The Predatory Wasp
Andrea’s last album Ritorno was one of my favourite releases of 2020, so it’s great to see him back on Ilian Tape for the follow up, Due In Color. Atmospheric breaks one again dominate, with perhaps just a little more ambient whimsey present than last time around. Lush In End (Drum Version) is one of the more energetic tracks, and it’s absolutely brilliant.
I’m sick for what feels like the third time this year already. Even typing is taking it out of me, so here’s a quick one for you that’s soothing my weary brain.
For an album created entirely from random samples sourced on YouTube, there’s an incredibly consistent atmosphere on Grant Chapman’s Indentations, so much so that posting one track here doesn’t really do it justice. Like most of the album, This Comfort is delicate, emotional and evocative, and lands in a very sweet spot between ‘traditional’ ambient music and spine-tingling ASMR.
Mike Paradinas just really loves making music. Not content with putting out two brilliant albums last year on his own Planet Mu label, he recently announced a new LP, 1977, that will land on the excellent Blamat in April. 4am is the lead single, and it’s a softly billowing delight.
This probably isn’t the kind of thing you want to listen to as you roll into the first weekend of February, but this collaboration between ambient experimental electronic titans Loscil and Lawrence English is just too good to ignore, sorry about that. This is taken from their new album Colours Of Air which is out today, with track titles tracks “named for the hue each piece suggests – from the gauzy levitational miasma of Yellow to the pulsing melancholic mirage of Violet to the seething twilit sandstorm of Magenta.” I don’t know about all that, but it’s inescapably excellent.
I realise this is in danger of turning into an exclusively ambient blog, but it’s January, and I’m convinced no-one really wants to listen to music with a discernible bpm, much less a beat, hook or chorus, so I’m sticking with it for now. Today’s dose of glassy ambience comes courtesy of The Album Leaf’s new single Breathe. Recorded in memory of close friends and family the artist has lost in recent years, the track reflects on the thoughts that may arise in those final, fleeting moments.
John Hayes and Maxy Dutcher unveil their new collaborative project Twinsleep with their meditative, atmospheric debut single Kin, with many of the tones on the song were crafted by sampling Dutcher’s vocal fed through a Yamaha VSS30 synthesizer. Deeply calming in the extreme; looking forward to the LP.
If you’re interested in under-the-radar ambient, this end of year list from Post Ambient Lux is worth checking out (although the actual best ambient album of the year by OHYUNG is weirdly missing, which does make me question their judgment just a little). Awe Kid’s ambient breakbeat LP Body Logic is one of my favourite finds on there so far, with the lush, shimmering pads and celestial synths of Atavistic Paths a real highlight.
A lot of posts this month are likely to be based on me scrolling through countless end of year lists and writing variations on “how the fuck did I miss this – it’s amazing!” Today, though, I do have something new for you, taken from Moby’s new ambient album released on 01 January, “made to help anxiety (my own, and hopefully yours, too)”. amb 23-14 is a sparse 9 minute piano piece, with a few gently billowing synths drifting in and out, and seems appropriate for the first post of the year.
He left it late, but for the second year in a row Traumprinz comes through with December music: 16 new, original tracks over the course of a 90 minute set. I already know that this will be one of the pieces of music I return to next year. Thumping, emotional ambient-leaning techno from the undisputed master.
The Predatory Wasp 