Tag: ambient

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Music

caro♡ – drop in the ocean

I remember a time when the mere mention of PC Music could illicit conflicting moans – of either rapturous pleasure or abject despair – from people I had previously thought were fairly aligned on what they considered Good Music. What feels like decades later but what in reality is probably only a few years, a quite brilliant album from caro♡ (the lead singer of Planet 1999 which was PC Music’s first full band signee), has flown relatively under the radar, which is a shame as it’s a really joyful thing, with enough glossy cartoonish bounce to satisfy the PC purists, and enough genuinely thoughtful and subtle moments to stop anyone getting too angry about it. drop in the ocean is definitely one of the calmer moments, evoking Selected Ambient Works Volume II-era Aphex, albeit backed up with some dappled, shoegazey beats.

https://pcmusic.bandcamp.com​

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Music

Poulson Sq. – Kosmic Headroom

Poulson Sq. are Anthony Fiumara and Mathijs Leeuwis – a duo formed as a mutual love of ambient music; specifically creating rich sonic tapestries packed full of the kind of repeating patterns often found in nature. Their latest single is Kosmic Headroom which was created from a combination of pedal steel guitar, Buchla Music Easel, tapedecks, analog effects and field recordings, the resulting track being effortlessly beautiful, with subtle manipulations and variations echoing the fractal shifting of a twilight landscape.

https://www.instagram.com/poulson_sq

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Music

Ocoeur – Connections

The title track from French producer  Franck Zaragoza aka Ocoeur’s forthcoming album, Connections is warm, compelling and packs a real emotional wallop: a gorgeous slice of ambient IDM with shifting, skeletal beats and encompassing pads that slowly give way to a softly triumphant piano line. Ocoeur is a completely new artist to me, but I’ll be diving headlong into the LP when it drops tomorrow.

https://www.ocoeur-music.com/

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Music

Claire Bigley – Awaken The Deep

It’s Friday right, so really I should be posting something party-appropriate to soundtrack your #bignightout but I now live in Devon so instead here’s a short ambient piano track complete with birdsong: perfect for watching the sun go down over some rolling fields or gently lapping beachside waves.

https://www.instagram.com/endlessquest4me

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Music

Hannah Peel – Unheard Delia, Pt. 1

Unheard Delia was originally released as an exclusive vinyl with Electronic Sound alongside Peel’s cover feature back in March, but it landed on streaming platforms today so thought it was worth highlighting. It includes extracts from an interview with pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop artist Delia Derbyshire conducted by writer Jo Hutton in early 2000, around 18 months before Delia died, and consist of lovely, gentle washes of synth overlaid with Delia passionately talking about everything from her production techniques to how her music was often considered “too sophisticated for the BBC 2 audience”, and is completely mesmerising.

http://www.hannahpeel.com

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Music

Shirley Collins – At Break of Day

At 86 years of age, Shirley Collins is still creating music brimming with life, vibrancy and hope. Her new EP Crowlink includes spoken-word poetry, ambient, glistening new-age synths and deep, earthy folk, dragging seemingly ancient tales into the present and creating something deeply personal and intimate yet entirely relatable and accessible. Crowlink is a thing of timeless, transportive beauty, and deserves your immediate attention.

https://shirleycollins.com

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Music

Kat Kikta – Magic

Magic is the new single from producer, singer and songwriter Kat Kitka, an utterly engrossing, haunting beautiful piece of music that pretty much completely defies description (but here goes). Folk, spoken word, ambient and ethereal pop are are dissected and reassembled alongside hugely evocative field recordings, resulting in a five minute track unlike anything else I’ve heard this year. The Kate Bush vibes are strong with this, which isn’t something I say lightly. Highly recommended.

https://katkikta.bandcamp.com

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Music

Alessandro Cortini – CHIARASCURO

A longtime member of alt-rock band Nine Inch Nails, as a solo artist Alessandro Cortini has released something like a dozen or so albums over the last decade; electronic-based experiments in ambient, noise and occasionally straying into something that vaguely resembles techno. His latest LP SCURO CHIARO landed last week, and even though CHIAROSCURO came out as a single a few months back, I missed it at the time and it’s such a clear standout that I couldn’t not feature it. Building slowly from a base of celestial bleeps and hums to a gloriously intense finale, it’s the perfect embodiment of electronic music at its most cinematic.

https://cortini.bandcamp.com

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Music

Loscil – Lumina

Loscil has been making consistently brilliant, deeply atmospheric electronic music for two decades now, and over the course of 15 or so albums has established himself as a producer with a clear and precise vision. Lumina is taken from his latest album, Clara, which came out last week, and is a perfect example of his patient, haunting approach to production, with reassuringly warm, sweeping pads accompanied by a winding, bubbling synth line that both soothes and invigorates.

https://loscil.bandcamp.com/album/clara

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Music

Eager Atom – Ambient I

Eager Atom is the latest musical project from Dutch producer and composer Gydo Keijzer, and Ambient I is taken from his new album Extrastatecraft. It’s a powerfully cinematic slice of ambient that could just as easily soundtrack the most unsettlingly poignant moments of a lo-fi Adam Curtis’s documentary as it could the final, cathartic , “tears in the rain” scene of a multi-million dollar sci-fi epic. Both of which are compliments, just in case I lost you at “ambient”.

https://soundcloud.com/eageratom