This “shortlist” is categorized under “Other Music” which means it’s only loosely related to what we call ‘ambient’.
Listen to reconstructions of Piano Interrupted‘s “Unified Fields”, your Inner Voicings with Dan Kearley and Daryn Cassie; intensely touching music from Bill Seaman; a playful Juxta Phona (which turns out to be Jason Corder) – to finally immerse yourself in the rhythmic patterns of Yamaoka
The music of Boozoo Bajou (German duo Florian Seyberth and Peter Heider) has always been quite atmospheric.
The three full albums (and numerous 12-inches) they have released since 2001 contained the low-tempo dubby trip-hop often called ‘Lounge’ – the lush kind of sounds that German musicians seemed to master exclusively.
Their latest album, “4“, manages to build on all they did before, and use it as a foundation to create an album that ‘transcends basic categories and expectations’.
Beginning his career in the early 80’s, Michel Banabila‘s albums covered many different styles.
So many, in fact, that his place in music was a bit difficult to pinpoint which sometimes seemed to confuse critics as well as potential audiences.
His albums presented world music, jazz, theatre play soundtracks as well as electronic music of the abstract or ambient kind – all kinds of genres which Banabila seems to be able to cross over with ease.
The collision of different backgrounds can sometimes yield amazing results.
As Piano Interrupted impressively demonstrates with their new album “The Unified Field“.
Tom Hodge (UK) and Franz Kirmann (France) are not only from different countries, but also come from different musical worlds: Tom being a classical and minimalist composer, Franz coming from the world of electronica, pop and techno.
Combining such different backgrounds has of course been done before. Many tried, some succeeded, many failed.
But not often the result was as sparkling and refreshingly original like this.
The ambient tree has many branches. In fact it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what “ambient” music is. This has raised many discussions, as the music called ‘ambient’ ranges from strict and almost unchanging drones to techno beats one can even dance to.
As the genre evolves, some borders are crossed. “Ambient” music can sometimes involve introspective (and sometimes psychedelic) folk music, massive guitar chord walls… or even jazz.
Most of the times, ambient music also involves electronic sounds or processing acoustic sounds.
But not always: sometimes ambient music is created strictly using acoustic instruments.
Enter The Necks with their latest album called “Open“.
Only short after the minimalistic generative soundscape presented on “The Endless Change of Colour“, Marsen Jules displays a completely different musical approach with this album by the Marsen Jules Trio.
As the …Trio indicates, this album presents Marsen Jules’ atmospheric soundscapes with the addition of two other musicians: twin brothers Anwar Alam (piano) and Jan-Philipp Alam (violin), with whom Marsen Jules played tours and festivals across the USA, Canada and Europe.
“Présence Acousmatique” is a stunning synergy of ambient, avant-garde, modern classical and introspective jazz music. It is released on Jules’ own Oktaf label, but stylistically it would have also fitted the ECM (new) series.
Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset will probably be known by many of you, just for his contributions to the music of artists like Nils Petter Molvaer, Arve Henriksen, David Sylvian.
When reading about his new solo album, the combination of some details made it clear to me that this was a release to look forward to:
First: it is released on the ECM-label.
Second: it is co-produced and co-composed by Jan Bang.
Third: it’s title is “Dream Logic” …
Following up Leonardo Rosado’s “Mute Words“, this is the second release on the Heart and Soul label, which was founded to release projects that combine music and poetry.
The Dwindlers are a duo consisting of Michelle Seaman, poet, and Benjamin Dauer, composer and multi-instrumentalist. Although they have been working together since 2002, “Allegories” is their second album, following up their 2010 debut release “Dreams”.
Most ambient music deals with more or less imaginary landscapes -like, for example, the two compilations recently reviewed: “Hidden Landscapes” and “Underwater Noises“.
This is definitely not the case for both Topofonie albums by Enrico Coniglio (who also contributed to the Underwater Noises compilation), that are inspired by Venice and its lagoon.
“A polymorphic portrait of what Venice is today, one moment decadent and melancholy, then romantic, rowdy, colourful and chaotic. Postcard of a thousand postcards, photos of a thousand photos…”
But, just as Venice is not like any other city in the world, Salicornie (and its predecessor: Areavirus ) is not like any other ‘ambient’ album.
