Back catalogue: Ambient/Drone

Review: Celebrated English composer Gavin Bryars has his 80th birthday marked by the release of the magnificent In LA, an all-new album on the Alga Marghen label. The album is the result of a collaboration between Bryars and Italian visual artist Massimo Bartolini. It is music played pipe organ bars, suspended from the ceiling at the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art in Prato, Italy. It is an experimental concept that results in absorbing ambient works that very much capture the energy, essence and architecture of the spaces. It's a live, living, real time adventure full of evocative imagery and sombre moods.

Review: There's clearly something in the water in Colorado: a hotbed for alternative electronic tones. The obvious answer would be all the weed the place is now famous for, but we prefer to think it's the stunning and seemingly-never ending natural landscape that hits you the moment you look up. No stranger to music making, local one M. Sage presents his latest interpretation of those surrounds, with Paradise Crick a deep dive into sounds at once manmade and natural. A gentile trip through floating noises and hypnotic fragments of time, it's blissful, instantly captivating stuff, quickly locating the part of the brain that makes you feel immersed and making itself at home. Meandering through the lot feels like time well spent, outside, listening to babbling brooks and gazing out on lakes reflecting beams of sunlight back into the world.

Review: Lisbon's Rui Maia has turned his hand to many different styles over a long and winding career, shoring up on Bear Funk, Optimus Discos and Belong over the years and also recording as Mirror People, Noise Reduction and X-Wife. After a few years silence, he re-emerged on the Groovement Organic Series label last year, and makes a swift return with another illustrious set of plaintive electronics for mellow reflection and headphone reveries. From the sombre refrains of 'Metade' to the strafing arps and sprightly chimes of 'Okino', there's vintage warmth rubbed into every inch of this release, but it doesn't feel disposably retro. Rather, Maia creates a space out of time for you to recline in, surrounded by dulcet synth shapes and the occasional tickle of a drum machine. Is there any better place to be?

Review: We're just gonna put it out there - everyone is jealous of Quentin Thirionet. He once worked as a rope access worker (AKA an industrial climber), which sounds interesting and exhilarating. Now he grows organic veg. Which sounds delightful. He's also refused to stylistically confine himself at any sound, hence you might know him from Dhavali Giri or Pairi Daeza, gypsy jazz, Auvergne folk song, experimental electronics or something else entirely. Despite that experience, Sumer Is Icumen is Thirionet's debut LP, and takes us further into those strange, otherworldly noises that are only possible when human and machine work together perfectly. Much of this feels as organic as the artist's farm, but really it's about the natural and mechanical, manmade and synthesised, painting evocative audio pictures that invoke images of evolution, growth, hidden systems at play and equilibrium.

Review: Romance with a capital 'R', as they say, ivory key doyen Gia Margaret returns with another spectacular and spellbinding collection of beautiful movements and pieces that sees her invoke a sense of peace, tranquility and solitude. Reflective arrangements that seem to straddle both a sense of loss, or at least melancholia, and acceptance and comfort in oneself. "I wanted to make music that was useful," Margaret says of the record. "Romantic Piano is curious, calming, patient and incredibly moving - but it doesn't overstay its welcome for more than a second." Running between fairytale like 'Sitting On The Piano' to the opiate, neo-pop of 'City Song', its a rare beast that can simultaneously feel tripped out and surreal, but also grounded in the world we are so luck to experience.

Review: Marie Guerin, or maybe you know her as Marie de la Nuit, is a sound artist who has explored field recordings, radio archives and "hertzian ghosts" for almost a quarter of a century since her debut in 2001. Her work blends voices, textures and ambient sounds that examine sound heritage and its preservation. Transportees is an electroacoustic composition that connects archaic and electronic trance and in doing so weaves a musical thread from Brittany to Tunisia. It follows a trance-like journey through recordings and oral traditions, all rooted in Guerin's passion for archives. The album reflects her fascination with capturing and preserving songs and transforming them into a soundscape that bridges past and present.

Review: Cliff Martinez's soundtrack is a full realised musical world that is defined by eerie synths and pulsating rhythms, all of which perfectly capture The Neon Demon hypnotic and unsettling atmosphere. Martinez is well known for his work on Drive and Only God Forgives and here once more delivers a score that is both haunting and seductive while mirroring the neon-lit world of fashion and obsession. The soundtrack weaves dreamy, ambient textures with dark, throbbing electronic undercurrents that draw you in and highlights include 'Neon Demon' and 'Mine' which pulse with icy beauty and mean this one stands as one of Martinez's most evocative and chilling compositions.

Review: Non-Stop Healing Frequency is music designed to soothe you. It is the second album from Ruth Mascelli, aka one quarter of Special Interest, and is a progression from their debut album in that it is a "carefully constructed sequence of electronic mood pieces, tender ballads, kosmische disco tracks and industrial symphonies" Using synth, drum machine and piano, as well as Mascelli's own voice, these 11 pieces explore themes like new age and self-help scams, gnostic mysticism and different ways of working through grief. It's an exploration of how we all get through life, basically, and by listening to you will, in fact, get through life a little easier.

Review: This EP weaves a labyrinth of sound, where the absence of clear genre boundaries is the only constant. The opener leads with ambient pulses, before shifting into the hypnotic, bass-heavy swells of 'Infrasound Loop,' as if crossing into a parallel dimension. As it unravels, 'Submerged Reactions' builds a wave of evolving textures, quietly oscillating between glitchy abstractions and weighty drones. Throughout, the artists' mastery of subtle, complex layers remains apparent, each track a gradual immersion into its own sonic world. On clear vinyl, it's an intricate, immersive listen-complex yet fluid, intricate yet accessible, making it easy to lose yourself in the flow.

Review: Lorenzo Masotto is an Italian pianist and composer from a village near Verona who studied at the Conservatory F.E. Dall'Abaco and the Hochschule fur Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar. His music now returns to Whitelabrecs with his new album Earde which is inspired by the landscapes surrounding his hometown in Northern Italy and reflects the beauty of local nature and Masotto's travels through Iceland and the Dolomites. Recorded in a deconsecrated church to capture its natural acoustics, the album explores the deep connection between place, memory and creativity which gives rise to a meditative, harmonic experience.

Review: Unarguably unnerving and just a little haunting, resolutely abstract, and incredibly confident. Material Object's Telepath fits right in at Editions Mego, breaking ground without you necessarily realising it. Recorded in a single improvised session with one violinist, the record pulls those elements apart, and reforms them into mutated electronic structures. Or moments.

At times, you can hear the source material, or instrument. In other moments, these parts have been distorted, compressed, ripped open, and reconfigured to such a degree the tones that are almost unrecognisable. The result is science fiction in sound, a spellbinding - and at times nerve-wracking - trip into the complete unknown, where notes loom heavy and huge on the horizon, or strained and edgy in the immediate. To all those who press play, we say abandon hope of categorisation

Review: Truly living up to its name, Venusia - a word that has three meanings; a genus of moth, town in Italy, and the Roman goddess of love (who, as it happens, was named after the planet, Venus) - is essentially an homage to the fragile beauty of life, and the sense that our being present in this existence is something of a marvel. A one in a billion gamble that paid off without us even having to decide if the odds looked good enough to bet.

A collaborative work from four friends, with Henrik Meierkord on cello, Pawel Kobak playing flute, Marco Lucchi in charge of electronics, and Rocco Saviano on guitar duties, this atmospheric and cinematic ambient soundscape is grand and small, expansive and intimate, but overwhelmingly emotionally captivating in each of those modes. Complimented by gorgeous butterfly artwork by Valerii Bogorod, it's impossible not to fall for this intoxicating experience.

Review: Buenos Aires-born but now based in Barcelona, Nicolas Melmann explores sound's social and poetic dimensions through what he calls "transdisciplinary projects." He is inspired by Erik Satie's "furniture music" and his compositions create spaces of calm and contemplation as evidenced here on this lovely new blue LP. Musica Aperta blends acoustic and electronic elements with rich harmonies where soft textures meet delicate raspiness and it is divided into three parts. Each one slowly immerses you in time while echoing Satie's concept, Arvo Part's minimalism and Phill Niblock's roughness. It is a calming and cathartic escape from the fast-paced of modern life.

Review: Moshe Fisher-Rozenberg returns to Altin Village & Mine with Cosmic-Astral, his second album as Memory Pearl. Inspired by a 1970s psychotherapeutic music program used alongside LSD, he reimagines its classical compositions through electronic manipulation and using MIDI transformations of works by Strauss and Scriabi. He crafts new landscapes enriched by improvisations from Sam Prekop, Joseph Shabason and others and, as a psychotherapist and musician, he blends that expertise with musical creativity to shape a delicate trip across nine tracks that form a pathway to sonic healing.

Review: French-British singer-songwriter and performance artist Lucy Sissy Miller opens Pre Country with noises that don't feel remotely close to country - more Imogen Heap than Patsy Cline. But as the record finds its gear, reference are changed through a moody and mysterious veil of latter-day Patti Smith and the oeuvre of Laurie Anderson. A meditation on Americana which recognises its folk roots but isn't afraid to embrace the high tech of today, either. Pieced together using journal notes, poems, voice memos, found and collected, manipulated and obscured sounds, it's a reflective and quiet, tender kind of place to find yourself - a record that asks for patience and rewards you with increasing immersion. "It'a an album about memories and how we stitch up these moments, making them movie-like to make sense of these experiences," says Miller. We'll leave it at that.

Review: Berlin-based artist Pavel Milyakov collaborates with Yana Pavlova, Martyna Basta, Richie Culver and Torus on Enthropic Vision, an album-length collection of tracks spanning diverse genres. The A-side starts with the melancholic ambience of 'Moon Chant', featuring the ethereal vocals of Krakow experimental music scene veteran Martyna Basta, before 'Tesco' brings bleak trancey loops blended with British contemporary artist Richie Culver's spoken word poetry. 'Eternal Break', with Netherlands-based artist Torus, is all low subs, ecstatic pads and abrasive breaks, then the B-side kicks in with 'Gabba 17' - not a 170bpm gabba anthem, but rather a ghostly techno workout with an admittedly urgent 4/4 kick - and continues with another tune featuring Richie Culver's spoken word fused with breaks. The album closes with the grim beauty of 'The Thrill', recorded in collaboration with Ukrainian singer Yana Pavlova and transports more wised up listeners back to the hypnagogic universe of the duo's 2021 Blue LP.

Review: Abdullah Miniawy is an artist who knows no boundaries and has expanded from writing to multi-instrumental composition, video game programming and 3D scanning. By blending music, visuals and technology, his work challenges artistic and political boundaries and his latest project, Nigma Enigma, explores existential and spiritual themes while weaving poetic storytelling through his music. The album was produced by Hundebiss Records and introduces English and Italian lyrics inspired by mythology and personal experiences. Miniawy's work transcends the usual stereotypes and finds plenty of pure expression which means he can use it as a powerful medium for exploring identity, belief and human connection across cultures.

Review: Rod Modell's latest album comes in a couple of different vinyl versions and it is so good we suggest you get both. As the title suggests, Northern Michigan Snowstorms captures the serene beauty of stormy winter nights in the countryside. With eight tracks featuring soft pads, blurry loops, and recordings of snowfall, this work transports listeners into the heart of a winter wonderland full of peaceful solitude. It's a world of stillness, far-gazing pads and snow-covered branches that warm you to your core.

Review: Ilian Tape's ITX Series provides another opportunity to sink into some deeply escapist ambient and drone soundscapes from the usually dance floor-focused breakbeat and techno label. MPU101 has served up a few of these EPs before and they always find them coax plenty of magic out of their analogue machines. 'TEAM 700_76' is a nice and bleary-eyed post-Blade Runner soundtrack, 'BLOCK-1_2AREA666' has a darker undercurrent of menace, 'TrailerparkBeauty' brings some twinkling celestial keys and 'Sunset Memories' closes on frazzled chords that speak of heat damage from a scorching sun.

Review: Since he started producing music, Berlin-based American sound artist Jake Muir has been obsessed with sampling. His 2018 album "Lady's Mantle" was based on manipulated chunks of vintage Californian surf rock, and its follow-up, 2020's midnight symphony "The Hum Of Your Veiled Voice" was sourced from a wide variety of old records, and inspired by the work of experimental turntablists like Marina Rosenfeld, Janek Schaefer and Philip Jeck. On "Mana", Muir looks back to a misunderstood musical movement. Around 1995, a group of New York producers and DJs - including DJ Olive, DJ Spooky and Spectre - pioneered a genre-dissolving sound by unifying hip-hop techniques with ideas pulled from dub, jungle, ambient music and industrial noise. Badged "illbient", it was a short-lived genre that felt like a high-minded psychedelic cousin of the UK's trip-hop. Muir uses illbient as the springboard for "Mana", utilizing a selection of samples to inform his frothy drones and foreboding atmospheres. He ushers the material into 2021 by diverting it through his own contemporary worldview, attempting to recreate the hyperreal fantasy histories of Japanese RPGs (think "Dark Souls" and "Final Fantasy") and nod to sensual, tactile soundscapes of European industrial labels Staalplaat and Soleilmoon. The result is a magickal, sensory journey that's as physical as it is representational.

Review: If you've been paying attention then Augustus Muller will be familiar thanks to the wonders of Boy Harsher. Here casting off the expectations that live act create to focus instead on a debut solo feature film score, those who really have been studying will also know this is actually his third soundtrack following music created for two experimental porn movies a little earlier. Focusing on My Animal, the flick itself is a genre (and mind-)bending romantic horror about a woman tormented by a family curse. Sonically, this translates as tracks which at once play out like an homage to the glory days of atmospheric synth sounds made for movies, from Phantasm to Assault On Precinct 13, while also feeling genuinely fresh and innovative. Suspense by the background refrain and curious key-load, you can listen to it with or without the visuals and still feel immersed.

Review: Revered dub techno don Rod Modell has joined forces with Astral Industries label founder Ario Farahani for this brand new collaboration and stunning debut album. It was devised as an immersive fictional soundtrack and is beautifully rich with layers of FX, mystic motifs and stoner overtones that skink you in deep. Old Iranian records have been used as sample court material which lends it a real world cinematise and ancient charm with Persian sounds filtering through the hazy soundscapes. A fantastic album for mind, body and soul.

Review: It's been a long time since Halo: Combat Evolved revolutionised the word of first-person shooter video games. Graphically superior to anything that had come before it, the franchise also benefits from a spectacularly gripping storyline in which humans are outgunned and out-teched by a ruthless and uncompromising alliance of superiorly equipped alien races united as The Covenant. The titular Halo adds a kind of Prometheus air of uncertainty, as nobody really knows what it does until attempts to activate the galaxy-destroying weapon reveal something worse than death - a parasitic breed called the Flood. If all that was enough to blow everyone away in 2001, 2004 brought us to a whole new level of immersion in this future scape. Just like its predecessor, a big part of the impact was the visionary score by gaming soundtrack masters Martin O'Donnell and Michael Savatori. Now here it is in all its Gregorian chanting glory.

Review: In the right circles,, Martin O'Donnell and Michael Savatori are living legends. Working with the iconic US video game company Bungie Inc, the pair put their names on the map - or maybe maps? - by creating soundtracks to a number of high profile titles, either as a duo or individually. O'Donnell is arguably the better known, or at least has the bigger online persona, but both composers deserve plenty of credit. Halo: Combat Evolved was the first title in what is now a huge and genre-defining first person shooter franchise, and the score reflects the emergence of video game music as an integral part of the on-screen action. O'Donnell and Savatori's efforts to ensure instrumentation dramatically changed with events in the game, which is by nature relatively non-linear, was a revelation. While their efforts to separate these into individual suites foresaw the rise of playable stories as films in their own right.

Review: This new one from our favourite US ambient outlet takes the form of a selection of long-form compositions from artists who are close to the label. As such it's a perfect reflection of its signature sound - deeply immersive soundscapes, slowly shifting synths and meditative moods made with a mix of hardware tools, guitars, pedals and even baritone vocals. It's named after a Norwegian term for warmth and intimacy, which certainly plays out from the evolving loops of 'A Whisper' to the textured melancholy of 'Canaan' and the reverberant drift of 'Coronation Ring'.

Review: Samuel Rohrer's ArjunaMusic has been minimal in its output since 2012's debut from the label-head himself, but what he's put out has been of the highest quality. While both previous releases were strictly CD-only, Ambiq has also been pressed onto LP format. It seems strange that the deep, intricate music on the label hadn't been released on vinyl, but we're not here to question, merely to tell you how great this piece of music is. Buried in a complex shell compred of strands of free jazz, psyched-out electronics and ambient, this is as experimental as it gets. Starting from the opener, "Erdkern", we're thrown head-first into a melodic frenzy, one which expands and contracts from more rigid structures such as "Tund" and dissolves back into the abyss. The breaks on "Touching The Present" are stupendous. So great to see that the free jazz dynasty has evolved into brighter, more contemporary spheres.

Review: Joseph Shabason, Matthew Sage, and Nicholas Krgovich form a harmonious triangle, both musically and geographically. Hailing from Toronto, Colorado, and Vancouver respectively, they converged at Sage's barn studio nestled at the foot of the Rockies to explore their shared talent for finding beauty in life's mundane moments. Shabason, known for blending late 80s adult-contemporary and smooth jazz aesthetics into ethereal soundscapes, joins forces with Sage, who combines instrumental prowess with synthesis and field recordings to evoke the natural world's whimsy and profundity. Completing the trio is Krgovich, whose observational poetics add a relatable touch to their calm expressionism. Their collaborative album, warmly Shabason, Krgovich, Sage extends the wry and melancholic micro-miracles established in their previous works.