Back catalogue: Ambient/Drone

Review: UK producer Inigo Kennedy - also known as Seducer, Tomito Satori and Helki Torsnum - comes up with a pair of techno tracks that positively glisten with luxuriant melody and a beautiful musicality that's rare to ape in this - or indeed any - scene. 'RackSpace 2' and 'Dewdrops' both glide with serene ease, the melodies weaving away in the back seat of the track but never threatening to overwhlelm the atmosphere. The latter is definitely operating in a spacier sphere, with the reverbs and delays working overtime, but both are nicely restrained takes on techno that nevertheless paint vivid sonic pictures.

Review: The Final Call finds Adam K.Roll going deep into a world where dub, techno, ambient, electronica, Jamaican dub and summer sounds from tropical islands all coexist. It is a far cry from the minimal remade back in the mid-00s and one that brings a fresh perspective to warm, heady, deep sound worlds. The long player also includes a first vinyl pressing of the previously digital-only single 'Into The Ocean' and has also had Echo Inspectors remix it. Both tunes are superb amongst a record of similarly well-designed and exapist works.

Review: Outlier experimental label Eating Music brings back more for us to chew on here in the form of a varied four tracker from various artists. It is Mindexxx that opens with 'Track 1' which layers up snaking synths and deeply buried dark bass that grows in intensity and washes over you like a Tsunami. Laughing Ears then cuts back to a tender mood with soft piano chords and slowly unfolding rhythms that are warm and lithe. Gooooose's 'The Dusk Of Digital Age' is a churchy affair with textured drones shot through with beams of synth light and Knopha's 'Off-Peak Season Tourists' layers up choral vocals and jumbled drum sounds into something hypnotic and escapist.

Review: It is always a joy to hear from the Music For Dreams label. Not only is it a musically interesting outlet but also one that digs deep into plenty of fascinating different scenes. And this is one such case as the project is centered around 99-year-old Iboja Wandall-Holm who sings about memories from her childhood growing up in Eastern Europe. The record plays out like a musical encounter where the songs are worked into magical forms by Danish musician Mikkel Hess and other members of his Hess Is More band with extra collaborative input from label head and producer Kenneth Bager.

Review: Ariel Kalma is a musical outsider, a visionary who combined a diverse world of sound into his own unique signature. Jazz, weird ethnic instrumentals, warm electronics, folk, spoken word and avant soul all feature in his compelling oeuvre and the visionary French musician sure had a large one. French Archives Vol III: 1964-1989 is another superb collection of material from it that comes in a lovely four LP box set with booklet and download code. It gets from astral wonderment on 'Space Pillars' to layers of harmonic bells, tropical flutes, harmoniums and drones of light on 'Muse Mirroir' with plenty in between.

Review: Back in the summer of 2022, BBC Radio 3 asked fourth world legend and all-round avant-garde musical hero Ariel Kalma to pick artists he'd never met to collaborate with. He chose Jeremiah Chu and Marta Sofia Honer. Following the radio broadcast in the autumn of '22, the trio continued making music together and this is the result: a brilliant, impossible-to-pigeonhole affair that combines snatches of improvised performances from each musician with elements of recordings Kalma made in the 1970s, speech samples, droning tones, ambient electronics and much more besides. It's not jazz, ambient, fourth world or abstract electronica, but something that sits in the fuzzy gaps in between. More importantly, it's sonically superb - a coherent and inspired piece of work that gets the most out of its principle cast of characters.

Review: This is a limited edition 'silent' grey vinyl version of Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu, and Marta Sofia Honer's The Closest Thing to Silence. The album is one that defies conventions and offers ethereal compositions and intricate soundscapes that immerse listeners in contemplation. Kalma's mastery of wind instruments, Chiu's electronic experimentation, and Honer's emotive vocals seamlessly blend, creating a serene tapestry of sound. Each track unfolds like a meditative journey, guiding listeners through evocative landscapes of sound. This collaborative effort highlights the beauty of stillness, inviting introspection and appreciation for the artistry that emerges from such moments. This, then, is a testament to the transformative power of collaborative creativity.

Review: Primarily known for his work with the double bass and modular synths, Egil Kalman straddles that unique hinterland somewhere between electronic, electroacoustic, and folk. Renowned for his ability to improvise and create stunning, beautiful, minimalist compositions on the fly, while this is hard to truly capture on record, Forest of Tines does its best. With a subtitle referencing the instrument Kalman is perhaps most associated with, the work is deeply textured and yet deceptively bare, with layers slowly revealing themselves before dissipating into the ether. A sonic adventure that lures us in with calm, organic movements set against tones that are more obviously the result of man and machine, timelessness meeting modernity in these exquisite forms, like stories of the ancients told through contemporary musical language.

Review: Mariachiara Troianiello, the Milan-based sound artist behind the moniker Katatonic Silentio, works at the crossroads of electronic music, performing arts and sound studies. Acting as a live performer and an independent researcher, she seeks to bridge different spheres and approaches to sonic production. Now, the ever reliable Ilian Tapes have gave her free reign to use her 15 years in the game to create some exquisite, atmospheric sonic shapes that melt the barriers between genres. Across four sides of vinyl she brings us everything from totally wigged out ambient sounds to lively, bubbling electronica and sub bass-enhanced rhythmic assaults. Her world is a bewildering, sometimes disorientating one at times, downright beautiful at others, but one in which you'll want to hang around in for more than a little while.

Review: Where do you even start with a title like this? To say Hollie Kenniff has set out to try and tear through your emotional brick wall in the sweetest and most gentile way possible is full understatement of the century territory. Following up on her spellbinding 2021 ambient masterpiece, The Quiet Drift, her latest offering to the world almost sounds like a memory even before you know what it's called.

From the outset, these are lush soundscapes that ebb and flow behind and in front of piano keys, suggestions of notes that almost aren't there, with the consistent totem this overwhelmingly rich timbre. The arrangements, often deceptively loose, reflect the work of mind's eye, its ability to recollect but not necessary in 360-degrees, colour, or linear timelines. Tracks such as the aptly titled 'Momentary' introduce refreshingly clear structures of melody, before again vanishing into beautiful walls of brilliant sound.

Review: It was in 1998 that pioneering Canadian musician levin Key released his solo debut Music For Cats. Artoffact Records reissued it on vinyl back in 2014 and now they do so again but this time on gatefold pink and blue splattered vinyl double album. It's a unique work that blends classical, glitch, and noise-driven pieces, featuring collaborations with artists like Dwayne Goettel, Genesis P.Orridge, Philth, and Mark Spybey. 'Music Fur Cats' showcases Key's songwriting depth, followed by 'Wind On Small Paws' with its electro-industrial sci-fi vibe. 'Meteorite' offers glitchy beats. Familiar tracks like 'Bird', 'Blotter', and 'Greenhouse Gasses' provide accessible listening, albeit experimental. 'Music For Cats' is gritty and against the grain, yet melodic. While not mainstream, it's an intriguing, well-crafted release, appealing to experimental electronic enthusiasts and completists alike.

Review: Canada may not shout as loud as the US, UK or Germany when it comes to electronic music, with the exception of Richie Hawtin perhaps, albeit frequently assumed he's American, and is actually part-British. Nevertheless, the larger North American state has a truly remarkable legacy in house, techno, ambient, and synth-y odds and sods.

It's proof the apple never falls far from the tree, given proximity to some of the bonafide birthplaces of those sounds - Chicago and Detroit. Edmonton's Khotin is indicative of the difficult to define tones that emanate from the Maple Leaf and its people. So much texture, pouring with emotion, and fundamentally born of new ideas, or at least different ways of thinking. Release Spirit, his third album on Michigan's Ghostly International, is thoughtful, intelligent, downtempo electronic stuff, crafted with love and attention to detail.

Review: Kilometre Club lands on the Indianapolis label Healing Sound Propagandist with a collection of sounds made using only one piece of gear, the Squier Bass VI, with the assistance of guitar pedals. Each one is a pure and cathartic meditation on minimalist drones that are deft and wispy. The compositions are smartly layered up and slowly ascend to the heavens with subtle spaces between notes and long tails making their mark on your heat. Says the artist, "this is an album for floating away while calling out vowels in reverse alphabetical order" - and we love it.

Review: Ever since the release of his first solo album more than 20 years ago, German musician and producer Christian Kleine has experimented with blending and contrasting the varying textures and approaches of post-rave IDM, breakbeats, shoegaze and punk. His latest album offering, Touch & Fuse, shows he's continued to refine and perfect that combination, which is less a conscious concoction and more of a natural outcome of the music he likes. From the edgy Aphex-isms of 'Val 2' and the heavily filtered breaks of 'Reverse Angle' to the slowed down grunge meets pure electronics of 'Return of the Underground', this is unique, accomplished stuff.

Review: When it comes to creating musical soundtracks to contemporary urban decay, Gary Mundy has more experience than most. He's been releasing music as Kleistwahr since 1983 (though he did give the project a break between 1987 and 2009) and is a genuine master of creating heady, post-industrial soundscapes. 'Common Values', his 14th Kleistwahr album, is another masterclass in texture, mood and slowly shifting melody. There are moments of bittersweet, melancholic brilliance (see the immersive, reverb-laden ambience of 'Heaven Maybe Never') and pulsing, creeping minimalism (the brilliant, bleak and mournful 'Towards New Land'), but also fuzzy, guitar-laden soundscapes ('In a Blood Covered Land', 'All of Death To Lie' and the squally 'Common Values') and enveloping audio worlds subtly influenced by shoegaze ('Time To Realise').

Review: The Udacha label might have been away for a while but is now back with a vengeance. First up for this return is a new long player by the mighty fine Kurvenschreiber quarter, which is made up of Sergey Komarov, Vlad Dobrovolski, Ilya Sadovski and Alexey Grachev. These sound artists have been excelling in their field for some 10 years now and use synths as well as found sound objects to create their work. Magnetic tape loops, various instruments, pre-recorded loops, shortwave radios, transformers and much more give rise to this unique record which mixes up Boolean jazz, kurventronika and post-rock.

Review: The master and his student - not that we're trying to label Kramer as a novice producer given he could easily school even some of the most accomplished studio hands. Nevertheless, Laraaji is considered one of the true godfathers of ambient, having been there way, way back in the early 1980s, releasing on Brian Eno's Day of Radiance imprint and gracing us with an inordinately good back catalogue since then. The point being that Kramer, like almost everyone stepping into this space in the past 40 years, has certainly learnt something from that living legend. At least some of that is put to excellent use on this collaborative joy, which uses three distinct movements to draw us deep into a simple yet compelling sonic odyssey.

Review: Call a track 'Rotterdam In De Jaren 90' and you can expect people to have some pretty strong feelings about what it might sound like. Especially given this double-A from Nous Klaer Audio opens on what grows into a tense, electronic, club-ready builder, for a while at least. Cast any thoughts of gabber out the window, though, because if this is the Dutch port city's rave scene on record, it's a post-sweat soaked, blissed out reflection on the wonders of whatever happened the night before. Kems Kriol's mini epic, a 15-minute long tune no less, is a beautiful combination of wistful woodwind and synthesised refrains, presumably found sounds, and strange, abstract noises. 'Tegenlicht', on the other side, shares some of those qualities in the extended intro and outro sections, but also spends some of its 18-minute running time in the basements and warehouses we were originally expecting to find.

Review: "The Next World Sound Series is a collection of work by contemporary sound artists working in long form instrumental composition and translated to the tangible medium of vinyl. These modern day offerings capture the analog quality and experience of last century electronic recordings, presented to you with today's technological advances in home playback, for your environmental listening pleasure." Or so say heads at the iconic and truly enigmatic label Dark Entries of this latest addition to their catalogue. A collection of work that spans the strangely frantic sci-fi tones of 'Oberenginen 0930' to the almost monastic drone of 'Soma', dubbed and muffled drums and vocals on 'Lixsm', club-ready broken beats of 'Destruct', and the evocative futurist refrains and samples of 'John Gore'. As expansive as it is exploratory and adventurous, you'll need to set aside some serious listening time for your first play here.