New releases last eight weeks: Ambient/Drone

Review: Heavyweight ambient partnerships don't come much bigger than Lawrence English and Loscil, who pool their considerable resources into this majestic album for Kranky. If you're familiar with Loscil's shimmering, sweetly synthetic sound, you'll be very happy with the grandiose blooms of undulating colour bleeding out of 'Cyan', while English's affinity for subtlety comes to the fore on 'Aqua'. The approach for the album was centred around a century-old pipe organ at the Old Museum in Brisbane, but of course there's been a lot of work done on the original sound sources. There's no great tussle between the respective artists - their sound practices merge beautifully, rendering an essential addition to both of their considerable catalogues.

Review: American composer and sound engineer Adam Wiltzie, may not yet be a household name in electronic music yet but it's a safe bet you have heard projects that he has been involved in. Adam is one half of the highly regarded ambient and drone project Stars Of The Lid for the past 30 years and also worked with many popular rock and indie bands as an engineer as well as done composing for film and TV. Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentathol is the name for his first all original material for a full album. Last year in 2023 brought the untimely death of Stars Of The Lid partner Brian Mcbride. However, Adam's relationship with Kranky records is as strong as ever and that's where his first solo album finds a home. The music is inspired by a recurring dream Adam had where the music he composes makes people die. The music blends heavy emotions from ruin to absolute beauty. A powerful album that has extreme depth and cinematic expansiveness. We hope this will be the start to a very productive solo career that will continue his excellent work that was done with Stars Of The Lid.