Austrian guitarist Christian Fennesz’ The Last Days of May is a piece that is just shy of 24 minutes recorded in May 2024, and produced as a sound installation in collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales for Volume 2024. The piece starts out with slow percussive bangs that sit in a large, empty space, the sound of a low frequency oscillator in an old piece of gear buzzing through a guitar amp like a small machine chugging in the distance, until the listener is surprised by a guitar chord that is at once in your face but ringing in the depths of the aforementioned space.
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has released the first single off of his upcoming full-length Gift Songs (March 21, 2025). Coming in at a hair over 20 minutes, if the The Milky Sea is an indication, Cantu-Ledesma’s new album will be one of the best ambient releases of 2025. Also, if you pre-order the album, Mexican Summer will be donating 100% of Bandcamp Sales to MusiCares that provides crisis relief, preventive care, recovery resources, and need-based financial assistance for people across all music professions.
Koselig – Benoît Pioulard, Viul, From Overseas, zakè, Marc Ertel, Wayne Robert Thomas
To celebrate Zakè Drone Recordings’ 5th anniversary, they released Koselig—a curated collection of long-form compositions featuring Zach Frizzell’s (zakè) close friends: From Overseas, Benoît Pioulard, Wayne Robert Thomas, Marc Ertel, and Viul.
Metals – Scott Gordon
Scott Gordon’s debut album Metals features his custom Spinning Plate Instrument, that he first started experimenting with in 2018, and is a kind of idiophone featuring 9 suspended plates of different sizes that can rotate freely on the vertical axis, modulating the tones produced when struck.
Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds – Lawrence English
The Art Gallery Of NSW curator Jonathan Wilson invited Lawrence English to create a sound environment, reflecting on the Naala Badu building (meaning ‘seeing water’ in the Gadigal language) that opened in 2022. Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds is the piece that was offered as an atmospheric tint to visitors walking through the building throughout the year following its opening.
Ways To The Deep Meadow – Ocean Moon
Ocean Moon is one of the aliases of producer and Lo Recordings label head Jon Tye. This release is tranquil, hypnotic, and borders on New Age but is also reminiscent of the ambient lounges of techno’s yesteryear.
Sleep Deprivation [Broadcast channel] – The Black Dog
The Black Dog have created a broadcast project to share new music, share rarities, play live, and feature other artists. They’re broadcasting on YouTube, Twitch, and Kick. They’ve set a goal to get 1000 subscribers on YouTube and reach 3000 watch hours…so go subscribe! They’re still testing the software and bandwidth, so it could be a little rough around the edges, but it has always worked well for me.
New Tim Hecker! I think he has to be my de facto favorite ambient artist as I’ve been to at least three of his shows and I believe he lives in my town (at least he was in the crowd at the last Oneohtrix Point Never show I was at). His new EP Shards will be released on February 21st, and features pieces originally written for various film and TV soundtracks. Sunset Key Melt has a breathy, twinkling melody, reminiscent of sunlight refracting on the moving water of a lake in summer, but it slowly gets engulfed in–or melts into–a slightly foreboding noise. Another new track, Morning (Piano Version), is also available.
Aurora Terminalis – William Basinski + Richard Chartier
We’ve got a new release by some ambient royalty here with friends and collaborators, Basinski and Chartier. I didn’t know this was coming so it is a nice surprise. Far removed from The Disintegration Loops, this is more akin to the crashing waves and leftover haze of sound that are de rigueur.
The Undreamt-of Centre – Laurence Pike
It seems odd to include a very percussive album by a percussionist in a list of ambient albums but the drums, electronics and choir of The Undreamt-of Centre conjures a soundscape that is very similar to the best of ambient albums.
Perverts – Ethel Cain
OK, here’s another odd choice. Although Ethel Cain is usually associated with the indie, rock and folk genres, her latest offering, Perverts, is a dark and drone-filled affaire that is getting a lot of critical acclaim. As the title gives away, the album’s lyrics explores ways of perversion.
The Black Dog have released this 4-track EP to further explore the concept they introduced in their full-length, Sleep Deprivation, that they call Neither Neither, but more specifically the deep, non-REM sleep where the brain restores itself and you lose conscious awareness.
Mosaic – Fennesz
This one got my off guard…new Fennesz? Christian Fennesz used a strict “9-5” work schedule in a new studio space to record this emotional album, without a break, from the end of 2023 to summer 2024.
Paris – Nils Frahm
Recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris, this is Frahm’s first live album. In a recent interview, Frahm called out most classical venues’ “arrogant attitude towards pop music,” how they focused on profit, and how they did not support artists. In contrast, he said the Philharmonie de Paris were verysupportive and charged reasonable rates.
As a new father, Benjamin Tennikoff found himself having to be awake in the wee hours of the night/morning. To keep awake he started recording, which lead to this short film recorded on MiniDV featuring music he composed using a Roland Juno-6 recorded to an old Tascam 414 that he slowed down.
imagine a dolphin... – Tony Rolando
Cassette release by electronic musician and Eurorack maker Tony Rolando, imagine a dolphin... explores what it would sound if you put water in your synth. Well, he didn’t literally put water in his synth, but various samples of water sounds were run through Rolando’s modular synthesizer to help guide the compositional process. Shortly after the recording, Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville, NC, home to Rolando and Make Noise, his company. All proceeds of the albume will benefit Lamplight AVL: lamplightavl.org.
PLACE II – J. T. Boogaard & R. M. van der Meulen
J. T. Boogaard and R. M. van der Meulen almost scrapped the sequel to PLACE, their first collaboration. Like the sequels of Hollywood many times do, their work felt rehashed and forced (to them), so they shelved it, but they didn’t give up on it. After some time and tweaking, they ended uip with PLACE II.
PHANTOM BRICKWORKS (LP II) – Bibio
I was eager for the release of Bibio’s follow-up to 2017’s PHANTOM BRICKWORKS, as the pre-release singles were one better than the other. A man of many hats, this collection of 10 tracks sees Stephen James Wilkinson exploring sites that are haunted by “human echos”, and exploring his ambient side
Since 2011, Blake Lee has been most known for being the guitarist and a music director for Lana Del Rey, but he makes ambient/drone music too! This solo album is released on OFNOT, which is run by KMRU who appears on two of the tracks.
Essential Mixtape – Merely & Malibu
Malibu and Merely have joined forces for their debut collaborative full-length. The tracks to me sound like slick techno tracks that have been stripped of their heavy percussive and lower register elements, and what you’re left with is an ethereal sheen.
Interestingly released right after the 2024 US Presidential elections, the ideas for Irisarri’s latest LP started germinating in 2016 at a diner in Milan named “il Mito Americano”, or “The American Dream”, but literally translates to “The American myth”. The anticipated album was inspired by the false fronts of Potemkin villages, which Irissari sees as a sort of an analogue to the cruel illusion of ‘freedom’ crafted by the American elites.