Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone: August 2023

Review: The first Quiet Places album, 2020's simply titled Volume 1, had its roots in a late-night, whisky-fuelled 'laptop jam' by three experienced British producers, progressive house legend Charlie May (most famously a member of Spooky in the 90s) and Dennis White and Dave Gardner of Bedrock-signed outfit Knives Out. We're not sure whether whisky was involved in the production of this similarly immersive sequel, but it certainly shares its predecessor's alluring blend of field recordings, outer-space electronics, pastoral instrumentation, undulating melodies and abstract sounds. This time round, they've taken us on four lengthy trips, each stretched across a side of wax, which bob, weave, rise and fall like the greatest early 90s ambient mixtape (or, if you're more academic, sound collage) that you've ever heard.

Review: Six tracks by Inhmost emerge, doing solid justice to the Swiss producer's latest addition to his vision in ambient and dub techno. His second LP for the Swiss label re:st, each track evokes the immersive motional 'scapes conjured in the artist's own mind, as he revisits old memories from a space of peace. 'The Feeling Of...' is the follow-up project to the artist's former project 'The Meaning Of...', coming as an example of the simpler, more tactile and less thought-out interpretations of the same spaces.

Review: German electronic artist and co-founder of the Noton label, Alva Noto, presents the standalone release of his original soundtrack for the film 'This Stolen Country Of Mine', first composed in 2022. The documentary film explores the question of a state's sovereignty in the face of foreign powers, portraying Ecuadorian resistance fighters and journalists who oppose the sell-off of an extensive part of the country's resources to Chinese investors. Touching on these ominous themes, Noto crafts an intimately minimal, but tense ambient electronic score, reflecting the quiet determination of the communal spirit of the Ecuadorian mountain village portrayed in the film.

Review: Daljit Kundi and Ludvig Cimbrelius have Indian and Swedish backgrounds but actually came together in the UK music scene and specifically ambient jungle. They set off to explore that world totters and did so with aplomb across several great albums and EPs. This new album was actually nearly done many years ago but was shelved owing to struggles with record labels. When Past Inside The Present heard it though they encouraged the album to be finished and so here it is. It's an emotional work which "attempts to represent a psychic darkness that is as deeply restful as it is ripe with creative potential." It's absorbing, beautiful ambient from a pair of real dons.

Review: Balmat is an A-grade ambient label that welcomes a similarly well-regarded performer in Ylia for this album of soporific sounds. Susana Hernandez aka Ylia impressed back in 2020 with her debut Paralaxe Editions and once again explores a calming spectrum of synth music that is well-detailed with fingerpicked acoustic guitar, flutes, clarinet, soprano sax and piano. It is an album rich in melody and melancholy, a sense of eternal stillness that is well-informed by Japanese culture and often strips back to just the raw acoustics.

Review: British ambient electronic trio Marconi Union reissue their 2014 album 'Weightless Ambient', which spans six parts ranging from the minimal to the warm to the drifting. With Part 1 hailed as "the world's most relaxing song" - in a study conducted by a sound therapist and a stress specialist, among other credits as one of the most popular ambient songs of all time - the album lays down a long and serene mock-symphony. It'll fit right in with recent vogues for stress-busting ambient music in the wake of the recent pandemic.

Review: Tales From The Silent City has never before been available on vinyl, but now it is courtesy of Libreville Records, and with a bonus two unreleased tracks, no less. The record is a sublime and deep electronic journey with the unmistakable signature sound of Niko Tzoukmanis drawing you in deep. It's rich with sequences that shimmer over sleek rhythms, drawing inspiration from the golden era of sequencer-driven music but also exploring a 90s-influenced ambient techno sound. This is as good as electronic music of this style gets.

Review: Way back in 1995, the late Susuma Yokota joined forces with Ray Castle, an Australian producer then based in Japan, for an album of 'tribal-ritual ambient' tracks as Mantaray. For whatever reason, the trippy, partially mixed patchwork of effects-laden percussion, mind-altering electronics, dreamy chords and mind-altering vocal samples was not released on vinyl first time round - hence this edition from archival release specialists Transmigration. It's a genuinely unique album that's alternately becalmed and unsettling, offering a psychedelic drift through hallucinatory, dawn-ready soundscapes that features plenty of subtle nods towards Japanese and Indigenous Australian musical culture. It's basically a slept-on 90s ambient classic, so this vinyl reissue is well worth picking up.

Review: Let's make one thing clear here - you don't need the technical back story to appreciate Xkatedral Anthology Series II. The second instalment in a compilation series of archival work by composers affiliated with the Xkatedral imprint, the six tracks offered are a fine advertisement for contemporary classical, whether that's the sombre feels of Kali Malone's 'Music for Low Quartet', or the celestially celebratory wall of sound that follows on Jessica Ekomane's 'First Light'. Nevertheless, understanding the framework in which these arrangements were made adds to the sense of listening to very accomplished practitioners and movements. All made between 2018 and 2020, everything on Xkatedral Anthology Series II focuses on synthetic sound and algorithmic composition languages, positioning tracks at the forefront of the point where humans and machines meet to make beautiful music.

Review: Demdike Stare have hooked up once more with guitarist Jon Collin for what is their most psychedelic record yet. This trippy and vibrant dream is a record of concrete that's been performed on tape, pedals and a homemade fiddle known as the Swedish nyckelharpa. It manages to be both pastoral (no doubt a result of the fact that all artists hail from the Pennine moorlands) and of this world but also trippy and cosmic. It conveys a sleeping metropolis at night time but also a misty, rainy moor in the middle of winter. There are two halves to this album which both reward close listening with infinite sonic detail.

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.