Back in stock: Ambient/Drone

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.

Review: This is a special cassette tape version of the recent album from zake, one of ambient's most prolific artists, alongside From Overseas on his own Past Inside The Present label. As always it is an almost impossibly deep ambient selection that once again finds him exploring fresh and always emotionally moving musical territory. Demain Des L'aube features eight tunes that convey real melancholia and have a gently persuasive sense of movement. Each one is vast in scale and sweeps you up and sinks you into the grainy lo-fi pads, wispy melodies and distant string-based sombreness.

Review: The irrepressible Past Inside The Present is back with the second in a trilogy of tape loop experiments from T.R. Jordan. This is the limited and hand-numbered CD format and is another cohesive piece of this three-suite puzzle. All of the music was made by the same materials and methods and was all made in "a concentrated period of inspired experimentation with no energy wasted." The artist calls it a form of "musical composting" and the music is full of a sense of musical grace and elegance, peaceful pads and sonic versions of pastoral scenes like flowing rivers and mossy rocks under beautiful wispy clouds.

Review: The limited 7" edition of Marine Eyes' latest full-length ambient record 'To Belong' hears a distilling of the original fourteen-track record down to just four selections. Though every track on the digital version of the album works in its own right, the choice on offer here - 'Hushed', 'Of The West', 'Bluest' and 'Call & Answer' - are particularly deserving of the study on wax. Something static, nigh time-crystalline is achieved on the B2, with its held root note evincing something of the quality of an infinite dream; the A1 recalls some mix of DJ Healer, Malibu or David Motion with its three note tenor-pad lilt; the A2 gets at the best of both worlds, sounding like a paradisiacal bathhouse vision set in slow motion; the B1 is the tensest, opting for a moodier key, but its reversed guitar taps and sustained choir-synth working in a no less lachrymose aesthetic.

Review: What does it mean To Belong? Cynthia Bernard aka. Marine Eyes only begins to scratch the surface of this question on her latest ambient record (yet leaps a great deal forward in wrestling with it nonetheless), following up her prior effort 'Chamomile' with a distinctly beauteous fortnight of forenoon drones, all of which spur the realization that "belonging is everywhere and nowhere". Belonging is indeed a kind of ephemeral longing of being than can only ever be partly grasped, attained. Through its looping washes of warmed, brackish, padded backwash - not to mention its many bass-undergirded angel choirs - the likes of 'Timeshifting', 'Bridges' and 'Mended Own' stand out as such revelatory highlights, all contributing to an incredible album of sonic diaristic reflection, in which every sound sticks out clearly yet plays its proper part in a humble, rose-smelling gestalt.

Review: Poetic Hovering Synth Tinkerer.

Review: Analogue synth spooks rejoice, Pye Corner Audio is back with further explorations of the sweet spot between nostalgic fuzz and circuit-borne futurism. Ghost Box is a spiritual home for Martin Jenkins' flagship project, and he continues to edge out the scope of the Pye Corner sound without derailing the fundamental atmosphere. On The Endless Echo, warm, pulsing melodics set to eerie keys abound, and there's a fine balance between gorgeous ambient atmospheric pieces and sinewy, danceable rhythms, but Jenkins manages to sound fresh and inspired even while reliably holding true to the overall project aesthetic.

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.