Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone October 2020

Review: Long-serving Swedish producer Joel Mull, previously best-known for his club-focused techno sets, first started work on Nautical Dawn, his first album under his occasional Damm alias, over a decade ago. Inspired by the natural phenomenon of 'nautical dawn' - that point when the sun is not yet above the horizon, but bathes the sky in vivid colours - he wanted to make music for the break of dawn that combined home-made field recordings with suitably drowsy, opaque electronic motifs, slow-burn ambient chords, tactile aural textures and, when the mood took him, horizontal and hypnotic beats. It may have taken him a while, but the resultant set is little less than inspired: an evocative set of enveloping compositions that tease and tingle the senses.

Review: Since debuting on his own Simulacra Records imprint back in 2014, Todd Gautreau has released some seriously good ambient music as Tapes & Topographies. We attribute much of his success to a trademark style that blends fractured, heavily processed field recordings with opaque, comforting chords and melodies that are capable of winding their way into your subconscious. This trademark style once again comes to the fore on A Pulse of Durations, his first album for Past Inside The Present. Furnishing his usual fuzzy soundscapes with occasional melancholic piano motifs (see the gorgeous 'You Saw Nothing in Hiroshima'), swelling drone tones ('The Seashell & The Clergyman') and plucked strings ('The Modern Equivalent'), Gautreau delivers one of his most meditative and emotion-stirring sets to date.

Review: Trying to keep up with Danny 'Legowelt' Wolfers' many different aliases is like trying to stay abreast of the ever evolving UK Coronavirus lockdown rules. Impossible. Anyway, his latest offering comes in the form of this cult spyware album as Sammy Oso. It first came on CDR back in 2008 and now lands on vinyl in all its DX-7-drenched glory. Mysterious, packed with intrigue and all inspired by the landscapes of his locale in The Hague, it is a typically brilliant offering from the musical maverick that speaks of satellite surveillance, intergalactic space wars and creeping technological paranoia. It comes in a deluxe gatefold with extensive writing on each of the tracks, too.

Review: 'Orchestral Studies Collectanea' consists of seven previously unreleased orchestral movements (Tracks 1-7) in addition to remastered variations of arrangements that originally appeared on, 'Orchestral Tape Studies' and 'Orchestral Tape Studies [Tyresta Reworks]'. Orchestral Studies Collectanea is a compilation arranged and produced by zake with additional production by close friend Tyresta. OSC is a group of richly layered movements of fragmented orchestral loops, paying homage to minimalist symphonic composers and orchestras. zake and Tyresta incorporate field recordings and faint drone billows to accompany these selected samples of orchestral loops. With an emphasis on tone and recurrent murmurs, these arrangements offer approximately 48 minutes of delicate repetition, reticent sound treatments, and subtle manipulations. OSC is intended for low-volume listening.

Review: Under the BVDub alias, ambient, drone and electronica explorer Brock Van Wey has amassed a vast discography of full-length excursions, though very few of these have been released on wax. The American producer has therefore pushed the boat out for new album Wrath & Empathy, which comprises four lengthy tracks stretched across two green vinyl plates. It's a hugely enjoyable set inspired by what van Wey calls the "magical realism" of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. We're not well versed enough in Murakami's work to spot the sonic references, but there's much to admire, not least the San Franciscan's uncanny ability to create musical gold with little more than layered and effected instrumentation, slow-release ambient chords, gentle IDM beats, tactile aural textures and melodies that linger long in the memory.

Review: Nick Turner is open about the traumatic period of time in which this record was made, in the run up to his mother's death. A painful experience, nevertheless the record itself feel hopeful, seems to celebrate beauty and hold its hands out to offer listeners a welcoming embrace. The most profound losses can often make people feel resentful, but this couldn't sound any more compassionate and warm if it tried.

Somewhere in a world between ambient and full drone, 'All We Have' is about the shimmer and flow of harmonious refrain, soaring chimes and choral accents. There are blissful moments, serene sections and an overwhelmingly peaceful and tranquil ambience. It's not afraid to show us what it is, it invites us to explore its depths, and the effort on our part is massively rewarding. A record that could really inspire strength, despite its delicate and fragile nature.

Review: There's not a lot of info about Scott Gailey Spring's first album as Hotspring, though Mood Hut's description of it being, 'digital technology half buried in the soil', is rather good. Throughout, Gailey employs a brilliantly inventive, off-kilter mixture of tipsy, off-kilter drumbeats, distant auto-tuned vocalizations, manipulated new age music sounds, pulsing ambient chords, fluttering electronic motifs and knowing nods to future R&B. It's extremely hard to accurately describe, but both brilliantly beautiful and undeniably eccentric: the kind of album that will have you scratching your head and smiling enthusiastically at the same time. If you don't believe us, we'd suggest checking out the clips ASAP.

Review: Music For Dreams' compilations are rarely less than essential, and this collection of curated Japanese music from the last three decades is no different. Compiled by Ken Hidaka, Tokyo-based Max Essa and Test Pressing co-founder Dr Rob, the set starts with a beautiful and becalmed ambient piece by Yoshio Ojima (the sublime 'Sealed') and ends with the lapping waves, vocal harmonies and twinkling pianos of Takashi Kokubo's 'Quiet Inlet'. In between, you'll find the Steve Reich-ish marimba movements of Yoshiaki Ochi, the dubbed-out, piano-laden downtempo grooves of Little Tempo, the jazzy Balearic house of Schadaraparr, the sun-kissed dancefloor grooves of Little Big Bee and much more besides. As you'd expect, Hidaka, Essa and Dr Rob's selections are uniformly superb.

Review: Those who lived through the 1990s will happily tell you that few ambient and electronica outfits of the period could match the emotive, life-affirming majesty of Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton's Global Communication project. Transmissions, the pair's first retrospective of their work under the alias, offers plenty of supporting evidence for this view. It features painstakingly re-mastered - and, we will add, brilliant-sounding - versions of two full-length releases: 1993's Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis, a radical set of lengthy ambient "translations" of tracks by forgotten shoegaze outfit Chapterhouse, and their peerless debut album 76:14, which remains one of the greatest ambient sets of all time. Throw in a third CD featuring collected singles and remixes, and you have a thoroughly essential three-disc set.

Review: Before recording their stunning debut album, 76:16, Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton were asked to prepare a set of remixes of tracks by shoegaze band Chapterhouse. This became Blood Music: Pentamorous Metamorphosis, a stunning set of lengthy ambient visions and gently unfurling electronic epics that combined repurposed and reframed samples from Chapterhouse's songs with Pritchard and Middleton's own mesmerising musical ideas. In turns hazy, haunting, otherworldly and intoxicating, the album's five "phases" are not so much remixes as revolutionary reworks that take of Chapterhouse's music to deeply psychedelic new places. As this freshly re-mastered, re-packaged reissue proves, it was, and remains, an astonishing piece of work.

Review: Villete is the alias of Amsterdam based producer Anne Korteweg, who returns to Scissor & Thread to follow up her debut effort in the fall of 2016 - which quickly sold out. On the new EP we are treated to seven tracks of deep and understated beauty. Amongst many floating ambient journeys, there are moments equally suited to reflection as they are the dancefloor. Take for instance the glacial and cavernous dub of the title track, or the Balearic-tinged downbeat chill of 'Myst' and the emotive mood music of 'Show Me'. All in all, Korteweg's new release explores the more abstract sides of electronic music in sophisticated fashion.

Review: Up until his death in 2003, Hiroshi Yoshimura spent decades offering up immaculate albums that blurred the boundaries between ambient, new age and minimalism. For those not versed in the Japanese ambient pioneer's vast catalogue, 1986's "Green" - which is here reissued by Light In The Attic - remains one of his most impressive works. Created using a minimal number of instruments (mostly synthesizers and electric pianos), the set is as quietly jazzy as it is relaxing. Highlights include the meditative, Terry Riley influenced bliss of "Feel", the pulsing organ stabs and blissful electronics of "Sheep", the garden-ready musical hug that is "Green" and the swelling opener "Creek".

Review: Last year, the new beat-loving diggers behind the Musique Pour La Danse label stumbled on something rather bizarre in a second-hand shop: an erotic VHS video from 1989 whose soundtrack was a direct copy of legendary new beat LP King of The Beat, a fake 'compilation' where every sleazy, mid-tempo, mind-altering cut was in fact written and produced by the same trio of Belgian studio buffs. So, they've decided to reissue that LP as Erotiques New Beat, adding extensive liner notes from new beat scholar Geert Sermon, and pressing it to shocking neon pink vinyl. It's a fine set full of distinctively odd, druggy, acid-flecked and synth-heavy cuts, most barely known outside of new beat collector circles. It's well worth picking up.

Review: "Anima Loop", was meant to be played in a live concert at Borgo Dei Carbonai (Esterzili). It's a comune (municipality) in the Province of South Sardinia in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 100 kilometres north of Cagliari. The event was supposed to be my first concert in 10 years in my homeland, Sardinia. Unfortunately for my personal reasons, and due to the restrictions caused by covid-19, the event was canceled. I decided to record it live in my studio in early September 2020, because "Anima Loop" really had something important to me and I wanted to share it with you all. Each of my concerts is never reproduced the same as the previous one, so "Anima Loop" had to be born and die with the concert. For this reason I decided to cut out the two long Tape Loops used in the Live process and include them as gifts inside the CD packaging. Recorded with: 2 x Reel To Reel (Tape Loops), sequenced synthesizer (Roland SH201 / Moog Sub Phatty), Field recorder + Vestax MR300.