Fall Music Preview ~ Ambient & Drone
Meteorological fall begins today, bringing with it a plethora of emotions. Whether one dreads the end of summer or yearns for the launch of fall, the season will yield an incredible crop of music. Hundreds of instrumental and experimental albums have already been announced, while some are still under embargo. Over the course of the week, we’ll share as much as we are allowed; in time, the complete harvest will be brought to market. In many regions, the leaves are still green and the beaches are still open; in others, the nights are already cold. Wherever you may live, we hope that this year’s preview raises your anticipation for the new season and gives you something to look forward to. Happy meteorological fall to all of our readers!
Our cover image is taken from Rosie Turton & Miryam Solomon‘s maar, covered below.
Room40 is not just ambient and drone, but we’re listing all of the early fall releases here to keep things tidy. September starts with Celer‘s Gems V, relaying the sound and feel of long passageways and chambers (September 5). Room40’s fearless leader Lawrence English revisits Antarctic recordings on WhiteOut, which is not out of season because the Australian winter is also the Northern Hemisphere’s summer (September 12). Next comes a reissue of Ben Frost‘s 2005 classic Steelwound, which has aged surprisingly well (September 19). Spyros Polychronopoulos + Yorgos Dimitriadis combine percussion and electronics on the impressionistic Nearfield, a ritualistic collaboration (September 26). Sergio Merce applies processing to microtonal sax, emphasizing silence and space on the pensive Archipiélago (October 3). Ellen Pullman and the Living Earth Show use 136 strings to make an impression on Elemental View, which began life as an installation and can now be enjoyed at home (October 10). Zane Trow‘s Ibis is a tribute not only to the creature, but to the endangered lands it inhabits; field recordings are subtly woven into electronics, or the other way around (October 17). Faith Coloccia + Daniel Menche combine talents on the field recording driven Smelter, which includes organ, voice and amusing liner notes. The album covers water in all its permutations (October 24). Mike Majkowski uses the analogy of the bay to present Tide, a single work in two halves, like the shifting of the seas (October 24). On Halloween, Alister Spence releases Within Without, subtle but not scary, showcasing the Fender Rhodes.
Five albums will be released this week on Shimmering Moods, and there’s also a bundle deal for those who wish to collect them all! Milam Wisp‘s Moirés layers synth and samples to create pleasing patterns; World’s Museum offers Bizenteo, which folds field recordings and toys into synth excursions. Ludovico Franco‘s How a City is Made begins with field recordings from a construction site, which are then shaped and molded, creating a second form of construction. Bikini Party‘s Dead Calm Tapes is a “solitary narrative,” the epitome of a desert island disc. First released digitally by Whitelabrecs, Philip Buckle & Martijn Pieck‘s A Storm Is Any Disturbed State Of An Environment is given a physical release, rife with FM, field recordings and white noise.
Utilizing a wide array of sources, including voice, reel-to-reel and taiko drums, Lea Bertucci presents The Oracle, a reflection on the current climate and a bold sonic evolution (Cibachrome, October 17). Prolific artist and father of a family of labels, zakè presents Silentium, a 22-track set of collaborations stemming from a call to submit samples and snippets. From pipe organ to field recording, William Basinski to Drum & Lace, the music pulsates with life, and benefits the Children’s Music Fund (Zakè Drone Recordings, September 10).
Rosie Turton & Miryam Solomon began improvising at the end of a recording session, and their alchemy continued as they recorded maar, an engaging set of undulating modular synthesizer, trombone and voice (September 12). Subtle synthesizer meets “a trio of horns” on Odu: Vibration II, a new album from Chris Williams that includes guest appearances from Kalia Vandever and Patrick Shiroishi (AKP Recordings, September 26, pictured right).
Flowers Made of Light is the first solo album from Ben Holton of Epic45, although he does invite Jim Sutton on fretless bass. Written in the final months of his father’s life, the album is both tribute and celebration, ending on a hopeful note (Wayside & Woodland, September 29). They Still Sing Songs About You is an intimate tribute to a friend who has passed on. Many Pretty Blooms uses cell phone recordings and guitar to record a sonic scrapbook (It’s Only Me, October 24). Richard Hronský‘s Pohreb (The Funeral) makes fine use of field recordings in a project that brings the past to life. The album is a tribute to those gone by, music and memories mixing in a miasma of sound (mappa, September 2).
Arvin Dola turns O Ghost into a meditation on grief, remembering a lost father and dog. The music has a spiritual quality, akin to that of Hammock (Dragon’s Eye, September 19). Four releases plus bonus tracks are compiled on Luca Formenti‘s I Am Ghosts, a double LP befitting the scope and quality of the project (Curious Music, October 10).
Poetry and voice are featured strongly on Marta Forsberg‘s Archeology of Intimacy, which includes a host of guest stars and a placid autumn video starring the artist and an endearing canine companion (Warm Winters Ltd., September 15). Voice, saxophone, and string loop decorate Two Lonely Space Pilots, which at times sounds incredibly sad, reflecting its title. Hekura‘s album is out on Hegoa – easy to confuse! (October 3). The Portraits GRM split series returns with Jana Irmert & 7038634357‘s Portals/Rope, two pieces for acousmonium. We wonder what would happen if we were to call that number (October 3).
Some of the best track titles of the year appear on Dylan Henner‘s Star Dream FM, which like its title sounds like a hazy dream from summers lost gone, beamed through a lost transistor radio (Phantom Limb, October 17). It’s interesting to hear the term dyschronometria applied to music, as it refers to a condition in which people literally lose track of time. Melted Form‘s album attempts to replicate the condition in its listeners, the caveat being that it has an end point (September 5). Also concentrating on “the looping nature of time,” Daniel G. Hermann offers Versailles, an extremely quiet album punctuated by field recordings that melt into the synth (September 26). Light field recordings can also be heard on mmrycycls‘ the humans are gone, mostly, a contemplative release that makes us wonder if this may be just what the planet needs (out today). David Aimone scores the Changes of the seasons with guitar, electronics, and field recordings, ending in a gorgeous shower (Passed Recordings, October 10).
If Duvet sounds restorative, it’s because Ida Urd & Ingri Høyland retreated to a Danish sommerhus in the heart of winter to record these windswept collaborations, which sound like soft blankets drawn over wooden beds (Balmat, September 12). Rhian Sheehan returns in a more ambient mood than usual on Traces, recorded with Arli Liberman. One can still detect faint hints of post-rock, but the overall tone is relaxing. Victor Hugo also makes an appearance! (Loop Recordings Aot(ear)oa, September 12).
Built for “meditation, sleep and spa days,” Lightwerx Collective‘s A Peaceful Place lives up to its title, and is one of the season’s most soothing releases (Friends of Friends, October 17, pictured right). Dedicated to Ryuichi Sakamoto, Christopher Willits‘ New Moon sets peaceful guitar over waves, with occasional vocals by Alison Jones (Ghostly International, October 10). A freeform style of music evolves into “a wavy, organic structure” on funcionário‘s horizonte, an album whose very title suggests both the horizon and lying horizontally (Holuzam, October 13). user_ambiguous‘ The Threshold is released on the beautifully titled tiny Green Ladybird imprint (we love the small t!), and the EP is as calming as can be (September 5).
The pastoral folk of Ann Annie (Eli Goldberg) is on full display on el prado, a nature-filled album that includes acoustic odes to field and meadow, river and ocean (Nettwerk, October 3). The Irish strung harp is the secret weapon on Throwing Shapes‘ debut album, which teeters on the edges of folk and jazz (WRWTFWW, September 5). Experimental jazz trio Flur lands in our ambient article thanks to the luscious harp, joined by saxophone and percussion. The trio takes the Plunge on September 5 (Latency). Coincidentally, there’s also a new album from Flaer, whose cello and piano decorate the recordings of Translations, which include birdsong and his mother’s voice (Odda, September 12). The birds are also singing in Wetland Interiors, in which Early Fern produces tributes to herons, catfish and other residents of the local ecosystem (sound as language, September 26).
In the mood for some ambient country? Wonderful Aspiration of the Source (Michael Hix of Nashville Ambient Ensemble) has you covered. The self-titled album ambles across the prairie, low-slung guitar and canteen in tow (Centripetal Force, September 19). Pedal steel contributes a languid feel to in a fugue state, while the tape manipulation plays with the sense of time. Joe Harvey-Whyte & Paul Cousins‘ album began as a two-hour improvisation, carefully honed for maximum impact (None More, October 17). Even amid arid landscapes there are sounds of life. The self-titled album from Noah Franche-Nolan and Dan Pitt crackles and glows, expressing itself in increments, yielding a slightly jazzy, electro-acoustic flavor (September 19).
Drone meets field recordings on Quartz Sand‘s Stratigraphy, which combines the talents and disciplines of Kate Carr and Cath Roberts (Flaming Pines, October 17). Field Recordings from Other Constellations is not a field recording album, but an imaginative exploration into possible sounds beamed from beyond our world. Isambard Khroustaliov / Ben Carey use a wide array of electronic instruments to create a set like a lost sci-fi score (Not Applicable, September 12). Naming each track after a star or constellation, Lorenz Weber complies Constellations of Existence, a quiet piano album that sings of the evening sky (released today).
What time is it? It’s Cloud Time, the vinyl available in cloudy and foggy white variants. Emily A. Sprague uses the space to create amorphous improvisations, while drift and pull apart like well, you know (RVNG Intl., October 10). Also on RVNG Intl., M. Sage unveils Tender/Wading, which includes odes to weeds, fields, gardens and grass, all within a single patch of land (September 26). M. Sage also appears on “just,” the lead single from claire rousay‘s finely textured a little death, a crunchy album inspired by dusk, in which sonic snippets take the place of crickets and owls (Thrill Jockey, October 31). SOHN tackles the other side of the day on Albadas (Dawn Songs), which sways between ambient and drone like the colors of the changing sky (APM, October 10).
Hallow Ground has three releases already lined up for fall. Raphael Loher‘s hug of gravity is a sequel of sorts, using prepared piano and tape machine to investigate earlier sonorities (October 17). Martina Berther/Philipp Schlotter‘s Silence Will Never Die is improvised and dronelike, an undulating wall of sound (October 17), while DarkSonicTales‘ »UnKnown« bleeds dark ambience, and would make a perfect score to a haunted castle. The last piece is comprised of recordings made inside a manhole after a storm (September 19). Adventurous Music offers Stilleben, a 56-page art book and digital album from Trond & Eiko. All is quiet, but not all is still, as evident on early single “klar, ferdig, ACTION!” (September 3). Also on the same label, released the very next day is a 388 page magazine and 365 track digital album from Aidan Baker, who chronicles A Year in Minutes in music, photography and prose.
Danek Lipko plays multiple instruments on the calming Eclipsoid, but leaves room for guest stars on trumpet, trombone and sax. Light electronic beats provide the underpinning (Somewherecold, September 24). Seth Thorn‘s “foggy textures” meet forlorn violin and supple beats on a curious doubling of terms, which combines the organic and the electronic, reflecting the liminal spaces between forest and the city (Audiobulb, September 6). Also on Audiobulb, Umlaut returns with Musique de Film III, the continuation of a popular series (October 11). Lomond Campbell‘s EP Transmission Loss is built around the sound of the composer’s heartbeat and preceded by the single Always Awake (One Little Independent, October 10). Billed as “music for space,” Simon Pomery‘s Skin String Sine is a meditation for strings and voice, specifically created to be played on club systems (The Tapeworm, September 19).
Oscillations of Memory is the first album in Kjetil Husebø‘s Interiors trilogy, released in three consecutive months beginning September 5. The meditations ebb and flow, the outer dialogue promoting the inner. Unseen Topographies and Ontology of Silence follow. Radx (X.Y.R. and Vlad Dobrovolski) use 80s and 90s synth to create “ambient adjacent” music. On Reverse Acceleration of Dragons, they also share their love for the fantasy genre (12th Isle, September 22). The Editions Polyhymnia imprint relaunches with Variable Apesar Vol. 1, collecting four years of compositions from label founder f0ment (October 17). ØjeRum‘s Ensomheden Vi Deler (The Loneliness We Share) is the latest art/album offering from IIKKI, pairing a book of the artist’s collages with matching musical meditations (September 29).
Marc-Antoine Barbier develops “soundscape ecologies” on Musée Des Espèces, a synth-led album of varying moods (October 3). Jaan calls Baghali “discreet music,” made for the market place, but with influences ranging from spaghetti western to “Cat People” (World of Echo, October 3). What if one set up a modular synthesizer by a river instead of an easel? John Thayer adopts this approach on Winds Gate, dedicated to the New York landmark (Aural Canyon, October 31). In an adjacent fashion, artist and filmmaker Birney-Willen create their own Landscapes out of synth, turning them into soundscapes; each track title sounds like a photograph (September 26).
Glacial Movements revels in cold, dark ambience, and Drømme I Langsomt Stof (Dreams in Slow Matter) is no exception. øjeRum‘s patient album begins with recordings of ice on a frozen lake, and expands slowly outward like cracks beneath the surface (September 19). Mesmerine 111 is one disc instrumental, one disc vocal, the brainchild (pun intended) of Illustrious (Martyne Ware & Charles Stooke). The album seeks to induce a trance, inspired by research into MRI scans (Cold Spring, September 5). Closely related is Ilpo Väisänen & Dirk Dresselhaus feat. Ulrich Krieger‘s Brainwave Music Vol. III, a live recording that was originally part of an installation involving brain interfaces (I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free, October 3). Haana Lee‘s textures is “an invitation to somatic listening,” in which the quietest moments are invited to blend into the acoustic environment. The keyboards vibrate in a manner that suggest brainwaves (October 14).
Malcolm Pardon of Roll the Dice continues his nocturnal explorations on Flesh & Bones, focusing on background noises and bringing them to the fore. Appropriately released on The New Black, the album arrives October 3. The “in-between realm” is investigated on Mirror at Night, whose timbres suggest the midnight hour; Eric Angelo Bessel‘s album is released on Halloween (Lore City Music). The cover of Shall Remain Nameless‘ Oh, I didn’t know it was you! recalls the more sinister aspects of Squid Game, with each track named “Mask” and numbered I-IX. The music follows suit, dour and oppressive (September 5). Crónica’s fall slate begins with Terranus, whose self-titled tracks are also labeled I-IX. David Lee Myers‘ album is called “space music,” but is more Aliens than Star Trek (September 2). On October 14, the label releases Emiter‘s Electromagnetism of the City, which traces the circuits and transistors of an urban environment and combines them with an occasional pulse or clock. Boreal Path offers Boreal Covenant, which began as part of the performance series “Sounds from the Black Hole.” The sounds are dark and dissonant, with a sci-fi tinge (Personal Archives, September 12).
Recorded in 2008, Gnaw Their Tongues‘s The Genesis of Light is finally surfacing in a newly-mastered version featuring additional guitars and drones. This is the album as it was always intended to be (Consouling Sounds, September 12). Ø (Mika Vainio) passed away in 2017, but left behind a body of unfinished music. Following the composer’s notes, Rikke Lundgreen and Tommi Grönlund now offer Sysvalo, a loving testament (Sähkö, September 15). Kirin McElwain‘s debut album Youth blends cello, halldorophone and synth, creating dark drones from disparate sources (AKP Recordings, October 10). Paul Jebanasam returns on December 2 – our farthest-out announcement – with mātr, expansive drones soaked in tones of modern composition (Subtext).
Putting a black cat on the cover seems appropriate for October; Orphax‘s Embraced Imperfections merges two live performances that were initially presented online due to COVID restrictions (October 17). U‘s video for Black Vaughan is as mysterious as the background of the composer, whose sonic collages delve into witchcraft and folklore, with a strong visual presence and classic soundtrack vibe. ARCHENFIELD is released October 10 on Lex. Sheets of noise wash over Beckton Alps2‘s Side like an electronic storm. Inspired by a landfill that became a mountain, the noise-based release may indeed include the kitchen sink (Machine Records, November 7). Symphony of a Radical II arrives eight years after the initial project, and sounds even more disillusioned. The album addresses the political climate in America after a certain election and now re-election. Inadvertently, The Corrupting Sea becomes the perfect moniker for such a project (Somewherecold, October 4).
Richard Allen
