Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone: September 2022

Review: A Strangely Isolated Place presents a collection of tracks made by longtime friends and frequent collaborators Luke Entelis (Viul) and Thomas Meluch (Benoît Pioulard), combining their enchanting soundscapes for maximum effect. The album is inspired by the isolation and uncertainty the Covid lockdown caused - "Konec" is Czech word for "end," and refers to the devastating transformation that Luke and Thomas' home city of New York underwent during the pandemic. The finished tracks began as short synth sketches by Luke, with the two friends developing them into fully fledged ambient masterpieces while reflecting on a time spent in lockdown, collaborating to create a series of strangely beautiful interludes and "a sense of vitality breaking through the immediate surrounding dread." Judge for yourself, but in our eyes, it's a job well done.

Review: Space is the place - at least, it's the place uppermost in the mind of Indianapolis-based label Past Inside The Present founder zake and his sonic partner Ossa - location given as the north pole according to his Twitter - as they embark on collaborative 10 tracks. The fact that that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA to you and me - has supplied them with celestial sound emissions for the tracks is a bonus. But ultimately, the real headline factor once it's actually on your turntable is the vivid atmospheres and gorgeous textures that the pair are capable of generating. The album's closer, 'Metric Expansion', is a tremulous glory, peaking and slipping away like rays of sunlight. 'Space & Time', meanwhile, is a simple, gliding analogue delight, and 'Drifting' proves you can carve imperceptible beauty from a couple of well-crafted chords.

Review: Born in Girona, Spain and based in Berlin since 2019, Alex Busse' Santacruz's Ameeva project previously came to life on the Lowless music label in 2020 and the album 'Fractura del SueNo'. His live set for the 9128 Birthday event took these experimental electronics to a deeper, more personal level, weaving friends' samples and conversations into a rich tapestry of drone and field recordings, creating an immersive and enveloping 40-minute narrative. That's been captured here by the 9128 label, which aims to document significant live performances by artists that previously performed on the 9128.live platform, with results that are imaginative and impressionist, like clouds of synths and other soundscapes with the serene relentlessness and sense of purpose as molten lava moving down the mountainside.

Review: Andrew Chalk and Timo Van Luijk have been garnering praise for their work as Elodie for over a decade now, establishing themselves on the European ambient circuit as fine purveyors - nay, creators - of blissful music by way of improvisational techniques and processes. Not that you'd be able to tell given how finished and fully formed things sound on every track.

The two offered here are a case in point. Look beneath the hood though, and you start to see the tell-tale signs that not everything here was planned. It's too good, and feels too natural for that to have been the case - beautiful moments captured in a crystalline recording, never to be repeated again. From waves of background synth to chimes, twinkles and serene oceans of atmosphere, it's really rather special stuff.

Review: Space is the place - at least, it's the place uppermost in the mind of Indianapolis-based label Past Inside The Present founder zake and his sonic partner Ossa - location given as the north pole according to his Twitter - as they embark on collaborative 10 tracks. The fact that that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA to you and me - has supplied them with celestial sound emissions for the tracks is a bonus. But ultimately, the real headline factor once it's actually on your turntable is the vivid atmospheres and gorgeous textures that the pair are capable of generating. The album's closer, 'Metric Expansion', is a tremulous glory, peaking and slipping away like rays of sunlight. 'Space & Time', meanwhile, is a simple, gliding analogue delight, and 'Drifting' proves you can carve imperceptible beauty from a couple of well-crafted chords.