From the Mailbox

in ,

Here are some things we've received lately in the Ambient Music Blog mailbox, presented for your perusal. Have a look, take a listen. There's a lot of free music you might not have heard here. The Secret Garden Project "We are an assorted bunch of ambient musicians from Australia and New Zealand who decided to put around 80 ambient tracks up for free download."

Sonanaut "I'm an artist from New York working under the name Sonanaut. I've written several albums, the music of which is currently in use in media (TV Radio etc) throughout the world. I've just released my debut commercial CD 'Sinking Upwards' on my own label IVSI Records. It's an album inspired by New York and my experiences here. The style is Ambient/Downtempo/Chillout"

redgreenblue "This is my instrumental project. I consider it a side project despite the fact that I have a finished redgreenblue album, ‘red’, but not a shane king album."

Onderuit Records "We.re a NetLabel from Madrid. All our music is for Free Downloading. We would like you to check our last project: X-Music"

Ambient Music Garden "I would like to let you know about my new site, Ambient Music Garden which is a download site for ambient and chillout music from a range of independent musicians. We sell our music to music lovers and therapists as well as license the music for use as backgrounds for websites, meditation CDs and retail outlets."

Lea Longo "I'm a canadian singer/songwriter and I would love to get a review if you like my music. It's called ZEN Voyage and it's an ambient , mediatative , mantra CD."

Paztech Records "I run a small record label called paztech records. I am now giving my music away for free with the hope of gaining some new listeners. The music i create ranges from ambient, electronic, techno, breakbeat and drum and bass."

Elian Music

Water Mirror, Fourcolor

in ,

Water Mirror, Fourcolor Keiichi Sugimotos' work as Fourcolor on Air Curtain is a great listen while finishing up some work before the weekend on a cold January Friday afternoon. The record was put out by the Apestaartje label based in Brooklyn. They say:

Focusing predominately on the guitar 'water mirror' blends acoustic resonance with subtle precision to create an extremely detailed and restrained listening experience. Sugimoto focuses on the smallest of elements using electronics to accentuate every facit of an already tactile sound pallete. Sugimoto seamlessly blends various threads of kinetic listening in this ever-shifting composition of gradual movement.

I agree. It's a nice, quiet, and slowly building record of tones. Good stuff for forgetting you're actually listening to anything at all.

Related Ambient Music Blog: Air Curtain, Fourcolor Fourcolor Profile at 12k records Cubicmusic.com

12k's Term Offers Free Downloads

in , ,

12k Speaking of Taylor Deupree, Term is an interesting "Sublabel" from 12k featuring an "online series of MP3 releases made available for free downloads."

Artists include Sawako, Off the Sky, Sogar, and many more. I've had this bookmarked for quite some time and just hadn't gotten around to listening to any of it. Really nice stuff, and: Free!

Boutique Hotels and Ambient Music

in ,

"Ambient Music" being played in boutique hotels is a bit of a cliche, but the problem is that boutique hotels don't really play ambient music. Over the last few years I've stayed in a number of these hotels, from New Orleans to Chicago to London to Stockholm and etc. The lobbies are all generally Scandinavian, except I think of the places I've stayed recently the hotel that looked least like it lept out of an IKEA catalog was the one in Sweden.

Furnishing aside, the soundtrack is ubiquitous. And it's always the kind of cut-rate, chill-out room at the rave kind of nonsense in all of them. Back in the days when I used to go to parties, we would call it lounge music. It ranges from the slightly more upbeat stuff with a rhythm track down to the spacey, new age fluff those of you who read this blog are probably familiar with.

And every time I've come across this stuff, I think it's just such a missed opportunity. Getting into the elevator, it would just be so great to hear some Eno, or Stars of the Lid, or Loscil, or Taylor Deupree. The experience design of these places would be that much better had someone who knew what they were doing programmed the soundtrack. Unfortunately, despite the high room rates, fancy furniture, and aloof staff, you end up feeling more like you're in a knock-off tshirt shop on 34th street than a world class hotel.

Stil., Taylor Deupree

in ,

Stil., Taylor Deupree I picked up an older release from Taylor Deupree this weekend, this one Stil.. It's 4 tracks of nice, long, quiet pulsing drones and hums. There are a few clicks and hisses of course, it is Taylor Deupree after all, but in all it's nice stuff to stick on in the background and go about your business.

If you're looking for nice ambient work on the electronic end of the spectrum, you could do worse than just picking up anything Deupree's excellent 12k records produces. They don't disappoint.

Related 12k records 12k records at Emusic.com

Christopher Willits and Scott Pagano To Play New York City

in ,

Christopher Willits, whose Plants and Hearts single we recommended a while back, is playing along with Scott Pagano at Monkey Town HQ in Williamsburg Saturday, January 26th. Follow the links below for more info! CHRISTOPHER WILLITS + SCOTT PAGANO LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY Christopher Willits + Scott Pagano Official Christopher Willits Web site Christopher Willits at 12k

Stars of the Lid to play Wordless Music Series

in ,

Some exciting news for those of you in and around New York City:

Stay tuned for announcements regarding a number of Wordless Music events in 2008 with the Kranky Records institution Stars of the Lid, including their first New York Cityconcert appearance in seven years, and the expansion of the Wordless Music series into our third city nationwide. Also in the works: a series of free Wordless Music concerts at the historic Whitney Museum uptown.

I attended one of these shows back in the fall, and it was interesting and well done. Looking forward to what they put together for 2008.

See Wordlessmusic.org for more info.

Free Taylor Deupree Track to Welcome 2008

in ,

Taylor Deupree from 12k records has written a nice little track to say goodbye to 2007 and hello to 2008.

the piece, “untitled_1231″ was created with a small wooden xylophone, given to me as a christmas present from Keiichi Sugimoto (Fourcolor) and Sanae Yamasaki (Moskitoo), a small tone bell, and a single synthesizer patch. it was created and recorded live in about 15 minutes and i spent another 40 minutes or so on the mixing and production.

Download "untitled_1231".

Plants And Hearts, Christopher Willits

in , ,

Plants And Hearts, Christopher Willits Room40 has recently released a 3" CD single from San Francisco based drone-ist Christopher Willits titled Plants and Hearts. It's a single track of 21 minutes and 30 seconds of droning guitars and etc. Really nice stuff and great value as an eMusic download, if you're the kind of person who uses eMusic.

From the Room40 site:

Incorporating 4hz isochronic pulses and panning at the same frequency, this work encourages the formation of 4hz brainwave patterns associated with states of meditation, deep relaxation, enhanced creativity, light sleep and lucid dreaming.

Science! I don't know about any of that, but I'm listening to it while writing this blog post and I feel pretty ok.

Related Christopher Willits Profile at 12k records

Map in Hand, Seaworthy

in ,

Map in Hand, Seaworthy I've written about 12k records and Taylor Deupree previously, and this week in the mail arrived a another record from the New York label, this time Australian three-piece Seaworthy's Map in Hand. Straight from the 12k Web site:

Seaworthy, a three piece collective that revolves around core member Cameron Webb as well as Sam Shinazzi and Greg Bird, was formed in early 2000 to explore melodic and experimental approaches to the construction (and unravelling) of minimalist sound scapes from looped guitar, warm drones, piano, electronics and field recordings.

It's a set of 12 tracks of really high quality guitar drones and loops. This is top-notch stuff. Subtle and sophisticated, which is sometimes what you don't get when it comes to guitar based ambient music these days. I'll admit I'm really no longer a fan of having to actually pay for a disc to be produced and shipped to me, but the disc is packaged rather tastefully and was accompanied by a nice postcard promoting label-mate Pjusk's sart, a record I like as well.

Related Seaworthy Profile at 12k Records Official Seaworthy Web site

One River, Scott Solter

in ,

One River, Scott Solter One of the things that's nice about having a site like this is that someone who knows a whole lot more than you about things will find your site, and when you finally find out about the fact that they found your site, you get to take advantage of all the knowledge they've dumped onto the web over the years.

This happened this past week, via the excellent Asphalt Eden. The result is that I found out about One River, a 2006 release by Scott Solter.

Solter is a San Francisco based artist and studio engineer, and One River is an outstanding piece of ambient music. It stands up against any of the best drones from Stars of the Lid, Loscil, Eluvium, and etc. If you like only half of the stuff I talk about on this site, then you need to get yourself a copy of One River promptly.

Related Alphalt Eden Blog One River at Tell-All Records Scott Solter Bio at Tell-All Records