○ Oct 2025 | Label: Ingrown Records
■ Genres: Drone / Ambient / New Age
■ Rating: 7.0/10
■ Favorite track: “Misty Lake”
► Breathing in intense cycles of expansion and release is not easy as it seems. Deep, sustained tones form vast sonic spaces, while subtle new age elements add gentle movement. The interplay generates a meditative tension, evoking both earth and air, presence and transcendence. It’s a soothing yet quietly dynamic soundscape.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “uoying” that we prefer is “horrow (feat. Canaan Balsam)”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Euan Dalgarno: Canaan Balsam and I first connected while we were both putting out music on Modern Obscure Music. Since we’re both based in Edinburgh, it was only natural that we started exchanging ideas, tracks, stems—and the occasional beer. When this track called for a bit more grit, I gave Canaan a shout and he sent over a few pad layers, some of which had been run through a RAT distortion pedal, giving the track just the edge it was missing.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ Oct 2025 | Label: Perceptual Tapes
■ Genres: Ambient / Drone / Electroacoustic
■ Rating: 8.5/10
■ Favorite track: “This river”
► Yeah, this is clearly a river. Trembling strings provide a mournful, cinematic backdrop, while spoken-word fragments drift in and out like a memory echo, half-heard and deeply human. Each piano note adds both fragile purity and dissonance to the hazy atmosphere. The combination of these elements somehow generates a real masterpiece. Poetry needs to be unclear.
○ Sep 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Electronic / Industrial / Ambient
■ Rating: 7.5/10
■ Favorite track: “Sospensione temporale”
► That’s a deliberate march to an unknown horizon. Each step feels purposeful yet uncertain, carried by subtle pulses that suggest both movement and hesitation. The soundscape is wide and enveloping — textures drift and intertwine like shifting clouds, creating a sense of vastness tinged with melancholy. Time is slow, but it cannot be stopped.
○ Sep 2025 | Label: Three Galleys
■ Genres: Ambient / Drone
■ Rating: 8.5/10
■ Favorite track: “baseload drift”
► This feels ineludible — like a presence that’s always been there, firmly waiting to be heard. Despite its minimalism, the track holds a magnetic pull, drawing the listener deeper into its luminous stillness. It’s a study in slow revelation, where time stretches and sound becomes pure atmosphere — both haunting and comforting, endlessly fascinating in its quiet, unstoppable ascent from silence.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “After the Slow Fade” that we prefer is “Footprints”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Craig Aalders: Footprints came to light in a moment of inspiration based around a particular sound combonation of electric guitar, modulation pedal, and tape delay. Compositionally it began with the opening trem melody that starts the track and continues throughout.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ Sep 2025 | Label: SeeHear Recordings
■ Genres: Drone / Ambient
■ Rating: 7.8/10
■ Favorite track: “Capturing The Flag”
► We are wrapped in a gentle harp arpeggio flowing over a warm, uplifting drone loop. The harp’s delicate plucks shimmer like ripples on water, while the drone anchors everything in a soft, embracing bliss. Still, there is this feeling of interrupted flight, as if we were suspended between sky and ground, between the desire to rise and the fear of falling. Isn’t that what always happens to us?
○ Ago 2025 | Label: Frosti
■ Genres: Ambient / Electronic / Drone
■ Rating: 8.6/10
■ Favorite track: “horrow (feat. Canaan Balsam)”
► In our humble opionion, that’s simply one of the tracks of the year. The gentle interplay between piano and xylophone establishes an atmosphere of innocence and calm, before slowly dissolving into darker textures. As layers of synths and distant echoes emerge, the instruments seem to fade, pulled gradually into a vortex of abandonment. The descent is mesmerizing — graceful yet unsettling — capturing the beauty of letting go.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Changes” that we prefer is “RainSong”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► David Aimone: Well, about half way through making these tracks I realized there was a theme that was loosely about seasons. I love a nice rain storm, just like waves at the ocean, and can zone out on these sounds. I decided to create an atmospheric piece, fairly straightforward, to end “Changes”. I used two guitar like arpeggios, left and right, to emulate the steady rain through phases of harmonic changes. I backed this up with actual rain sounds, and some contained but expressive musical motifs in the background.
I ended up using environmental sounds in most of the songs on the album, not always depicting specific seasons or weather events, but also atmospheric sounds to place the music into a place and time. Meadow sounds, distant church bells, thunderous synth recreations, and so on.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)“The Dawn Identity” is “Album Of The Day” on Electroscape.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “A Marble Sentiment” that we prefer is “this cloud won’t rain on me (thankful)”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► cinchel: I had to go back to the ableton session to figure out what parts made up this track. It looks like I had this nice slow, almost organ like chord progression on the guitar that I looped. I do remember thinking that I really wanted to make more pieces that are not mostly guitar. So I listened to this chord progression and tried to find some chirpy and rhythmic settings on the Moog matriarch. From there I still felt it was a bit to dark so I moved over to the Rhodes piano and banged out some ghostly higher register intervals. I took some of the Moog improvisations that I liked and slowed them down by dumping them out to reel-to-reel and playing it back at half speed. I love the kinda warm bass tones that come from slowed down tape. The organ like sound from the guitar really guided me through the mixing of this piece, I like the cathedral like reverb and the resolution in the chord progression that had a feeling of a church choir.
[2. CREATION]
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[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “station” that we prefer is “they all agreed, it was harmonic evidence”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Paul Beaudoin: For the past year, I’ve traced how sound holds memory—personal, cultural, and inherited—and how those memories can be altered, overwritten, or erased. While I work across media—painting, text, and video—sound feels uniquely attuned to the workings of memory. Most of us experience sound in sequence, gathering what comes forward while continually referring. Retrospectively. It’s a remarkable human act.
My earliest sonic memory is the piano. My mother aspired to be a cocktail lounge pianist in the 1950s and 60s. After school, she’d gather us to sing while playing a familiar rotation of classical and popular music. That daily, participatory listening shaped how I understand music. The piano was the first instrument I “learned”—not through formal lessons but through experimentation. I still remember plucking a string too hard and snapping it in half. That accident stayed with me, not only because of the sound, but also because it sparked my impulse to explore the instrument physically, conceptually, and emotionally.
station is a collection centered on memory and trace. Each track is a “station”—a place or time where something sonically residual remains. they all agreed, it was harmonic evidence draws from childhood music and my earliest encounters with music theory around age 15. That’s when I began composing seriously, fully immersed in theory—an obsession that lasted through my PhD dissertation on a Beethoven cello sonata. (So yes, I suppose you could say I’m legally obligated to find harmony wherever I go.)
My music isn’t linear; it rejects the formal narratives many listeners expect. This shift toward non-narrative listening came from conversations with John Cage. He taught me to hear sound not as a path but as an environment—something we enter, inhabit, and exit without hierarchy. I was especially drawn to his idea that each sound is a living object, a notion he borrowed from painter Lyonel Feininger, who believed every line or form had an independent life. That idea stayed with me. It changed how I hear, compose, and remember.
The phrase harmonic evidence holds several meanings. It nods to early theory lessons—the desire to name, analyze, and prove—but also points to sound itself as a form of evidence: a rarely accepted proof, yet deeply tied to memory. The track layers these tensions—between analysis and emotion, structured harmony and personal trace. I think of it as a sonic self-portrait: part archive, part analysis.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ Sep 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Ambient / Electroacoustic
■ Rating: 7.8/10
■ Favorite track: “Footprints“
► This is a weightless dream. We move seamlessly between the tonic and subdominant major chords in a vast atmosphere, that feels both intimate and infinite. Each moment dissolves delicately into the next, reminding us that beauty still exists and asks no questions.
○ Oct 2025 | Label: Passed Recordings
■ Genres: Ambient / Electronic / New Age
■ Rating: 7.0/10
■ Favorite track: “RainSong“
► We feel like we are listening to an acoustic reproduction of Penelope’s canvas. The fascinating choice of harmony is woven together and moves back and forth like a single wave, which arises and dissolves in itself with geometric rigor.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Limbic Atlas” that we prefer is “Lirae”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Eir Drift: This is the first piece I made for the Limbic Atlas album. Lirae was ultimately born spontaneously even though it was the result of a long reflection on how to approach ambient composition. My goal was to merge the illustrative music I’ve been working on for years with a minimalist ambient format built around slow progression. Cinematic composition, for me, is about crafting a build-up that tells a story — with a beginning, a sense of tension, and a resolution. The idea was to experiment with that kind of narrative structure in a very slow ambient appropriate progression. I started with a suite of 4 piano chords that I wanted to be both tense and ethereal; I then transcribed, looped and slowed everything down in a sequencer… I had this ambient bass sonic base with a gradual build that you could get lost in and dream within. From there, I added textured layers and smooth one note drone to emphasize the transitions and builds. In the end, “Lirae” runs 16 minutes and holds a surprisingly introspective, experimental dimension that I hadn’t entirely anticipated.
[2. CREATION]
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[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Seven types of silences” that we prefer is “VII”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Marko Josipović: That track came to be similarly like all the other ones of the album. I found a motif or a melody on the guitar, then I would sit with it for some time, and the composition/arrangement would very naturally reveal itself through that. I often work very sporadically and like to jump from idea to idea, but this album unfolded quite linearly, so the piece had a “definitive” feel whilst making it. I remember I wanted it to feel like a forceful emergence from the sea, violent, but also purified at the same time, leaving just enough space for the things to come. That tension between violent transformation and a kind of subtle holiness is what I intended to run through the whole album. The imagery of water and sea also played a big role in how I shaped the sound of this album in general.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ Jun 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Ambient / Drone / Noise
■ Rating: 7.5/10
■ Favorite track: “they all agreed, it was harmonic evidence“
► Distant noises flow like wind through empty corridors. Amid this abstract backdrop, the piano emerges—fragile, slow, and emotionally resonant—carrying a sense of longing and memory. Everything evokes a dreamlike tension, as if recalling something lost in time.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Blue Radiance” that we prefer is “A Vast Profound”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Natas Kunas: Good pick! It was actually the very first track made for the album. I had just quit my day job and arrived at a month-long residency in rural Estonia. Filled to the brim with emotions I started playing and condensed that fleeting moment into “A Vast Profound”. Nearly all of it was done on a portable modular synthesizer, using four voices (parts), with great focus on tonal quality and additional layering of the same, but differently processed/altered tracks. During that month in Estonia I did almost the entirety of the album.
[2. CREATION]
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[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Materia Vibrante” that we prefer is “Mundus Imaginalis”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Susana López: Both Materia Vibrante (the album) and Mundus Imaginalis are products of a very particular period in my life, a period marked by an existential crisis. It’s almost as if all the tracks could be combined into a single piece, sharing a common emotional core, instrumentation, and mental state.
Mundus Imaginalis is inspired by that intermediate dimension that connects the intelligible with the sensible: the imaginary world, where vision and vibration merge, according to Henry Corbin and Ibn Arabi. The most notable feature of this track is that it is made almost entirely with my “sonic triangle”, a sound object that I built several years ago. It is the physical element that initiates the vibration.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ Jun 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Drone / Ambient / Electronic
■ Rating: 8.1/10
■ Favorite track: “Chapter“
► This track unfolds like a slow sunrise. The harmonic path is built around resonant chords that radiate introspection and depth. The pacing is deliberate, allowing every passage to breathe fully, evoking feelings of calm, quiet wonder. A precious listening.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Nocturnal Reverie” that we prefer is “Sewer Sea”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Risbo Tazeg: I wanted to create an album that could be a film soundtrack but without being connected to an actual film. I wanted it to be really evocative, to have strong – but abstract – narrative components.
Sewer sea in particular involves improvisation sessions. I started with one layer of synth, and made a 10 minutes long drone-like track. I had no plan in mind, just wanted to play. I then added a 10 minutes layer of cello on top of this drone. Listened to the whole and got rid of some parts of the cello. I did the same with another synth, listened, carved.
I repeated the whole process several times with several synths, with the cello and another string instrument. There has been quite a lot of editing and I don’t think there is anything left from the first 2 layers but somehow the structure that emerges organically from the first few improvised sessions is still there.
The rest of the album has been planned a bit more in advance, but for Sewer Sea I would just play, observe the outcome, edit, repeat. Layering and carving.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ Jun 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Drone / Ambient / Experimental
■ Rating: 7.3/10
■ Favorite track: “Owls Cry where Harpies Lie“
► These sounds show a very peculiar tension. Layers of deep, resonant and/or dissonant tones draw a haunting soundscape that feels both unsettling and strangely inviting. Fractured textures ripple across the surface like distant storms, keeping the listener locked in a mesmerizing cage.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “d | d | d” that we prefer is “distanz”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► lebenerde: I was preparing for an upcoming music theory exam and had to learn chord names lol.
I used an old Yamaha keyboard to play along with the example chords and then I had these two chords that I really liked. Somehow I forgot the exam and just ended up in Ableton, throwing the Yamaha sounds in a granulator and then started just adding effects to find timbres and textures I like.
I wanted to have this degradation of sound quality over time and really did not want to hurry with it and just let it take its time. That’s true for all three songs on this EP actually. I never made tracks this long before. I think it’s because I thought that nobody would listen to something this long but I figured that’s stupid. The duration allows you to just be in it.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ Aug 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Ambient / Electronic
■ Rating: 7.5/10
■ Favorite track: “Lirae“
► Drifting can be sweet at times, just as shipwrecking can be saving. This track feels like drowning in amniotic fluid. Remember when you were floating there? Likewise, at least for a moment, memory forgets itself here, and if there is nothing to remind there is nothing to suffer from.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “The Bee Resort” that we prefer is “A Mind Consumed By Meaningless Data”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Bee Resort: This song was born during a time when I felt quite overwhelmed by work, and at the end of each day my brain would feel drained. One night I sat in my little synth corner and just let everything out, and that’s how that song came into this world, I believe it was created in a single, refreshing session. The title if I remember correctly comes from something a music critic said about Thom Yorke’s style of writing lyrics; that sentence came to my mind while working on this song and it just seemed perfect to describe how I was feeling.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ Jul 2025 | Label: Ingrown Records
■ Genres: Ambient / Drone / Atmospheric
■ Rating: 7.0/10
■ Favorite track: “this cloud won’t rain on me (thankful)“
► It’s always time to stop and breathe to find yourself again. Here there ‘s an opportunity. Gentle, evolving layers of tone create a sense of calm, while subtle electric pulses add depth and movement without disrupting the tranquility. The track strikes a delicate balance between stillness and motion in a sonic world of quiet beauty.
○ Jun 2025 | Label: Independent
■ Genres: Ambient / Electronic / Electroacoustic
■ Rating: 8.7/10
■ Favorite track: “VII“
► Here there’s little to say: if you like ambient and/or electronic, allow yourself to listen to this. There are no falls, there are no negligible moments. This album can easily be considered an instant-classic of the genre. The experience is completely immersive and beneficial, we are facing 50 minutes and more of pure bliss. Simply one of the best works of the year so far.
○ May 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient / Drone / Noise
■ Rating: 7.5/10
■ Favorite track: “A Vast Profound“
► With your eyes closed, please. Everything here flows into a powerful crescendo that feels both cinematic and deeply personal. As the track rises, it evokes a profound sense of hope, clarity, and renewal. All is full of grace.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “A Possible Wind” that we prefer is “Atmospheric Drag”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Alan Graves: For more than a decade now I’ve been taking a field recorder with me everywhere that I travel and recording the sounds of the atmospheres that I find myself in. I had been going back through my archive and pulling recordings of wind from different environments to use as the foundation for this record. For the track ‘Atmospheric Drag’ I used a field recording I had taken of the wind while hiking through a bamboo forest in Hawaii. I started the track by running that field recording through a series of hardware filters and effects and turning it into the basis of what I would build the track on top of. I created patches and performed synthesizer improvisations to those field recordings in layers. It was actually the first piece that I made for the entire record, and it helped inform where the rest of the project would end up.
[2. CREATION]
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[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Mana” that we prefer is “Kella”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Asha Patera: The album is a collection of tracks inspired by my surroundings. ‘Kella’ is the name of an area about four miles from where I live – it is so small as not to even be a village, just a few houses in the winding countryside lanes, but the name is evocative of dreamy summer afternoons, idling away time, and I tried to capture that in the music.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ May 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient / Electronic / Noise / Drone
■ Rating: 8.3/10
■ Favorite track: “distanz“
► Oh, we simply love this kind of jagged electronic music. Abrasive textures and stuttering pulsations buzz and convulse like exposed wires, while sudden drops and bursts of distortion keep the listener on edge. Still nothing is chaotic, everything seems skillfully carved.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “painting the sky” that we prefer is “a bridge above, a river below”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► ellipses: “a bridge above…” came to me while on one of my daily walks. there is a great walking bridge near me with a small park at the end of it. While standing on the bridge overlooking the park, i heard some great bird sounds, wind through the trees, and the sound of water below me. I quickly pulled out my phone to start recording the sounds i was hearing. I had started getting into field recordings before this, having quite a few sitting on my phone for a while. Once i started working on this track, I realized i was really into field recordings and it drove me to buy an actual field recorder. This track and one other (a far pavillion, which was the first track i recorded for the album) are the only once to include the original phone recordings i had done, as a reminder of where i started in my journey.
[2. CREATION]
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[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “The Drowning of Guanacaste” that we prefer is “The Blood Spilt From the Lizard Will Return To Wash Over Us All”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Sunrise 2×4: Sure, this track was mostly made up of aggravated acoustic guitar samples, recorded onto a microcassette and fed through various effect pedals. The guitar for this specific track was a fuller recording I had earlier from Jarret Luttrull who did the original sample of my older tapeloop song “music for your dying plants ii”
The electrical hums are inspired by the constant rain and lightning storms that we worked under, and every day they seemed to show up out of nowhere and drown out everything around us. I remember walking a mile on the beach back to my room from the bar, which would have been blissfully picturesque but in the distance I could see a lightning storm move closer and closer to the direction I was heading. So even at moments of complete peace, being alone on the beach there was always a looming threat of electrical storms. At one point a lightning strike took out all the cameras and electronics in one of the rooms we had set up and fried tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
The title of the track came from an unfortunate event with the passing of one of the older lizards that lived on the property. He had always sunbathed in the same spot near the restaraunt we all ate at, and he passed during our residency there. It’s hard to believe it wasn’t collectively our fault for being there.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ May 2025 | Label: Audio. Visuals. Atmosphere.
■ Genres: Experimental, Drone, Noise, Ambient
■ Rating: 7.9/10
■ Favorite track: “Momentum (Inner Cycles)“
► We’re in a swamp, darling. We ended up in “Apocalypse now”. The prevailing feeling in listening is: imminent danger. This is accentuated by an extremely wise use of space: the sounds are not only around us, but – literally – rain down on us from all directions.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “Anachoreisis” that we prefer is “Flooding”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Auditor: My functional memory was hijacked many years ago. I imagine I was probably teaching myself to play a Gymnopedie or Gnossienne and listening to them on repeat. I have a sampler, an SP-404. I likely fed it things that were then abstractly regurgitated and reassembled by hand and heart.
[2. CREATION]
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[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “A Crooked Stick” that we prefer is “Ceterus Paribus“. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► House Of Quiet: That particular track was born out of a feeling to add gradually to a simple framework without overwhelming elements. A single looped chord fed by prepared guitar, radio static, staggered delays and predominantly clean work.
[2. CREATION]
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[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “gateway” that we prefer is “how to get away“. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Passage: “How to get away” is the only song on the album that was recorded in separate sections. The first of the two sections has the only original sound on the album that doesn’t come from a guitar or a synthesizer, instead, what you’re hearing is a music box being played very slowly through a pedalboard. In an earlier version of the track, there was a short acoustic song during the intro, and the track was called “waves” in reference to one of the lyrics. Like the rest of the tracks, I came up with the final title while uploading the album to bandcamp. The title “how to get away” represents, at least for me, the existential dread of living under the American regime.
[2. CREATION]
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[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “shift #2” that we prefer is “shift #2.2“. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► rsn | N: “shift #2” is a collaboration album with the ambient/drone guitarist N. I worked with him a lot with my band [ B O L T ]. We met for a session together in our studio and started developing ideas without any pre-planning. It soon became clear that we wanted to work with just a semitone shift to create different atmospheres. This resulted in 5 songs, 3 of which ended up on “shift #1” and 2 on “shift #2”.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)○ To be released June 2025 | Label: Elevator Bath
■ Genres: Ambient, Drone, Experimental
■ Rating: 7.8/10
■ Favorite track: “Mundus Imaginalis“
► The synths pass through us, the harmony is fluid, amniotic. But everything is filtered through an opaque lens, which gives the sound a trembling subsoil, as if you were waiting for a restless time. As if you don’t want to leave the present.
○ May 2025 | Label: Dragon Trax
■ Genres: Electronic, Drone, Ambient
■ Rating: 7.5/10
■ Favorite track: “Xylophonics V (Asha Patera Remix)“
► This is a powerful and relentless march, punctuated by a syncopated bass that dictates its tempo. Although the drone is totally immersive, the horizontal space of the sound spectrum is intelligently preserved by percussive elements and digital cascades, panned all around our head. It’s time to travel again.
○ April 2025 | Label: Bathysphere Records
■ Genres: Ambient, Electronic
■ Rating: 8.3/10
■ Favorite track: “Atmospheric Drag“
► This music moves like a wave. When you sail, circumstances can change rapidly, and the short synth phrases that pop up cyclically are there to remind that. This uncertainty is emotionally precious: the result reveals a dreamy expectation, and it’s up to you to define its color.
○ March 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient, Soundscapes
■ Rating: 8.4/10
■ Favorite track: “A Cetacean Thought“
► Some Floydian vibes here, and that might be enough. But there’s more. This is a paradigmatic example of “functional” use of natural acoustic elements that really gives strength to music. Something, to be clear, that goes beyond the simple “Oh, that’s nature ambient, let’s put some more birds here”. The result is blissful.
○ March 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Drone, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Noise
■ Rating: 7.1/10
■ Favorite track: “shift #2.2“
► We face a long journey through sonic paths. As the piece develops, subtle shifts in tone color bring in moments of either fragmentation or expansion, encouraging deep listening, reflection and a sense of timelessness.
○ March 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Drone, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Experimental
■ Rating: 6.6/10
■ Favorite track: “how to get away“
► We are alone in the middle of the storm. Resistance is useless, surrender is sweet. So let us fall to infinity, disperse without guilt or hope, into oblivion.
○ December 2024 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient Piano, Minimalism, Contemporary Classical
■ Rating: 8.2/10
■ Favorite track: “Rippen 115892“
► When it comes to minimalism, it’s easy to talk past. “Even I could have done that!”, people always say. So try, if you can. Try to create something so liberating, so saving, so pure.
○ February 2025 | Label: SeeHear Recordings
■ Genres: Drone, Ambient, Electronic
■ Rating: 6.4/10
■ Favorite track: “Reynisdrangar“
► It’s cold out there. The wind blows hard. No time to figure out how to protect yourself. No way to find a direction in this desert of ice. Only regret for being there, trapped in boundless spaces, alone in the unspeakable white.
○ March 2025 | Label: See Blue Audio
■ Genres: Ambient, Electronic, Drone, Atmospheric
■ Rating: 7.0/10
■ Favorite track: “Voyage Beyond“
► This synth, in all its purity, envelops us and leads us on the journey. The evocation of interstellar space appears natural. The opening major7 arpeggio has the color of discovery; the rest of the harmony reflects the fear of revelations, along with their necessity.
○ December 2024 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient, Experimental, Soundscapes
■ Rating: 8.4/10
■ Favorite track: “Symphonic Descent into the Beast’s Lair“
► This work, in all its nuances, is truly remarkable. The natural sounds, often trivialized in this genre and its derivations, are concretely functional to the development of the soundscape this time. Despite the sound complexity, the production of the album is perfectly blended.
○ December 2024 | Independent
■ Genres: Field Recordings, Drone, Dark Ambient, Ambient
■ Rating: 7.9/10
■ Favorite track: “The Blood Spilt From the Lizard Will Return to Wash Over us All“
►Although the music advances with the patience a windless wave, the main feeling is restlessness. The circular anxiety is exacerbated by guitar interventions, inserted with ingenious incoherence in the sound picture. The choice of instrumental timbres is clever and seductive.
○ December 2024 | Independent
■ Genres: Drone, Ambient, Electronic, Post-Rock
■ Rating: 7.3/10
■ Favorite track: “Kella“
►There is something liberating and threatening at the same time. The bass is like a snake crawling at your feet, but the cascades of high-frequency drones make you look up, searching for shooting stars to ask for hope. You’d better act.
○ February 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient, Electronic, Drone
■ Rating: 6.2/10
■ Favorite track: “a bridge above, a river below”
► There is a warm drone, and we all know what is going to happen. It will probably last forever. But not here: there is a sudden harmonic modulation, two steps above keeping the major key, and after that another minor, ascending climb to the summit. It’s time to close your eyes and breathe.
○ February 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient, Electronic
■ Rating: 7.0/10
■ Favorite track: “Let Them Eat Flowers“
► The synth phrase is really charming. Even though it’s in a loop, it’s not easy to find the beginning and the end of it, and that’s its secret. Maybe it is not the right way to say it, but it’s like Boards of Canada have gone on vacation.
○ February 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Experimental, Ambient, Noise, Lo-Fi
■ Rating: 6.6/10
■ Favorite track: “Ceterus Paribus”
► There is a guitar and a beautiful repeated ninth chord, suitable – in its harmonic indeterminacy – to adapt to the emotional state of the listener. A desert at sunset lies before our eyes. We must cross it, whether we like it or not. Distant noises will accompany us on the way.
○ January 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Electronic, Ambient, Dub
■ Rating: 8.5/10
■ Favorite track: “I Feel Like“
► Well, just to be clear: this track is quite a masterpiece. There’s something charmingly hypnotic about the words, the syncopated beat, the echoes. We got totally captivated by the texture, every spark of this beauty has become precious and necessary in our head. And when the synth gets in: oh boy. We won’t forget this music.
○ January 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient, Electronic
■ Rating: 7.8/10
■ Favorite track: “A Mind Consumed By Meaningless Data“
► There is a kind of inevitable circular path that digs a deeper and deeper furrow. Minor add2 chords paint a disperate picture. The synth bass moves 4 steps downward over and over again, buried within Freud’s repetition compulsion. This path is interrupted in an extremely significant pause around the middle of the track, only to resume inexorably.
○ January 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Experimental, Ambient, Electronic
■ Rating: 6.8/10
■ Favorite track: “Sewer Sea“
► In the midst of dark drones echoes, synhts phrases burst in. That’s intriguing because it emerges as an act of rebellion against the swamp that surrounds us. We can stand, somehow.
○ January 2025 | Independent
■ Genres: Ambient, Experimental, Electronic
■ Rating: 7.0/10
■ Favorite track: “The Hand“
► Listening gravitates around a distant kick drum. As much the synths create an underlying tension, this pulsing core offers a safe haven. The harmonic use of bichords is cleverly elusive. The Doric mode reflects, in its resolutions, the search for relief from background noise.