кинематографический, тихий, без излишеств, эмбиент. Музыка того же ранжира, что делает/ издает замечательный, например, человек Томми Галенто (Tommy Galento), о котором я здесь с большим удовольствием несколько раз уже отзывался. Не лезущая назойливо, частично — сама в себе и сама по себе, немного сонная, никуда не торопится.  Глубочайше отличная.
GIAG / June 2008

Nuovo progetto solista di Emil Matko, titolare della label slovacca Black Orchid e membro dell’interessantissimo progetto ambient down-tempo MindMap. In “The Strom EP” ci presenta un ambient elettronico dinamico e naturalistico, in grado di evocare paesaggi sublimi e desolati. A differenza di molti progetti del genere, dove dominano il minimalismo estremo e la voluta monotonia, i 4 brani di questo mini si ascoltano con interesse e presentano una certa varietà e ricchezza, che ci fanno ben sperare anche per i futuri passi della creatura sonora di Emil. Ottimo esordio intanto. (Fabio Degiorgi) 
Rosa Selvaggia / Autumn 2007

Pierwsze moje wrażenie nie było najlepsze. Patrzę na tego mini cdr'a i myślę: "Płytka na której pierwszy utwór nosi tytuł "hahaha" musi być ciężkim klocem.". Miałem perwersyjną ochotę zjechać "the strom.ep" z góry na dół. No i... wybronił się Słowak jeden. Oczywiście nie ma tu mowy o wydawnictwie wybitnym, ale w pewien sposób ta mała płytka urzeka. Muzyka jest prosta, dosyć oszczędna w formie. Brzmienie także nie powala. Ale kawałek intrygującego klimatu niewątpliwie udaje się jednoosobowemu słowackiemu projektowi wyczarować. Jak wspomniałem, dźwiękowego rozpasania czy wyrafinowanej ornamentyki tu nie uświadczymy. To rozmyte ambientowe plamy na które nałożone są gitarowe bądź basowe "brzdąknięcia". I choć nie jest to nic wyszukanego, nie mogę odmówić całości pewnej niewymuszonej melancholii. Zachowując oczywiście wszelkie proporcje kojarzy mi się to trochę z pewnymi fragmentami soundtracków np. Cliffa Martineza do "First Snow" czy Gustavo Santaolalli do "Babel". To nie ta sama klasa ma się rozumieć, ale coś wspólnego na pewno ci muzycy mają. Długością trwania "the strom.ep" nie powala, dlatego również ta recenzja do najdłuższych nie należy. Jako podsumowanie stwierdzę tylko, że Emil Matko coś tam na kształt talentu posiada. Chyba warto przyjrzeć się w przyszłości STROM NOIR. (Stark)  
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