My picks of new album and EP releases from the zone without borders. Boozoo Bajou, Castlebed, Gold Lounge, Lorenzo Montana, Iasos, Healing Sound Project, Bålsam, Biome, One Million Eyes, Cofaxx, Nigel Mullaney, Jacob David. Beats & groove Boozoo Bajou ‘Lambique EP’ (Apollo) Germany’s exotic lounge maestros Boozoo Bajou are back after a long absence with […]
WORRIEDABOUTSATAN Time Lapse (n5MD) Once a duo and now the solo project of British musician Gavin Miller, Worriedaboutsatan albums have always seemed to be about fusing moody rock sounds with the synthetic DNA of electronic dance music. On that count alone, the atmospheric and sometimes melancholic Time Lapse is a triumph. His simple, exploratory electric […]
WOOB Suite 59201/Lost Metropolis (Bigamoebasounds) Hypersleep 10 (Bigamoebasounds) Cyberpunk and dystopian science fiction loom large in much of the recent work of British composer Paul Frankland aka Woob. At the quiet end of the spectrum stands the fictional Lost Metropolis Hotel, the thematic core of his album Suite 59201, which I should note has since […]
VIRGO Landform Code (1998, reissued on Fantasy Enhancing) Trust Lee Norris to unearth and reissue on his label a lost ambient techno gem like this one. He was there back in the 90’s, after all, making his own music as Metamatics. The magnificent Landform Code by Japanese artist Virgo fits right in with the early […]
TRANSLIPPERS Transparency (Cosmicleaf) Balearic chillout fans take note: this is music of the sun done right – by a guy from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Multi-instrumentalist Arthur Mustafin aka Translippers has appeared on these pages before, with his album Cycling To The Sun named one of AMG’s Best Albums of 2018. Transparency captures again all the […]
VARIOUS ARTISTS Ambient Layers (7K) String Layers (7K) Vector Fields Vol. 1 (Music Company) Sustain Series vol. 1 (Ambientologist) Pop Ambient 2021 (Kompakt) Velvet Desert Music vol. 2 (Kompakt) Maui Chill vol. 2 (Waveform) Portals (Behind The Sky Music) Berlin’s long-running dance/lounge/electronica label K7 recently launched its 7K imprint for modern classical sounds, and 2020 […]
TOM MOORE & ARCHIE MOSS Spectres (tommoorearchiemoss.com) Englishmen Tom Moore (viola, electronics) and Archie Moss (accordion, electronics) turn folk music on its head and back again on Spectres, one of the most thrillingly original instrumental albums I’ve heard in quite a while. The pair are both steeped in traditional English folk music, but there is […]
STEVE ROACH Tomorrow (Behind The Sky/Projekt) Fans of e-music pioneer Steve Roach’s more energetic electronica like the excellent Skeleton Keys (2015) and Spiral Revelation (2017) will find plenty to love on Tomorrow. The difference is that, with just a few clever tweaks, he’s subtly re-angled the propulsive sequenced sounds of his analog modular synths from […]
STEVE GOOD Nothing Is Ever Created Or Destroyed (Bandcamp) Fans of ambient dance music might remember an early Steve Good album under his downtempo beats alias Puff Dragon, a singular exotic gem known as Sazanami (2005) which was released on the Tokyo-based Dakini Records. After a long break from releasing, Steve has recently reappeared and […]
SPIRITUALS For Those You Love part II (Doumen Records) While music is just one outlet for American graphic artist, sound designer and composer Tyler Tadlock aka Spirituals, this exceptional EP/mini-album is no casual affair. Using cycling synth phrases, pensive piano figures, rich droning strings and found sounds, his instrumental music is fashioned with a remarkably […]
SLOW DANCING SOCIETY The Disappearing Collective Vol. 1 (Past Inside The Present) On The Disappearing Collective Vol. 1 the American composer Drew Sullivan aka Slow Dancing Society moves away from his signature post-rock miniatures in favour of haunting, suspended drones with occasional fragments of piano. The results are frequently sublime. Fans will understand it’s a […]
SAPHILEAUM Samosi (Constellation Tatsu) Imaginary Treasure Mountain (Nyame) Samosi a magnificent work of tuneful, luminous, beatless ambient by Georgian composer Andro Gogibedashvili aka Saphileaum. Among seven excellent tracks, the weirdly-titled “Glorified Wiseman In Pantherskin” stands out: a devastatingly sad and beautiful harmonic progression wrapped in misty synthetic bliss. At its considerable best, comparisons between this […]
SAM ROSENTHAL & PROJEKT ARTISTS Tim, Where Are You Now? (Projekt) This year marked the centenary of the birth of LSD and DMT guru Timothy Leary (1920-1996). This tribute album celebrates his chemically-fueled flights into expanded consciousness and it’s a multi-coloured wonder, focused on spacey electronic music-of-the-spheres with Eastern drone influences and retro sounds like […]
RONE Room With A View (Infine) French electronica artist Rone’s new album is a joyous one, all over place yet entirely coherent. Room With A View is a deft splicing of beats-based electronics and dance music DNA with some strong classical leanings, from Baroque to Philip Glass. His mingling of the two worlds is extraordinarily […]
ROGER ENO & BRIAN ENO Mixing Colours (Deutsche Grammophon) With a catalogue going back 40 years, pianist and synthesist Roger Eno has proven to be almost as eclectic as his extraordinary and more famous brother. But his own compositions have always had a more consistent devotion to melody, probably due to his classical training and […]
ROBERT RICH Offering to the Morning Fog (Soundscape Productions) Ambient master Robert Rich, one of the pioneers of the original West Coast ambient scene in the 80’s and 90’s, is now in his fifth decade of recording and releasing music. One of his sonic signatures is an extraordinary liquid quality, and that’s found in abundance […]
REMOTE VISION The Outer Plateau (Exosphere) Hypnos EP (Bandcamp) STARTERRA Celestial (Exosphere) While American ambient tech-trance duo Ascendant has been taking a break in the past few years, members Don Taylor and Chris Bryant both released notable ambient electronica in 2020. Don Tyler has been busy with his Remote Vision alias and the “dark cinematic […]
NIGHT SEA Still (Silent Season) Canada’s Silent Season label puts out some of the most forward-thinking dub-ambient-techno concoctions around. Still is another fine example, the debut long-player from Americans David Grunzweig & Johan Ismael aka Night Sea. It’s lush and haunting dub techno with steady, muted drum patterns and ghostly drones swimming in a cloudy […]
MICK CHILLAGE Mirrors (Neotantra) The Dublin-based Mick Chillage – who is also one half of electronica duo Autumn of Communion – swings back to beatless on his solo album Mirrors, a collection of mostly harmonic electronic pieces that are finely sculptured and deeply felt, painted on a fairly minimalist canvas. The haunting “Digitalis Solaris” is […]
MERRIN KARRAS Northwest Passage (A Strangely Isolated Place) Silent Planet (A Strangely Isolated Place) While club-orientated music on the techno and house tips is probably what Irishman Brendan Gregoriy is better known for, his recently birthed ambient alias Merrin Karras doesn’t sound like a side project. These uniformly excellent albums on US label A Strangely […]
MATHIEU KARSENTI Downstream Blue (Slowcraft) British experimental musician James Murray’s excellently-named Slowcraft label was initially created for his own work, but has branched out in recent years to include others. 2020 saw seven new albums in a new series called Lifelines that offers “vital and consoling works” in the spaces between modern classical, post rock […]
MANCHURIA Shades EP (Marsiglia Records) The fabulous debut release from young Italian trio Manchuria blends grainy electronica with Krautrock-style keyboard jamming and noisy shoegaze rock crescendos. The roughly layered keyboards of “Where Im Going” build slowly over a slow groove to a distorted crescendo. “Etangs Noirs” and “No Mercy” are both dark, chunky trip hop […]
LADDER Always Choose Love (Lemongrass Music) California-based Matt Gaspari aka Ladder can lay claim to German label Lemongrass Music’s best album of 2020 with Always Choose Love. Just like Moscow-based Catpilot did on the same label’s 2018 stunner Homecoming (which almost nobody heard, goddamnit) Ladder shows a fantastic gift for extracting 25-plus years of dance […]
KRUDER & DORFMEISTER 1995 (G-Stone Recordings) 1995 is the full-length Kruder and Dorfmeister debut album that never was, rescued from a box of old DAT tapes 25 years after its creation in a front room in Vienna using a few samplers, keyboards and effects units. I’m happy to report that it sounds, well, exactly like […]
SANKT OTTEN Lieder Fuer Geometrische Stunden (Denovali) SUBHEIM ΠΟΛΙΣ aka Polis (Denovali) SAFFRONKEIRA & PAOLO FRESU In Origine (Denovali) ROBIN SCHLOCHTERMEIER Spectral (Denovali) KILIMANJARO DARKJAZZ ENSEMBLE I Foresee The Dark Ahead If I Stay (2011, reissue on Denovali) To my ears, the strength of German-based indie label Denovali Records is that there is no single […]
KEVIN KELLER The Front Porch of Heaven (kevinkeller.com) It takes a gift to be able to take all of the signatures and textures of mainstream film music – from droning underscores to Hans Zimmer-style orchestral swells to non-Western exotica – and turn them into compelling foreground music, devoid of the need for images, stripped of […]
KEVIN BRAHENY Liminal Space (Bandcamp) West Coast ambient pioneer Kevin Braheny has returned with this magnificent album following a long absence from releasing and a decades-long struggle with illness. Now suddenly more prolific with new releases than he ever was, the beatless Liminal Space is the best of the batch, a pitch-perfect example of lush, […]
JONAS MUNK Minimum Resistance (Azure Vista Records) Danish guitarist Jonas Munk does striking and beautiful things with the electric guitar using pedals, reverb and delay, mining a vein of post-rock ambient comparable to artists like Belgium’s Stratosphere and America’s Jeff Pearce. Minimum Resistance is probably his most weightless effort to date, in that it contains […]
HOWARD GIVENS & CRAIG PADILLA The Bodhi Mantra (Spotted Peccary) Spotted Peccary label founder Howard Givens and longtime American synthesist Craig Padilla pair up for this profoundly deep release. The Bodhi Mantra, named after the Sanskrit word for enlightenment or awakening, is an epic work of psychedelic drone-based ambient with powerful extended harmonies that spread […]
KAYA PROJECT Remixed: Body Mind Soul Part 1 (Bandcamp) HIBERNATION Organic Technology (Bandcamp) It’s a rare year when British multi-instrumentalist and electronic producer Seb Taylor doesn’t release something good under one or more of the various aliases he’s been using since the mid 90’s. The polished, tuneful pan-global downtempo of his Kaya Project alias continued […]
HALFTRIBE Cloud Dreaming and Shadows (Shimmering Moods Records) British composer Halftribe’s 2018 opus For The Summer Or Forever was an exquisite, ethereal tribute to the warmest season, mixing fragments of keyboards, guitar and sundry other instruments with static, hums and decayed sounds. Those hazy, cycling melodies are back on Cloud Dreaming and Shadows and just […]
GREGORY PAUL MINEEFF After Today (Cosmicleaf) Australian Gregory Paul Mineeff’s fine new album sees the Greece-based Cosmicleaf label taking another successful departure from the psychedelic downtempo beats it’s best known for. The often beatless After Today is awash in electric piano lines, meshed with minimalist synth pads and textures and some weird phrasing using tape […]
LUKE SCHNEIDER Altar of Harmony (Third Man Records) GOLDEN BROWN Flora and Fauna of the Uncanny Valley (Bandcamp) NORTH AMERICANS Roped In (Third Man Records) Whether or not ‘cosmic Americana’ is actually a thing, I’ll borrow the tag anyway because it perfectly captures the spirit of these gently psychedelic and distinctly American-flavoured instrumental releases. Altar […]
GIGI MASIN Calypso (Apollo) Italian multi-instrumentalist Gigi Masin is back with his first major statement since his trio Gaussian Curve’s last effort from 2017. As far as I can tell, he plays everything on Calypso and it’s more of a layered studio creation than his GC work. Inspired by his visits to the myth-laden Greek […]
FOURCOLOR Water Mirror (2004, reissued on 12k) MICHAEL GRIGONI & STEPHEN VITIELLO Slow Machines (12k) Water Mirror is a welcome reissue by Taylor Deupree’s New York-based 12k Records of an obscure 2000’s gem by Japanese composer Keiichi Sugimoto aka Fourcolor. I never heard this when it came out; what I hear now is a microsound […]
FOREST ROBOTS After Geography (Wormhole Records) American composer Francisco Dominguez aka Forest Robots makes nature-inspired ambient music, but there aren’t many experimental nature-inspired albums like After Geography. It’s a hushed landscape of plinks and plonks and occasional melody lines, some played on marimba or xylophone, cast upon a bed gentle washes and atmospheres. What makes […]
EVAN FRASER & VIR MCCOY Guardians (Interchill) A powerful collection of downtempo grooves in a globetrotting style which long ago might have been called ‘world music’ but I’ll just call ‘exotica’. On their second album the Californians Evan Fraser and Vir McCoy play acoustic instruments from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Britain and the Americas, […]
EVADEZ Revive EP (Sine Music) Young British composer Evedez delivers this perfect little five-track EP of Balearic-style downtempo for Germany’s Sine Music, fitting in well enough with the label’s smooth and lush ethos but also standing well out in the subgenre with inspired writing for piano and strings and sophisticated layering of melodies and complex […]
ERIK WØLLO & MICHAEL STEARNS Convergence (Projekt) Sharing the bill at a small European music festival in 2018 sparked an unexpected collaboration between these two artists – one American, the other Norwegian – who had never met, despite both having long and distinguished careers in ambient and space music. The resulting album Convergence is a […]
ENRICO CONIGLIO & GIULIO ALDINUCCI Stalking The Elusive (Dronarivm) TAPES & TOPOGRAPHIES Inoculations (Dronarivm) Stalking The Elusive is a work of pretty astonishing elemental power, a first-time collaboration between Italians Enrico Coniglio and Giulio Aldinucci. It lifts environmental samples from mundane environments – households, airports and so on – and seems to reimagine them as […]
ENNIO MORRICONE Morricone Segreto (Cam Sugar/Decca) As a teenager I was almost turned off film music maestro Ennio Morricone for life when certain family friends chose to play his pretty orchestral/choral score for the Hollywood film The Mission non-stop in their household for eternity. A good score, but almost ruined for me by over-exposure. Fortunately, […]
ENDLESS MELANCHOLY A Perception of Everything (Sound In Silence) This collection of grand, hazy, lo-fi tone poems from Ukrainian composer Endless Melancholy feels like a summation of his quest in the past decade to translate beautiful sadness into wordless sound. His personal style is already well-established – bittersweet melodies from samples and synths dipped in […]
EMERALD WEB Valley of the Birds (1981, reissue by katepple.com) Previously only issued on cassette on their own Stargate label in the 1980’s, Emerald Web’s reissued and remastered Valley Of The Birds is a small masterpiece of vintage synth-based ambient, a worthy artefact of California’s burgeoning DIY musical movement in the early 80’s which, for […]
DREADLOCK TALES & MIKKO HEIKINPOIKA Sonic Artifact (Dubmission) Finland’s Kimmo Tyni aka Dreadlock Tales takes one minor chord, a few melodic ideas and a full arsenal of deep dub production techniques, and casts them in 5 different ways across a seamless 35 minute journey. The result is Sonic Artifact, an exotic dub masterpiece from London-based […]
DIGITONAL Set The Weather Fair (Just Music) British multi-instrumentalist, synthesist and early music scholar Andrew Dobson makes a welcome return with this 4th album from his downtempo project Digitonal, this time collaborating with dance producer Dom Graveson. Spanning 50 minutes and 9 instrumentals, Set The Weather Fair is melodic, contemplative and lyrical and once again […]
DEEPER THAN SPACE Earthset (Silent Records) LINGUA LUSTRA Eye of Silence (Silent Records) Four years on from its 2016 reboot, Kim Cascone’s ambient label Silent Records finds itself with a recent catalogue almost as diverse as the one it built in the 80’s and heady 90’s, though with a much less hectic annual release schedule. […]
DANIEL SZLAJNDA Komorebi (U Know Me Records) From Poland-based dance and electronica label U Know Me Records comes this striking piece of beautiful bleep by local talent Daniel Szlajnda. Previously known under his Daniel Drumz alias for his quirky takes on club music – house, hop hop and nu jazz – his new album Komorebi […]
