A very sad banger from Tomu DJ’s beautiful new album Half Moon Bay. That’s all I’ve got to say about this one: it’s a busy day over at TPW HQ.
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Tomu DJ – Spring of Life
Tag: ambient
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Pye Corner Audio – Does It Go Dark?
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Tewksbury – COP26 (Excerpt)
Taken from the Canadian ambient musician’s new album Hush Hush, COP26 is one of four pieces that comprise the LP, all of which were created by combining several 16th century choral arrangements that were then altered and spliced together using reel-to-reel machines, before being played live via an array of eight guitar amps. For fans of William Basinski, Stars of the Lid and generally being awestruck while thinking Big Thoughts.
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µ-Ziq – Uncle Daddy
Just listen to those sad chords! Makes me want to cry, in a good way, obviously. This is taken from Planet Mu founder Mike Paradinas’s new album under his µ-Ziq monkier which came out last week. Jungle meets ambient meets hardcore in the prettiest way imaginable.
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Harkin – Driving Down A Flight of Stairs
If you haven’t yet listened to Harkin’s new album Honeymoon Suite, please go and do so now as it’s properly great. There are highlights aplenty; the moody, synth-lead throb of opener Body Clock; the driving riffs and sublime payoff of Talk of the Town. But none are perhaps quite as impactful and perfectly formed as the epic final track Driving Down A Flight of Stairs. Sprawling across 10+ glorious minutes and accompanied by a brilliant film directed by Dejan Mrkic, it’s a breathtaking slice of cinematic ambient that sits among the most affecting pieces of music I’ve heard this year. Come for the hooks, stay for the final emotional wallop.
Press releases are usually at best informative and at worst a complete waste to everyone’s time. However the one for Mary Lattimore and Paul Sukeena’s new collaborative album West Kensington struck me as particularly well-penned, so here’s an excerpt that does a better job of evoking its strange and beautiful atmosphere better than I could.
It is shocking what your mind will choose to forget. Almost always it needs a tear, a clean dash, a straight passage into what you’ve already known. Looking back, West Kensington has achieved that very goal: creating a landscape for memory, an imprint of that horizon, suspended in the cosmos.
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Hinako Omori – Ocean
Apologies for the complete lack of posts: I’ve been away! In an actual different country! For the first time since 2019! And yes it was great, thanks so much for asking. Hopefully you’ve found other places to get your daily music fix, but if you’re still a bit wound up about it have a quick listen to this ridiculously beautiful track from Hinako Omori’s recent(ish) album a journey. And if you’re still angry, there’s not very much I can do for you.
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Skee Mask – MDP93
Late last month Skee Mask quietly popped out two EPs as part of Ilian Tape’s ISS series, one of which comprises four tracks of fiercely abrasive techno and the other – from which MDP93 is taken – eight tracks of gorgeous, beatless, drifting ambient: perhaps the most relaxing collection of music he’s ever put his name to. Honestly, if you’re feeling even mildly stressed or anxious – or even if you’re not – please put this on and go and look at the sky for a bit.
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Earthen Sea – Felt Absence
The latest album from New York artist Jacob Long recording as Earthen Sea, Ghost Poems spans ten tracks of lo-fi ambient and minimalist melodies created from a combination piano samples and field recordings. I’m usually draw to long, sprawling ambient, characterised by very slow progression and rich, warm pads a al Stars of The Lid. Here, tracks rarely break the four minute mark, and there’s a very defined rhythmic structure, but the sense of space created is nevertheless completely engrossing. I hadn’t paid attention to Earthen Sea before today, but I’m very glad he’s now on my radar.
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Nancy Mounir – Khafif Khafif
Egyptian composer Nancy Mounir is a part of the Cairo new wave of artists who are taking inspiration from historical music to inform their own modern productions. On Khafif Khafif – as with a lot her compositions – she layers her own microtonal, ambient arrangements over a buried 20th century Egyptian cut to pleasantly unsettling effect.
The Predatory Wasp 