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. Here are albums from an outside the box cellist, Norwegian dub enthusiast, French-Canadian glitch duo, and others.
Earthen Sea
Recollection
Vinyl LP
Jazz and contemporary classical label ECM spent the second half of the 20th century rolling out jaunty, easygoing records at a rapid clip. Pat Metheny, Eivind Aarset, and Keith Jarrett all released music through the German imprint. Although ECM’s legacy exists separate from that of early ambient, they share a similar carefree quality. Hardcore bassist-turned-dub producer Jacob Long’s new record as Earthen Sea, Recollection, was sparked after he spent a year diving into the ECM back catalog. The album arrives via moody institution kranky, but possesses a warmth that leaves me imagining incense smoke wafting through a room full of orchids. It is centered on meditative piano loops, peppered with delicate percussion, bass, and keys. A fleeting downtempo pulse permeates the balmy haze, making Recollection one of the most inviting installments in the Earthen Sea discography.
Oliver Coates
Throb, shiver, arrow of time
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
Oliver Coates’ 2018 album Shelley’s on Zenn-La, played a key role in helping me to appreciate challenging music. In college, I was largely obsessed with dream pop and shoegaze, but had an intimidated respect for stranger sonic textures. The Radiohead-collaborating cellist’s output infused wonkiness with enough tranquility for a younger version of myself to latch onto, allowing me to further connect with compositions that defied structure. Coates’ latest record for RVNG Intl., Throb, shiver, arrow of time, expands on his creaky, yet still melodic formula. It came to life over the course of six years as an exploration of how the faultiness of memory can provoke pleasant flickers of nostalgia. Guest appearances from Malibu, Faten Kanaan, and chrysanthemum bear imbue Coates’ neoclassical techniques with a contemporary glint. Throb, shiver, arrow of time is introspective and fractured, with an ample dose of hope.
Saapato
Spring at Home
Cassette
Leave New York City, and an enveloping sense of stillness takes hold, as harsh urbanity gives way to nature. The crackles and chirps of rural New York State define Brendan Principato’s new album as Saapato, Spring At Home. A lakeside field recording of birds and frogs rests beneath bloops and washes, generated by a host of coveted synthesizers. The piece clocks in around 45 minutes, gradually morphing from prickly psychedelia into a silvery lullaby. Issued by crunchy Texas label Aural Canyon, Spring at Home is a placid standout from Saapato—an artist who has patiently cemented his status as an emerging experimental favorite.
Luke Wyland
Kuma Cove
Vinyl LP
The Oregon Coast is dominated by striking rock cliffs, navy ocean swells, and overgrown forests. It’s a place that brims with eeriness and mystery. Long-standing Portland-based musician Luke Wyland’s new record for Balmat, Kuma Cove, is named for a secret water formation he and his wife visit annually. It draws on the idea of sound as a conduit for retreat, as well as the experience of living with a stutter. Unquantized loops and live instrumentation cultivate a verdant atmosphere that gently undulates, like a chrome wheel spinning at an incline. While it draws from brambly imperfection, Kuma Cove makes for a surprisingly unwrinkled listen.
Tristan Arp
a pool, a portal
Vinyl LP
The label Wisdom Teeth is run by K-LONE and Facta—two stars of the international party circuit. But the UK-based label becomes increasingly withdrawn with each new release. Its latest is from Tristan Arp, a New York City-based producer and DJ who plays in the new age trio Asa Tone and runs the label Human Pitch. a pool, a portal is deep and mossy, evoking fuzzy plant textures growing from the stone walls of a cavern. It is inspired by a hypothetical future, in which human society has been overtaken by an ecosystem that is equally organic and digitized. Psychedelic generative synthesis mingles with cello and spoken word verse, enhanced by a feature from buzzy Guatemalan artist Mabe Fratti. a pool, a portal finds Arp continuing to hone his fusion of glassy experimentation and limber footwork.
Perila
Intrinsic Rhythm
2 x Vinyl LP
Hot on the heels of the bubbly Ulla collaboration Jazz Plates, Berlin-based ambient staple Alexandra Zakharenko has once again unearthed her Perila alias for the record Intrinsic Rhythm. The double-LP has been released by Smalltown Supersound, the legendary Norwegian label that has platformed the likes of Barker and Kelly Lee Owens. Where Jazz Plates was humid and shimmering, Intrinsic Rhythm is dark and forlorn. Metallic synth pads billow above beds of crinkly noise and ASMR talking. Stretching 21 pieces over 64 minutes, Intrinsic Rhythm calls to mind a clicks and cuts record melted into weightless ash.
Carmen Villain
Nutrition
Vinyl LP
Carmen Villain’s previous music has been polished and austere. But the Norwegian-Mexican artist has hinted at her clubby interests through energetic summer festival bookings and remixes of her work from Huerco S., Biosphere, and Actress. On Nutrition—a curt new EP for Smalltown Supersound—Villain veers into stoney, rhythmic terrain. These three tracks focus on echoing beats, which clatter around snowy synths. Villain’s signature frigidness is left intact, but injected with a newfound snarl—hinting at a driving era to come.
Félicia Atkinson
Space As An Instrument
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD), T-Shirt/Shirt, Hat
Félicia Atkinson has a knack for whispery compositions, finished in tasteful shades of beige. The French artist blends digital and acoustic approaches—when not busy co-running the label Shelter Press. Atkinson’s new album, Space As An Instrument, is wispy and elegant. It aims to capture the essence of staring into vastness, and the feeling of smallness it can elicit. Across 38 minutes, serene piano is contrasted by a rumpled backdrop generated from cell phone recordings. Mimicking a celestial void, Space As An Instrument is outwardly collected with murmurs of disquiet.
El Hardwick
Process of Elimination
Vinyl LP
Whether platforming seminal Overmono singles, grayscale electronica from Sky H1, or murky rock courtesy of Moin, AD 93 label head Nic Tasker is a fearless champion of left-field sounds spanning—and often eschewing—countless genres. El Hardwick’s second album, Process of Elimination, lands at a contemplative end of the AD 93 spectrum, built on stammering effects and nocturnal drones. The album ruminates on sickness, capitalism, gender, and being—the result of a period in which Hardwick was simultaneously coming out as transgender and adjusting to life with an unspecified chronic illness. The outcome is appropriately dynamic, with palpable emotional complexity. Process of Elimination is a slice of inky ambient that seems as if it could quickly evolve from a flicker to a blaze.
Zero Key
False 01
Vinyl LP
As a co-founder of glitchy label Peak Oil, employee of cloudy powerhouse kranky, and member of more projects than one can reasonably keep track of, Brian Foote keeps a tight schedule. But the Los Angeles-based busybody has somehow found time to launch another endeavor: An imprint called False Aralia. Its purpose is to showcase the output of prolific producer Izaak Schlossman who, like Foote, has been involved with myriad projects including Aught, Starcircleanatomy, and Morris Arch Nightwork, to name just a few. False Aralia has emerged with two releases from Schlossman, which arrive under the aliases Selfsame and Zero Key. The latter gets my vote as the best jumping off point, existing in a similar vein as the material on Peak Oil, but with a less robotic exterior. Shifty beats, seemingly wrapped in gauze, linger beneath translucent pads and feathery vocals by Loveshadow member Anya Prisk. It’s blocky dance music, caked in wooly abstraction.
Ike Zwanikken
Greed Gave Me A Lily
Cassette
As a solo artist, mastering engineer, and member of the duo Hysterical Love Project, Ike Zwanikken straddles trip-hop, downtempo, and ambient. The Australian producer lands adjacent to a realm of chic peers, including Mike Midnight, Cousin, and Gi Gi. Zwanikken’s new album for Theory Therapy, Greed Gave Me A Lily, is aqueous and slippery. His previous output has been fairly steady—and occasionally downright propulsive. But this time around things are wholly formless and misty. Greed Gave Me A Lily begs to score candlelit moments of discombobulation.
Bas Relief
what if the ground was itself nebulous
Made up of long-term friends William Osiecki and David Mitchell, Montreal duo Bas Relief wrap glitch and jungle in an icy casing. It’s a sound that is perfectly suited to releases on Quiet Time and slots supporting Fog Lake and Loraine James. On the duo’s first full-length in six years, what if the ground was itself nebulous, the pair up the tempo while keeping the energy stylishly subdued. Soft, AutoTune drenched vocals rest atop loungey synths and squelchy drum machine sequencing. Clocking in at just 23 minutes, what if the ground was itself nebulous exudes a fizzy, inward-gazing magic.
