Ambient Sunday with 58918012 – Near Ocean

•May 26, 2024 • Leave a Comment

Ambient Sunday is still in election mode. Committed to dodging National Service were I young enough, here’s the inestimable 58918012 with Near Oceans, a track that’s “unsureness, with a tiny particle of optimism.” And we all need a bit of optimism at times like these.

58918012 is is Yurii Popov from Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine. He’s a musician and music blog curator and back here after an eighteen month absence with a new album Probabilities from which Near Ocean is taken.

Near Ocean is a less drone focused track than some previous releases. It’s also more obviously electronic. There’s nothing organic here. This is all about the bleeping and skirls of machines. But it has heart. An aching heart which throbs with the beats through this track. There’s a slow mournful sadness that dominates the track in among the whirrs and machine noise.

58910012 may think there’s a tiny particle of optimism here. Hard to see that. This is elegiac and profound with the continued blooping of sounds. I want there to be hope but this still feels like endings. And not in a good way. Ineffably sad.

Stand with Ukraine.

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Electoral chill with: Recable – Lakey Peak

•May 24, 2024 • Leave a Comment

Oh dear. It’s only day three of a six week general election campaign in the UK. Already we’ve had the Prime Minister posing at the Titanic centre, holding bread and a backdrop saying ‘Moron’* and another on a plane with a sign saying ‘Exit’. Not a good narrative running for him. But irrespective of anything else there is also a change of political class as so many MPs stand down. And a fatigue that anything will really change. I want to forget all that with some lovely chill from Recable.

Recable keeps the available minimal offering that he’s a producer/sound designer from Berlin, Germany. I’m tempted to make up that he keeps ferrets and holds the world record for longest time sitting in a bath of custard to see if I can mess with AI.

The featured track is the just released Lakey Peak. This sounds to me like somewhere in Yorkshire but is probably a reference to a beach in Indonesia.

Lakey Peak is a super mellow track. Filled with relaxing and chilled vibes this offers a rippling sounding opening before breaking out its secret weapon. A bass line. This is one of those wonderfully chewy bass lines, filled with twangy elasticity. It dominates the track for long periods and gives the track that down to earth feel.

Occasionally the bass is sent packing and the track’s weightlessness is allowed a bit of an almost xylophone run of naive sounds of childlike wonder. But not for too long is it allowed to wander before the bass returns to bring a sense of calming order.

A gorgeous track. Perfect for summer playlists everywhere.

* I now think this was a fake photo. But it seemed all too believable.

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wunderbar kosmische musik mit: Lines Of Silence – The Long Way Home (Amaury Cambuzat’s La Route des Choux Edit)

•May 23, 2024 • Leave a Comment

After all that Ambient of the past few days a change of pace with some properly cool kosmische musik with Lines of Silence in a remix/re-edit from Amaury Cambuzat (yes, the Faust bloke).

Lines Of Silence are from Todmorden from Yorkshire, England by way of South East London and Manchester. Originally formed in 2020 as a side project for David Little, their biog says that “Lines of Silence subsequently expanded into a loose collective of like-minded musicians, often playing improvised live sets with an ever-shifting line-up.” That line up currently includes Dave Clarkson. And they add “Jamming with Jean-Hervé Peron and Amaury Cambuzat from kraut-legends FaUSt at the base of the Pyrenees in 2023 re-energised LOS and set the band’s controls for different – and stranger – destinations.”

And that leads us to the featured track The Long Way Home (Amaury Cambuzat’s La Route des Choux Edit). The original track was a beatless mix. Nice in its own way. But not a patch on the Edit.

Amaury has taken the guitar focused original and turned the psychedelia of the guitars up to eleven. And critically he’s added a lovely thrumming motorik beat and sense of adventure. This gives the track a real drive, energy and sense of direction. There’s a bit of The Chemical Brothers at their psychedelic best here.

The track buzzes and fizzes with energy. It’s a fantastic piece of electronica. Sounds ripples and shimmer and bend. All the while the buzzy beat forces the whole thing forward. This should be a future classic. Love it.

Posted in downtempo
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Ambient raindrops with: Neil Foster – Sundrops

•May 22, 2024 • Leave a Comment
Rishi Sunak makes his way back into 10 Downing Street after announcing an election in the heavy rain
byu/ShreckAndDonkey123 inpics

So there we go. Election announced after a day of mounting election frenzy. And announced in the pouring rain. Without an umbrella. As you do. The right time to continue with more ambient. This time from Neil Foster.

Neil Foster is an Irish Composer, Multi-instrumentalist and Producer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He says his music spans ambient, classical and downtempo electronica. And there’s a beautiful Ambient sensibility at work on the gorgeous glittering Sundrops.

Sundrops is taken from his new album Intimate Dreams. It’s a blissful track. Beatless and combining some gently classical piano with electronic tones.

There’s a real delicacy and precision to his work. Sounds ripple, flutter and lightly tumble. The piano offers a hazy mournful air to compensate for any optimistic tinkling. There’s that sense of motes of dust caught in a beam of sunlight. Swirling, glittering and then the light moves.

Like Sundrops the track they’re beautiful and then fades like a contented sigh.

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Ambient stillness with: Koiwa – 310

•May 21, 2024 • Leave a Comment

A return of unrelenting rain today. A day to hunker down and stay warm and dry. Here’s something as accompaniment, some beatless ambient from Koiwa.

Koiwa is Buenos Aires, Argentina based Cristián García Laborde. His work spans techno, house and ambient. But today’s offering is firmly ambient. He says he’s “Inspired by traveling around the world, landscapes, flying, airports and airplanes.” A nod to Music for Airports perhaps.

The featured track is 310 from the album Peña. The aim of the track is to “transport the listener to a state of meditation and inner stillness.” Not a bad ambition. And one on which Koiwa delivers.

310 is definitely in thrall to Eno. But this isn’t a track that wants to blend into the wallpaper. It’s too insistent for that. This track wants to hold your attention in order to slow you down.

It’s full of held tones, drones and reverberations. In some ways it’s a short form piece with roots in the 90s chill out. Think of tracks like School of Fish (see below) from 1993.

But it also challenges. There’s the subtlest of edges to some of the sound that burrow into your consciousness and keep you focused on the track. A kind of ‘forced’ meditation perhaps.

Fabulous modern ambient.

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Jazzy trip hop chill from: Mista Ed x Inside Trading – The Day You Never Returned

•May 20, 2024 • 1 Comment

Gah! Who needs Mondays? Discard the stress and chill out with Aussies Mista Ed x Inside Trading.

Mista D has been around since 2003 and his biog says “Ed’s personal projects sit across Boom Bap, Instrumental Hip Hop and Lo Fi Beats, drawing influences from artists such as Mr Scruff, DJ Krush, Pete Rock, Emapea and Jazz Spastiks.” There’s plenty of Mr Scruff on the featured track. Dunno anything about Inside Trading other than they play live guitar and bass on the track.

The featured track is The Day You Never Returned. It’s a super jazzy, super sad, super chilled track. It opens with ripples of almost harp. Beats are held back for a bit to really set the tone.

The track has a lovely way with the bass. It’s deep but kept back in the mix so you feel its presence as much as hear it. The beats betray a wonderfully old school approach that focuses on head nodding richness, rather than tinny production.

A melancholy piano does battle with a noodling guitar. It’s all very loose but the piano wins out aided by the strings. Yes, it’s sad but also has a hint of defiance. A bit of a I Will Survive for the stoner generation. Cracking track.

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Ambient Sunday IDM with: Analog Devices – Future Ambient

•May 19, 2024 • Leave a Comment

Ambient Sunday is having a bit of an IDM moment with Analog Devices.

Analog Devices is from Belgium and here’s Future Ambient from the album Asylum 303. This is down as being released last month but looks as though it may in fact date to back in 2017.

Whatever the case, Future Ambient is a lovely dark ambient tune. This has a beautifully menacing bass synth lurking around lighter melodies and a wheezy percussion.

This manages to be both terribly retro and pleasingly current. There’s a light early Depeche Mode feel about some of the synth work. And that’s a plus for me.

The track ripples around carelessly. There are tubular bells. Not a sound used enough these days I feel. Music for dungeons where the torture is nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

This is great stuff. A lovely IDM escape into sound.

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Cinematic downtempo with: Kilombo – Tierra Adentro

•May 18, 2024 • Leave a Comment

A bit of cinematic downtempo from Kilombo this evening.

Kilombo is a Paraguayan-born DJ and producer based in Montréal. His biog says his music is “an homage to the many sonic palettes of Latin America.” And there’s plenty of that on new track Tierra Adentro.

Tierra Adentro means (roughly) inland. But there’s also the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Royal Road of the Interior Land) which was the old silver route between New Mexico and Mexico City. I’ve no idea how far the track reflects that latter interpretation but there’s a definite sense of an amped up spaghetti western sound surrounding this track.

Tierra Adentro opens with tumbling hand pans to set a tone that’s outside of usual parameters. But the hand pans are used insistently rather than the usual soothing sound. There’s reverbed and echoed effects to give you that cinematic bleached quality.

The hand pans fall to be replaced by twangy guitar but without a US timbre. This is a western that’s set far in the south. It’s arid and strange.

There’s all sorts of instrumentation that adds to the evocative air from rattles to a jaw harp. But there’s also a dark black menacing synth bass that gives the track some real aural punch. A perfect track with no name.

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Pre-Friday joy with: The Ocean Beneath – Tempus

•May 16, 2024 • Leave a Comment

Tricky day pre-Friday. Too early to celebrate the weekend but too far in to the week to find much else to celebrate. If that’s your dilemma then get some celebration going with this joyous piece of melodic techno from The Ocean Beneath.

The returning The Ocean Beneath is a prog house and melodic techno outfit from Leeds, UK. Their new EP is called The Lost. They explain it as “get ready for huge beats, complex layers of emotional sound and a failed hard drive that put us back a year. ”

Instead of the title track I’m featuring the other track Tempus (Latin for Time). This is a total blast. All the euphoric bits of prog house and melodic techno welded together into a shiny wall of sound.

This opens on a building peak as a statement of intent. There’s a bit of pitched vocal but I’m ignoring that because very soon this builds to a big glitter all of sound. Synths and beats all pump away fit to make your heart burst.

There’s nothing terribly subtle here but when euphoria is delivered as skilfully as this, who cares? Keyboards pound and hands are waved in the air.

If last time’s Sunrise was about the comedown, this is all about the peak time rush. Perfectly delivered.

Posted in progressive house
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Classical IDM from: Antoine Flipo – Cascade

•May 14, 2024 • Leave a Comment

Today we have a mix between some quite electronic IDM with a glitchy air and more classical structures. I wouldn’t normally go for something with classical mores but this is really well done by Antoine Flipo.

Antonine Flipo is from Belgium. His biog says he “stands at the intersection of minimal electronic music and the classical realm. Known for his involvement in the fascinating jazz-electro scene, particularly with the project “Glass Museum” – of which he is a co-founder.” This is very much music for the head, rather than heart.

He’s got a new Chapel EP out now, ahead of a debut album coming in the autumn. He says that it explores three universes, neo-classical, piano and ambient/minimal electronica – “la musique néoclassique et le travail des différentes sonorités de piano préparé, la musique electro ambient et la musique club minimale.”

Here’s Cascade from the EP. This has the heart beat like throb of IDM and blippy minimal sounds blended with some prepared piano. This gives it a neo classical twist among the machine music.

The track flirts with glitching and classical forms. But the beats and bass are allowed to occupy the heart of the track making this an electronic piece overall. It’s quite arty, with a capital A. But one which has a supple accessibility notwithstanding its experimental edges.

IDM you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite. Minimal electronica given weight and melody. Marvellous.

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