DJ AMBIESSENCE

Paul Giblin started DJing in 1995 when his old university friend Steve Clarke formed the live electronic music project N-Tropic and suggested that Paul’s sprawling music collection provided the soundtrack to compliment the live music. As Paul’s original brief was to supply ambient atmospheres at the start of an evening, he coined the name ‘Ambiessence’. This reflected how his mixes would always contain ambient elements and because, as a made-up word, it gave him a unique DJ name – and one helpfully near the start of the alphabet for line-up lists!

Paul soon got into DJing big-time and his atmospheric openings morphed into later night dance mixes at gigs or ‘raves’ organised at venues such as The King’s Arms in Exeter, the now legendary Burston Inn and even Exeter Bus Station. The desire to promote more eclectic music then led to Paul and Steve founding the St David’s Ambience Society. as space in which to showcase ambient, electronic and experimental live acts and DJs. match. The opening Ambiessence set at the inaugural Ambience Society session combined music by seventies electronic acts such as Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze with classical Minimalism, the ambient end of dub and modern pioneers like The Orb, interspersed with spoken word extracts and Buddhist and Gregorian chants.

The first big DJ Ambiessence exposure came by opening for Banco de Gaia at Exeter Phoenix in a sold out gig the night after the new Arts Centre opened. Melodic trance was the order of the day, with floor-filling ‘Intelligent Dance Music’ (IDM) tracks mixed together into an intriguing soundscape which combined attention to detail with feet-friendly beats. Since then, Ambiessence has specialized in creating the right atmosphere to usher live bands onto stage, or in building stand-alone soundscapes. The genres which dominate his sets include: electronica (new and old), experimental, trance, psychedelia, prog rock, dub, reggae, techno, world and classic rock and pop when required.

A glance at some of Live acts he has opened for over the years indicates the musical territory Ambiessence can often be found occupying: Hawkwind, The Afro Celt Soundsystem, Nitin Sawney, The Steve Hillage Band, Gong, Talvin Singh, Jah Wobble, Ozric Tentacles, The Easy Star Allstars Dub Side of the Moon show, The Orb, Eat Static, System 7, Banco de Gaia, Misty in Roots, Transglobal Underground, Dub Colossus, Richard Barbieri, Acid Mothers Temple, Baka Beyond, Zion Train, African Head Charge, Damo Suzuki, Here and Now, Astralasia, and many more.

Stand-alone mixes have included providing ambient music interpretations of the visual art of Gustav Metzger (for the liquid crystal projections exhibition at Spacex Gallery) and Nigel Code (Rites of Passage), whilst his four-hour Millennium Eve party mix contained tracks from 1960 to 1999 all played in date order.

Ambiessence is also rather obsessed with Pink Floyd and every so often he presents an alternative Floyd mix: “It’s Floyd, Jim, but not as we know it.” in which Floyd remixes are blended with original content, as aired at the Exeter Summer Festival finale. Likewise, the Future Sound of Exeter radio show has featured many editions devoted to various aspects of Floydian Slippage, including rebuilding Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall from alternative sources – and so far over 30 hours of Floyd-related content has been lovingly aired.

At Kozfest he produces an annual soundscape from midnight to 2am on the Saturday night on the Judge Trev stage. The festival organiser lays down a different challenge every year and to date Kozfesters have been treated to two hours of: Gong, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Krautrock, the Canterbury scene and, last year, the music of the Steve Hillage Band. The 2022 challenge theme is still under wraps!