Ambient / Drone Recommendations July 2015

Review: A Strangely Isolated Place focuses on sparse electronica and drone music, and its founder Ryan Griffin has been pushing abstract sounds by new and exciting talent since 2008. Arovane, who has already appeared on the label with a bundle of devious outsider sounds, teams up with newcomer Hior Chronik (Mu-Nest, Kitchen) for a collaborative LP, In Between. As the name suggests, the album feels like a collection of sounds for contemplative moments, latching heavy loads of electronic sound design together with ingeniously placed field recordings. These recordings, however, aren't abstract layers of fuzz, but instead recall the sounds of nature and the passing of time. The sea, the air, the forests and beyond. Wonderfully meditative and highly recommended to anyone who wants to experience true tranquility.

Review: The fourth and final edition of SchleiBen is an extra special one, bringing forth acollaborative project between Colin Potter of Nurse With Wound fame, Not Waving artist Alessio Natalizia and Brain Machine's Guido Zen. Furthermore the series ties with Dusseldorf remain, as Osnabruck based producer Niklas Rehme-Schluter lines the flip with the beautiful ambient touches of his Cass project. The two part efforts from Potter, Natalizia and Zen offer a perfect marriage of methods, with percussion hinting at and Techno, while the constant Drone influx and disintegration grab your attention, overlapping with rhythmic repetition deeper and deeper. The Cass contributions see tracks from the German artist's cassette only Hiding Place album presented on vinyl for the first time and fit snugly into the sonic ethos explored over the previous SchleiBen releases.

Review: The latest release on Jonny Nash's Melody As Truth label sees Los Angeles-based talent Diego Herrera come forth with a new album under his familiar Suzanne Kraft moniker. It is of course just one of several projects the West Coast artist is involved in (Pharoahs, Dude Energy, Blase being several others) but the overall sunkissed, melodically rich sound he brings to them all make him a perfect fit for Melody As Truth. The seven tracks on Talk From Home were recorded over a few weeks in the winter of 2014, and feature Herrera playing guitar alongside more familiar synth tones in a mood that stays resolutely mellow from start to finish. Its three releases deep for Nash's label now and all of them have been sublime.

Review: Having distinguished themselves with a series of superb retrospective releases highlighting the work of Leon Lowman, Gigi Masin and Joan Biblioni, Amsterdam label Music From Memory deviate from the path somewhat with his long overdue Gaussian Curve album. Ask yourself what would happen when a elderly Venetian who specialises in sublime ambient music spends a weekend holed up in a Redlight district studio with two of his biggest, most musically gifted fans. The superb Clouds is the answer, with 'Young' Marco Sterk and Jonny Nash following Masin's lead on an eight track exercise in sumptuous, calming composition. The wait has truly been worth it.

Review: With a particularly expressive, adventurous approach to sound design and abstract composition, Luke Younger's Helm project has matured gracefully over the past seven years. He reaches his sixth album, and second for PAN, in fine fettle, matching eerie patience with studio flamboyance in a balance that few manage to successfully achieve. Olympic Mess moves from cloying hypnotism on the aptly titled "I Exist In A Fog" to unsettlingly spacious tension on "Often Destroyed", but rarely do the tracks idle for too long in one place. It's a pitfall of so much noise and drone music that Younger has side-stepped with ease on his latest effort.

Review: Having issued albums on Idle Hands and Entr'acte already this year, Portland produce Paul 'Strategy' Dickow lands another full length blow in the shape of Noise Tape Self for Seattle's Further Records. Such is Dickow's mastery as a producer, you always get something different with every Strategy release he puts out and that's the case with Noise Tape Self. Some six tracks long, the album is the end result of Dickow's nascent experiments with making his own tape loops within cassettes and working within that framework on a four-track recorder. Naturally a wonderfully fuzzy hue sits over the album that fully envelops the listener in a warm cloud of soft focus abstraction - "Ominous Lovely Piano" is a particular highlight.