ambient

North Americans | Long Cool World (2023)

folk, ambient
April 6, 2023April 6, 2023

On April 07, North Americans the project of Los Angeles guitarist Patrick McDermott and Portland’s Barry Walker on pedal steel will release their new album Long Cool World via Third Man Records. As North Americans, McDermott has been experimenting with drone and noise and how it can take shape, and then jettison that shape, since 2013’s No_No, but it’s when he embraced his love of fingerpicked guitar and vintage country music on 2018’s Going Steady that he settled on a sound that felt like a genuine melding of his disparate musical interests. 2020’s Roped In was another creative milestone: with Walker and a host of other collaborators, including harpist Mary Lattimore, and guitarist William Tyler, among others, creating a communal, layered approach to each track that felt vital as the world dipped into isolation during a global pandemic. “I knew that for this one I wanted to dial up some of the textures and experimentation,” McDermott says. Third Man Records

experimental, ambient, electronic
March 25, 2023April 8, 2023

mats_gustafsson_joachim_nordwall_their_power_reached_across_space

Mats Gustafsson is a world-renowned horn player who has pushed the evolution of improvised music with his own unique voice. Joachim Nordwall is a cornerstone of the Swedish musical underground, exploring the extremities of guitar music with The Skull Defekts and solo recordings as The Idealist that access the spiritual and political dimensions of electronic music and dub. Nordwall also runs the esteemed and boundary pushing iDEAL Recordings. Gustafsson and Nordwall’s THEIR POWER REACHED ACROSS SPACE AND TIME-TO DEFY THEM WAS DEATH-OR WORSE finds both musicians pushing their instruments to the limit in order to create a sound experience that is adventurous and fresh. This is an album that celebrates the ecstasy of low dynamic experimental music executed with skilled precision. The power of this inventive duo is that each musician drives the other to unexpected places creating sonic expanse that demands repeat exploration. Thrill Jockey

Pan American | In Daylight Dub (2023)

ambient, electronic
March 5, 2023March 11, 2023

First compilation of obscure ambient dub/dub techno compositions from Pan American, from the turn of the century, with cover sleeve created from his photographs from the same era. Restored from original copies of x3 EPs, remastered and cut by Grammy-nominated en gineer Frank Merritt @ The Carvery, London. Pressed on a 12″ available on black and limited translucent vinyl, as well as digitally for the first time ever.
Our fourth release comes in the form of a collection of rich, pulsating ambient/dub techno from Pan•American – the solo project of post-rock trio Ladbradford’s front man Mark Nelson. Drawn to the incredible depth… Bandcamp
Read More »Pan American | In Daylight Dub (2023)

bvdub – Fumika Fades

ambient, electronic
March 2, 2023March 8, 2023

Memories fade. But to fade is not to disappear. It is to live a thousand more lives, each different from the next. And it is in their ebb and flow that eternity resides. Memories of a life when we shouted our feelings from the rooftops without words. Memories of days we never let each other fall. Never let each other know the meaning of a broken heart.
This is the distant soundtrack to a life of love past. Love faded. Sounds seeping in from the next room. From the window down the street. Muted reminders that life, and love, was all around us. That it still is. That memories can help as much as they hurt. Memories of who we were. Are. And will be. Because to fade means to have existed… Bandcamp
Read More »bvdub – Fumika Fades

Erik Hall – Canto Ostinato (Simeon ten Holt)

classical, ambient, experimental
February 26, 2023March 8, 2023

Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos from 1976 to 1979 by the late Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, the piece is freshly framed as an intimate, hour-long solo performance consisting of multitracked grand pianos, electric piano, and organ. The second album in a trilogy of reinterpretations, Hall’s Canto Ostinato is modern yet warm, ethereal yet tangible, and it expertly bridges a revered piece of meditative concert repertoire with a tactile and highly personal studio setting.
Chicago-born and Michigan-based, Erik Hall is known as a multi-instrumental pillar for the groups NOMO, Wild Belle… Western Vinyl
Read More »Erik Hall – Canto Ostinato (Simeon ten Holt)

Orbital | Optical Delusion

electronic, ambient
February 15, 2023March 10, 2023

Techno dons return Orbital’s first album in five years kicks off with galloping beats and glacial synth rushes. It’s deliciously danceable, but Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song), a collaboration with the Mediaeval Baebes, masks a darker heart… Record Collector
Orbital return with album number 10 in their innovative career of groundbreaking techno and there’s no slowing down from the Hartnoll brothers who keep up the momentum with a stunning release reckons Wayne AF Carey… Louder Than War
The rave scene that birthed English electronic duo Orbital is a relic of the past, but Paul and Phil Hartnoll are still putting a fresh spin on techno more than three decades after the release of their debut single, “Chime.” And their urgent 10th studio album, Optical Delusion, proves that they’re no legacy act simply resting on their laurels… Slant Magazine

Hollie Kenniff | We All Have Places That We Miss (2023)

ambient, dream-pop, shoegaze
February 10, 2023April 1, 2023

Active as half of synth/dream pop duo Mint Julep since the 2000s, Hollie Kenniff began releasing solo material in 2019. Departing from the group’s hook-heavy, often danceable pop songs, her own music is lush, hazy, and a bit nostalgic, blending ambient synths and chiming guitar melodies with wordless, textural vocals… AllMusic
Kenniff’s second LP for Western Vinyl, We All Have Places That We Miss, is a chorus of cloudlike synths, seraphic strings, humming drones, and reverb drenched shoegaze guitars, all melding into an impressionistic story of remembrance, loss, family, and connection… Western Vinyl
The beauty of Kenniff’s music is that it is alive with emotion, and we can imprint our own images upon the pieces. Some feelings are universal though it might not be a home or a favourite place we have lost. We rated The Quiet Drift very highly – it was our second favourite album of 2021 – and it’s possible we felt so strongly about it then because it felt like being in the company of an old friend and that was what we needed at the time. It was a record that captured our imagination and touched our hearts… A Closer Listen

Black Belt Eagle Scout | The Land, The Water, The Sky (2023)

ambient, experimental, post-rock, singer-songwriter
February 10, 2023March 15, 2023

Black Belt Eagle Scout teaches us, guides, and inspires us, all the while dazzling us with lush atmospheres, seismic rhythms, and a voice that unfurls from another and perhaps a better world… PopMatters
Paul centers the intricacies of home/coming across 12 pristine tracks, each pushing post-rock to its most beautiful extreme… Paste Magazine
The thematic focus on the therapeutic powers of the natural world, and the protective presence of familial and spiritual energies, make The Land, the Water, the Sky feel just as suited to playing from the peak of a mountain as from the crackling speaker of a bar or bookstore… Exclaim

John Frusciante | : I I . (2023)

ambient, experimental
February 3, 2023March 14, 2023

John Frusciante‘s musical horizons have always been broader than what he’s able to explore as the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That’s why he’s previously quit the band twice, and why he’s released far more music as a solo artist than as a member of the group.
Now on his third stint in the Chili Peppers, his latest solo album – titled : I . on vinyl and : I I . digitally, with a modified tracklist for each – is explicitly designed as an antidote to the traditional rock song structures of the Chili Peppers… exclaim
After a year and a half writing and recording rock music, I needed to clear my head. I listened to and made music where things generally happen gradually rather than suddenly. I would set up patches on a Monomachine or Analog Four…