Shimmerglisten

Shimmerglisten Follow me on Bandcamp: https://shimmerglisten.bandcamp.com/follow_me

A four-track tape recorder, a drum machine, a cheap synth, and a love of underground electronica launched Tim Rabjohns – aka shimmerglisten – on his lifetime’s mission to harness leftfield sounds and hypnotic music.

16/06/2026

Behind the sound, Tuesday…

There’s a moment in the studio when a synth pad or a treated guitar texture does something unexpected, something beautiful. I recently had delivery of my by - to further push my sound

As I attempt to demonstrate here - it’s part vocoder, part recorder. You record in snippets of sound, manipulate them in the recoder and then that manipulated sound modulates incoming signal what ever that might be...

It has lots of memory slots so you can build up a library of vocoder type sounds and then play whatever you want into it - guitar, voice, synth. Obviously this gives a lot of options.

I’ve made a part 1 and part 2 to try and explain. It sounds unlike anything I’ve tried before, and added with delays and reverbs sounds even cooler..

I’ll try it with some more acoustic instruments as the days go on..I have friends who can play Harp, French horn, Double bass, Flute etc.

The Recoder has only just been released - it’s not in the shops - you had to pay for it upfront without really knowing what it was... I would have loved to have tried on my other albums Sound Of Shadows or Equanimity - the organic woven into the synthetic. Be sure that it will appear on some new releases :)

All my work is on Bandcamp If you haven’t listened yet.

Let me know if you have questions...

I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be doing another lying down concert of my ambient piece Equanimity with harpist Vic ...
08/06/2026

I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be doing another lying down concert of my ambient piece Equanimity with harpist Vic Cooper - - on 28th June in a beautiful roundhouse in Stanmer park near Brighton - there will also be some yoga hammocks (as demoed here) - the final vid shows another lying down concert in the same location - it’s truly magical! Thanks to for hosting us💚 it’s free to attend, but we are raising money for this wonderful project- so we’ll be asking for donations at the end.

02/06/2026

I had a very special time in Berlin after so many years, so much good music has come out of here for me This short reel is a bit more abstract, and captures more the mood than all the sights - so many galleries, wide pavements, lots of trees and welcoming people - lots of the good stuff :) Have you got any Berlin memories..?

May has been an experiment.Five challenges. Five ways of working that felt new, vulnerable, and necessary. Sound from co...
30/05/2026

May has been an experiment.

Five challenges. Five ways of working that felt new, vulnerable, and necessary. Sound from colour. Reverse engineering. One note becoming a world. Nature's rhythm translated. Field recordings transformed.

Each one asked something different of me, and of you. Your responses, your guesses, your curiosity, it all mattered. It reminded me why shimmerglisten exists: not just to create, but to connect. To invite you into the process, into the mystery.

I learned that showing the work doesn't diminish it. If anything, it deepens the conversation. The more I share, the more I understand what shimmerglisten is becoming.

So what's next?

I'm not entirely sure yet. But I know this: the experiments continue. The connection to nature deepens. The sounds evolve. And you'll be part of it.

Thank you for being here. For listening. For wondering alongside me.

Let's see where June takes us.

In the quiet hours, deep listening becomes possible.Not background music. Not something to fill the silence. But intenti...
27/05/2026

In the quiet hours, deep listening becomes possible.

Not background music. Not something to fill the silence. But intentional immersion, a ritual that creates space to breathe, to feel, to simply be.

This is where shimmerglisten lives. In those moments when you choose to stop, to put on headphones at dawn, to light a candle and drop the needle on vinyl, to lie down and let the sound wash over you.

Yutori. The Japanese practice of leaving space and time to breathe, to not rush life. That's what these listening rituals offer.

Here are some ways to create your own sanctuary:

Morning stillness: Headphones, a warm drink, and shimmerglisten before the day begins. Let the music set the tone.

Candlelight sessions: Evening, low light, vinyl or high-quality streaming. Make it tactile. Make it intentional.

Lying down listening: Sound bath style. Close your eyes, let go of doing, just receive.

Nature pairing: Take shimmerglisten outside. Headphones in the woods, by water, under open sky. Let the music and the natural world speak to each other.

The music is here. The space is yours to create.

How do you listen?

26/05/2026

Challenge 2: One Minute, One Note

How many different worlds can one note contain?

I set a timer. One minute. One note. And then I layered textures with pedals to manipulate and transform it.

What starts as a single sound becomes something else entirely. A shimmer. A shadow - something new…

This is what shimmerglisten does, distilled to its essence: taking something simple and revealing the universes hidden inside it. Guitar. Effects. Time. Patience.

Watch the process. Hear the transformation.

Then tell me: how many worlds did you hear and would it have sounded better if I’d stopped before the end..? Thanks to .us and for making my life better 🙏😘

Challenge 5: Field Recording Transformation.I went outside with a recorder and captured something from the natural world...
23/05/2026

Challenge 5: Field Recording Transformation.

I went outside with a recorder and captured something from the natural world. Birds, water, wind, something alive and unprocessed.

Then I brought it back to the studio and let it become something else entirely.

What you're hearing now is that field recording, transformed. Stretched, layered, woven into the fabric of a composition. It's no longer just a sound from nature, it's a musical element. Part of the shimmerglisten world.

But here's the question: can you guess what the original sound was before I transformed it?

This is where shimmerglisten lives, in that space between the organic and the manipulated. Nature provides the raw material. I provide the transformation. Together, we create something that feels both familiar and unknowable.

Listen closely. What do you hear beneath the layers?

13/05/2026

Here’s a challenge for you.

I’ve taken a sound, run it through my pedalboard, layered it, twisted it, stretched it until it became something else entirely. Something cinematic and unrecognisable.

But what sound did I start out with?

Listen carefully. What do you think the original source was, before all the effects and manipulation? A voice? A synth? see if you can guess before the end of the reel.

This is a microcosm of how I work. Extreme manipulation and sound design. Textures that transport listeners to other worlds.

What do you hear?

12/05/2026

Here’s a challenge for you.

I’ve taken a sound, run it through my pedalboard, layered it, twisted it, stretched it until it became something else entirely. Something cinematic. Something unrecognisable.

But what was it before?

Listen carefully. What do you think the original source was, before all the effects and manipulation? A voice? A synth? Take a guess in the comments.

Here, I reveal the process in reverse - the pedals, the layers. Did you guess correctly ..?

This is how shimmerglisten works. Extreme manipulation. Textures that transport. Sounds that become worlds.

What do you hear?

music

May begins.There's something about this time of year that shifts the way I work. The light changes. The air feels differ...
07/05/2026

May begins.

There's something about this time of year that shifts the way I work. The light changes. The air feels different. And the sounds I'm drawn to start to reflect that, whether I intend them to or not.

shimmerglisten's compositional style is hypnotic by design. I build layers slowly, letting each texture breathe before adding the next. Guitars are treated until they're unrecognisable, transformed through effects pedals and manipulation into something cinematic, something that feels like it belongs to another world.

But it's not random. Every sound has a purpose. Every layer is placed with intention. The goal is immersion, a sonic space you can step into and get lost in, like a film soundtrack for a story that doesn't exist yet.

This month, I'm experimenting more, bringing you closer to the process. Showing you what happens behind the sound. It feels vulnerable, but it also feels necessary.

Because this music isn't meant to be distant. It's meant to be felt, questioned, explored.

Welcome to May. Let's see where the sound takes us.

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Lewes

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