ambient
Track: Denver dronemeister JENNIFER announces longform cassette release, ‘SINCERELY’; hear side A in full
JENNIFER is the avatar adopted for the world of music by Denver’s Zach Spencer, an artist who read an interview with instrumental guitar legend John Fahey in which John did away with the reputation garnered by his own work in one pithy couplet: “cosmic-sentimentalism” he called it. But that phrase stuck with Zach not as …
Track: Hear the spacious delight of KMRU’s ‘OT’; an album follows in May
WITH twin bases straddling that most musically inventive of cities, Berlin, and the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, electronica artist KMRU knows a thing or two about wide vistas, a far-sighted reach, a breathtaking approach to soundscaping; as you can hear in his first single drop for his new home, Injazero Records, “OT”. Wrap your cortex …
Track: Sam Genovese – ‘Signals For Signs’: ambience with a ceremonial concept ahead of April’s album
“SIGNALS FOR SIGNS” is a hard cut to horns heralding and welcoming the euphoria of the new. “The music invokes the sound of a union, not unlike a marriage ceremony. It unabashedly reaches toward the beautiful while grounding and holding us in a low-end hug.” So says Sam Genovese of his new and deeply wrapping ambient single …
News: The Orb’s Alex Paterson announces autobiography and new label; hear Sedibus’ ‘TOI 1338b’
DEEP space ambient techno overlord Alex Paterson, the good doctor of The Orb himself, has just announced a whole cluster of projects to take us into 2021. Fellow astral travellers: be delighted. Firstly, come May 28th, Alex will be publishing his autobiography, Babble On An’ Ting: Alex Paterson’s Incredible Journey Beyond The Ultraworld With The …
Premiere: See the video for Dragon Welding’s ‘Lights Behind The Eyes’: The Wolfhounds’ Andy Golding steps into ambient guitar wonder
DRAGON WELDING; a great name, redolent of fire and the elements, of flicker and sulphur, things made and remade in heat. A great name. And once you learn it’s the solo project of The Wolfhounds’ foremost guitarchitect Andy Golding, the six-string sufi who led that band out from the early swamp blues of “Cut The …
EP REVIEW: Głós – ‘Swimming In Colors’: monumental ambience from Affin
Głós’ first EP for Affin is three whole different, astonishingly enveloping sound worlds. Let’s hope he records an album in this vein; it’d wipe the floor with your consciousness. Intelligent ambience with incredible design and edge, it’s one hell of an opening statement for an artist to make for his new home
See: the video for Masayoshi Fujita’s ‘Thunder’; a flow of sonic delight for electronica and marimba on Erased Tapes
IF YOU like your music deliciously abstract, abstractedly delicious; arranged beautifully, an absolute world of evocative sound; fell hard, for instance, for the albums Ryuichi Sakamoto made with Alva Noto, or are like a kid at Christmas while waiting for the lusciousness of Chihei Hatakeyama’s new album, then attendez-vous, s’il vous plait; for Erased Tapes …
Track: UNKNOWN ME’s ‘Open The Sense’ is a rainbow ambient bonbon
YOU QUITE possibly haven’t come across UNKNOWN ME, a Japanese collective with a very particularly glimmering, space-age approach to the the business of ambience; in fact, if their moniker is anything to go by, maybe even they haven’t. But if trippy electronic sound is your bag, and it oughta be, then perhaps now is an …
Album review: Field Works – ‘Cedars’: Stuart Hyatt fuses cosmic Americana and Arabic sounds; the results are luscious
Cedars is quite a record – two records really; the first more orange and various other colours of the sun’s framing of the beginning and the ending of the day, alive with a heartfelt yearning and cosmic sonic thrill. The second is far more verdant, deep green, homespun, and focuses in very much in on the wonder of the simple; the moments we all return to, perhaps, at least us rural dwellers. If you’re at all conceptually familiar with the work of William Blake, his Songs Of Innocence And Experience, you’ll see; the twining and correspondences. Climb into Cedars, join the two worlds for yourself; the album is long on thought and also on beauty.
Album review: Neil Cowley – ‘Hall Of Mirrors’: A love letter to a city and an instrument
Neil Cowley has been on a journey away from, and returning to, the piano; Hall Of Mirrors is a striking love letter to the instrument, and also to his adopted city of Berlin. But all these conceptual asides fade away beneath the main thrust: it’s a truly bloody great record. Buy.