Gives everything Loscil promises: beautiful beatless ambient with the softest little well-placed noises. It is cinematic but it is not at all theatrical.
Loscil – Clara
Floex – Papetura Soundtrack
I’ve been listening to this back and forth for a whole day and this is so beautiful. Peaceful ambient to calm and comfort. I love how Floex can transform his wonderful clarinet-based tunes to any instrumentation but still you find his soul in everything he creates.
Om Unit – Acid Dub Studies
It’s a straight-up electronic dub record. Perfect soundtrack for work.
Hugo Massien – Metamorphosis
Bass-heavy slow to mid tempo electronic music. Genrewise it’s a mishmash: the highest percentage is probably house, but it’s changing every other track to dubstep, breakbeat, house, IDM, ambient. Good backdrop for work.
Alva Noto – Unieqav
This became my go-to album lately, I listen to this literally every day. It is so calming and helps me focus like close to nothing. The interesting bit is that exactly that same recently I started to formulate this idea that I don’t like experimental music that much anymore. Whenever I listen to that noizy-glitchy IDM kind of experimental electronics from the more elitist kinds I feel only annoyance and impatiance. Although all the while I’ve been listening to more ambient than ever before, which often comes with drone and weird sounds. So I’m not sure what makes me stick or bounce. I think I appreciate harmonies now. Nice ambient soundscapes and well balanced patterns both give me that. Harsh noize and non-rhythmic sounds don’t. This record is one of the most sophisticated and masterfully crafted rhythmic noize sets out there. Also, this is one of the leading definitions of literal Intelligent Dance Music.
Biosphere – Angel’s Flight
I’ve been listening to a lot of ambient music lately. The days are quite busy, focus is needed for extended periods, and music that gives me peace and mental padding helps me keep up the drill longer. When I need to grind through a night of work I usually go for something harsh and fast, like hardcore metal or jungle, but I cannot run the sprint for several days in a row, so that’s when ambient kicks in and helps.
This is a very drone-like modern composition record, cinematic at certain places. The title track is the slowest form of catarsis I know—the soundtrack of a super slow motion capture of someone bursting into tears, or having an orgasm.
Lokey – Isolation Works Vol.01
Drum and bass, ambient, and (oddly) rave sounds in a blender. Kind of a strange mix but great for work.
Tale Of Us – Endless
Cinematic ambient with neo-classical instrumentation, dreamy electronics, and the occasional rain.
Julianna Barwick – Healing Is A Miracle
Peaceful, soothing, ethereal ambient with choirlike vocals. It keeps amazing me what comes out of the Ninja Tune roster sometimes.
Ital Tek – Outland
Bass heavy, melodic, dreamy and moody, slow paced but not fully ambient electronics. It explores space, goes under the ocean, travels in the belly of the Earth—all the places where dark is the domain but textures can be observed by some shimmering traces of light.