A student of modern ambient music, Alex Ives’ work as Specimens has travelled the genre’s spectrum. He knows everything: from brash sonic landscapes to soft, elegant timbres, his albums serve as a history of the genre’s contradictions – its stillness and its disquiet, wrapped up together. His 2017 record Sculptures surveyed the dissonant textures of Ben Frost and Tim Hecker, while holding on to remnants of the genre’s more passive corners; new age percussion and piano loops played next to noise torrents in a frenzied conflict of interests. On In the Dust of Idols, the record he performed interpretations of at hcmf// 2018, Ives refined his sound, creating a deeply focused, fixed-stare album of foggy drones and lamenting melodies.
Ives is deeply immersed in experimental music: he runs First Terrace Recordings, a label whose output serves as an incidental reflection of what influences his own music. Experimental lounge jazz, harsh noise and traditional new age music feature, all of which can be found across a Specimens album. As both a musician and curator, Ives forges a unique aesthetic out of eclectic means, building on old sounds and textures with new ideas.