LILA Schallplatten & CDs

Review: LILA mainstay Ayaavaaki and ambient veteran Purl speak different languages but used a translator to convey ideas to one another as they made this record. And they very much foment their own unique musical language on Ancient Skies, an album that blends ambient, drone and space music into richly layered soundscapes that are constantly on the move. Each piece is meticulously crafted and suspense you up amongst the clouds, hazing on at the smeared pads and swirling solar winds that prop you up. It's a record that would work as well in the depths of winter as a bright spring day such is the cathartic effect of the sounds. Beautiful, thought-provoking and innovative, this is as good an ambient record as we have heard all year.

Review: The LILA label is dropping a wealth of essential new ambient albums this month and Eternell is one of the artists behind them, an alias of Ludvig Cimbrelius who says he has been hearing new music in his mind all of his life. Here he gives it a form in the real world as he offers up real emotional depths and wondrous highs that will encourage deep introspection and firm connections with your inner most self. Mira is full of widescreen pieces, smeared pads and gently rising lines that subsume you in heavenly sonics.

Review: Ludvig Cimbrelius, a multi-alias artist donning other guises Alveol, Eternell, and Rust, reserves the Purl name for his more ambient, dubby techno creations. After a goosebump-inducing debut on the British Columbia-based Silent Season label in 2010 with Deep Ground, Stillpoint marked his first release with them in five years, following a series of records on Dewtone and Post Global. Now again reissued on vinyl ten years later, Stillpoint inflects balmy dub soundscapes and dewey techno sweats, evoking tearful rain shadows and humid canopies. Like a hidden biome where ethereal animals graze and gambol, the ambient sound-world evoked through 'Inre Sken' and 'Melora' is truly something else. Please be aware that this re-press concurs with a tenth anniversary crowdfunded campaign, which, by buying the record through us, you are helping support.

Review: Swedish producer Purl's Stillpoint was originally released in 2015 via Silent Season, a label known for its handcrafted, small-batch editions. Quickly selling out, it has since resonated with listeners like surface ripples on water, redounding to fans calling on a new vinyl pressing. In conjunction with another PURL crowdfunding campaign, we're now firmly re-poised to take in this wash of ambient rerubs again, relishing them like monsoons on baked skin. From Moshimoss' strange dub inflections to Ecovillage's 'Land Of Dreams' revisit, every track here on this CD edition is a depth-swill of ambiance.