Back in stock: Ambient/Drone

Review: The NID Tapes is a collection of early Indian electronic music uncovered at the archives of the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, India. The compilation includes works by Gita Sarabhai, I.S. Mathur, Atul Desai, S.C. Shama and Jinraj Joshipura, who worked at India's first electronic music studio founded at the NID in 1969, with support from the New York composer David Tudor. A throwback to the early days of analog composition, the compilation escapes the usual tendency towards Eurocentrism in championing this field, and showcases the collective's experiments with Moog synthesizer, tape collage, vocal techniques and field recordings - creating a unique fusion of Western and Indian avant-garde traditions.

Review: The solo project of Swedish musician Sofie Herner, Leda is an experimental project mainly dedicated to roomy, claustrophobic freakouts, fashioned out of a distinctive form of guitar playing, among other tinkerings. Now a well-known name in the Gothenburg scene, Herner's proximity to her local DIY underground is abundantly clear. It feels just as reflective in the sound of her latest project here, Neuter, which sounds like a gargantuan woodwork project subsuming a collective consciousness. Building off the natural footprints trailed by not only her former output, but also her involvement in bands like Neutral and Enhet For Fri Musik, this LP comprises nine tracks of minimal guitar loops, layered oppressively with doomy vocals, all-encompassing percussion, and other oddball instruments. Movements one through nine guide us through uniquely dour worlds, all with the utmost creep factor.

Review: Mysterious techno artist Rrose presents their first ever CD release, and their second full-length project to date. Following 2019's Hymn to Moisture, Please Touch features 11 slippery slinkers, flaunting Rrose's penchant for hypnotics and minimalisms; the likes of 'Spores' and 'Spines' refuse to indulge too many novel sounds, preferring to allow their more immersive textures to rattle and ricochet over each mix, producing a delugey wash. Thematically, the LP deals with themes of touch, intimacy and embodiment, doing some of the work to bridge the schizophonic gap that's remained open since the dawn of recorded music.

Review: Yagya (Adalsteinn Gudmundsson) is one of the foremost names on the intersection of ambient house, dub techno, and dream pop, having achieved international renown for their many icy, mournful and gaseous long-players and EPs for many imprints over the years. 'Faded Photographs' is Yagya's latest, and his ninth album to date, bringing together an interesting dozen of tracks overlaid with vocals from fellow artists Benoit Pioulard and Bandreas, and saxophonist oskar Gudjonsson. While stooped in pop songwriting, every track here locks in a triplet groove on top of 4x4 beat structures, producing a skippy, carefree and lackadaisical effect.

Review: This collaborative album from Rob Modell (Deepchord) and Taka Noda (Mystica Tribe) presents a brand new and compelling East-West dialogue in the mode of noir ambient dub. It also provides ample opportunity for these two greats of the genre to take a break from the monikers and operate under their own names - reflecting this one's specialness. Unlike the straight-up kick-centric and transcendentally meditative focus of either artist's solo releases, the pair have here conjured up something entirely beatless and a little more melodically advanced. Expect hurt, rainsoaked, and swamped soundscapes over a long four pieces.

Review: Poetic Hovering Synth Tinkerer.

Review: Melodies In The Sand is another vital album from Melody As Truth. It collects together the works of Czech artists Irena and Vojt?ch Havlovi, a husband and wife pair who made music int he 80s as part of experimental collective Capella Antiqua e Moderna. Their style spanned various styles of European classical music and was never less than unorthodox yet beguiling. This record really shines a light on these talented artists and brims with an emotional honesty and vulnerability that will impact anyone who hears it. The delicate keys, the vocal whispers and way they drift in and out, the rippling chords -these are always empty, subtle tracks but they leave an inedible mark.

Review: Way back in 1975, two albums slipped out that would effectively establish the synthesizer-fired "new age" sound. Arguably the more important - and better quality - of the two was "Inter-dimensional Music", the debut LP from California-based musician Iasos. Here reissued on vinyl for the first time in a decade, the superb set combines drowsy ambient chords, gentle organ melodies and other subtle instrumental flourishes (bass guitar, pedal steel, lazy electric guitar solos) with field recordings of lapping waves, babbling brooks and so on. While new age would become a bit of a cheesy cliche in later years, "Inter-Dimensional Music" is a superb collection of drifting, meditative tracks that soothe and seduce the senses.

Review: After a recent string of EPs and mini LPs, it's a pleasure to hear Biosphere tantalizing drones and ambient loops across a full-length. The Hilvarenbeek Recordings are a perfect encapsulation of the man's sound and vision, forever iterating his subtle sounds to paint rich and vivid portrays of the world and of his surroundings. The new album, one of his best to date, comes to life thanks to the amalgamation of field recordings, raw talent, and a pensive outlook on the world. A constant thirst for applying sound to vision, and vision to sound. Wonderful, as always.

Review: B12's 1993 debut album, Electro-Soma, has long been regarded as one of intelligent dance music's "must-have releases". Offering a decidedly intergalactic blend of otherworldly techno, ambient and deep space electronica, it remains a brilliant piece of work. Here, Warp Records give it the reissue treatment, packaging the peerless original album with a second disc of early B12 rarities and hard-to-find cuts recorded during the same period. There's naturally plenty to admire on this bonus disc, from the shimmering electro bustle of "Transient Pathways" and Motor City futurism of "Debris", to the intoxicating ambient brilliance of "Go With The Hiss". That this material is every bit as good as the tracks included on Electro-Soma is testament to the (then) duo's rarely matched brilliance.