LILA Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Nocturn I from Abraco De Vapor is a first release for the new LILA label. Accompanying the music is a note that a core belief for this label is that "we are all in this adventure of eternal life together." As such, the imprint pledges to donate a portion of income from all sales to various different charity organizations whose aim it is to improve the living conditions of those who need it. This first album is a life-affirming ambient soundscape with heavenly chords and choral vocals all layered up so beautifully that you will find yourself with an empty mind, dreaming of nothing in particular.

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: LILA has got five or six albums of artful ambient dropping all in quick succession and this is a third from Ludvig Cimbrelius, who has dropped one under his Eternell alias, one as Abraco de Vapor, and one under this, his oldest moniker, Purl. He also works as Illuvia and with all his projects he has mastered the art of sonic daydreaming and musical journeying. Ancient Skies is a record packed with a more intense, textural, heavy style of ambient that builds tensions and in some places has subtle implied rhythms. It makes for an involving listen that is much more than simple background music.

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: Drew Sullivan of Slow Dancing Society association and Ludvig Cimbrelius aka Purl are the pair who make up the Hallow Under duo. Both are experienced and visionary musicians who we're told spent four years crafting their self-titled debut album and allowing it to mature and "become ready for the light." Now is its time and we feel it was worth the wait: it kicks off with 'Drift', a slow-burning and heart-aching ambient beauty with yawning pads and grainy surfaces. Plaintive piano notes come into the picture on 'Blossom' while 'Night' is more quiet and empty and 'Drop' is a heavenly place with angelic melody. This is magic and mysterious in equal measure.