Back in stock: Ambient/Drone

Review: Rod Modell's Music For Bus Stations, released by Silentes in Italy, is a masterful exploration of ambient and dub techno that immerses listeners in a transcendent soundscape. Known for his Detroit roots and innovative use of old-school recording techniques like tape loops and echo devices, Modell crafts a sonic experience that seamlessly integrates with modern architecture. The album serves as a generative backdrop, enhancing the atmosphere of bus stations with its ethereal and progressive sounds. Designed to complement rather than clash with architectural elements, the composition creates a constantly evolving, organic sound tapestry. By utilising polyrhythmic elements and shifting sonic phenomena, Modell's work induces a state of calm and reflection. Inspired by avant-garde bus station designs, such as those by Domitianus Arquitectura and Bluck & Morgen, Music For Bus Stations transforms everyday spaces into immersive sound environments. The result is a living, unpredictable auditory experience that elevates the mundane to the sublime, perfectly capturing the essence of ambient exploration. Act fast if you want a copy, Rod Modell fans are die-hards!

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. If the album cover is anything to go by, this is could almost certainly be described as the equivalent of the film Chungking Express condensed into musical form, but musically, Glow World is just that - a glowing world - hauntingly pitting rain patters, chord releases and consonant yet conflicted pads into great overhead swarms of sound.

Review: The 1990s was arguably the first 'golden age' of ambient - a time when the inherently atmospheric and laidback style not only exploded in popularity, but also became the post-club soundtrack of choice for a whole generation. This personal survey of the 90s ambient scene from journalist and author Jon Savage does a good job in gathering together a representative selection of genuine gems and overlooked classics, drifting between the bubbly, deep space brilliance of Richard H Kirk's Sandoz project ('Limbo'), bleeping ambient house ('Calm' by 2 Cabbages on a Drip), early progressive house (React 2 Rhythm), electronic psychedelia (the tabla rhythms and swirly noises of Rapoon), ambient blues (Underworld), IDM (U-ziq), and glacial, slow-motion bliss (Biosphere).