PURL Vinilo y CD

Review: LILA mainstay Ayaavaaki and ambient veteran Purl speak different languages but used a translator to convey ideas to one another as they made this record. And they very much foment their own unique musical language on Ancient Skies, an album that blends ambient, drone and space music into richly layered soundscapes that are constantly on the move. Each piece is meticulously crafted and suspense you up amongst the clouds, hazing on at the smeared pads and swirling solar winds that prop you up. It's a record that would work as well in the depths of winter as a bright spring day such is the cathartic effect of the sounds. Beautiful, thought-provoking and innovative, this is as good an ambient record as we have heard all year.

Review: LILA has got five or six albums of artful ambient dropping all in quick succession and this is a third from Ludvig Cimbrelius, who has dropped one under his Eternell alias, one as Abraco de Vapor, and one under this, his oldest moniker, Purl. He also works as Illuvia and with all his projects he has mastered the art of sonic daydreaming and musical journeying. Ancient Skies is a record packed with a more intense, textural, heavy style of ambient that builds tensions and in some places has subtle implied rhythms. It makes for an involving listen that is much more than simple background music.

Review: Daljit Kundi and Ludvig Cimbrelius have Indian and Swedish backgrounds but actually came together in the UK music scene and specifically ambient jungle. They set off to explore that world totters and did so with aplomb across several great albums and EPs. This new album was actually nearly done many years ago but was shelved owing to struggles with record labels. When Past Inside The Present heard it though they encouraged the album to be finished and so here it is. It's an emotional work which "attempts to represent a psychic darkness that is as deeply restful as it is ripe with creative potential." It's absorbing, beautiful ambient from a pair of real dons.