I don’t even know what this is really and I can’t find anything about it online other than that’s it a project of Luke Wyatt and Jessi Long, but it’s incredible.
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Her Blur – People Of The Red Blur
Tag: ambient
The accompanying PR text for Joanne Roberson’s new album simply reads: “Blurrr was written in between painting sessions and also whilst raising a child”, which is appropriate for an album of such understated brilliance. Mainly comprised of Robertson’s mournful guitar and heartbreaking, spectral vocal, there are several collaborations with Oliver Coates – perhaps best know for his devastating score for the film Aftersun – including Always Were, which is just ludicrously good.
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Danny L Harle, Torus – Love Me Back
Danny L Harle is a man of many talents; from working with Charli XCX and Caroline Polachek to producing perhaps of the greatest modern odes to hardcore to his latest project Starlight Divergence a haunting ambient LP producer in collaboration with Dutch producer Torus. Years ago when I worked at a house music record label in London, people lol’d at me constantly for my love of trance. Well who’s laughing now, you pricks?? Trance is back baby; in myriad, evocative, interesting forms, and you’re saying the poster boy for house is this guy?
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XENIA REAPER – halo°°°
XENIA REAPER lands on Berlin’s Oscilla Sound with seven deft cuts, gently fusing the outer realms of spectral ambience and delicate breaks.
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ØXN – Cruel Mother (Ben Frost Remix)
The bones of ØXN’s folk-horror lament are still visible in this expansive remix – Radie Peat’s (also of Lankum) voice remains spectral and clear – but Frost drags the track into darker terrain, stretching and fraying its edges until it feels less like a song and more like a summoning.
Purelink embrace liquidity on their second album Faith, washing live instrumentation and exposed vocals over their patented cascade of dubbed ambience and ebbing rhythmic experimentation. With a vocal appearance from Loraine James, Rookie stands out even amongst all the other floaty excellence, her voice floating like smoke over pattering rhythms and airy synths
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Maiya Blaney – And
Maiya Blaney describes her second album A Room With A Door That Closes as “a love letter to her blue,” an emotional state that she defines as “a kinetic, intense, and dark energy that needs to be expressed as soon as it is felt.” The eleven songs on the album span radioactive kiss offs, sorrowful meditations on yearning, and gossamer reveries about self image, with the stand-out And moving through pitch-shifted drone, majestic strings and soft guitar over the course of its 6+ minutes.
https://maiyablaney.bandcamp.com/album/a-room-with-a-door-that-closes
In the last few years, 36 has become one of my favourite artists, although I became a fan after he started his Statis Sounds… series with zakè, so don’t feel like I’ve been a part of that particular journey. Stasis Sounds For Long-Distance Space Travel III is the final part of the trilogy, made up of two long pieces: “Final Approach” and “Blue New World.”
As with the first two volumes, it’s cinematic in scope and carefully paced, built around slow-moving drones, soft static, and layered synth work. “Final Approach” includes some striking use of low-end and piano, while “Blue New World” leans into heavier, darker textures, and there’s even a nod to doom and drone influences in places, though still within the ambient framework. It’s an immersive final chapter to the series.
https://3six.bandcamp.com/album/stasis-sounds-for-long-distance-space-travel-iii
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Romance – End Titles
Romance’s latest album, Love Is Colder Than Death, is perhaps their bleakest to date. From the ghostly, pitched down vocals on opener Too Much Love to End Titles, the final (and most striking) track, the album is drenched in not just melancholy, but misery. And I love it. End Titles shares much of its DNA with The Caretaker’s ballroom deconstructions, but without dropping entirely into despair – although it does get pretty close. Majestically moody stuff.
https://youmustrememberthis.bandcamp.com/album/love-is-colder-than-death
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Not Marshall – UNKNOWN PRODIGY
Pretty sure I write a variation on this every time I post a Not Marshall track, but it is staggering they don’t get more attention. At time of write they have one (!) follower on Soundcloud and get 56 monthly listeners on Spotify. And I don’t think they even have a Bandcamp account. A ludicrous state of affairs. Their latest LP ELLIX is another masterclass in icy ambient and drone, even swerving into more trancey textures a la 36 and Lee Gamble. Should be massive, never will be 😦
The Predatory Wasp 