The Predatory Wasp
I’ve previously featured a Ben Frost remix of alva noto’s Uni Normal, which was fairly brutal, punishing techno. This is at the other end of the electronic spectrum entirely, and is about as fragile and tranquil as music gets, with poignant strings, gently pulsing bass and very little else.
Flawless ambient dub techno taken from Night Sea’s LP Still, which is in their words “the culmination of a two-year journey playing with the relationship between sound, repetition, and impermanence.” Couldn’t have put it better myself, so I’m not going to try. It’s out now on Silent Season, which is probably my favourite label for this kind of stuff, and if you like Manila I would highly recommend checking out their Campfire Stories series of mixes, as well as the rest of their catalogue.
LG_Amb is taken from Italian producer Andea’s debut album for Ilian Tape which explores various different electronic styles, from ambient and dubby techno to more visceral jungle/breakbeat cuts. LG_Amb sits somewhere in the middle of these: what starts as dreamy, shimmering ambient is quickly joined by clattering broken beats and eventually rich, warm pads. It’s really lovely: so lovely in fact that I do wish there had been a few tracks of a similar vibe on the album. There are a few that sound a little overproduced and clinical as a result, whereas this melts out of the speakers, fully formed and organic.
Ingrid starts off with nothing more than a solo, softly reverbed cello, which wanders round a little before locking into a single repeated refrain. Over the course of the next 20 minutes it’s slowly joined by various electronic textures, gradually dissolving into a cacophony of static before Lewis strips everything away again until only the stark, fragile strings remain. It’s stunning, and Lewis’s ability to wring this amount of tension and emotion from a single, simple loop is really quite breathtaking.
Brooding ambient drone from one of the very best in the business. Like a lot of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s work, this is pretty bleak, but compellingly – and often overwhelmingly – so, with enough tiny rays of sunlight breaking through the clouds to keep you coming back for more. This is on his new album Peripeteia which came out this week on Dais Records, and includes a continuous mix of all the album tracks if you really want to burrow into the gloom.
DJ Healer (aka Traumprinz, DJ Metatron and various others) just posted three new mixes comprised of 100% new and unreleased material, and I am really very excited about this. I haven’t even started on the other two, but Ins Herz der Dine Lauschen [Listen to the heart of things] is delicate, melancholy, sun-bleached ambient and electronica, and jesus christ it’s fucking amazing. Check his Soundcloud page for the other two. What a time to be alive.
EDIT: I literally just cried listening to this. Actual tears.
Rasite is the final track on Vladislav Delay’s album Rakka which came out in February this year. A few brief digressions into fairly gentle ambient aside, it’s a incredibly intense LP packed full of white noise, industrial screeches and thunderous low-end. Rasite is probably the most full-on track on here: a punishing and cathartic end to a visceral listening experience. Happy Friday!
Brutally stark ambient from Brighton’s Ital Tek that comes with a fantastic music video, vaguely reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s headscrambling visuals for T69 Collapse, but significantly calmer. Leaving The Grid is eerie and arrestingly beautiful and is out now on Planet Mu.
Michigan duo Windy Weber & Carl Hultgren have been making incredible, often very delicate, atmospheric ambient for close to thirty years, and this is one of the best things I’ve heard from them. Taken from their new album Allegiance and Conviction: it’s absolutely magnificent.
Godfather of ambient Brian Eno is back with his brother Roger on new album Mixing Colours, by turns a pleasantly soothingly and deeply unsettling listening experience. Quicksilver is definitely a highlight, but you really need to listen to the album to fully appreciate it.
The Predatory Wasp 