Ambient Recommendations

mr. chalk just issued his first all-new material solo CD in five years. it is very beautiful.

https://andrewchalk.bandcamp.com/album/the-end-times

v excited for new Ulla Straus - her LPs have been among my favorite/most played the last few yrs
https://ullastraus.bandcamp.com/album/foam-2

thanks for both of those!

Ulla is also very nice, she played at a poetry reading I headlined (with her lol) in March.

Thanks for these great recs, I will admit that I am feeling a little underwhelmed by the TR Jordan record thst everyone was talking up— felt a little too simple and on the nose for me, but oh well.

I’m a little over it myself, lol, there’s too much treacly emotion seeping through

anybody into the new Romeo Poirier? Some really amazing vibes there.

There's some lovely stuff on this

https://12kmusic.bandcamp.com/album/skal-ghost

Love the TR record also. Sounds like one of those early iPad games that made you push blobs around the screen and came with a “YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS WITH HEADPHONES” disclaimer. Thanks for the tip!

Sounds like one of those early iPad games that made you push blobs around the screen and came with a “YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS WITH HEADPHONES” disclaimer

Osmos!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnmbefxkQI

several xps ulla is my favourite of the new breed of ambient artists but her latest one doesn't do it for me. Only listened to the clips tbh

I have been enjoying some new works on the always excellent Stroom label

https://stroomtv.bandcamp.com/album/op-zee

Reissue of early 80s work by Muziekkamer. It's a bit Zoviet Francey

https://stroomtv.bandcamp.com/album/sent-from-my-telephone

Voice Actor - Sent From My Telephone - aoty contender right here. It's four and a half hours long and has over a hundred tracks and is an excellent soundtrack to having Covid. RIYL Inga Copeland, Dean Blunt, people mumbling about stuff

https://stroomtv.bandcamp.com/album/trains-tracks

V/A - Trains & Tracks - not all ambient tbh. It's a soundtrack to a three hour journey across Belgium, featuring artists who live in the areas the train goes through. And it has train announcements on it

New Ulla didn't do much for me on the first listen either but by the 2nd attempt it clicked! ymmv

caught Sofie Birch last night, improvised set with Nana Pi on saxophone

wonderful

aw man

New Malibu, for sure. New Gigi Masin too.

Kind of excited about this https://www.soundohm.com/product/subterraneans-12-1

New Malibu is glorious.

This is outstanding. I thought it was a hoax, but it's legit afaict https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ecUteNpQ6o

thanks for the tip, available as a tape here:
https://candlefam.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-hospitals

Yeah, €19.19 shipping for the €8 tape or $999 for digital, the pricks.

agree that it is extremely annoying when people do that, just sell the damn digital files

Especially annoying as this guy's stuff is super hard to find, even by the standards of private issue ambient/new age. 250 tape copies released in 1988 etc...

https://www.discogs.com/artist/11923661-Douglas-Em

non-US ilxors plz feel free to ilxmail me there

This is lovely. Thread delivering in spades!

We have a new show up now:

https://www.mixcloud.com/DublinDigitalRadio/no-place-like-drone-301122-rolodex-of-relaxation/

1. Low - The Son, The Sun - Double Negative - Sub Pop (2018)
2. The Last Ambient Hero - Dream I - All A Dream - Not On Label (06/22)
3. Joachim Spieth - Terrain 3 - Terrain - Affin Ltd (10/22)
4. Andrew Chalk - At Sunset - The End Times - Icr Distribution (10/22)
5. Natalia Beylis & Eimear Reidy - A Shelter Of Junipers - Whose Woods These Are - Not On Label (2021)
6. Lawrence English - Pre-Approach: Citizen - Approach - Room 40 (09/22)
7. Alaskan Tapes - An Image - All We Can't See​ / ​an Image (Alaskan Tapes) (2021)
8. Steve Oliver & Craig Tattersall - Turntable, Speaker, Microphone, Tape Loop System & Piano - Music For Screens, Turntables And Contacts - The Humble Bee (06/22)
9. Tewksbury - Banda Mountain - Brutes - Hush Hush Records (07/22)
10. Peter Wright - Player Piano - Further Reports From The Interior - Distant Bombs (2021)
11. Rubbish Music - Trash And Treasure - Upcycling - Flaming Pines (10/22)
12. Rafael Toral - Long Meeting - Music For Film - Not On Label (05/22)
13. David Tollefson - Pattern Of Islands - Near And Far - Hypnos (1999)
14. Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer - Held - Februarys - Dauw (09/22)
15. Binary Phaze - Velvet Dawn - Velvet & Glass - Rohs! Records (06/22)
16. Kuma - Ecclesiastic Geology - You Cannot Cheat The Muse - See Blue Audio (11/22)
17. Myles O'reilly - The Sun Always Shines On Arbutus Place - [Indistinct Chatter] An Ode To Soft 18. Landings - Not On Label (11/22)
18. Zakè & Ossa - Drifting - Syntheticopia - Zakè Drone Recordings (09/22)
19. Xerex - Dracula IX - Xerex Meets Dracula - No Part Of It (07/22)
20. Biosphere - Forum - Insomnia - Biophon (1997)
21. Fortresses - Near - Near - Dragon’s Eye (11/22)
22. Quiet Clapping - Weather - Adversary - Space Surgeries (05/22)
23. Cosmo - Desmond (From Here To There) - Molting - Not On Label (10/22)
24. Conducive - Salle De Projection - Hidden Canals - Veinte 33 Records (09/22)
25. Jürgen Müller - Beyond The Tide - Science Of The Sea - Digitalis (2011)
26. Arovane & Taylor Deupree - Somne_tide - Skal_ghost - 12k (11/22)
27. Jeff Pearce - Passage To Home - Daylight Slowly - Hypnos (1998)
28. Imaginary Softwoods - Innerglow Portal/Aqua Drawer Lamp - Extra Bronze Lamp - Mineral Disk (2020)
29. Steve Roden - Stars Of Ice - Stars Of Ice - Room40 (02/22)

Bandcamp links:

https://www.buymusic.club/list/noplace_drone-no-place-like-drone-301122-rolodex-of-relaxation

Sofie Birch + Johan Carøe "Repair Techniques"

:O

Some shenanigans going on with those sines of exquisite pleasure tapes. Should've trusted my instincts. https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/981667?page=1

that is fucking nuts

so bizarre to pass that excellent music off as something fake

very strange!

what is it with ambient & people doing weird magical realism schticks? kinda love it though.

Something nice from the neverending 90s trove.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Xycu82fLs

think my favourite ambient thing this year is romance’s “once upon a time”

xp atom heart! that is a cool weird album.

absolutely killer reissue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RMs7UK_HFc
Stryke - Introspection (1994)

https://rediscoveryrecords.bandcamp.com/album/stryke-introspection-parts-1-3-1994-2022

there are a few more gems in that label's back-catalogue btw (the APL album for starters!), but i really like the Ambient 7 one (you may or may not already know chika asamoto from some of her 80s city pop boogie sax bangers, but this stuff is radically different)

awesome thanks so much

This is quite lovely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wskDNhHtlI

Does anyone have any recent-ish Woob to recommend? I really liked "Light & Levitation" from 2015.

:O had no idea they were still around

this new Joseph Allred on Feeding Tube isn't strictly ambient but it is instrumental and very pleasant

https://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/album/what-strange-flowers-in-the-shade

behold! https://woob.bandcamp.com/

whoa:

https://www.musicfrommemory.com/release/7587/dream-dolphin/gaia-selected-ambient-downtempo-works-1996-2003

Nice ambien record from club producer Color Plus:
https://colorplus.bandcamp.com/album/true

('ambien' was a typo but it's apt so I'm leaving it)

Finally getting around to this beautiful album:

https://beaunoise.bandcamp.com/album/indifference-will-devour-you

Beau Sorenson - Indifference Will Devour You

I became much less interested in ambient this year— I felt like the records that everyone was talking about were mediocre, with notable exceptions. Not sure what that’s about, just posting here as it is something I noticed re my own listening habits. The Wolf record was much more dull than I was expecting, Felicia Atkinson included the annoying “female whispering incomprehensibly” throughout, the TR Jordan struck me as treacly.

I do wonder whether some of this newfound negativity toward the genre has to do with a change in my work— I am simply not at a computer all day any longer— or a change happening within the genre. Last year, an ambient record was my favorite of the year, and some other ambient records were pretty high up. This year, Romance is the only ambient record that is in my top 20.

no, I agree there is a lot of crappy “ambient” and I hate it, I have been too lazy to just make my own.

I know this is all snobby and stuff but this quote from pop matters ‘ ambient list seems very much “not-getting-it”

You know a terrible ambient record when you hear one: generic, unengaging, and outstaying its welcome. At times, Brian Eno equated ambient music to wallpaper (in a non-derogatory way), but a lousy ambient album honestly sounds like the aural equivalent of watching paint dry. You know what this sounds like if you’re even a casual fan of the genre.

1966!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtZThhz94lA

wild and wonderful

I have a feeling I read about this somewhere on here but damn this Javier Segura track is HUGE. It's notionally ambient, sort of reminds me of Organum, the spacier end of Blanck Mass, Natural Snow Buildings. That kind of thing. (I almost shouted NO! when the drums come in around the 3.30 mark, but they're backgrounded enough for it not to matter.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHdumg_FBUU