Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone: May 2024

Review: As compelling as it is unexpected, the ever-prolific Kevin Richard Martin of The Bug fame steps forth with a deeply eerie, lovelorn platter of wheezy dub techno haze, gauzy half-step and hollow, heart-rending ambience, dedicated to Amy Winehouse. In his words: "whilst randomly watching Asif Kapadia's moving bio doc 'Amy', on a long distance flight (...) i realised the scale of her greatness and the tragedy of the circumstances that led to her untimely death" and with 'Black', he offers up a gentle, reverent eulogy to the late singer, calling to mind Burial's charred LDN isolationism, Actress' sparser work, and even what Martin himself refers to as Mark Ronson's 'poptastic' productions, as on fever-coded upright bass shuffler 'Camden Crawling' and 'Black', an ingenious, spectral harmonic flip of Winehouse's Back To Black. A perfect ode to a misunderstood icon.

Review: If not quite a case of doing exactly what it says on the tin - at least, the long distance space travel mentioned in its title may be of a more cerebral rather than physical nature - this meditative ambient session in four parts from the prolific PIITP label's co-founder is a perennial favourite among aficionados of both this esteemed label and the chillout genre at large and always in demand. Don't be fooled into complacency by this latest reissue, as this hand-numbered random coloured vinyl run is limited to 50 copies, so don't sleep on it. There'll be plenty of time to relax once the record's on!

Review: In line with the timely reappraisal of all things R&S related, the resurgent Apollo have seen the opportunity to bring one of their most celebrated records back for another round. Aphex Twin's ambient recordings mature magnificently with age, sounding ever richer and more emotive as the rest of electronic music continues to play catch up all around. From the gentle breakbeats of "Xtal" to the aquatic techno lure of "Tha", the airy rave of "Pulsewidth" to the heartwrenching composition of "Ageispolis", every track is a perennial example of how far ambient techno could reach even back then. It's just that no-one quite had the arm-span of Richard D. James.

Review: Back in the 1990s, the combination of Mixmaster Morris, Jonah Sharp (he of Spacetime Continuum fame) and Haruomi Hosono was the closest thing you got to an ambient supergroup (the Orb's collaboration with Robert Fripp and Thomas Fehlmann as FFWD not withstanding). The trio only recorded one album together, the sublime Quiet Logic, but it's an absolute doozy - as this timely reissue proves. For one reason or another, it was only ever released in Japan at the time, meaning this is the first time it has been available worldwide. As you'd expect with such masters of the art form at the helm, it is genuinely superb - a slowly evolving opus that moves between unfurling, dub-fired ambient techno ('Waraitake') to ambient jazz eccentricity ('Dr Gauss/Yakan Hiko (Night Flight)'), via deep ambient d&b ('Uchu Yuei (Night Swimming)') and deep space ambient.

Review: Elevations is a brand new album from Contours, aka Manchester-based artist Tom Burford who is a drummer and percussionist who draws on that in his always forward-thinking sounds. The album started with him exploring the Balafon, a Malian-tuned percussion instrument. Having got to grips with how to play it he expanded the work into this full length, which is an elegant and deft collection of compositions centred around the rhythmical interactions of percussion, synthesiser and strings. It draws on jazz, minimalism, Fourth World and modern classical to sooth your soul and elevate your mind.

Review: After a two-decade interlude, Jim O'Rourke's Moikai returns with Spectral Evolution, a major new work by Rafael Toral. Making his name in the mid-1990s with influential guitar drone platters like Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field (both reissued by Drag City in recent years), Toral has never been one to rest on his laurels repeating past glories. In the early years of the 21st century, Toral began his "Space Program", a 13 year investigation of the performance possibilities of an ever-expanding set of custom electronic instruments, played with a fluid phrasing and rhythmic flexibility inspired by jazz. Dedicated to honing his skills on these idiosyncratic instruments, Toral founded his Space Quartet, where his mini-amplifier feedback integrates seamlessly into the frontline of a classic post-free jazz quartet rounded out with saxophone, double bass, and drums. Since 2017, Toral's work has been entering a new phase, often still centred around the arsenal of self-built instruments developed in the Space Program, but with a renewed interest in the long tones and almost static textures of his earlier work; he has also, after more than a decade, returned to the electric guitar. Spectral Evolution is undoubtedly Toral's most sophisticated work to date, bringing together seemingly incompatible threads from his entire career into a powerful new synthesis, both wildly experimental and emotionally affecting.

Review: Sami Salo, known for his work with Pan Sonic, resurfaces under his Hertsi moniker with CD, an anthology of groundbreaking techno experiments recorded in the early to mid-90s. This release follows Hertsi's influential Kohina, delving deeper into interference-anchored minimalism. Each track on CD pulsates with gut-churning, distorted low-end drones and hallucinatory rhythms, showcasing Salo's mastery of minimalism and abstraction. Tracks like 'Keho 1' and the four-part 'Voltti' series demand to be experienced on a high-quality system, with rippled bass oscillations and serrated distortions creating psychedelic techno landscapes. 'Voltti' particularly stands out, taking the listener through abyssal tones and hypnotic rhythms. Salo's attention to detail and sonic exploration make CD a stunning listen from start to finish, offering a glimpse into the early roots of experimental techno. This anthology solidifies Salo's legacy as a pioneering force in electronic music, showcasing his ability to push boundaries and challenge sonic norms.

Review: Was anyone ready for one of the most talked-about albums of the year to be Andre 3000 going ham on the flute? Probably not, but in a post-reality world New Blue Sun just slots right in. Of course the legions of Outkast fans are going to be split when an artist of such prominence takes a wild swerve into experimental musical pastures, but for those with an open mind or a pre-existing appreciation of ambient and leftfield music, this album is an easy sell. Teasing the tension between acoustic and electronic, ancient and hypermodern, grounded and ethereal, Andre has been bold and honest in presenting this album to the world and his gamble has paid off.

Review: Originally released on tape by SicSic in 2014, Aprilnacht commemorates a decade of music from Brannten Schnure and marked the spring in a tetralogy of albums about the four seasons. When it was first released, Brannten Schnure consisted solely of German musician Christian Schoppik; it was only after this period that he'd continue to hone is gothic folk romanticism and pastoral neoclassical sound, thereafter enlisting the help of vocalist Katie Rich as well. Now reissued by the esteemed Aguirre Records, Aprilnacht returns for a second haunting, retro-spectrally calling to mind its eerie sound collages and dusty sampler assemblages.

Review: Here comes yet another vital album of enthralling ambient from the super prolific Past Inside The Present label head zake aka Zach Frizzell. This is a numbered audiophile vinyl version (including a download code limited to 150 copies) of Veta, which is a world of smoky half-tones that mix up modern ambient classical with analogue production. The artist himself describes the work as "exercise in knowing when to draw back the mix" which speaks to its perfectly reduced sound - a blend of the organic and the synthetic that is masterfully layered and laden with heavy emotions.

Review: World class dronesmiths Zach Frizzell, Marc Ertel and Damien Duque unleash their first joint effort in several years, delving deeper into the patented 'dronegaze' formula characterising their first outing 'Liberamente'. Landing somewhere in a soothingly liminal zone between the lighter and more introspective tone floats of La Monte Young and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's roomy feedback washes, the trio extract a vast array of sweet, soporific and unconventional timbres from instruments both acoustic and electrified to meditative effect. A perfect soundtrack to studious introspection and languid bliss-outs alike.

Review: Now here's a rarity for you. Not even many of the most committed megafans know that Brian Eno, Holger Czukay and J.Peter Schwalm, accompanied by Raoul Walton and Jern Atai, performed a secret live music show, outside the esteemed Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, situated in the city of Bonn, in August 1998. Forming a part of the opening party of Eno's Future Light-Lounge Proposal multimedia installation, this furtively-recorded album hears an exclusive slice of incidental "high-altitude food music", of course made during Brian Eno's airborne ambient era. Now reissued via Gronland, this five-piece cut of sophisti-ambi-krauttronica makes for a welcome surprise.

Review: Apodelia is Hotspring's second solo release on Mood Hut; the record is partly a further exploration of song forms, studio techniques and instrumentation explored on 2020's Obit For Sunshade. This latest addition to the artistic moniker of Scott Gailey Spring explores lifting into revealing; scouring fidelities, playing with emotion, and improvising by night. A timestretched, textural nocturne is painted in sound, echoing a more contemporary incarnation of mid-'10s Mister Lies; the glassy piano refractions of 'Glanzstrasse 6', the ripply audio-pools and autotunings of 'Organ With Fire' and the beat-cracklings of 'Day Moment' are all highlights.

Review: A mythical collaborative live album - documenting an appearance shared between Brian Eno, Can's Holger Czukay and J. Peter Schwalm in 1998 - Sushi! Roti! Reibekuchen! is a three-hour ambient kraut improvisation, which first coincided with Eno's then hot-topic multimedia light installation at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, known as the Future Light-Lounge Proposal. Schwalm prepared ideas for the session and guests ate the three foods from the event and album's title; this provided sufficient, but slow-burning energy to fuel the intense whorls, feedback freakouts, snake-charmer melodies and metrically challenging rhythms that make up its sound.

Review: La Monte Young is one of the most important figures in the development of American minimal composition and performance, having explored the science of sound at an atomic level through his use of just intonation and rational number-based tuning systems. His wife Marian Zeeler was also one of his closest collaborators, and in 1974 they released their second album Dream House 78'17" as a demonstration of the ideas they had been proposing in their work. Side A was recorded at a private concert which also features Jon Hassell and Garrett List, while Side B is an extended tonal study via a bowed gong, which was monitored precisely through oscilloscopes for an exacting immersion in harmonic interplay and its physical and psychoacoustic properties.

Review: Glossy Mistakes welcome Portuguese enviro ambient cognoscente Funcionario to their roster, dashing all expectations with a wondrous eight-tracker avowedly taking after Jon Hassell and Hiroshi Yoshimura; Momento Claro. Fleshing out a real meaning from the rather murky genre term 'Fourth World', this moment of clarity conjures feelings of a rich otherness, a hidden, reality-shifted elven grotto into which our best and most authentic intentions can be made manifest. Though the artist states that the album is inherently enmeshed in ideas of what it means to exist in a contemporary working society, a sense of escape from this subjection seems unavoidable; the atmosphere is one of soothing respite, informed by the rewilded cochlear organics of the natural world, but also going beyond to produce something transcendently phantastic.

Review: American minimalism pioneers La Monte Young and Marian Zeeler released their second album in 1974, when they were already well-established in the US avant-garde. This serves as a document of their work and ideas at the time, with two very different sides on offer. The first side was recorded at a private concert, in which Young and Zeeler's voices interact with sustained drones and some occasional trumpet from Jon Hassell and trombone from Garrett List. The second side focuses on a bowed gong study, ruminating on the particulars of frequency and harmonics and their potential effects on the listener and the space in which they're heard.

Review: "The music was born and recorded in the house of my childhood, trying my best to compose the view of the woods as the sky turns indigo on some late spring evening." Otto Taimela uses his words concisely, but manages to evoke a very particular place, feeling and mood when taking about his May 2024 full length masterpiece, Inner Beauty. Following on from a more chaotic and turbulent IDM EP on SWIMS sister label, Cold blow, the maestro is back in a guide most of us are more familiar with. Pastoral ambient and sumptuous, slow burning piano work, Inner Beauty is one of those rare moments where a record feels complete, even while opening our eyes to a world of aural possibilities. Introspective in the same way we tend to consider internal tranquility as we look out on the stunning surrounds of rural somewhere, this is a world to get lost in.

Review: Otto Taimela makes transportive music - ambient and deep listening electronica to lift and change moods, open inner eyes and invoke the imagination as much as memories. Hear him explain the ideas being the tracks, thought, and he's far more straight talking. "[I] couldn't find any acoustic covers of these two masterpieces by Gigi Masin from 1989, so decided to give it a go with one of my biggest local musical idols, Olli Aarni who I am proud to call my friend. "I consider the original tracks quite holy, so it took me years of courage to ask Olli to record these with me. Never had any goal to release these in any professional way, we just had an idea, for fun, to salute the golden era of YouTube when people made these poorly recorded acoustic YouTube covers." Making it all sound so simple, what we have here are two elegant and thoughtful piano pieces, pouring with emotion.

Review: Los Angeles-based sound designer, experimental musician and ambient explorer Richard Chartier - considered by some to be one of the world's leading exponents of "minimalist sound art" - recorded much of On Leaving, his 24th solo set, while his friend and fellow sound artist Steve Roden was dying. The album is naturally dedicated to him, and its hazy thickset collages of reprocessed found sound, ghostly tones and melancholic, slowly shifting ambient textures are for the most part poignant - a kind of audio translation of slipping in and out of consciousness while fading away. It's an arresting listen, best enjoyed with a good pair of headphones, full of impeccable sonic details and the creeping darkness of approaching grief.

Review: Wanderwelle is the Amsterdam-based ambient duo of Phil van Dulm & Alexander Bartels, who mint their Maalstrom label with Wat Gebeurde Er Met Sergeant Massuro?, a concept album based around Harry Mulisch's 1957 story of the same name (What Happened To Seagent Massuro?). The story weaves anti-colonial concepts with mythical realist elements, and is sonically brought to life here through atmospheric electronics and prepared instruments. A moody, resonant and ultimately deep groundswell of an album, one that compels the listener to venture ever further into the a spine-tingling heart of darkness.

Review: Ryko Kalinko and Aemon Webb were holed up on Hayman Island, Queensland, Australia, when they set to work on the appropriately-named Hayman Island Sessions. Using guitars, samplers, vocals, a guzheng (if you're not familiar, think Chinese plucked zither), they pieced together a three-party odyssey attempting to capture their experiences, both real and imagined, while playing castaways. The most northerly of the Whitsunday Islands evidently inspired imagery that exists outside the usual threads of time itself. Elements here seem to speak (or play) to tribalism and exploration, while the overall air throughout is one of tranquility and separation from the breakneck world we have created for ourselves. Meditative, relaxing, trippy, surreal, and yet rooted in textures that feel entirely natural, it's among the most unique ambient journeys we've heard in some time.

Review: Recorded during a year in which Sholto Dobie spent time in Vietnam, Sweden and Lithuania, 23 lands on Infant Tree and finally lets us know what a full length album from one of the foremost avant-electronic ambient contemporaries would sound like. A startling debut, albeit one that you don't really feel startled by, more absorbed and elevated, it's an amalgamation of tone, noise, and sound, led by compressed air, tubes, reeds, flutes and timers. Physical instrumentals and things that create a tangible sense of space and place. Born in Edinburgh, but now based in Vilnius - a European hotbed of musical innovation, from throbbing techno to weirdo - 23 distills a number of factors into its immersive whole. In some moments, it's as though signals are being picked up from the deepest corners of our known universe. In others, we feel the intimacy of humanity gathered around sacred fires, the near-silence of our world amid vast emptiness beyond.