Each month, writer, musician, and DJ Ted Davis wanders through the dreamlike outskirts of Bandcamp. Embracing a fluid, forward-thinking approach to ambient, anything deemed worthy of the genre tag is considered fair game for this column. As early spring gloom begins to give way to warmth, here are records that toy with arthouse cinema, seasick illbient, glassy harping, and more.
Adam Wiltzie
Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal
Compact Disc (CD), Vinyl LP
As a founding member of the influential ambient duos Stars Of The Lid and A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Adam Wiltzie is something of a legend in the genre. The America-born, Europe-based composer pioneered a strain of heavenly, pad-driven soundscapes on foundational masterpieces like The Tired Sounds of and and their Refinement of the Decline; his music seems to bask in a radiant, otherworldly glow. Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal, Wiltzie’s solo debut for Kranky, is inspired by a recurring dream he had in which anyone who heard his music would die. The album came together following Wiltzie’s move from Brussels to the Flemish countryside, and the impact of those placid surroundings is palpable. The end result comes across more reflective than uneasy. Even the record’s darkest tracks, like “We Were Vaporised” and “Mexican Helium,” are fairly lush. The whole thing is simultaneously poignant and soothing—a strong addition to a discography already packed with classics.
more eaze, pardo & glass
paris paris, texas texas
T-Shirt/Shirt, Vinyl LP
Ry Cooder’s score to the 1984 Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas inadvertently paved the way for cosmic Americana. Centered on vast strums and lonesome melodies, his acoustic guitar-driven instrumentals perfectly compliment Wenders’s heartbroken depiction of the American West. On the album paris paris, texas texas, OOH-sounds labelmates more eaze, pardo, and glass use ambient to pay homage to the sun-soaked film. The idea was sparked in 2022, as pardo and glass worked on loose sketches for an avant-garde album. They eventually tapped more eaze to flesh things out, and the end result is as bubbly as it is rambling. Across six tracks, resampled fretwork, electronics, field recordings, and Auto-Tuned vocals traverse sharp peaks and sweeping valleys. It evokes footage of Los Angeles freeways and Texas scrubland, run through a neon filter.
Man Rei
Doer
Cassette
Man Rei is a project from Frankfurt-based artist Kristin Reiman. Their music is deep, mystical, and secretive—art pop viewed through a misty lens. Reiman’s new album, Doer, arrives via West Virginia label Crash Symbols, and it contrasts with the celestial sounds for which the imprint is best known. Doer came to life in 2021, at the height of disheartening pandemic lockdowns, and it has an appropriately pensive edge. It tests the limits of choral arrangements, pairing oblique, layered vocals with atonal noise and featherweight melodies. The record backtracks to fill in a gap between their detached 2020 debut Cusp and last year’s more recently recorded, Somewhere Press-issued neo-shoegaze LP Health.
Andy Aquarius
Golla Gorroppu
Vinyl LP, Cassette
It’s hard to name an instrument more conducive to atmospheric music than the harp. Plucking its strings can produce commanding, reverberant textures that feel unnaturally beautiful, even at their rawest. Andy Aquarius is an underrated player in the experimental harp scene. The Berlin-based musician’s new album for Seattle label Hush Hush Records, Golla Gorroppu, is his most nuanced to date. It draws from both classical music and history, set to the hypothetical backdrop of an expedition through surrealistic mountains—a more transcendent portrayal of actual trips that Aquarius took to Sardinia’s Gorropu range. Aquarius gets assistance here from Ferdinand Kavall, Josephine Pia Wild, Raoul Vignal, and Semeli Sophia Kostourou, who perform on arcane instruments like the lyre, dulcimer, and violoncello. Golla Gorroppu is chilly, yet entrancing, pinpointing instrumental music’s ability to cultivate a sense of adventure.
Michelle Moeller
Late Morning
That Michelle Moeller has an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College should be reason enough to press play. From the 1960s until 2021, the music program at the California university proved fertile ground for innovators ranging from Pauline Oliveros to Holly Herndon to Terry Riley. Bay Area-based Moeller is another strong addition to the Mills legacy, and her AKP Recordings-issued debut, Late Morning, is impressively realized. Moeller is a classically trained pianist and teacher, but is also proud of her roots in improvisation. Here, piano and computer synthesis are run through sandy effects, embracing the contrast between melodicism and coarseness. After years spent diligently honing her craft, Late Morning is a confident burst into the world.
Madeleine Cocolas
Bodies
Compact Disc (CD)
Australian musician Madeleine Cocolas has a strong knack for emotionally complex soundscaping. Bodies—her new album for Lawrence English’s prolific label Room40—ponders the similarities between human and aquatic bodies, drawing a throughline between alive-ness and water. It’s built around manipulated field recordings of rural creeks and waterfalls, which are paired with dense synthesizer pads and Cocolas’s own singing. At a low volume, the record is fairly serene. But fully engaging with these tracks is an absorbing experience. Intended to encourage one to be present in their physicality, Bodies mirrors the nostalgia Cocolas explored on her 2022 album Spectral.
SELVEDGE
HOLLER
As SELVEDGE, Chance Dibben creates embryonic drones that are as poetic as they are noisy. The Lawrence, Kansas-based musician’s past releases have aimed to capture the charm in overlooked daily occurrences, like light and thunderstorms, with a tendency to be grainy and challenging. His new record, HOLLER, pulls from the ‘90s genres slowcore and illbient, pondering the way that barriers can obstruct the human need to be heard. In line with this theme, the album’s tracks feature scorched synths and burbling pads obscuring wistful melodies.
Liai
Pastoral Stills From Every Age
Liai is an audiovisual project from New York City-by-way-of-Chicago producer and performance artist Lo Bise. Their music subtly plays into the club-not-club formula bubbling up around labels like 3XL and Motion Ward. But there’s an earthiness to Bise’s compositions, leaving it better suited for a stroll through a garden than the end of a long night out. Fittingly, each track on Bise’s new record, Pastoral Stills From Every Age, is named for a different North American flower. Over eight pieces, mallet-like synths and complicated pads draw outlines around glitchy vocal chops. Sonically, it lands somewhere in between early Koreless and the gentler side Upsammy. The record ponders a wide spectrum of emotions, and the ways they relate to the experience of being a trans person. Pastoral Stills From Every Age is the first release for Bise’s new label Jevels, hinting at an exciting future for the historically elusive artist.
XENIA REAPER
Luvaphy
Vinyl LP
Much ink has been spilled in this column about the healthy state of ambient in Berlin. Towards the heart of this universe is XENIA REAPER, an evasive producer who pairs spa-like downtempo with gritty aural design. Luvaphy is XENIA REAPER’s full-length debut, and arrives via the Glasgow label INDEX:Records—a burgeoning heavyweight in the European experimental landscape. The record buries filtered breakbeats and disembodied vocal snippets beneath glossy pads and speaker-rattling bass. It’s an essential listen for fans of the gauzy universe that’s spinning out from blissed-out spaces like kwia.
DeKalb Works
For Barney Who Was A Bad Dog But A Good Boy And Very Much Loved
Cassette
Over the last few years, Dan Creahan has cemented his place as Brooklyn electronic music royalty. He produces and spins ethereal breakbeats as Alien D, and has helped pull strings behind lounge-y club nights like False Peak. In 2021, Creahan unveiled the project DeKalb Works, a collaboration with globetrotter Austin Peru. Peru cut his teeth playing in the noisy psych rock act Vision Fortune, and his rough-hewn roots have a clear impact on Dekalb Works’s eerie output. The duo’s second full-length, For Barney Who Was A Bad Dog But A Good Boy And Very Much Loved, arrives via popular New York City avant-garde label and event series 29 Speedway. On the record, Dekalb Works harken to the queasy sounds of illbient, injecting echoes of the trip-hop offshoot with acid Americana flourishes. Across eight tracks, dubbed-out textures and smokey synths are underlined by fleeting, deconstructed grooves. The entire album captures the essence of a sleep-deprived afternoon spent recovering on the couch, memories of the night before and afternoon daydreams trickling into a calming, albeit uncomfortable haze.
Relaxer
In Softening Air
Cassette
Daniel Martin-McCormick came into his own in the 2010s New York City dance scene, dropping outsider house under the moniker Ital and collaborating with the likes of Aurora Halal and DJ Python. He co-founded the party series-turned-outdoorsy festival Dripping—a low-key gathering of American ravers—in addition to the label Lovers Rock Recordings. In recent years, Martin-McCormick has rebranded as Relaxer. His newer music is certainly aloof, but it pushes back on his chill alias by working brashness into ambience. His new album, In Softening Air, is deceptively harsh. While there are plenty of peaceful pianos and pads, much of the record is centered on crunchy effects, uncanny whispers, and synth leads that would fit comfortably on a horror movie score. The album is enhanced by a stellar remix from left-field bass DJ K Wata, reinforcing Martin-McCormick’s roots in nightlife.
NUG
Bong Boat
Brian Leeds (aka Huerco S./Pendant) has never been quiet about his affinity for discordant techno in the vein of Vladislav Delay. The releases issued by his label West Mineral Ltd. span a range of styles, but generally gravitate towards misty, unsettling electronics. The imprint’s first release of 2024 arrives via Canadian-German duo NUG, and leans hard into clattering atmospheres. Bong Boat came to life as a jam session between NUG members Florian T M Zeisig and Jordan Juras. It was recorded on a trip to the Bavarian mountains, in between time spent exploring the outdoors. Each track paints a hypothetical sketch from a day spent on a boat in nature. While this might all seem idyllic, the end result is actually pretty perturbing. Listening to the album is like noticing a hole in the bottom of your canoe and a hungry predator watching from shore at the same horrified moment.
