Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone March 2019

Review: Few records could sound better suited to Emotional Rescue's reissue remit than soft rock / synth pop artists turned sound healers Chris Spheeris and Paul Voudouris. "Passage" was a commission by a company doing biofeedback therapy who wanted a soundtrack for their clients' treatment, resulting in a gem of early American ambient music. Originally released in 1982 and now lovingly restored, artwork and all, Spheeris and Voudouris' three lengthy compositions are as soothing as the remit demanded. Whatever your internal ails, there's restorative qualities in these pieces that can't help but do good, even as a pure pleasure trip to let yourself melt into.

Review: Five years ago, Portishead front woman Beth Gibbons joined forces with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra to perform Henryk Gorecki's "Symphony Number 3 (Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs)" at the National Opera Grand Theatre in Warsaw. Here, the recording of the concert is finally given a release. It's a stunning suite of classical pieces, with the orchestra making short work of Gorecki's swelling movements and deeply melancholic musical motifs. Gibbons is in particularly fine form, transforming herself into an operatic artist and accurately delivers the stunning, Polish-language pieces. It's an astonishing performance and nothing like we've ever heard from her before. The 24-minute opening track is, in particular, breathtaking.

Review: Since releasing their first EP on Type back in 2004, Deaf Center duo Erik K Skodvin and Otto A Totland have delivered some of the most mesmerizing and well thought-out ambient, IDM and electronica around. "Low Distance" - here presented in limited-edition form complete with a hand numbered insert - builds on the success of 2014 set "Recount", which cleverly combined clandestine neo-classical movements with the claustrophobic paranoia of dark ambient. There's perhaps a little more joy and pure beauty this time round - see the fluid pianos and whistling chords of "Entity Voice" and the becalmed "Undone" - but album still retains the same sense of loneliness and dread that marked out its predecessor.

Review: More split action from STROOM, a label that has delivered some killer reissues of late. Heading up this double-feature is Icelandic producer Isar Logi Arnarsson AKA Cold, who offers us another chance to savour his 1995 Berlin Love Parade anthem "Strobe Light Network" - a 15-minute deep techno epic that boasts a lengthy ambient introduction, hushed and hypnotic grooves, undulating electronic motifs, ghostly chords and glacial, rush-inducing lead lines. Over on the flip, James Bernard takes over. "Lapis Lazuli" first surfaced on his 1997 album "Symphony For A Biomechanical Breakdown" and 22 years on it has lost none of its ghostly, otherworldly charms. A chunk of ultra-deep ambient rich in creepy melodies and psychedelic acid lines, it makes a near perfect B-side to Arnarsson's peerless classic.

Review: The latest full-length excursion from William Basinski has its roots in a 2017 Berlin exhibition that the long-serving experimental composer was invited to contribute to. Basinski created music for two installations, making extensive use of recordings of two distant black holes captured using the interferometers of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory). Of the two tracks on show, it's the epic title track that hits home hardest. It's a 40 minute ambient epic of intergalactic proportions, with Basinski offering up slowly-shifting, ice cold chords, crackling aural textures and occasional bursts of distant activity. The track that follows is a little warmer and undeniably drowsy, with Basinski utilizing manipulated neo-classical movements to create an intoxicating ambient mood.

Review: Orkney-born Erland Cooper is probably best known for his starring role in long running folk rock bands Erland and the Carnival and The Magnetic North. Solan Goose marks his debut as a solo artist and it's a little different to what you might expect. It combines contemporary, ambient style electronics and beguiling, Nils Frahm style piano figures with neo-classical style movements, epic, cinematic style compositions and pieces rich in operatic style female vocals. It sounds like the soundtrack to a particularly evocative film about the Orkney Islands, and that's no bad thing; certainly, it's a very impressive and immaculately produced piece of work.

Review: Although Abul Mogard has made some stunning albums over the years, in recent times it's his reworks that have been celebrated most. It's perhaps for that reason that Houndstooth has decided to offer up this retrospective of the shadowy artist's most admired remixes. The most notable inclusion is the producer's previously unheard revision of Becoming Animal's "The Sky Is Ever Falling", a stunning, stretched-out soundscape that re-imagines the song as a heart-aching ambient epic. It's almost as good as Mogard's jaw-dropping interpretation of Fovea Hex's "We Dream All The Dark Away", whose fragile folk vocals, ever-intensifying modular synthesizer cycles and layered electronic drones deliver a stunning climax to an impeccable collection of inspired ambient soundscapes.

Review: Despite he or she having delivered a number of highly regarded releases since debuting in 2016, we still don't know the identity of the "mystery producer" behind the Trux project. It barely matters, of course, but it would be nice to know who to direct praise towards. You see, "Eleven", the producer's second full-length excursion, is really rather good. It begins with a becalmed and slowly pulsing ambient soundscape (the liquid bliss of "Another World") and ends with a dusty chunk of sample-rich haziness ("Soda"). In between, you'll find an impressive range of cuts that brilliantly mix and match elements of vintage IDM, ambient techno, and glitchy electronica.

Review: Berlin-based Japanese experimentalist Midori Hirano has an impressive track record, with critics and consumers alike responding positively to her blend of evocative electronics and neo-classical movements. "Mirrors In Mirrors" is Hirano's first album for three years and explores similar sonic territory. Opening with a sublime piano exercise that sounds like it was recorded from several miles away (the beguiling "Close To Life"), the set sees Hirano wring maximum emotion from a relatively sparse number of musical elements - most notably piano, simple electronic motifs and sometimes densely layered field recordings. Strangely enough, the album's most impactful moment, "Sleeping Under The Raintrees", is also its most electronic.

Review: Corey Fuller is one half of the duo Illuha on 12k and Break is his first solo recording for 12k. A crashing wave, the breaking dawn, an impact, the crushing of emotional spirit... the breaking of a storm. These are all relevant ideas behind his choice of a title for this highly emotional abum. Fuller has addressed the universality of human struggle without going into specifics of his own personal waves. The ideas that we as humans all share many of the same difficulties is both a launching point and a message he wishes to share with Break i the catharsis.