George D. Stanciulescu is a Romanian composer, sound designer, and producer who has worked under the monikers Ad Ombra, LeVant, and BLYPKEN. In addition to his growing body of audio work, Stanciulescu holds a Ph.D. in the philosophy of digital music and new media with the book version of his doctoral thesis Postmodern and Digimodern Music: Philosophical Perspectives published in 2014 by Editura Muzical?. Using issues related to digital media and computer music to pose questions like “What is real,” his metaphysical and phenomenological explorations have encompassed not only the theoretical but also a distinctive music practice that finds him on the cutting edge of sound design.
In 2005, Stanciulescu launched his neo-classical/ambient/avant-garde ensemble Ad Ombra, with the project releasing a trilogy of CDs via the Polish label Rage in Eden Records: 2008’s Rites of Genesis, 2009’s Magna Charta Illusorum, and 2011’s Almost Eternity. Following that, the musician turned his attention in a more electro-dance oriented direction with the project LeVant. Under that moniker he put out 2010’s Beyond the Masque of Eden on the Greek label Dead Scarlet Records, 2014’s Knock, Knock, Ginger, as well as 2016’s Tone Skin and 2017’s UnFinetude–both on the Swedish label The Sublunar Society.
Continuing to evolve musically, in 2017 Stanciulescu launched the experimental electronic music project BLYPKEN. Dedicated to exploring a post-dance sound the musician has dubbed “neurowave,” BLYPKEN’s work includes the audiovisual performance The Fetishamanic Maze, the EPs 0102: Transcend/Transfigure (The Sublunar Society), as well as Hylemorph (#Feelings). Currently, BLYPKEN is readying a new work entitled Beyondaries set for release this Fall on The Sublunar Society, and he recently made our first listen in on the upcoming album, the 9-minute track “Purity Nemesis,” available for streaming via YouTube.
Describing the track as an “account of alienation and self-zeroing mutations,” Stanciulescu continues to push his musical production into increasingly difficult to categorize terrain. Employing a sequenced style of complexly textured patterns that continually compete for one’s attention, “Purity Nemesis” is a hypernoiac suite of sound that collides together various electronic genres like ambient, industrial, and techno. The result is a kind of information overload that eventually destabilizes normal modes of apprehension. Instead, one is forced to surrender any easy attempts at categorization in favor of a deeper listening.
