Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone: May 2023

Review: A titanic one-off clash LP between Japan's head brain David Sylvian and electroacoustic extraordinaire Stephan Mathieu, Wandermude is a slow and sublime classic for real ambient heads. Reissued for the first time since its release in 2012, the album charts a wealth of mutual interest between both artists; the pair both collaborated first as part of a dual live performance at Noway's Punkt festival, during which Mathieu performed a live remix of Sylvian's song 'Plight And Premonition'. This LP is the result of the same creative thread - whooshing, mysterious and full of raw instrumental material translated into audacious oddities.

Review: It wasn't so long ago we were writing about the joys of BVDUB's Fumika Fades, a new double pack in February that sunk us deep into moving ambient soundscapes. Now the Bay Area dub techno titan Brock van Wey is back once again with yet another album - he dropped plenty of them last year too so is clearly in a mad creative patch. Slowly Shifting Lakes comes in multiple formats, this one being a double CD. The ambient here is coarse and textured, fizzing synths stretching out over skittish rhythmic frameworks before sinking into calmer waters on cuts like the escapist 'Searching For Glowing Shores.' Another triumphant album for sure.

Review: Second time around for David Sylvian's inspired full-length collaboration with German mastering engineer-turned-electro-acoustic experimentalist Stephan Mathieu. Wandermude won plenty of plaudits on its initial 2012 release, with critics highlighting the immersive beauty and sonic detail of the duo's hybrid drone and ambient works. It still sounds superb all these years on, too - all evocative aural textures (often provided by Sylvian on guitar or synth, though Mathieu did contribute some organ sounds), impeccable sound design (Mathieu is a master at this and reportedly constructed most of the showcased tracks) and sustained sound-washes. If you love ambient music, you need it in your life.

Review: Adding yet another record to the pile that has so far been provided by the label A_A, the experimental dub artists behind said outfit (Satoshi Tomiie and Nao Gunji) have really outdone themselves out here. On pink splatter vinyl comes 'Dissonant', one of many EPs to have emerged from the same heads-down studio session that saw to its predecessor, 'Radiant'. Tracks 1-4 lock in a slew of impressive ear-scourings and dub-delayed experimentations, with the first and last tracks particularly blowing us away with their broken beats, which allow for more attention to be paid to every undulation, crackle and knock.

Review: Alan Myson returns once more as Ital Tek, continuing a not-so-well-cited yet important sound. There's never been much of a name for it, maybe thanks to its appearance in the meting-potty post-dubstep era - but Tek's is a sound of minimal aesthetics and glossy-wonky beats. Other artists might include Kuedo, Lorn or MssingNo (but it's not wave, witch house or purple). Genre-mindedness aside, Timeproof is Myson's fifth album for Planet Mu, following 2020's Outland for a long meander through the fluid timey-wimey nature of time, and how it varies depending on its perceiver(s)' mental states. Beaty sublimers like 'Phantom Pain' and 'One Eye Open' make this a staggering time-dilating journey, one whose appeal, true to its name, will surely last for electronic music fans decades into the future.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight tear to the outer sleeve, otherwise in excellent condition***

While this may be B-stock, meaning some slight damage to the outer sleeve, it's well worth investigating - not least because it delivers a spectacularly good sequel (of sorts) to Civilistjavel's 2022 full-length Jamatter. The release is rooted in electro-acoustic drones, icy electronic melodies, softly spun ambient lead lines and impeccable sound design, with opener 'Sebang' tiptoeing the fine line between immersive soundscapes and emotive electronic melancholia. Cucina Povera provides haunting lead vocals on the inspired 'Louhivesi' - a kind of deep dub techno/trip-hop crossover - while 'Kolugn' is a breathtakingly mournful ambient soundscape and the crackling 'Valmsta' sounds like some of Biosphere's more experimental works.

Review: Nathan Fake continues to explore the outer sonic reaches of his own craft, future techno production mastery. Seeming to effortlessly blend lo-fi fuzzes and future chords on tracks such as lead heater 'The Grass', 'Crystal Vision' amounts to a heavy dose of interstellar synths and dance perfectionism. Fake has been releasing critically acclaimed electronic music for over a decade, but all signs point towards this latest record being a new statement of intent, with future-past collaborations with old and new faces alike such as Clark and Wizard Apprentice also in tow.

Review: This latest edition to the Neroli catalogue sees the arrival of a new album project from long time hero, Kirk Degiorgio. Imbued with folkloric sensibilities, Robe Of Dreams is an example of the sheer transportative abilities of electronic jazz fusion, melding sounds that are almost rooted but not quite of this world. The first track, 'The Ancient City', follows a cresting wave of shimmering synths - a portal into Degiorgio's hypnagogic soundworld. 'I Saw Pharaoh Levitate' features a melody that dances, skipping with the lightest touch across a field of glittering cymbal percussion. 'Sinai' explores the roughened textures of warped electric guitar riffs, woven to create atmospheres of marbled spaciousness and density. 'Robe Of Dreams', however, is the title track for a reason - expanding and contracting piano melodies melt effortlessly into dreamy electronic atmospheres, rising and falling and veering into moments of unsettling minor keys with extraordinary precision. A masterful and spiritual project from the extraordinary musician.

Review: 'Faded Photographs' is the latest album project by Icelandic producer Yagya. Featuring his usual blend of ambient and dub techno, this one is also among his first to incorporate elements of deep house, pop and classical music, with friends Oskar Guojonsson, Benoit Pioulard and Bandreas cropping up on vocal and saxophone features. Despite the fact that there are over eleven tracks on this opus, every track on the album makes use of 3/4, rather than the bog-standard quantised 4/4, time. The overall effect is a skippier, dreamier, more laid-back queering of techno, contrasting to the straight and unswung vibe of its square forebear.

Review: We have long been fans of the specific sort of techno that Spanish label Semantica deals in. It is always artful and superbly well-designed and this new Artefaklt record totally fits in with that vibe. It finds Dutch pair Robin Koek and Nick Lapien layering up hypnotic drones and linear deep techno drums to perfectly escapist and heady effect on 'Diorama', while intricate sound designs add the sort of details to 'Natura' that make this miscue as suited to home listening on headphones as losing it in a club. 'Natant' is another undulating mix of electronica, ambient and techno that casts your mind free. 'Floodplain' is a heavenly closer.

Review: Chicago trio Purelink lands on the Naff label with a fresh EP that features two new cuts alongside two that were released as a digital-only EP in 2021. They are 'Maintain the Bliss' and 'Head On A Swivel' on the B-side - the first is a sublime and widescreen ambient excursion with smeared pad work and subtly uplifting moods, and the second is a skeletal ambient jungle track with skittish rhythms. The originals are 'Earth To' which is a crystalline cut with blissed-out breaks and fluttering melodies and 'Not That Deep' is a broody world of cavernous atmospheres and liquid pads. Another gem from this assured outfit.

Review: Brock Van Wey hails from the Bay Area but his BVDUB project is known worldwide. It sees the American provide a near-constant stream of innovative ambient music on the Past Inside The Present label - this new double album comes just a couple of months after his last one, Fumika Fades, but is essential once more. There are plenty of intense and heavily textured tracks as well as more empty and escapist pieces with heavenly melodies and subtle vocals worked into to dreamy effect. As always he serves up the album in various formats and this is the double cassette version which lends itself to the lo-fi aesthetic perfectly.

Review: Apparently James Adam Brown had one very definitely theme in mind with There Is Space Under Your Seat. Put simply, he wanted to explore aural interpretations of the human desire to create mental breathing room by pausing emotions to process feelings when circumstances become overwhelming. And, let's face it, they frequently have a habit of doing just that.
Recorded at ICP Studios in Belgium, after demos were laid down in his own facility deep in the stunning Yorkshire Dales, it's hard to imagine a more fitting setting for these ideas to form. A place that's equal parts bleak and beautiful, and certainly remote (in UK terms, at least). So what we have here is sometimes eerie, always stunning, packed with spatiality and a tangible emotional quality you will not be able to escape from.

Review: BVDUB's Fumika Fades is a glorious new double pack that is again stuffed with inspired sonic detail and moving ambient soundscapes. The subtle complexity of his sound is laid bare again here with just eight long and involving pieces that ebb and flow, rise and fall, pull you in and push you out. It follows on from a busy 2022 in which Bay Area dub techno titan Brock van Wey put out several great double packs. This one comes with beautiful artwork, too, and is another great addition to the shelves from this man's ever-more spotless catalogue.

Review: Fluxus drone pioneers La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela present the latest reissue of 31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM/23 VIII 64 2:50:45-3:11 AM The Volga Delta, a historic and mesmerizing soundworld which captures the '60s pioneers' twin paths through the worlds of performance art, sculpture-based acousmatic music, and an overall real alternative beatnik lifestyle . Made between 1964 and 1969, the album has gone down in history as a captivating fusion of dreamy electronic sounds and Eastern-influenced vocalization, with techniques such as microtonal tuning and extended repetition laying its experimental groundwork.

Review: Barely a week goes by without BVDUB popping up with a vast new collection of his absorbing ambient music. Hot on the heels of February's Fumika Fades album is this, Slowly Shifting Lakes, another epic collection of fuzzy, lo-fi, gorgeously textured and lived-in ambient. It's intense and full by some ambient standards - soundscapes that demand the attention and go from misty, rainy visions to more serene and blissed-out vibes. This is the perfect way to pick this album up - as both a double CD and also a double cassette including download codes.

Review: Tangent's latest album Presence Reverts to Absence is a dizzying display of the talents of its two Dutch sound engineer members, Ralph van Reijendam and Robbert Kok. Exploring themes of loss and transformation, the LP is the product of the duo's introspective musical process, in which beatsmithing fuses smartly with ambient tonework and electroacoustic magic. It makes a neat contrast to their former four albums for the label, such as 'Approaching Complexity' and 'Transience'.

Review: Harlem & Irving label partner Brian Kelly assumes his Supplement alias here for a new and limited edition 12" that features two of his tasteful and challenging sounds. Kelly is always out to disrupt and subvert and does so with aplomb here as the a-side title track starts with a whisper but soon grows with layers of found sound, piano, percussion, and ethereal voices. It then collapses before reemerging with melodic and tonal guitars and pulses. On the flip, the same tune comes 'Revisioned' but is much more cold and distorted, edgy and urgent.

Review: Rachika Nayar's album 'Fragments' is a collection of sonic miniatures constructed from guitar loops and in the familiar comforts of her own bedroom. First released as a limited edition cassette by RVNG Intl's Commend THERE imprint, it now comes to the main label in full vinyl LP glory, thanks to its sublime working of cyclical, processed, meditative guitar loops into a distinct oeuvre. Nayar is no less than a sonic alchemist, transmuting tactile guitar loops into repeating textures, in a style that seems to continue in the tradition of The Field or Fennesz.