Ambient

  • The Humble Bee & Offthesky – All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains

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    France’s IIKKI has a ninth entry in its series of book-CD combinations. Visual artist Nieves Mingueza produced the former, The Humble Bee & Offthesky the latter. Like the eight releases before it, All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains is described as a “dialogue” between the artists and is meant to be consumed either as…

  • OTSO – AAVE

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    It is remarkable how little music instruments change over time. Percussionists still pound drums and various other found objects. Symphony orchestras, even those with the most modernist repertoires, are not fundamentally different than they were one or two centuries ago. And the synthesizer, arguably the 20th century’s most significant musical step forward is still operated…

  • ranter’s groove – 俳句

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    Niet f-n and Giuseppe Fantini describe their Kaczynski Editions label as “permeated with true punk spirit.” The label’s name is a reference to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. The former math prof killed three and injured 23 Americans with homemade bombs between 1978 and 1995. By way of an explanation, he offered up an anti-tech manifesto that…

  • Ryuichi Sakamoto – Black Mirror: Smithereens

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    One of our heroes dropped a new album on Friday. Ryuichi Sakamoto is out with a soundtrack to an episode from Black Mirror’s fifth season entitled Smithereens. I won’t ruin it for you. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll enjoy the episode’s exploration of the tension between analytics and intuition, between data-rich corporations…

  • Michele Rabbia/Gianluca Petrella/Eivind Aarset – Lost River

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    It is not unreasonable, now more than five months into the year, to begin compiling our favourite recordings of 2019. Albums that stand out in January or February tend not to face the stiffest competition. It’s far too early to place bets on this or that disc standing up against what’s to come. By the…

  • Sigh Of Relief – Injection

    Bubba Kadane’s work in slowcore innovators Bedhead and more recently The New Year and Overseas, side by side with brother Matt (and others), has earned him an international reputation among indie rock fans for producing contemplative, often delightfully crunchy work. Lesser known is his extensive catalogue of music produced for movies and television. In addition…