Don and Roel Funcken (the duo that make up Funckarma) have quietly become one of the most prolific IDM/electronic duos of the past decade, releasing dozens of albums and 12"s under a dozen names (Quench probably being the most well known besides Funckarma) on myriad labels (n5MD, Couchblip, Neo Ouija, Sublight, Ad Noiseam, Sending Orbs, etc), running the gamut from glitch to hip-hop to dub to dubstep. Being released almost simultaneously with the more dubstep-heavy "Vell Vagranz" on n5MD is "Psar Dymog", their first entirely ambient album. While the album is entirely beatless, there's plenty of rhythmic bass pulsations, and the release seems a bit more "busy" than you might expect of an ambient disc; some of it feels almost as if they just took some of their normal tracks and just removed the beats. Other times it feels more cinematic, with string synth sounds and crescendos. "Bee Zaine" takes a synth line reminiscent of '70s Tangerine Dream and cuts it up so that it gradually sounds a bit fractured at the
end of the track's 6 minutes. The album also takes notable influence from '90s ambient as well, standing in the shadow of (but never eclipsing) the most out-there moments of FSOL and The Orb.

In a way, this album sort of feels like a warped alternate-universe cousin of Kompakt's "Pop Ambient" albums. The songs here are mostly around 3-5 minutes long, and seem fully composed (i.e. not just formless droning for 30 minutes at a time), but they tend to hint towards the darker, more experimental side of the genre instead of focusing on chill-out room bliss. In any case, a decent exploration of ambient music from artists more experienced with beatmaking. 7/10 -- Paul Simpson (27 May, 2009)