Tag: ambient

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Warmth, Andrew Tasselmyer – Walls

If like me you’re a relative newcomer to Agustín Mena’s music as Warmth, you’re in for a very relaxing few days to say the least. Mena has a back catalogue spanning close to 30 albums, pretty much all of them delving into the kind of super-chilled, atmospheric, unoppressive ambient I absolutely love. Even just having a quick scan of the cover artwork of his previous releases genuinely makes me feel like life is good and any issues I’m currently dealing with with ultimately be overcome. Walls is taken from his new album Pale Sun: more of this kind of thing, please.

https://archivesdubmusic.bandcamp.com/album/pale-sun

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Ekin Fil – Being Held

There’s something uniquely joyful about hearing an artist’s work for the first time, loving it, and then discovering they have an extensive back catalogue in which you’re destined to completely lose yourself for some time to come. Before this morning I had never heard of Turkish musician Ekin Fil, and now I am completely obsessed. Variously described as “drone-folk” (amazing) and “Grouper-adjacent” (reductive, but fairly accurate), her latest album Feelings is absolutely stunning, and Being Held is just sublime, ominous throughout until the merest fragment of distant vocal lets you know that everything’s going to be ok.

https://ekinfil.bandcamp.com

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Neil Foster – Trawalua

Neil Foster continues to establish himself as one of my favourite new musical discoveries: at least, new to me, as the ambient-focussed Irish composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has been putting music out for a few years now. Trawalua – named after, I’m assuming, the dramatic shores of Trawalua Strand – is warm and expansive, and does that thing of sitting somewhere between hope and deep melancholy that I’m especially drawn to.

https://neilfoster.bandcamp.com

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claire rousay, more eaze – same

claire rousay’s 2021 album a softer focus was one I regularly returned to throughout the year, usually first thing in the morning when it’s gentle melodies and evocative field recordings would make me feel infinitely better about whatever mundane task I was faced with. On same she’s teamed up with more eaze for something altogether more jarring, but no less brilliant, with the fizzing intensity of its opening few bars quickly fading to reveal a PC Music-esque core of saturated vocals and naive, plunky melodies. Part hyper-pop excess and part ambient understatement, it’s a combination that probably shouldn’t work, but absolutely does.

https://clairerousay.com

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Neil Foster – Dawn River

A theme of: Very Chilled Music Indeed seems to be emerging on the blog this week, which perhaps reflects my mindset of trying to wind down to such an extend that by Christmas I may need assistance simply getting out a chair. And it doesn’t come much more relaxed that this gorgeously atmospheric slice of ambient from Belfast-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Neil Foster. Created using analog arpeggiators, live vocals, delayed, layered pianos and his own field recordings, it is, in a word, lush.

https://neilfoster.bandcamp.com

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Jake Muir – Tonic

Ilian Tape really are in a league of their own. Regardless of which particular branch of electronic music they’re currently championing – usually several simultaneously – it’s pretty much guaranteed to be brilliant, and Jake Muir’s new album Mana is no exception. Tonic – the lead track – is ambient techno at its finest, beatless save a subterranean kick that echoes, ominously, in the background, grounding what is otherwise a freewheeling soundscape of restlessly twitching synths and shimmering celestial pads.

EDIT: Jake just pointed out to me that the entire album is actually composed of samples, without a synth in sight. Shows how attuned my ear is to electronic music after nearly four decades obsessive listening.

https://iliantape.bandcamp.com/album/itlp10-mana

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Damiana – Sunken Lupine

After an exhaustive (10 minute) search online there’s nothing I can tell you about Damiana I’m afraid, other than their latest release Vines was released on a clear vinyl limited to 100 copies which has now sold out. Too late suckers! This came out back in May but – 100 clear vinyl fanatics aside – seems to have flown largely under the radar, which is a shame as it’s really beautiful. Think Enya minus the hooks, with a little shake of Engima(!), combined with a dollop of mid 90s ambient trance – Chicane, or someone similar. Sounds fucking hideous right!? Well it’s not, I promise.

https://hausumountain.bandcamp.com/track/sunken-lupine

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Suzanne Ciani – Morning Spring

There’s something overwhelmingly tangible about the trickling synth lines that dominate Suzanne Ciani’s new single, as if you could reach into your speakers and feel them drop, delicately and unpredictably upon your outstretched fingers. This, along with another, equally brilliant track from Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, are the lead singles from a forthcoming 30-track ambient compilation that’s been pulled together by Coldcut and features contributions from Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sigur Rós, Skee Mask, Helena Hauff and loads more which on paper at least, looks like it’s going to be rather magnificent. You can check out the full tracklist at the Bandcamp link, below, and bask in the glory of Morning Spring while you do.

https://coldcut.bandcamp.com/album/0

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LEHNBERG – Junjamin Jaganepa

I honestly struggle to write about drone tracks in any meaningful way other than variations of “this is overwhelmingly beautiful/dark/powerful”, and the same goes for this brilliant 8 minute piece from Swedish composer LEHNBERG, so just listen to it and let it completely take you away from whatever mundane task you’re likely caught up in.

https://www.davidlehnberg.com

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irini – lost in dreams

Traumprinz is back, with a new alias, and another epic 3 hour drop of music. lost in dreams is the latest collection from the anonymous producer and follows last year’s double DJ Metatron / The Phantasy release, which, even though there were unquestionably some gems in there, I didn’t rate quite as highly as most of their previous work. lost is dreams is an absolute masterpiece though, reminiscent of his dj healer set from a few years back. It is truly remarkable that someone this talented has completely removed their ‘self’ from their art, and delivers such an insane amount of incredible music without ever feeling the need to revel in the glory that would inevitably come from unmasking themselves. Long may it continue.

https://soundcloud.com/planet-uterus