After a long run of ethereal ambient LPs, I was encouraged by The Slow Music Movement Label to create a beat-led, ambient electronic release.

Null Point blends my trademark melodies and ambient textures with a more rhythmic approach.

Minimal beats are constructed from thuds, clicks and crackles sampled from a vintage 7” record of heart sounds.

Plucky modular synthesizer sequences and woozy Mellotron loops are combined with the slow techno bleeps of an Erica bassline synth and crystalline keys and pads programmed on a Modal Argon8 wavetable synth, all bathed in dubbed-out tape delays and washes of reverb.

The album is anchored by downtempo dub techno constructs, swept along by heart wrenching strings & dotted with celestial electronic tones, triggering multiple sonic pleasure centers simultaneously.

Available on bandcamp and streaming platforms:

theslowmusicmovement.bandcamp.com/album/null-point
wilbolton.bandcamp.com/album/null-point
ditto.fm/null-point

Credits

Written and recorded by Wil Bolton
Cover art by Wil Bolton
Mastered by Ian Hawgood
Released by The Slow Music Movement

Reviews

“London producer Wil Bolton makes the shift from beatless to beat-led with ‘Null Point’, but still occupies the chilled ambient area he’s best known for. So rather than raging four-to-the-floor techno beats or Amen breaks, the six tracks here are subtly rhythmic. ‘Sandalwood’ uses fizzes and pops to build momentum around an echoing piano, ‘Rails Overhead’ employs a once-per-bar kick drum, and ‘Patina’ lands not far from a dubby Basic Channel experiment. As exercises go, it’s far from pointless.” – Electronic Sound

“Wil Bolton shifts gears a bit on Null Point, moving further into the electronic realm than ever before, while retaining a coat of ambience.  A vintage 7″ record of heart sounds lies at its base, a human element at the centre of the machine.” – A Closer Listen

“Sometimes we encounter tracks that beckon us to pause, to take a breath, and to immerse ourselves fully in their sonic journey. Wil Bolton’s Sandalwood is one such track—a musical landscape that encourages listeners to sink into its depths for a few minutes, with daydreaming as an optional, but highly recommended, activity.

From the very start, Sandalwood presents an intriguing vibe, a sonic tapestry woven with precision and creativity. Delayed piano tones form the backbone of the composition, creating a sense of spaciousness and contemplation. As the track unfolds, string elements gracefully pan around the soundscape, adding an experimental electronic dimension to the overall experience. This is not a track to be rushed; it’s a delight to listen to and reveals its hidden layers and nuances with each repeated play.

As the second song from Wil Bolton’s upcoming February LP, Sandalwood serves as a mesmerising glimpse into what promises to be an exceptional musical journey. The track exudes a mantric, low-gravity-anchored ambient electronica that carries echoes of a Far Eastern mountain-top temple. It invites listeners to ascend to new heights of consciousness, offering an unhindered, wondrous view of a vast expanse of twinkling electronic tones that both beguile and hypnotise in equal measure. It’s a musical invitation to embark on a dreamlike adventure.” – Electronica

“Longtime fans of Wil Bolton’s work across a variety of platforms and labels, Sandalwood folds together deep piano chords with excellent processed material and microtonal movements that create a sense of floating on your back amongst a field of lily pads.” – Tome to the Weather Machine

““Tracery” from Wil Bolton’s upcoming album Null Point on Slow Music Movement is full of what the press release calls an “artisanal weave of hypnotic tonal patterns threaded with meticulously placed strings that encourages all sorts of daydreamery & inactivity.” I like that this track encourages both daydreamery and inactivity – a perfect track for staring at the ceiling watching the lights play out intricate patterns as time passes.” – Tome to the Weather Machine

“Here’s a track inspired by a scent – Sandalwood. It’s taken from his Null Point album, out next month. Unlike some of his other work it does have beats. But the “Minimal beats are constructed from thuds, clicks and crackles sampled from a vintage 7” record of heart sounds.” 

The track is almost seven minutes, uber long in the tik tok age. But it’s worth carving out the time to appreciate this as the effect grows with the minutes spent. 

Sandalwood is a mix of slightly dub techno sounds, dubby piano and rippling keyboards. It has a gentle Eastern sense about it without it becoming overwhelming. And the variation provided by the range of sounds and beats stops it going too yoga mat. 

The track has a lovely flow to the sounds and dub techno’s effect of slowing the heartbeat. This is beautifully captivating.” – Acid Ted

“Let’s start the week quietly. Here’s Wil Bolton with the downtempo dubbed charms of Patina.

Wil Bolton is a composer, musician and artist based in East London. If that all sounds a bit arty that’s because it is. Wil’s sound and video works have been exhibited at ICA (UK), Sheffield Institute of Art and Design Gallery (UK), University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music (USA), Bath Spa University (UK) and others. And Patina has a sheen of soundscape installation about it. 

Patina takes a slow thump of beats and some dubbed keyboards as its centrepiece. The accompanying blurb says “Minimal beats are constructed from thuds, clicks and crackles sampled from a vintage 7” record of heart sounds.” And when you know that you can sense the organic throb of sound. 

Melodies are scattered on top with trickles of electronic sound. It’s dreamy but warmly otherworldly. For a quiet track it’s best listened to loud to allow the sound to properly occupy the space (or use headphones). 

Make your Monday mellow with Wil Bolton. Nothing superficial here, just an entrance to another world.” – Acid Ted

“Wil Bolton, an East London-based composer and artist, unveils his ambient electronic gem, Patina, the inaugural single from the upcoming 6-track mini LP, Null Point, slated for a 2024 release under The Slow Music Movement label. This sonic expedition immerses listeners in downtempo Berlin-infused dub vibes, gracefully entwined with poignant strings and celestial electronic tones. A seven-minute journey, Patina seduces with its ambient allure, showcasing Bolton’s mastery in production. It weaves a tapestry that triggers diverse sonic pleasure centres simultaneously—a sublime fusion of electronic artistry that promises an enchanting experience within the evolving landscape of ambient music.

Note: Headphones and after-hours listening guaranteed for the ideal result.” – Last Day Deaf

“What’s the story? Wil Bolton, a musician and artist based in East London, was persuaded by The Slow Music Movement to create a more beat-based, electronic approach to his ambient works. They set him this goal after a long period of successful ambient works written largely free of beats, but here he sets to work with rhythm tracks generated with the help of a vintage 7” of heart sounds.

What’s the music like? Perhaps not surprisingly the pulse of the music here tends towards the slow side, unfolding with an easy manner and a charming sub-set of friendly bleeps, pockets of ambient wide noise and consonant harmonies that perform subtle shapeshifting moves in the foreground.

They proceed with an incredibly relaxed manner, the listener immediately put at ease while they are taken into a colourful area of textures that ripple gradually or move in and out of focus, the musical light dappled and refracted as part of an ongoing process.

With all of the tracks over five minutes in length there is time for the listener to dive deep into each of the six sound worlds, with soft nuggets of rhythm prompting and nudging at each turn. Patina is a great example, the subtle percussion complemented by long, held notes and pockets of synthesizer activity that sits on the edge of dub music. Sandalwood is a little sharper in tone while Rails Overhead is relatively dark.

Does it all work? It does – but Null Point is definitely most effective as a continuous listen over 40 minutes, allowing the mind and aural responses to slow down in line with its workings.

Is it recommended? Yes. Null Point is not a dead end, as its title suggests – rather it is a place to go where listeners can feel safe from musical harm! Slower heart rates and lower blood pressure are a given as a result.

For fans of… Marconi Union, Ultramarine, Brian Eno, Ulrich Schnauss” – Arcana

“C’est un bel album d’ambient dub que nous livre là Wil Bolton après sa récente collaboration avec Ian Hawgood sur Floral Forms and Subsequent Interactions. Ici, il a composé des beats minimalistes, construits à partir de bruits sourds, de clics et de crépitements échantillonnés à partir d’un vieil enregistrement où l’on entend même les battements du coeur (Oneirographs). Il y a ajouté des séquences de synthétiseur modulaire  et des boucles de Mellotron et divers effets sonores. Le rendu est assez beau, rappelant certaines prods des années  90/2000, et invitant l’auditeur dans une sorte de bulle sonore très agréable, dans laquelle il se laissera promener au gré des inspirations du producteur anglais.” – Possible Musics

“Wil Bolton is an East London-based artist who’s been releasing textural ambient music for the past fifteen years. His latest album is Null Point, out on The Slow Music Movement. It continues Bolton’s focus on found sound, granularity, and deliberate melodic gradation; however, where much of his previous work has been less concerned with rhythmic elements, this record makes liberal use of organic percussive elements, apparently some of which were sampled from an old 7″ of sounds of the human heart. While these thuds, rumbles, and clanks are present throughout the album’s six songs, it would be inaccurate to describe this as a rhythmically focused record; it’s not. The foci in each song are without doubt the meandering and intersecting melodic lines, and the carefully carved sounds delivering those patterns. 

When the label sent me the record, it referenced Boards of Canada in its press release. That’s always a surefire way to get me to pay attention (I’m one of those who wakes up at least a couple times a month wondering if BoC will ever release again), but when I listened to Null Point, I didn’t hear the reference at first. But I was drawn in nonetheless, and after a few listens, I think I hear the connection. I found myself thinking about Null Point as what it might sound like if the brothers Sandison/Eoin got really into Norwegian Slow TV, or perhaps my personal favorite youtube channel, Kand Hayati (sometimes the only thing that can get my toddler to calm down). I suppose this is a particularly fitting reference, given the name of the label releasing Null Point, but I swear it’s really true. Some of Bolton’s synth patches feel like a shimmering suspended BoC line was taken and timestretched, then chopped, resampled, and reshaped into a pluck or a stab, and then sequenced into a delicate dulcet melody. But where there is often the presence of anxiety in the Edinburgh duo’s music, Bolton seems to have shed that while maintaining all of their penchant for nostalgia. Like if a gazing out the window on a rainy autumn morning was simply replaced by a summer afternoon nap in the backyard under a cherry tree. 

You can find the album for streaming all over, or for purchase on bandcamp (support the artist, do the latter).” – Palms Out Sound

“Innovative music is not a structured movement. With its mixed frequencies and fantasies of the future such makers demonstrate a sense of a marvelous particularity each time they enrich the living world with one of their works. Null Point (41:08) by Wil Bolton is an affecting release, in possession of a depth which its title will not betray. Its six iterations of exceptional intentional aural intrigue truly put the “mental” in the word experimental. With its soft periphery surrounding a firm core Bolton realizes a music where the center does not matter more than whatever is out at the edge. Thinking about the nature of aural experience over the derivations of sonic traditions he achieves something new – something more than the scantly schematic – and brings into being an elevated and elated Electronic Music. Ranging from the rounded and consonant to the brittle and bleak Bolton’s sound sources emerge in disguise. Building and shaping, his tracks breathe, bloom and sigh, then turn to unexpected textures and tones – leaving behind nothing other than a cloudy contemplation of complexity. From the vaporous, melodious rhythms and spacey ensemble pads, to its meanings at the fringes of perception this album conjures an uncommon condition of cool.The softer it falls, the longer we dwell upon it, the deeper it reaches into our listening minds. In the reluctant grey lightof pre-dawn, or among its subdued ghosts dancing to discreet beats amidst a pattering pulse Null Point thoroughly exults in just being present for its fleeting moments of life.” – Star’s End