Tag: ambient

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Sam Prekop – The New Last

Sam Prekop, longtime vocalist for The Sea

Chicago’s Sam Prekop is a singer and guitarist in The Sea and Cake – a jazz-inflected indie band that have released 11 studio albums since 1994 – and also puts out his own, highly varied, solo material. The New Last is taken from his latest album, Comma, arguably his most immersive body of work to date: a collection of instrumental electronica that ranges from the meditative to neon-flecked psychedelia. The New Last itself is gorgeous: all brightly glimmering tones and warm pads that softly wrap themselves around you.

https://samprekop.bandcamp.com

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KMRU – Why Are You Here

I am hungover AF today so here’s 15 minutes of ambient loveliness to help gently usher in your weekend. That’s all you’re getting. I’m going back to bed.

https://kmru.bandcamp.com

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William Basinski – O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow

Like his best-known work, The Disintegration Loops, O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow is about decay, memory and death, and not since the release of those groundbreaking albums has the focus been quite so stark. It’s the first single from his new LP Lamentations due for release in November, and might just be the most sorrowful piece of ambient I’ve ever heard, with fragments of strings and operatic vocals consigned to the depths of the abyss against a relentless wail of churning feedback loops. “Captured and constructed from tape loops and studies from Basinski’s archives, Lamentations is over forty years of mournful sighs meticulously crafted into songs” heralds the press release. Roll on November…

https://williambasinski.bandcamp.com/

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Loscil – Coasts

I watched The Lighthouse last night, so the sound of rolling waves at the start of Coasts immediately caught my attention. But while the film is a claustrophobic, paranoid, hallucinatory nightmare (but also really good, honestly), Coasts – from Loscil’s most recent EP Faults, Coasts, Lines – is expansive and soothing: more akin to a glassy lake than a churning sea. It’s ambient at its most tranquil and conciliatory and is really rather wonderful.

https://loscil.bandcamp.com

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Quicksails – Melrose Move

Quicksails is the recording project of Chicago-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Billington, and Melrose Move is taken from his latest album, Blue Rise. Starting life as a relatively ominous, almost funereal three-note bassline, it quickly transforms into something celestial and expansive; like a fountain of glittering stars shooting upwards from the dank earth before gently fading into hazy-white oblivion.

https://hausumountain.bandcamp.com/album/blue-rise

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trayer tryon – new forever ft. Julie Byrne

new forever is the lead single from Hundred Waters producer and multi-instrumentalist trayer tryon’s forthcoming album of the same name, and it’s absolutely wonderful. Less restrained by traditional structures than much of his work with Hundred Waters, it drifts gently – at times recalling the crackling ambience of The Caretaker – with warped vocal textures complimenting beautifully shimmering piano lines.

https://www.instagram.com/trayert/

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Yo La Tengo – James gets up and watches mourning birds with Abraham (Wednesday)

Yo La Tengo’s latest release is the five-track ambient drone piece We Have Amnesia Sometimes, recorded with a single microphone placed in the middle of the trio. Not that you can necessarily tell that it’s been recorded in this relatively unorthodox way, although there is definitely an all-encompassing quality to the music here; guitars are gently twanged at random, or left to drift endlessly into meandering waves of static and reverb. James gets up… is probably the stand out, and certainly the dreamiest and most relaxing, but it’s worth committing yourself to the album’s half an hour or so running time, and becoming one with the majesty and awesomeness of the cosmos, dude.

https://yolatengo.com

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The Transcendence Orchestra – Hinge Caterpillar

I’m only two tracks into The Transcendence Orchestra’s new album Feeling The Spirit, and it’s already a pretty overwhelming experience. Sometimes ambient music can wash over you: enjoyable, but not necessarily something you’re paying much attention to. Hinge Caterpillar manages to be both deeply relaxing and compellingly intense: an experience that grips you throughout, albeit with a touch so delicate you feel as if you could be cast adrift at any moment.

https://thetranscendenceorchestra.bandcamp.com/

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ML Buch – I’m A Girl You Can Hold IRL

This is taken from Skinned, the new album from Danish artist ML Buch: an electro-pop-ambient hybrid that’s unpredictable, hugely creative and a highly recommended listen. For the majority of its fairly short running time I’m A Girl You Can Hold IRL is nothing more than a vocal and a gentle twanging synth line, before rich, poignant pads rush in for the final quarter, somehow bringing everything that’s come before into even sharper focus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6Dei4HSWdc

https://mlbuch.bandcamp.com

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Julianna Barwick – Oh, Memory feat. Mary Lattimore

Julianna Barwick's new album, Nepenthe, comes out August 20.

I’ve loved pretty much everything Julianna Barwick has done over the past decade, so waking up to a new album of hers today was a very welcome surprise. Healing Is A Miracle is everything I’d hoped it would be: immersive, soothing, emotional, fragile, beautiful. Oh, Memory is an early highlight, and further cements my yearning for live shows come back in some form really soon, as if I don’t have the opportunity to listen to this in a church or similarly reverential venue I’m going to be very disappointed.

https://juliannabarwick.com