Category: ambient
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rachika nayar – heaven come crashing
I wasn’t sure if this title was written in the instructional, or commentary register. There is sufficient intensity on this record to supply evidence for both: it is a maximalist, ambient thunderstorm. Though a memorable energy to be felt, Heaven Come Crashing’s focal point is its own perceived beauty rather than any ineffable force beyond. […]
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okada takuro – betsu no jiken
Okada Takuro was in a folk-rock band once—Mori Wa Ikiteiru were distinctly less interpretive, but possessed the same life-affirming curiosity as its leader’s solo work. Betsu No Jikan, Takuro’s first album in two years, contains six tracks, each a puddle with elegant rain dripping down upon it at shifting tempos and with fresh textures in […]
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kaitlyn aurelia smith – let’s turn it into sound
This record sounds as though it was made by a band of sparrows, who enrolled in music school, microdosed on psychedelics and met at the studio. ‘Let’s Turn It Into Sound’ swoops, glides, but also reflects, stands still, chirps. It is winding and unpredictable, eschewing long, ascending passages for enterprising left turns. The pop tones […]
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sam prekop, sam mcentire – sons of
‘Sons Of’ would look magnificent over anything from shuffling film of microscopic plant cells to stock footage of a helicopter drifting through the Tokyo skyline. It corresponds gracefully to all forms of experience, material or immaterial, with an understanding glow. In doing so, it implies a nature to dance and a dance to nature. There’s […]
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arms and sleepers – former kingdoms
Arms and Sleepers’ early records were abundant in personality, despite not pushing many boundaries. The music moved with unpredictable and astral rhythms, out of which industrial sounds shot up sprightly. But that engaging quality has generally eroded and ‘former kingdoms’ marks a sharp decline. It is an album of inevitabilities: never less than tolerable, never […]
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