Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone November 2020

Review: A collaborative project involving Marc Ertel, zake and Damien Duke, Dawn Chorus & The Infallible Sea's music certainly matches the intriguing name the team decided to come up with. Tunes are deep, immersive and easily capable of conjuring some pretty wild dreams of fantastical places and mythical things.

Sheets of shimmering synths seem to glint like the sun is hitting them as they weave through tracks like 'Dormi Bene, Spirito', 'Silenzio Potente' and 'Caduta Del Cielo'. 'Lontana' drowns us in submerged note refrains, ebbing and flowing like the tides, a hidden symphony that washes over and through the listener. It's meditative stuff but nothing here lacks direction - you just need to pay close attention to hear the movement in the arrangements, making for a different kind of aural journey, the destination what you make of it.

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: Past Inside the Present is pleased to present an extraordinary compilation titled, 'Geneva', showcasing the works of some of the most prolific and prominent ambient artists of our time. Intentionally chosen for their positive impact in the genre and influential previous works; nine artists exhibit their masterfully crafted sounds based off a simple loop that was provided to them. Each artist on 'Geneva' used a loop created by zake and then in turn reworked, manipulated and expanded upon the source material resulting in their own unique creation.

Review: London record store Low Company may have closed its doors, but the affiliated label still remains in operation. Their latest release follows up a series of archival releases by the enigmatic Civilistjavel!. Generalstrejk represents the first contemporary offering from the Swedish producer to appear on vinyl. The 20-minute-long title track is a glacial and cavernous expression in ambient techno, derived from live performances given in London and Stockholm in 2019. On the flip, the textural dub aesthetics continue on the Basic Channel influenced 'Bransle For Elden' in between two haunting and introspective soundscapes. Edition of 250 copies, no re-press.

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: Kaoru Inoue's Chari Chari project returns with a new age-tinted album that fuses a multi-instrumental palette with delicate ambient electronics for a truly immersive sonic experience. 'Of Mystic Dreams' plots a course through dreamy distant lands with a steady rhythmic undercurrent, while 'Esfera De Agua' lingers in a playful and inquisitive hinterland of organic percussion and expressive synth voices. 'In Exotic Haze' nods to African high life in its sprightly guitar lines, and 'Suburban Archaeology' eschews beats altogether in favour of lingering chimes and trickling water FX. Throughout the album, a global outlook informs the sonic character of the record, while a meditative mood pulls together Inoue's diverse influences with arftul poise.

Review: In the words of Ulrich Schnauss himself, "[a]rguably Tangerine Dream's live improvisations contributed just as much to the band's exceptional status as their studio releases." It's hard to disagree with his take on the legendary German electronic-rock outfit. After all, he's been a member since 2014.

The Sessions II takes this idea to the nth degree - a recording of the half century-spanning outfit, in its current iteration, playing a fully improvised live show in Hamburg in 2018. It's a mesmerising experience, as any TD show always is, calling on synth futurism, proto-shoegaze, Kraut and a ton more sub genres and micro-variations on those places where wailing guitar solos meet Vangelis-style sci-fi harmonies, taking us into more uncharted territory and elevating this above the status of standard live album. Instead, it's a moment in time trapped on record, doomed to be lost if it wasn't for this artefact.

Review: Another special delivery direct from South Korea's burgeoning experimental electronic scene, courtesy of Tonal Unity, six track here take leads from downtempo, ambient, found sounds, field recordings and lo-fi slo-mo dance, making for a broad release that's true coherency is found in the quality of its tracks.

So while 'Bamboo Haze' feels born in the sticky heat of South East Asia, creating sweaty, mystical moods, 'Should Be There' shares more in common with percussive outsiders like Harmonious Thelonious, with a drop of How To Dress Well's alt-R&B also in there. Mamazu's 'Blueprint' layers Arabesque sounds atop one hell of a hook-y rhythm and beat section, whereas 'Flow' is late night nu-jazz blues for smoky, candlelit after hours soirees. All great, and seemingly all here to make sure you never get bored.

Review: Please lend your ears to this new pastoral and nostalgic beauty from Swoop And Cross, aka London based Portuguese composer/musician, Ruben Vale. Like a soundtrack to a melancholic and romantic silent film from long past, the tracks on Stories Of Disintegration wind their way into your subconscious, softly easing you into a state of memory and longing. As though you are watching your life on rewind...and waiting to hear what happens in the music. The languid and dreamy piano motifs are counter balanced by more rhythmic electronic flourishes, and together they form this very contemplative set of sounds. Put this album on late at night with someone that you love!

Review: It's clearly a Scandinavian thing, as Finland's Lau Nau and Sweden's Matti Bye team up to bring us a work of refined, minimalistic beauty - contemporary classical that speaks directly to the heart and soul, even if it often chooses to use sparse words. Ever elegant, it impresses from beginning to end and isn't shy of trying to surprise us, hence the arpeggiated refrains of 'Le Premiere Jour Dans L Lune'; the loudest thing here and in many ways sonic centrepiece of the whole album. Elsewhere things are softer and more reserved, but no less accomplished. 'Earth Shadow' is darker, or at least more introverted, while 'Cloud Circles' somehow comes across as both desolate and inviting, and the twinkling keys and chimes of 'Ile Disparu' present another high point of subtle intensity, an overture that only fully reveals itself once you are neck-deep in its power.

Review: We're not sure Endless Melancholy is the most appropriate name for Oleksiy Sakevych, an electronic ambient artist based out of the sprawling and musically vibrant Ukrainian capital of Kiev. As this two-tracker goes to show, there's every chance you'll feel elated after pressing play on his studio work.

Following on from releases for labels like Thesis, Sound In Silence, and his own Hidden Vibes, we're given a pair of long form compositions that feel organic in nature, even if the production was synthesised. 'Collapse' seems to switch its mood like a living thing, evolving through crystalline chimes from reflective opening notes, as though starting to realise its own stunning power and majesty. "Expand' is more rooted in drone, albeit a particularly euphoric version - all long refrained bliss, the way things should be.

Review: Vladimir Ivkovic's Offen remains one of Europe's finest, broadest and least predictable electronic imprints, with the only real guarantee being that output will be interesting, weird and unarguably innovative. The latest from Gains't Nait, made with electronic near-deity Robin Rimbaud under his Scanner moniker (see also Githead), is another case in point.

Depth is the crucial factor - tracks feel dense enough to get lost in, catching listeners in a time-space warp, where there's as much to make us consider the future, and the great unknown, as the past. The familiarity of distant, building, looped brass stabs on 'OB'. The melancholic, cinematic cut scene pianos of '63'. All share their space with distortions, processing sounds, white noise and discordant ambience, to dazzling effect. Like the loose, intermittent breaks of 'Slo', and its spirals of barely-audible space age speech.