Eko_Fisk - New Promised Land - https://www.zenapolae.com/zen304 - New from veteran under the radar Staffordshire synthesist is four 9-10 minute ambient but rhythmic pieces that evoke coastal calm in the face of a darkening world.
Various - Aurora 2025: Passage - @auroramm@sonumu.club https://aurora-compilations.org/aurora-2025-passage/index.html: One of several annual free compilations from Aurora Compilations, a mix of styles from industrial to drum and bass to ambient to techno. There looks to be a community around the imprint and the compilations are all Creative Commons licenced and their site is a Faircamp, so they might be worth an exploration.
The Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always - https://www.discogs.com/master/2795-The-Sisters-Of-Mercy-First-And-Last-And-Always: It’s been pointed out that this LP is 40 years old, and I’ve been singing ‘Black Planet’ for some reason. This is the only LP that an actual band called the Sisters of Mercy made, and that band changed while the record was being recorded, finally imploding as they should have been celebrating its release. I was never a goth, I didn’t have the legs for it, but my copy lives in a frame on my study wall because it came at the right time, a stupid, melodramatic rock record that knew it was stupid and melodramatic, and that was how it should be.
Flavigula - Stumbling Through Granularity on an Hourly Basis - @flvigula@sonomu.club https://faircamp.thurk.org/lilting-ululations/3/: Flavigula works mostly with guitar based sounds and this is a 26 minute exploration of what can be done with six strings and effects, held together by a subtle loop of what sounds like filtered string tapping. It’s a journey through many spaces and sounds with no destination in mind but a lot of sights on the way.
Various - D AE XXV - https://deepaffairsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/d-xxv: House compilation from a German label called Deep Affairs Music that crosses a variety of styles with the most interesting being Michel Heukrodt’s more experimental takes on the form, but it takes a lot for something to stand out.
orllewin - Pudsey Clough Radio - @oppen@merveilles.town https://orllewin.uk/pcr/: A stream of field recordings and music from Todmorden which has turned up some interesting stuff in half an hour’s listening. I think I might be buying an Audiomoth shortly.
Low Gravity - 06:30 - https://mirlo.space/mirko-gastic/release/through-the-day: Post-rockish instrumentals that flip between bands like Blue States and Cinematic Orchestra and bands like Caspian and Tarantel, the sort of thing my collection is full of, and this might be another one to add.
kel - CO2 - @kel@mastodon.social https://kelaudio.bandcamp.com/album/co2: Fizzing, warped lofi polyrhythmic techno concerned with our atmospheric decline. It wouldn’t sound out of place on Warp, and indeed Autechre themselves played a track on the radio, praise indeed.
Various - Comfy Collaborations - https://music.futzle.com/comfy-collaborations/: New today, a five track tribute to @RadioFreeFedi’s Comfy Channel compiled by @futzle from tubes by well-known Fediverse musicians, ranging from ambient remixes to jazz tinged tunes. All nicely done (like the channel) and free to download.
Rapt - Until the Light Takes Us - https://rapt.bandcamp.com/album/until-the-light-takes-us-3: Acoustic folk *-core from a London based ‘semi-retired black metal artist’. Inevitable Nick Drake comparisions for the personal lyrics and instrumentation with a calm. melancholy beauty.
Mr G and Duncan Forbes - All Under One Moon - https://duncanforbes.bandcamp.com/album/all-under-one-moon: Early 2000s coloured techno underpinned by sampled breaks but with contemporary synth tones. This would probably fall under vaporwave these days too, if that means lofi samples.
GUILD MERCHANT - 血の争い - https://underwater-computing.bandcamp.com/album/--59: HT to @clongclongmoo laid back vapourwave sampletronics, music to get trapped in a lift to. The label might be worth an exploration.
orrionn - martyr - https://orrionn.bandcamp.com/album/martyr: Single from Paris-based experimental, err, noise/hip-hop(?) artist seems to fit it best. Dismantled hyperpop with distorted vocals that sound like Robert Smith lost in fog. Intense and brooding, in the same sort of place as Cindytalk.
SEEKERSINTERNATIONAL - The GUNCONTROLLA - https://icslibraryrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-guncontrolla-ics009: an intriguing collage of field recordings of firearms being dismantled, cut up and mangled and juxtaposed with dub effects, spoken word snippets, booming 808 bass drums, basslines and synth washes. Arguably on the far reaches of dub but more about the
Albor Sereno - Boreal - https://alborsereno.bandcamp.com/album/boreal: An EP of short instrumentals which describe themselves as ambient, but are more drum machine propelled motorik breakneck rives through snowy landscapes.
Barker - Utility - https://sambarker.bandcamp.com/album/utility: Largely beatless techno from 2019. Not ambient but fillig big spaces. The sort of sequences where everything is being modulated at once that Kraftwerk used amazingly on ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’, but more lying down and closing your eyes rather than racing up a mountain like a herd of cows. Cows on bikes.
Tomorrow Comes The Harvest - Evolution - https://tomorrowcomestheharvest.bandcamp.com/album/evolution: Sprawling, hypnotic tabla, synth and drum machine improvisations from Jeff Mills, Jean-Phi Dary and Prabhu Edouard. The highlight is the interaction between the human sounds of tabla and Mills’ astounding mastery of the 808 and 909.
frans asthma - wait outside - https://fransasthma.bandcamp.com/album/wait-outside: A Getmusic freebie. Four track EP of small quiet songs - the longest is 2:20 - that nevertheless attract and enfold the listener in their own little worlds.
Rhys Mwyn - Recordiau Rhys Mywn - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0028b8w - This week’s Monday night (mostly) sioe gerddoriaeth Cymraeg ar BBC Radio Cymru 2. Rhys was singer and bassist in Anrhefn and runs the label Recordiau Anrhefn, and he knows his stuff. This week includes a chat with actor Gareth Potter, who also happened to be involved in a quite a few influential Welsh bands, such as Clustiau Cŵn, Traddiodiad Ofnus and Pop Negatif Wastad. It’s an education every week.
B. Bravo x DFF Sound System - Bluzzed - @DFFSoundSystem@ravenation.club https://dffsoundsystem.bandcamp.com/album/bluzzed: A full remix of B. Bravo’s LP Vizionz (https://bbravo.bandcamp.com/album/vizionz) for a competition entry that got a bit out of hand. Urban funk circuit bent into dub, ambient and electronic shapes. I’ll give the original a listen to compare.
Quaeschning & Schnauss - Synthwaves - https://quaeschningschnauss.bandcamp.com/album/synthwaves-2: Three full on kosmiche but ambient tracks from the 2017 LP by current Tangerine Dream members Thorsten Quaeschning and Ulrich Schnauss. On the laid back ambient side of the Berlin School (the sixth form common room probably).
B. Bravo - Vizionz - https://bbravo.bandcamp.com/album/vizionz: The original release that inspired the remix LP above. My references for this kind of electro-funk are broadly Jimi Tenor and and the instrumental bits of OutKast, and it’s closer to the former than the latter but has that big band 70s feel with electronic instrumentation. Chill.
Tel Quel - Mirage - https://telquelsounds.bandcamp.com/album/mirage: A GetMusic freebie. Percussive industrial ambient techno that has elements of early FSOL into Front 242 and other European electronica of the time as well as acid overtones and contemporary (?) neon cityscape vaporousness.