Reviews
Add up the recordings with which Ian Hawgood, Porya Hatami, and David Newman have been involved as solo artists and collaborators and the number would no doubt stagger. The three channel their many years as ambient producers into the joint project Monogoto and their third chapter in the Partial Deletion of Everything series after earlier volumes appeared on 12k and Polar Seas Recordings in 2020 and 2022. The concept driving the series has to do with creation, change, and loss, and specifically on impermanence and the way even the most enduring phenomena changes across time. Consistent with the theme, the two tracks on volume three are long-form, the first weighing in at twenty-eight minutes and the second thirteen; such temporal expense affords ample space for the music to evolve and mutate, the project concept again referenced and reinforced.
Entering slowly and methodically, “Marine Snow (deletion 23)” settles quickly into a softly swirling dronescape, its rise and fall akin to an organism's breathing. Percussive flourishes sweep across the gently glowing base as the thrumming mass pulls the listener in. As the material patiently unfurls and its elements transform, the three opt for a peaceful presentation as opposed to one designed to fray nerves. Occasionally an identifiable sound surfaces within the dense stream, something like the strum of an electric guitar or the resonant plunk of a Tibetan singing bowl. Nature sounds fold their way into the overall fabric too, such that hints of wind rustle and water flow emerge as part of the sound mass. Halfway through, a noticeable transformation occurs when flickering percussive accents and micro-electronic effects flood the aural space and nudge the work in a different direction. The music builds again, with this time bird calls adding an evocative association to bolster the music's transporting effect and acoustic guitar shadings introducing a pastoral-folk dimension. Half the length of “Marine Snow (deletion 23),” “Virga (deletion 84)” emerges in a cloud of electronic haze and static from which celestial tones and washes radiate. Gradually piano notes appear to illuminate the crackling foundation, with swooping wails and bird chirps following fast behind. The piece resolves prettily when the piano component advances to the forefront to ease the material out on an uplifting wave.
Gear details aren't clarified, but rest assured the familiar arsenal of ambient production-related instruments, devices, and field recordings were used. Production details are scant too, but it's safe to presume the trio passed files back and forth to shape the material into its finished form (with Hatami based in Iran and Hawgood and Newman the United Kingdom the approach makes sense). Mastering was done by Home Normal's Hawgood, who brings his customary nuance and sensitivity to the task, and admirers of the earlier instalments will no doubt judge this latest one to be as satisfying.
Monogoto is the ambient music trio formed by David Newman (also known as Autistici), Porya Hatami, and Ian Hawgood. Previous editions of the Partial Deletion Of Everything series were released in 2020 (on 12k) and 2022 (on Polar Seas Recordings). This third volume finds its home on Home Normal, the label curated by Ian Hawgood.
When I read a title like this, I prepare for some harsh, noisy sounds, because ‘destruction’ is usually not very quiet. But there’s no need for this on this album, because the two long tracks – Marine Snow (Deletion 23) and Virgo (Deletion 84) – are comfortably calm soundscapes in the best ambient tradition.
For the concept of ‘Partial Deletion’, we have to go back to the liner notes for Vol. 1: this is a series of works “based on the concept of creation, change, and loss. The Partial Deletion of Everything series focuses on impermanent objects and their placement within time. Even something as vast and powerful as the ocean was once not here. The Work chronicles the impact of beautiful moments in time and documents how they change, disintegrate, and fade. […] As an artist collective, we are pleased the music is at once exquisitely sad and uplifting.”
‘Everything is impermanent, so enjoy it while you can’ – is what this music seems to tell us. If the goal is to ‘delete everything (partially)’, I guess this will probably not be the last of the series.
There’s probably more uplifting sadness where this came from…
Imagine you’re slowly erasing a memory, but instead of forgetting it, you’re folding it into something softer. That’s the feeling you get with "Partial Deletion of Everything Vol. 3", the latest installment in Monogoto’s quiet and beautiful act of vanishing.
The trio of David Newman, Porya Hatami, and Ian Hawgood - each a well-seasoned ambient artisan in their own right - has returned with the same devotion to gentle disintegration that characterized the previous volumes released on 12k and Polar Seas. But this time, hosted by Hawgood’s own Home Normal label, the deletion feels more intimate, more intentional - like cleaning your mental hard drive while sipping tea in the rain.
The record contains only two long-form pieces: "Marine Snow (deletion 23)" and "Virga (deletion 84)". Titles that sound like redacted weather reports from a lost civilization. But don’t be fooled by their minimalism. Each track is a dense and delicate microcosm, filled with frequencies that quiver like moth wings and melodies that drift in and out like memories from childhood - half-real, half-daydream.
"Marine Snow" opens like a transmission from deep water. Not metaphorically - literally. You feel submerged. And yet there’s light, refracted and liquid. It’s hard to tell if what you’re hearing is guitar, piano, field recording, or a slowly disintegrating tape loop of your own heartbeat. There are whispers of wind, distant hums, and textures so thin you could sew them into silk. Time does not pass in this track; it breathes.
"Virga", meanwhile, is the sound of rain that never hits the ground - evaporating before arrival. It’s shorter but no less immersive, and it unfolds with the kind of restraint that only three sonic minimalists who have nothing to prove can afford. It’s music that trusts your ears to do the wandering.
The “partial deletion” of the title is not just a poetic gesture - it’s a practice. Each volume in the series seems to engage with loss not as tragedy but as tender necessity. Noise is embraced, not polished away. Sound is treated like a sculpture: chiseled, worn, and occasionally cracked on purpose. There’s even humor in this erasure - a kind of monkish playfulness. It’s like watching a sand mandala being swept away in ultra-slow motion by a breeze made of reel-to-reel hiss.
But don’t mistake quiet for apathy. The emotional core of "Vol. 3" is very much intact - it's just buried under snowdrifts of texture and ghostly melody. Like grief after a decade: no longer sharp, but woven into your bones.
And really, what a rare gift this is. In a world of maximalism, Monogoto has chosen disappearance as its aesthetic. But this isn't the kind of vanishing that leaves you empty. It's the kind that makes space - for reflection, for breath, for the tiniest details to feel monumental.
Put simply: this is music for when the lights are low, the mind is heavy, and the world outside is just a bit too loud. Or, to put it another way - this is what deletion sounds like when done with love.
