Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone July 2021

Review: Dr Atmo and Mick Chillage have plenty of ambient accomplishments behind them. Atmo is a veteran of the German electronica scene, with a discography deeply bedded into Pete Namlook's imperious Fax universe and boasting collaborations with the likes of David Moufang and Ramin Naghashian. Dublin's Mick Chillage meanwhile has released swathes of material on labels like ...txt as well as via his own channels. This likely pairing find common ground in languorous, sweeping synth lines that roam free over extended run times. In many ways, this release on A Strangely Isolated Place feels like a natural extension of what both artists were doing on Fax when it was still operational, so if you're a fan of that classic ambient techno sound, this release has exactly what you're looking for.

Review: 'Unfailing Love' is a deeply personal and intimate project by zake & marine eyes. These tracks will take you on a journey of grief, resiliency and the power of the human spirit; a consistent path to learn compassion and empathy deeper. It is a testament of unfailing love. Forever floating together.

Review: Two artists that have previously released works on Past Inside the Present come together for this anonymous split album. With this record we want listeners to go in blind, without ego or expectation, with the sole focus on what truly matters: the music. The artists will remain anonymous until the vinyl sells out and then we will reveal all.

Review: Caterina Barbieri is an Italian modular goddess. Her 2019 album Ecstatic Computation was opened up by the majestic 'Fantas' and now it gets a whole new lease of life with this bumper package of variations. Each artist was personally chosen by Caterina and told to do whatever they wanted with the source material. The results are beguiling from the off with Evelyn Saylor, Lyra Pramuk, Annie Garlid & Stine Janvin going for a loopy, multi-layered vocal version that is constantly ascending to heaven. There is more calm from Kali Malon who keeps it strictly ambient and Carlo Maria approximates peak time melodic techno but from a much more artistic rather than narcotic point of view.

Review: RECOMMENDED
'In My Family' is one of the more subtle tracks here, and yet would rank as a highly emotional piece up against anything you can think of. It's quiet, hooky, distilled in pop yet grounded in hip hop and downtempo, but most importantly it understands the power of repetition and discreet growth. And its genuine quality is no anomaly on this album.

At the other end of the spectrum - barring all the waves of ambient beauty that come with tracks like 'Patching Shadows' - Cloudwalker opens with full on rave wonders. First the twinkle and hoover breaks of 'Short Wave Memories', then the dubbier and more spatial 'Propylenglycol'. Both tracks are deep but fresh, words that dominate all the dancefloor business on this album. Like 'Sailing Everest''s trippy 6AM robot rhythm, or 'Voltage Controlled Organisms' and the alien electro it brings. Basically, 14 tracks of great, across a variety of futuristic styles.

Review: With this album Fernando Corona aka Murcof makes a most bold and ambitious statement to date. It is his first on the Leaf label for 13 years and features the sort of painstaking sound design he has become known for as well as driving beats and a ghostly vibe that makes for a fascinating atmosphere. It's abstract, yet beautiful, with versions of pieces written for a performance piece with choreographer Guilherme Botelho making up the first half, and pieces designed for a second, later performance, making up the second half.

Review: You've always been able to hear the West Coast in Monocoastal, but it's particularly present when you shut your eyes after 12 months of lockdown stopping you from visiting the region. Less active L.A., and more observing in Oregon, Fischer's career didn't end with this in 2011 and the multi-disciplinary artist has produced great things since, but the album is certainly one of turning points in terms of reputation and note.

The idea of slowly watching time unfold in un-rushed places is also highly appropriate. Among the washes of tape and the waves of refrain that make up this beautiful, meditative outing, you'll hear takes and half-harmonies from found instruments including a piano and xylophone. Overall, it feels like a place removed from linearity. A liminal masterpiece, if you are that way inclined.

Review: Scott Morgan's latest immersive ambient deep dive as Loscil has its origins in a three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece orchestra from Budapest. Morgan pressed this recording to vinyl, then scratched and sampled it within an inch of its life. Each of these samples was then used (and abused) in a variety of ways, before being shaped into a suite of brand-new tracks. The process certainly worked, because Clara is simply superb: a collection of alternately melancholic, gently uplifting and becalmed soundscapes whose simmering orchestral origins are only noticeable if you know the back story. It's a stunning set all told and a genuinely involving and immersive ambient excursion.

Review: If an act or artist sticks around for more than a couple of years then they've made it, at least in so far as the common conscious goes. Fade after that and people will ask where you've gone. Go to a decade and music probably defines you, and hitting the 20 year mark puts you at veteran status. 43 years deep you clearly know what it means to be owned by a piece of work.

Chihei Hatakeyama considers Late Spring to be among the most time-intensive musical projects he has ever worked on, and his career stretches back to 1978. The timbre certainly suggests the kind of work someone has burrowed into, tapping into ever deeper depths of sound. It's the kind of ambient you want to hear live from a real organ in a real church, and ideally with comfortable seats.

Review: Composed and recorded by Wayne Robert Thomas with an electric guitar at Stan Mikita's Donuts, Aurora, Indiana from October 2019 to August 2020. Design, layout and assemblage and christened by Sir Frizzell. Mastered and blessed at Schwebung Mastering (Germany) by Stephan Mathieu. Muted trombone by Ron-Robert Thompson on 'Just Be Patient With Me' Additional guitar by Andrew Bergman on 'Envoi' . "Love abounds in everything"

Review: A joint effort long past due, PITP founders zake and Isaac Helsen team up to bring forth three arrangements that encompass textured ambient washes and drone-laden guitar work titled 'Beliefsystems'.

Review: Composed and recorded by Wayne Robert Thomas with an electric guitar at Stan Mikita's Donuts, Aurora, Indiana from October 2019 to August 2020. Design, layout and assemblage and christened by Sir Frizzell. Mastered and blessed at Schwebung Mastering (Germany) by Stephan Mathieu. Muted trombone by Ron-Robert Thompson on 'Just Be Patient With Me' Additional guitar by Andrew Bergman on 'Envoi' . "Love abounds in everything"

Review: "Initial recordings for 'Canticles Of Bliss' started in October of 2019 at my home studio located just south of Indianapolis. At the start of 2020 I continued recording songs off and on up until late April where I then took a break and then picked up the guitar again in July. I used an electric guitar for the recordings while utilizing very little effects and a loop station. Quite a lot of the tracks I made ended up not making it on 'Canticles of Bliss'. As such, these eight selected arrangements are a collection of b-sides from the Canticles of Bliss recording sessions.

Review: A joint effort long past due, PITP founders zake and Isaac Helsen team up to bring forth three arrangements that encompass textured ambient washes and drone-laden guitar work titled 'Beliefsystems'.

Review: 'Soft Afternoon Pressure' might be taking it a bit far for track one of this sublime ten-tracker from Tibslc. We would have probably changed the last word in the title to 'Delight', given the opener is a real hazy, opiate trip through warming, woozy, and intoxicating chords. Sounds of nature and the unnatural alike making themselves known in fleeting moments between the ebb and flow of central harmonies.

It's an easy going introduction to a very easy going but mind-meltingly complex record. With tunes called 'Lying On The Floor', 'Tearing A Head of Lettuce At Night', and 'Beachlife', this was never going to be an intense experience. Whether you were expecting the ambient moods to feel quite as much like an exercise in spiritual cleansing and meditation is, of course, another question entirely.

Review: There is more than an echo of Kate Bush in the music of Norfolk's Lucy Gooch. Also inspired by the early technicolour films of Powell and Pressburger, she layers up walls of sound that are ethereal and subliminal. Big chords, sweeping pads and synthesisers and vocals all carefully arranged to make for rich music that leaves you breathless. This is an album for escape, with yearning moods and trace elements of the aforementioned film's scores and narratives carefully woven in. The ethereal sound and glowing melodies of 'Chained To A Woman' is the standout for us.

Review: With this album Fernando Corona aka Murcof makes a most bold and ambitious statement to date. It is his first on the Leaf label for 13 years and features the sort of painstaking sound design he has become known for as well as driving beats and a ghostly vibe that makes for a fascinating atmosphere. It's abstract, yet beautiful, with versions of pieces written for a performance piece with choreographer Guilherme Botelho making up the first half, and pieces designed for a second, later performance, making up the second half.

Review: Like a lot of ambient and experimental electronic producers, Albert Brokent AKA Lingua Lustra tends towards the prolific. In fact, Concentric, his second full-length excursion for ROHS (his first dropped in 2017), is the 33rd album he's released since making his debut in 2005. While many of those sets explored the more academic side of ambient music, Concentric delights in its musical joviality, with Brokent's usual immersive chords and synthetic aural textures being joined by bubbly electronic melodies, Boards of Canada style beats, and musical motifs that tend towards the picturesque and sunkissed. As a result, it's one of his most enjoyable and exuberant sets to date.