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Ambient

Ambient Music Releases of the Week: February 14, 2025

The Last Days of May – Fennesz

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.

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Ambient

Ambient Music Releases of the Week: December 6, 2024

Dreamless Sleep EP – The Black Dog

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.

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Ambient

Ambient Music Releases of the Week: May 10, 2024

Chemo Sessions – Tony Rolando

Electronic musician, electronic music instrument designer, and founder of Make Noise, Tony Rolando, created this music for his partner Kelly to listen to at her chemotherapy infusion sessions, and was designed to be easily listened to on repeat. Temporarily living in Boston for Kelly’s cancer treatment at the time, he only had a laptop with which to make music instead of his usual arsenal of Eurorack and other analog gear.

This music is free, anything paid for it will be donated to Dana Farber Cancer Center.

stray light – anthéne

Polar Seas was a Toronto-based Ambient label that ceased operating last month (see the April 5th post for their 75th and final release) but has sprouted a new “cassette label” called floralia. This is release 01 for floralia.

Intershop / Oasis – Dettinger

Two remastered versions of what some would classify as Ambient classics. Dettinger’s music definitely falls into that rave chill-out zone sub-category of ambient, with its minimal beats that entrance you instead of making you move your feet.

Dissolvi – Grand River & Abul Mogard

First single off the upcoming In uno spazio immenso, the first collaborative album between Berlin-based Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer Aimée Portioli, aka Grand River, and veteran Italian producer Guido Zen, aka Abul Mogard, that releases June 21st.

Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal – Adam Wiltzie

The latest suite by Stars Of The Lid co-founder, Adam Wiltzie, was initially inspired by a recurring dream wherein “if someone listened to the music I created, then they would die.”

Rendezvous – Jogging House

A sampler, some table-top synths, some guitar pedals, a Kalimba, some Modular, recorded in single takes straight to 1/4″ tape.

Sognato di Domani – Fennesz

Christian Fennesz latest recording is part of an upcoming album due for release later this year.

Tsuta – Michiru Aoyama

Michiru Aoyama not only releases an Ambient album every