ambient
NEWS: Bing & Ruth release digital remix EP of ‘Species’: hear a harp-laden take on ‘Badwater Psalm’
AS WE approach the end of this accursed year and begin to summate the best of it – and more than any year as a species, thank the good lord above for the human gift for creative abstraction and catharsis – it’s an absolute dead cert that Bing & Ruth’s wholly immersive drone study Species …
PREMIERE: See the video for Hedia’s ‘Quartet 1’ – beautiful, ambient viol resonance
ALBUQUERQUE-based Bryce Hample, one-third of future sampledelia explorers REIGHNBEAU, also makes beautiful post-classical ambience as Hedia; and today he’s premiering the nature-minimalist video for “Untitled 1”, a lovely essay in viola de gamba (or viol), and piano, in which Bryce explores the luxurious reverberation of that instrument. We’ve embedded the video below; fans of Rachel’s …
ALBUM REVIEW: Daniel O’Sullivan – ‘Electric Māyā: Dream Flotsam and Astral Hinterlands’: transporting and dazzling shortform art
Electric Māyā is a collection of short stories; of microfiction. Take your time and don’t breeze through; you’ll be peering through windows into 18 other little spheres. Dazzling shortform
SEE: RON – ‘What Can The Feeling’: ambient grace from the Pacific Northwest
SAM WENC and Carl Laukkanen, while resident in that cultural hub in the Pacific Northwest, Oregon, got together and, sharing an interest in the textures and spaces of slow-moving ambient electronica, got together and laid down three albums’ worth of exploration of sonics as RON. Together they developed a language of sound at the interstice …
LIVE REVIEW: Erland Cooper, The Barbican, London: bringing the soul of Orkney to the heart of the capital
TO THE Barbican, that beautiful, brutalist residential and cultural hub in London EC2: for a gig. A gig! Livestream or not, it’s a red letter day in 2020. Ah … gigs. Aren’t they wonderful, beauteous things. Okay, it’s a livestream event, but look at it out there; am I in a position to choose? Are …
TRACKS: Actress shares two new tracks from his new album for Ninja
IF ONE artist was going to send out a press release for their new record styled on the redacted copy of a government report it is Darren Cunningham, aka Actress. Cryptic, obtuse, secretive and illusive, Cunningham has been the checkpoint of the techno/electronic border crossing for over a decade now. There have been seminal releases …
ALBUM REVIEW: Paradise Cinema – ‘Paradise Cinema’: shimmering, vivacious, percussive, Afro ambience
Paradise Cinema, the self-titled project of Portico Quartet’s Jack Wyllie, sings of new Afro-ambient futures to immerse in. It’s vivacious, swathing and haunting
TRACK: Paradise Cinema – ‘Possible Futures’: exhilarating Afro-ambience
JACK WYLLIE, the musician best known to those of us with a deep and abiding penchant for the leftfield, the beautiful and the widescreen as a member of The Portico Quartet, has announced a new solo project under the nom-de-musique Paradise Cinema, a full album under which alias will be out on October 9th. Paradise …
SEE: Neil Cowley’s ‘Eureka Pulse’: solo piano grace from new triptych of EPs
NEIL COWLEY is someone who has lived and breathed music his whole life. He took on a Shostakovich piano concerto at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall at the age of 10; not so many years later he developed a reputation as a go-to pianist and keyboardist in British funk, working with Zero 7, Gabrielle and The …
TRACK: Ana Roxanne’s ‘Suite Pour L’invisible’: haunting and lush
KRANKY. It’s a label that this unerring step with beautiful and complex ambient music, one which it’s been plying now for a quarter-century and more. The Texan imprint has just unveiled its latest signing: and once more they’ve struck the proverbial gold. Los Angeles-based Ana Roxanne comes into the fold on the back of one …