It’s a little gem on the IDM-techno axis with an ambient mood. Beautifully crafted music.
Bot1500 – Surreal
Tomaga – Intimate Immensity
It’s like if you played IDM ambient but with live instruments (which reminds me of the time I attended a Plaid concert played by an orchestra in a concert hall), other times industrial jazz and a touch of experimental music. But it’s rather smooth and pleasant, not harsh.
Pye Corner Audio – Entangled Routes
Atmospheric electronic music, like a soundtrack to a movie that never was. Genres go mainly on the ambient to synthwave axis.
Being exposed to lots of sci-fi and futuristic noir things, it’s easy to see this as a perfect backdrop for a cyberpunk book or RPG play session.
Emeka Ogboh – Beyond The Yellow Haze
Electronic ambient music with lots of busy city life field recordings. It’s not like a beatless soundscape populated by urban noises, it’s often pretty upbeat. And that, mixed with the sounds of busy streets create this quite lively atmosphere, which feels like a rushing metropolis of ants.
Alva Noto – HYbr:ID I
Cannot say much beyond what I’d expect from Alva Noto on the usual high standard.
Sunda Arc – Tides
From ambient to mid-tempo, from moody electronics to modern classical. A debut record that sounds like a debut record: full of references and inspiration but I have yet to hear the dintinct voice of Sunda Arc. I can hear the blue electronics of Moderat, the piano play of Nils Frahm, also the clarinet comes with a Floex reference to me. Nice sounds overall, just needs more originality next time.
F.S. Blumm & Nils Frahm – 2X1=4
It’s been a long long time since I last listened to a pure dub record. Not dubstep, not dub techno, but simply dub. And I came across this one and it delivers just that. Moody, wandering, lost in thoughts and walks in the rain.
Space Afrika – Honest Labour
So cinematic, so nostalgic. It’s like listening to the moody, calming score of something on a VHS tape. Ambient with some IDM noises and occasional voices. I make some loose spiritual connection between this one and Sound of the City vol. 3 – Berlin.
DARKSIDE – Spiral
First half of the record is amazing downtempo glitchy electronics with beautiful melodies and ethereal vocals. It shows both band members at their best, Dave Harrington and Nicolas Jarr sound like mixing up Apparat and Bonobo, especially on the more hook-heavy primary single track, The Limit. Then the second half of the record gradually goes into more indie influences, ambient jammings, and audibly auto-tuned vocals that I don’t appreciate. It’s a bummer but overall the album delivers some strong singles still.
VC-118A – Spiritual Machines
A blend of ambient and IDM with down-to-mid-tempo beats. First I registered this as some strange combination of psy chill atmosphere and glitchy sounds, then I figured there’s quite a bit of cyberpunk mood to it. I could imagine this to be a soundtrack of a neo-noir RPG game. Then I looked at the album title again… Riiiiight.