Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone Best Of 2021

Review: It's Masayoshi Fujita, but maybe not as you usually know him. Bird Ambience is, of course, a beautiful collection of neo-classical tones that reference traditional music from well beyond the North Atlantic sphere of influence. And the same can be said for everything he has made in the past. But here he brings in both the acoustic work of his solo material and more experimental, electronic-leaning stuff under the El Fog alias to write a new chapter in his own story.

The album is sublime, and Fujita's choice of instruments has much to answer for. Putting down the vibraphone in favour of a marimba, we still keep the wooden, earthiness of the notes but with the new kit these become more expansive and offers a wider range. It's a subtle difference but one that's more than noticeable once you realise the change, with the results utterly mesmerising.

Review: RECOMMENDED
It's hard to imagine anyone with ears and an understanding of 'how things should be done properly' not having about a million years' worth of time for Kompakt Records and the bossman Michael Mayer. Both have endured rises and falls in electronic music, and remain emblems of quality within house, techno, electro and electronica. In more recent times, though, you could argue the label has never been on better form than when dealing with tracks which are not necessarily focused on the dance floor.

From that end of things comes the appropriately titled Pop Ambient compilation series, each instalment a masterclass of lush, thoughtful production work. Here we're treated to efforts from Markus Guentner and Joachim Spieth, Triola, Andrew Thomas and Black Gloss, with the combined effect equivalent to what it might feel like to physically walk into a tapestry of vivid, soft, relaxing colours.

Review: The connection between Dr. Atmo and Mick Chillage goes back to one of the finest labels to ever grace this planet, FAX records. Many will remember the defining collective for their deep, extended excursions into the far-reaches of ambient mysticism - a style that is still revered to this day. Ruhleben sees a welcome return for Dr. Atmo who, after appearing on some of the very first FAX releases under his own name and different guises throughout its tenure, has been somewhat elusive of late with side-steps into other genres. Now, partnering with another FAX alumni and a foundational figure within today's ambient music genre, Mick Chillage, the pair have returned to their roots and a defining style of ambient music.

Review: This intriguing and predictably atmospheric album is the first collaborative full-length from experienced modern ambient producer Dennis Huddleston AKA 36, and Los Angeles duo Awakened Souls, whose full-length hook-up with Pepo Galan, Palettes, received plenty of praise last year. Between them the trio have conjured up a hugely evocative and emotion-rich collection of cuts, where heart-aching, slow-motion guitar laments stretch out across swelling synthesizer chords, meditative pads, distant-sounding vocal snippets, enveloping aural textures and soft-focus piano refrains. It's a wonderfully meditative and picturesque set all told, and one that could well turn out to be one of the most essential ambient albums of 2021.

Review: American ambient label Past Inside The Present has already assured its cult status and each new release only builds on that. This time out it is Distance As Power from UK producer Dennis Huddleston aka 36 (who already released his Wave Variations album on this label this year) and prolific Japan-based sound artist Duenn who join forces for some murky and lo-fi escapism. Their five painterly tracks come on slowly and build powerfully through foggy pads, arching chords and a nostalgic sense of warmth. This is warm, widescreen and abstract bliss.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Even the most determinedly understated chin-strokers will likely have emitted a squeal of delight when this one was announced. Everyone's favourite electronic producer-cum-contemporary composer (or vice versa?) releasing his latest works of art across two media - namely an album on cult hero label Erased Tapes, and a movie available on highbrow streaming service Mubi.

This is the audio, and while nobody who caught the video when it was available to view on-demand could argue this is just as powerful on its own, the solo sound is still an intoxicating and compelling ride. 'The Dane' is classy piano bliss, '#2' sits in the big room electronica end of things, 'Fundamental Values' is a scatty, broken ambient journey to the edges of drum 'n' bass, 'Enters' opens on long, ambient refrains.

Review: Dennis Huddleston's most recent album as 36, Wave Variations, promptly sold out in double-quick time upon its release in the summer of 2020. Because of this, The Past Inside The Present has decided to reissue it. If you missed out first time round, we'd recommend giving it a listen. It's a tighter and more focused album than some of Huddleston's sprawling epics, with most of the heavily melodic tracks clocking in around three minutes. He also composed them in sequence to guarantee a gently unfurling and flowing album, while his decision to rely on a relatively small palette of synthesizer sounds adds an extra layer of coherence. Basically, it's a wonderfully evocative, emotive and quietly tuneful set that we'd consider one of the best ambient works of recent years.

Review: Grand River's always-illuminating One Instrument label reawakens with a new album from Martin Sander and Michel Isorinne's Bandhagens Musikforening project. Having previously appeared on Northern Electronics and Semantica, now these two advanced synthesists place all their attention on a select few studio pieces to see how far they can take them. First up is the Roland System 100, which affords them plenty of tonal possibilities for the pulsing, kinetic 'Nedgravd I Naturen'. With the Yamaha DX-7 they create a towering ambient piece of FM synthesis, while the Roland SH-101 gets applied to a dense and detailed slice of obtuse leftfield techno. The Oberheim Matrix 6R becomes a vehicle for cinematic melancholy, and the Waldorf Microwave teases out an immersive swirl of ambience as you might well expect from the One Instrument series.

Review: Los Angeles based ambient husband and wife duo, awakened souls join with Reunion Island native, From Overseas to create Keep The Orange Sun. After hearing each other's individual music, a deeper conversation started about shared musical influences and inspiration leading to the creation of this album. Keep The Orange Sun guides the listener on a thoughtfully curated path. Starting with the certainty of life's changes (Certainty of Tides) to arising self-doubt (Release/Adapt) and celebrating immersion in the present moment as the gateway to deeper connection with nature and one's life (Keep The Orange Sun). The instrumentation present in each track channels elements of electronic, shoegaze & ambient with each artist's distinct musical fingerprint highlighted.

Review: Past Inside The Present marks the end of The Sky Trilogy by Purl with Holographic Prism. This triptych of works has sought to explore collective dreams of celestial origin. The ambient sounds are all deeply involving and here come remixed by SVLBRD, Lav, Slow Dancing Society, Coppice Halifax, Warmth, Deflektion, Innesti, & Svartholtet. There is lots to love, with the icy shimmers and late night chill of the opener to the more dark, dank and dubbed out version of 'Merope' by Lav. 'Celestial Entropy' gets two different but equally fascinating versions turned out to close this absorbing EP in style.

Review: RECOMMENDED
The re-discovery and re-appraisal of Beverly Glenn-Copeland's work is one of the more surprising outcomes of the pandemic's great pause, which for some people at least meant having more time to dive into the archives of cultural history, from music to literature to movies. Not that the spotlight isn't wholly deserving. As this 1986 album shows, the artist was well ahead of their time, with this strange, heady brew of electronic exoticism, experimental ambient and percussive poetry easy to mistake for a contemporary record.

Glenn-Copeland's own story is also a pretty interesting one. Now 76 years old, the maestro spent years identifying as a lesbian woman, before investigations in gender discourse led to the revelation that a transgender man was a more comfortable identity for the music maker, who also lays claim to a catalogue of kids' TV scores, including Sesame Street and Shiny Time Station.

Review: Japanese imprint Endless Flight presents a reissue of the arcane and mystical opus Ancient Rain by Koss aka Kuniyuki Takahashi, originally released back in 2008 as a CD only. It was an attempt to meld old melodic traditions with textural layers of modern electronic frequencies, in the process creating a ''new oriental sound', translating traces of ancient Asian music traditions into modern realms. Featuring a variety of moods and tones, from the celestial new age beats of 'Jumoku', to the shoegaze tinged ambient of the title track, '78 to 2008' with its knackered house vibe and the neo-classical inspiration behind 'Dream' (Real World) are just some highlights on this highly mediative sonic journey through the veteran producer's mind.

Review: This is what happens when acclaimed Los Angeline harpist Mary Lattimore enlists Slowdive's Neil Halstead fo production duties. A lush, and liquid listening experience that is as graceful as it is confident, blurring the lines between classical and ambient in a way that seems to echo centuries of traditional, almost Medieval tones and contemporary electronic adventures alike.

Lattimore's work has previously been described in terms of 'dreamscapes', and few have been painted more vividly than Silver Ladders. These are deep dive arrangements that expand and contract like breathing, allowing the artist's signature instrument to shine while submerging it in swells of refrain. Movement is constant, and yet the record feels mill pond still. Hardly par for the course, even in the fertile sonic ground she works in. Step inside and prepare to be captivated.

Review: The soothing sounds of 12th Isle, arguably Scotland's most consistent dance-not-dance music label, have rarely sounded so, err, soothing, enticing or mind-opening. Then again, when you're combining the kind of pedigree the art-electronica imprint has with Baltimore's Tarotplane, AKA underground music hero PJ Doresey, the results should be pretty impressive.

It's not actually been that long since we had our last from the man in question, 2020's The Feedback Sutras, and in many ways this picks up from there - the new school kosmiche musical blueprint laid out in the past is explored in even more depth. Committing everything to a futuristic fantasy world where possibilities are endlessly proposed through chimes, synths, echoes and waves, if you're not painting pictures in your mind get yourself checked out.

Review: Seefeel's second studio album, their first for the feted Warp imprint, saw them expand on some of the ideas in their 1993 debut, continuing to embrace the lush soundscapes that typify shoegaze and rooting things in deep sub bass, while bringing fascinating new blueprints to the table.

Which isn't too surprising, given Succour landed in 1995, by which point the UK's rave scene had managed to find a way into almost every aspect of youth and pop culture. Far from a dance music album, nevertheless the record has clear acid house influences, from soaring vocal cries through to intoxicatingly loose types of syncopated rhythm crafted from heavily detailed percussive sections, with tracks like 'Vex' taking us all the way to IDM. Exquisite explorations so far ahead of their time they still sound new almost 30 years later.

Review: By now, we should all know what to expect from the THESIS label, namely beautifully presented 10" singles featuring fresh collaborations between artists who have never worked together before. The label's latest missive brings together two long-established musicians: neo-classical composer Clem Leek and ambient/krautrock fusionist Mark Peters. The pair begin with the crackling, glacial beauty of 'Overhill', where twinkling piano motifs rise above stately ambient chords, before channelling the long-distance loneliness of the lockdown era on the wonderfully melancholic 'Loyola'. Glistening melodies and reverb-laden chords mingle with Leek's piano on 'Half Day', while 'Cawthorne' is a bubbly ambient treat.

Review: Newcomers to Astral Industries have happened upon the label at a great moment here. Hanyo van Oosterom is continuing the fantastic work he was involved in with J. Derwort under the Chi project name following the latter's death in 2019. Now producing under the moniker Son of Chi, it's an extension rather than a repetition of what has come before it.

Tonal vocabulary expanded, it feels more immersive and grander than ever before, and yet retains the fundamentals that first enraptured us. Organic instrumentation and the sense of falling ever deeper into dreamlike states of consciousness are just two ways of describing what both Chi and the new offspring concept bring to the table. These are new sonic worlds opening up before our mind's eye, packed with mystery, lamentation, and hope for tomorrow.

Review: RECOMMENDED
This is the first album Ai Yamamoto has released for US imprint Past Inside The Present, and it almost feels like an artist finally coming home - albeit a home they never lived in before. A perfect meeting of minds a long time in the making, fittingly the work included here has also taken a while to materialise, with the arrangements presented written and recorded over a two year period, between 2018 and 2020.

Japan-born, Melbourne, Australia-bred, Yamamoto's extensive experience working with pianos, strings, wind instruments and keen attention to detail in terms of textures and timbre is clear to hear within moments of hitting play. Having been making music for the best part of two decades, she's long-since honed her craft and fine-tuned those skills, ensuring Love Me Tender is a hushed ambient beauty you won't easily forget.

Review: One of three Seefeel re-releases arriving together - shining light on the band's mid-90s 'Warp years' - St/Fr/Sp is the only one of these that has really never existed in the past. Comprising two EPs, Starethrough and Fracture/Tied, the outing also brings in a very rare Autechre remix of 'Spangle', making for a package that's got collector's item written all over it.

Musically, this is around the moment when Seefeel began to fully embrace the abstract and electronic, having just signed to Warp, and while the shoegaze of their past remains audible there are so many influences here plucked from beyond that spectrum. Embracing ambient, drone, rave chill-out, dub, acid, and psychedelia, this edition reflects two ends of that world - the blissful and largely astral first EP, and beat-driven and highly rhythmic second.

Review: Considering she is known for a patient appreciation of space in sonic arrangements, Ana Roxanne works at a remarkable pace. Unveiling her debut album in 2019, last year she gave us the follow up, Because of a Flower, making for two great long forms in as many years. ~~~ preceded both as her first EP, arriving in 2015, but in many ways it remains the deepest dive into her world.

Focusing on rich ambient textures that seem to swirl around the ears before enveloping, or swallowing, the listener whole, ~~~ opens on the highly effective choral moods of 'Immortality', and then moves through a variety of emotive but calm moods, peaking with the track that first turned heads across the world, 'I'm Every Sparkly Woman', a rethink of the Whitney Houston and Chaka Khan anthem 'I'm Every Woman' that has since been Roxanne's ultimate stylistic calling card.

Review: Ahead of Our Time, the other label Coldcut run alongside the ever-fantastic (in fact, never been better than it is right now) Ninja Tune, takes a dash of its sister imprint's artist roster, drafts a fine selection of external talent from the drone and ambient world, and unleashes an epic 29 track journey into the spiritual end of electronic music. Then caps it all off by hiring none other than chill legend Mixmaster Morris to put the lot together into one seamless set (available on the DL you get for nothing with the physical compilation).

A project of huge proportions, there are some very familiar names here to anyone with a penchant for contemplative ambience-creating tunes - Julianna Barwick, Sigur Los, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Suzanne Ciani, to list but a few. Perhaps the most exciting part of this delightful aural sedative, though, is the inclusion of heads more associated with pounding club adventures, for example Helena Hauff. Oh, and did we mention every tune has been made for this collection?

Review: Color of Time is a long distance, ambient and drone project featuring Kevin Sery (From Overseas) and Nick Turner (Tyresta). Created with guitar, synthesizers, Mellotron and effects, their music focuses on themes of impermanence, loss and the impact that humans have on each other and the planet.

Review: It's not just a clever name. Zake and City Dawn have come up with a record that genuinely sounds like the reflective moods that so often follow great loss, realised on record. Sweeping synth-strings on 'We Once Believed We Owned The Sky' only serving to reiterate the sense of lamentation that seems to pervade every corner of this album.

Sometimes looking back on what was but will never be again is the only real way of making ourselves feel better - by connecting to intensely emotional memories we can trigger an outpouring that's truly cathartic. As if following that pattern, Frizzell & Duque: A Sorry Unrequited is a strangely uplifting experience by the time we're listening to the closing bars of 'The Sparrow's Flight', even if that's only because of the sense that others have the capacity to feel the same as we do.

Review: Seven years after he gave us the spectacularly beautiful Asleep Versions, Jon Hopkins presents four minimal piano stunners to help us return to those half-awake moments of absolute bliss. The bit before the dark in the back of your eyes turns red and you realise it's going to be another 12 hours or so before you're climbing back into the sack and returning to a place where, let's face it, most of us are pretty happy.

In terms of the music itself, this is Hopkins and therefore you know the score in terms of vision. Opening on the tranquility of 'Heron', which sounds as though it was recorded by a lakeside in southern England complete with wildlife on tape, from here things only get more intoxicating, until the delicate pitter pattered notes of 'Wintergreen' close us out on a subtle but moving air.

Review: Sarah Davachi is nothing short of mesmerising whatever you find her through. On Antiphonals it's a case of deceptively simple instrumental work that has elements of acoustic folk, dreamy ambient, and drone-y electronica, all of which helps create an abstract but immersive world of tonal adventures, the overall aim being to explore the subtle nuances of gradual note development and harmonious refrains.

The deceptively simple part comes from the sheer number of different instruments involved here. All the research and music theory she has taken in over the years i often through some of the word's most respected institutions i has certainly paid off. Understanding how to combine harpsichords, Mellotrons, tape echoes, Korgs, pianos and more, this is a fine example of everything being in its rightful place.

Review: While only comprising four tracks, Ruckverzauberung Exhibition is a monumental work and a significant moment in the career of Wolfgang Voigt. Marking the 10th anniversary of his Ruckverzauberung project, which was conceived to explore abstract ambient sounds, and our emotional responses to those noises, it's a serene counterweight to the producer's heavier and more foreboding GAS alias.

Despite the brevity of the track list, this double-vinyl release is deceptively sprawling, which each arrangement spanning roughly 15-minutes or thereabouts, and really showing off the artist's skill at creating tangible textures with sound. You can feel these pieces living and breathing with us, organically developing, building, ebbing and flowing in a way that marks Voigt out as a true vanguard of minimalistic composition, whose appeal extends well beyond the worlds of dance and electronica.

Review: Rod Modell is Deepchord's king of sophisticated dub techno soundscapes, and here he works with Viennese sound artist Marit Wolters. Their collaborative work Cocoon is laden with "paraphysical field recordings, subterranean rumbles, cosmic sounds and deep drones" that all add up to a deeply involving listen that encourages some serious contemplation. The soundscapes are mostly empty spaces that are deftly detailed with water droplets, pads that shift at glacial speeds and distant solar winds. It is a hugely subtle work that slowly but surely alters your mental state.

Review: According to the artist himself, zake's first solo album of 2020 was recorded and produced during "a four-day excursion in several secluded areas" in South Carolina. As a result, listeners can expect to hear babbling brooks, birdsong and the gentle rustling of leaves beneath Zake's alluring mixture of enveloping ambient chords, unearthly drone tones, opaque electronics and slowly-shifting, heavily processed neo-classical movements. The results are hugely immersive and undeniably enjoyable, with each of the four tracks delivering a head-in-the-clouds journey that ripples with becalmed, atmospheric intent. In other words, it's the kind of ambient music you can get lost in. More please!

Review: With the literal translation of this album title being Retiring to the Forest, the third stage of the Varnashrama system of Hinduism, you should probably be able to guess where Alex Smalley - AKA Olan Mill, AKA Ilm - is coming from. It feels almost like you step into Vanaprastha in the same way you would a world unto itself. Through the wormhole, down the rabbit hole we go. Fear not, though, what's waiting for us is really rather nice.

Understatement of the century, this is ambient at its organic and most endearing, painting textured tapestries of sound that float on a soft and inviting mood. It's hard not to feel yourself sinking ever-deeper into the refrains, which themselves are pure melodic bliss without necessarily presenting themselves as such in any obvious way.

Review: It's the return of Multicast Dynamics to the Astral Industries camp, and if those two names aren't enough to tell you how cosmic, ethereal and sound-as-art this release is, how about we throw in Sid Hille? Yes, the same Sid Hille who has risen to prominence in the Finnish ambient scene, and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished contemporary instrumentalists and composers working in Scandinavia right now.

Split over two parts, each dissipating beautifully into the next (albeit you will have to turn the record over), Metamorphosis is an appropriate title. Quietly adventurous, boldly stepping out into sonic worlds of the artists' own devising, each creative force involved has taken it upon themselves to push their own boundaries, combining to deliver a work of real serenity but also intrigue.

Review: Ambient music blog and label Past Inside The Present welcomes Tobias Karlehag for a lush new album that invites you to empty your mind and sink in deep, and, says the artist, "represents a transformative process for me both creatively and personally." He has spent 10 years studying across the world from Sweden to New Delhi and in that time he picks dup plenty of worldly musical traditions that gently inform this record. He is also deeply into modular synth sounds, which show in the unique textures and deft details that make this such a stirring collection of peaceful and soothing sounds.

Review: RECOMMENDED
"Fun, hopefully poignant, definitely weird." Not our words, reader, but the words of New York indie rock heroes Pinegrove when describing their short movie, Amperland, NY, which this collection of often pretty, always emotional and expertly written tracks were created for. Definitely the kind of tonic many of us could do with in spring 2021, then.

Surprisingly, considering the brief running time of the film, the soundtrack comprises 21 individual songs, and while some come in at less than one minute long others come close to breaking the five minute mark, making this a genuinely complete album brimming with ideas. From the weeping steel guitars on 'Hairpin', through the emo grunge and pianos of 'Overthrown', fans of Ben Folds, Cymbals Eat Guitars and Gramercy Arms will no doubt be in their element.