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 nearly 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 […]
COLOURMUSIC Mathewson OK (colourmusic.net) Oklahoma-based band Colourmusic takes a detour from its noisy leftfield rock with this foray into Eno-eque environmental ambient territory and it’s a quiet triumph. The four tracks on Mathewson OK are all impressions of “locations” complete with grid references using Cartesian coordinates if you care to find them on a map. […]
CHANNELERS Isles Beyond (Inner Islands) While new age music’s cred took a beating in the 80’s and beyond as big labels and relaxation muzak took over, underground new age is alive and well in the 21st century thanks to talents like Sean Conrad and his California-based Inner Islands label. Under his Channelers alias he’s made […]
BLOMMA Blomma (Moderna) JOHN HAYES & MAXY DUTCHER Borealis (Moderna) N-SO Out of the Valley (Moderna) The modern classical-electronica hybrids of Canada’s Moderna Records were as diverse as ever in 2020. These three magnificent albums are from newcomers to the label, and all of them deftly bridge a multitude of atmospheric sounds and eclectic subgenres […]
BACKSTAGE GURUS Mediterranean Odyssey (Liquid Sound Design) Beatmaster Gabriel Le Mar has been releasing diverse electronica for over 20 years now. His new and excellent 4-way collaboration as Backstage Gurus is the latest emanation from the downtempo end of his repertoire. Mediterranean Odyssey is grounded in luscious exotic dub with strong Near and Mid-Eastern instrumentation […]
AUSKLANG Chronos (Past Inside The Present) A fresh and assured debut album from a new Berlin-based post-rock trio. Ausklang’s instrumentals swirl around a core of drums, bass and electric guitar, but also with significant contributions from synths, tape loops and classical instruments. There are some big, uplifting Sigur Ros-style numbers with seriously good melodies, as […]
ANDREW HEATH The Alchemist’s Muse (Disco Gecko) I’m a big fan of Andrew Heath’s gift for creating a scene without dictating exactly what it should look like in your mind’s eye. The Alchemist’s Muse is every bit as satisfying – perhaps even more so – than the trio of environmental ambient albums released 2014-16 that […]
ALEX CRISPIN & NICHOLAS WHITTAKER Irian Jaya (Cobblers Records) I’m still enthralled with the hand-tooled 21st century new age of Alex Crispin’s album Idle Worship (2017), a shimmering, glowing, wondrous thing. So it’s a joy to find the British multi-instrumentalist scaling similar heights on Irian Jaya. This time he hooks up with longtime friend Nicholas […]
AES DANA Inks (Ultimae) CELL Live In Corfu (Ultimae) MARTIN NONSTATIC Apana EP (Ultimae) For two decades the French-based label Ultimae Records has been one of the leading purveyors of 21st century strains of ambient techno, trance and miscellaneous electronica on the atmospheric tip. Although the label is releasing less material now than in the […]
KRUDER & DORFMEISTER 1995 (G-Stone Recordings) It’s time to lie down and party like it’s 1995 Austrian duo Kruder and Dorfmeister haven’t released any fresh original material together in over two decades, their focus since the 90’s being very much on DJ performances, remixes and various solo projects. How fantastically unexpected, then, that these pioneers […]
GLOBAL COMMUNICATION Transmissions (3CD set, Dedicated/Evolution) Global Communication is the duo of British composer-producer-DJ’s Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton. Both are still active today but it was during the 1990’s they recorded as GC, creating three albums of original and semi-original material. They’re still best known for the classic 76’14 (1994), one of the most […]
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 […]
After making an indelible mark on the 90’s with his trippy ambient dance and spiky electronica for Em:t Records and Ninja Tune, British artist Paul Frankland aka Woob took a break from releasing in the 2000’s before rebooting his Woob project in 2009. He’s been active ever since, and electronic music in the new century […]
British 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. These three outstanding albums by three different artists show the fruits of that decision. They’re part of a new release series called Lifelines that offers ‘vital and consoling works’ in the […]
Around 1994 I remember hearing the track ‘Mutant Jazz’ by the mysterious T Power vs MK Ultra. It was getting airplay on Oz public radio station Triple J, which broke a fair bit of new indie and electronic music from the UK back then. It started as a slow, funky trumpet-led lounge break that – […]
I scanned this double page spread from a late ’94 back issue of Melody Maker and it’s a doozie. It captures the zeitgeist of the early ambient dance music thing in the UK, before superclubs and the mainstream rather spoiled the dance party and Aphex Twin signalled techno’s massive ‘fuck you’ response by playing jackhammer […]
I’ve recently re-joined Soundcloud and uploaded my entire mix archive for streaming. This will be the main platform for all my mixes from now on, and the AMG Podcast mixes will also continue in their current form. I am no longer using the previous platform. I hope you’ll find Soundcloud a decent alternative. Please head over […]
LUKE SCHNEIDER Altar Of Harmony (Third Man Records) A lot of the buzz around this surprising new age excursion from respected Nashville steel guitar player Luke Schneider centres on the fact that every sound was made with said guitar. Altar Of Harmony, his debut solo album, is an attempt to make non-Californian new age music […]
RONE Room With A View (InFiné) My first encounter with French electronica artist Rone is a joyous one. His new instrumental album 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 […]
VARIOUS ARTISTS Velvet Desert Music vol. 2 (Kompakt) This is a marvel. German musician/producer/selector Jörg Burger’s second Velvet Desert Music compilation for Cologne’s Kompakt label serves up warm, groovy, atmospheric electronica of startling freshness. The exclusive and mostly instrumental tracks by artists from France, England, Mexico and Germany – including Jorg himself – were commissioned […]
SAPHILEAUM Samosi (Constellation Tatsu) The latest batch of releases from California’s Constellation Tatsu is proving to be my favourite since I first heard the label about 4 years ago. Last month I told you about the organ-led minimalism of José Orozco Mora’s new album Formas Aparentes. Also in the same batch is Samosi, a rather […]
There are strands of Japanese anime that have many of same qualities as great ambient and atmospheric music. Mushishi is one of them: a kind of pastoral psychedelia, but grounded in a unique Japanese stillness and devoted to the craft of storytelling. Back in 2006 I experienced the extraordinary anime TV series Mushishi for the […]
JOSÉ OROZCO MORA Formas Aparentes (Constellation Tatsu) Constellation Tatsu, a small record label with possibly the best name in the world, continues to transmit various strands of new age, experimental electronica and psychedelic minimalist music via its HQ in Oakland, USA. From the latest batch of releases comes Formas Aparentes by newcomer José Orozco Mora, […]
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 latest solo album, and he sounds right at home on deep ambient label Neotantra. I didn’t care much for his first album on Neo but Mirrors is a […]
REMOTE VISION The Outer Plateau (Exosphere) While his ambient tech-trance duo Ascendant and associated label Synphaera has been taking something of a break lately, American composer and sound architect extraordinaire Don Tyler has been busy with his new solo alias Remote Vision and the “dark cinematic space” of his new sub-label Exosphere. The Outer Plateau […]
GIGI MASIN Calypso (Apollo) Italian multi-instrumentalist Gigi Masin is back with his first major statement since his wonderful trio Gaussian Curve’s most recent effort from 2017. As far as I can tell, he plays everything on Calypso, and it does sound more of a layered studio creation than his GC work. Inspired by his visits […]
GREGORY PAUL MINEEFF After Today (Cosmicleaf) Australian artist 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 […]
STEVE GOOD Nothing is Ever Created or Destroyed (puffdragon.net) Fans of ambient dance music might remember an early Steve Good album under his downtempo 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 started […]
Guest poster Gary Hunter from online journal Low End Theorists shares five recent albums to get you acquainted with ambient in Australia right now. Australia’s local ambient music scene is thriving. Thanks to a number of record labels like Analogue Attic and Ken Oath, Oz ambient has established its own distinctive style over the past […]
WANDERWELLE & BANDHAGENS MUSIKFÖRENING Victory Over The Sun (Semantica) An eerie historical account of weird shit happening in the skies above Basel, Switzerland in 1566 is the inspiration for this dark and powerfully evocative blend of cinematic ambient and atmospheric techno. Dutch duo Wanderwelle were responsible for last year’s Polynesian ambient techno delight Gathering Of […]
VARIOUS ARTISTS Tonic Immobility: From Here to Tranquility vol. 11 (Silent Records) LINGUA LUSTRA Red Shift (Silent Records) Rebooted in 2016 by founder Kim Cascone after a 20 year break, San Francisco’s Silent Records these days is very much about the psychoactive drone music and experimental noisescapes that its academically-trained founder has been immersed in […]
VARIOUS ARTISTS Maui Chill Volume One (Waveform) Ambient dub and eclectic electronica label Waveform Records is still with us – founded in 1994 from the ashes of UK label Beyond Records – and so is its founder Forest and his long-running Music Starstreams radio show. Now based in Hawaii, he’s recently released the first Waveform […]
VARIOUS ARTISTS Cosmic Duality (Synchronos Recordings) From San Francisco’s Synchronos label comes this fine sampling of the kind of downtempo instrumentals you’ll hear on the better chill stages at psytrance and electronica festivals. New tunes, and good ones, doused in multi-coloured tones, layered and trippy arpeggios and lots of head-nodding grooves. Dub is the cornerstone […]
VARIOUS ARTISTS Cafe Del Mar Dreams X/10 (Cafe Del Mar Music) What happened to Cafe Del Mar, I hear you ask? The Balearic compilation series that pretty much invented chillout music for sunsets – one of the original pillars of 90’s ambient dance music – is strangely faceless these days. Original DJ’s Jose Padilla and […]
