Juno Recommends Ambient / Drone: Best of 2023

Review: Ryuichi Sakamoto is making a very welcome return here with his first solo album since 2017's async. Milan Records are releasing 12 in January to coincide with the venerated Japanese composer's 71st birthday, and the timing is poignant given the album draws from musical sketches created while Sakamoto battled for two and a half years with cancer. Sakamoto himself describes reaching for his synths as a kind of therapeutic response to a big operation, and so the music carries an added depth of personal experience from one of the most profound ordeals a person can go through.

Review: If you don't know the backstory then Fred Again and Brian Eno being on the same record might seem rather unlikely. One is an ambient innovator and long-time musical wizard who has worked with the like of David Bowie on his most seminal albums, and the other is a dance music powerhouse who has turned out plenty of pop hits under his own name and worked on even bigger ones with stars like Ed Sheehan. But as a youth, Fred was mentored by Eno, so there you go. Together they fuse their respective sounds perfectly - Fred's diary-like vocal musings over Eno's painterly synth sequences, the whole thing an immersive and escapist masterclass.

Review: A titanic one-off clash LP between Japan's head brain David Sylvian and electroacoustic extraordinaire Stephan Mathieu, Wandermude is a slow and sublime classic for real ambient heads. Reissued for the first time since its release in 2012, the album charts a wealth of mutual interest between both artists; the pair both collaborated first as part of a dual live performance at Noway's Punkt festival, during which Mathieu performed a live remix of Sylvian's song 'Plight And Premonition'. This LP is the result of the same creative thread - whooshing, mysterious and full of raw instrumental material translated into audacious oddities.

Review: A collaborative new single by sampletronic master Kieran Hebden (aka. Four Tet) and guitarist and composer William Tyler, two acclaimed musicians and both longstanding friends. Part of a recent spewing-forth of Hebden-adjacent material to hit the shelves after the artist's oft-reported-upon "agent of chaos" phase, these two tracks, pressed to a furtive 12", provide a neat counterpoint to that assessment. Rather than a pair of riddim bangers, the record flaunts Hebden's signature electronic textures and Tyler's guitar into a hypnotic, nominally dark soundwhirl, reminiscent of the earliest days of Text, but with a unique edge - a sonic corner never quite scoured before by either artist.

Review: Max Wurden's sophomore long player on A Strangely Isolated Place follows four years after 2019's 'Format'. 'Landmark' finds the artist exploring a new way of creating music as he combines and integrates some external forces into his usual studio production process. He sees this as a way of organically allowing himself to experiment and collate different sounds from things such as a self-built Klangkiste sound box, an old out-of-tune Schimmel piano, guitars, early jazz samples, classical music. and much more. Although disparate on paper, during the process they all began to relate to one another to give the intricately detailed album that emerges here.

Review: Civilistjavel's 1 hears a reissue for the second time, following the mysterious ambient dub artist's resurfacing in 2018, after the late Low Company stumbled on their stuff and somehow managed to gain permission to do so outside of the artist's 'private tape / CDR trading networks'. Now it appears that 'Civilist' has taken the reins on their own work, officially reissuing the album directly from the source. It would go with the territory, not least since a spate of recent live performances by the artist seems to have signalled something of an 'opening up'. We're just as blown away by 1 as we were before; with its sensitive melodies and stumbly analog tone loops, building to slow-burning near-nothings.

Review: Ideologic Organ do things their own way here with an uncompromisingly long new album Does Spring Hide Its Joy from Kali Malone. It comes as a triple LP set that cannot fail to immerse you into rich soundscapes that are aided by Stephen O'Malley on electric guitar and Lucy Railton on cello. Composer Malone herself contributes sine wave oscillators as she focuses on harmony, non-linear arrangements and intonation. It is an album of nuanced minimalism that builds on and departs from previous themes in her work to make for a stand-alone and stand-out record.

Review: A fantastic introduction to a Japanese electronic artist who has simultaneously influenced many while flying well under the radar, Gaia: Selected Ambient & Downtempo Works presents a deep dive into the world of Dream Dolphin, a producer who began releasing music under this moniker at the age of 16 and was brought up on classic Italian songs before discovering the likes of PIL, Yellow Magic Orchestra and The KLF. Amazingly, even thought there's a good chance you'd never heard of her before now, Dream Dolphin, also known as Noriko, released a staggering 20 albums in just eight years, and 18 of the tracks from that catalogue are here now. The vast majority never available on vinyl before, they span IDM, ambient, downbeat, trance, organic experimental and more, making this a real trove.

Review: Mark Nelson aka. Pan American is a slow bubbler name in the world of ambient dub, having made his name in the world of cassette-centric dubby workouts traded in the deep counties of Virginia, starting all the way back in 1997. This retrospective compilation from Foam On A Wave swoops in on a swathe of music made by Nelson entirely around the Millennium, when the artist was most inspired by his most eminent contemporaries including GAS, Pub and Muslimgauze. Four tracks in their combined tradition slowly shirk, shimmy and shake through 360-degree soundscapes, made up of resonant siney pads and snappy highpassed hats.

Review: Canada may not shout as loud as the US, UK or Germany when it comes to electronic music, with the exception of Richie Hawtin perhaps, albeit frequently assumed he's American, and is actually part-British. Nevertheless, the larger North American state has a truly remarkable legacy in house, techno, ambient, and synth-y odds and sods.

It's proof the apple never falls far from the tree, given proximity to some of the bonafide birthplaces of those sounds - Chicago and Detroit. Edmonton's Khotin is indicative of the difficult to define tones that emanate from the Maple Leaf and its people. So much texture, pouring with emotion, and fundamentally born of new ideas, or at least different ways of thinking. Release Spirit, his third album on Michigan's Ghostly International, is thoughtful, intelligent, downtempo electronic stuff, crafted with love and attention to detail.

Review: The fourth ever solo studio album from the acclaimed electronic artist and composer Laurel Halo, Atlas is intended to guide the listener through their own subconscious mind, coming as an intense sequence of soaring ambiences and beatless jazz montages. Finding its footing in instrumental improvisation by Halo herself, plus featuring artists Coby Sey, James Underwood and Lucy Railton - and then blowing any assumptive connotation with jazz out of the park with its subtly effected vocal processing and electronic tinkerings and washes thereafter - fans can be sure that this is not going to be your stock experimental affair.

Review: Troekurovo Recordings is a production team made up of Toki Fuko, Vadim Basov and Evgeny Vorontsov and they have been hidden away deep in some enchanted Russian forests recording music. Now they are putting out the results on this superb double pack. This project started back in 2016 as a live experimental jam and is now an annual tradition made on loads of analogue gear on the banks of a canyon that was formed many years ago by a melting glacier. The locale provides inspiration - from the fresh country air to the meteor showers often visible overhead - for the music making which is strictly "no preparation, no pre-programming - hardware, friends and live improvisation only."

Review: Sindh (IDO, Lowless Music) is a project from Louis Rapet which focuses on utilising modular synths and real percussion types to create the ambient spaces and complex grooves that we love so much. 'Gupta Tribes', his first album, is inspired by an old civilization living in India long ago and with it Rapet tries to catch onto the atmospheres of a period where religion and sacred rites represent a big part of the people's lives. There's still a good spread of moods across the eight tracks, from the lively, tribal momentum of 'Sycthians', and 'Spyres', not a million miles from the majesty of KLF's Pure Trance series, to the swampy echoes of 'Ayaka System'.

Review: The release of any new Biosphere album is cause for celebration, especially when the man himself - the great Geir Jenssen - has chosen a specific theme or concept. 'Inland Delta', his first new full-length for almost two years, features (in his words) "mostly improvised performances on newly restored vintage keyboards". In practice, that means a slightly more colourful and fluid ambient sound than some of his many ambient albums, plus inherent warmth missing from his often icy compositions. There's plenty to set the pulse racing throughout, from the slow-moving cinematic bliss of 'Franklin's Dream' and the shuffling shimmer of 'Delta Function', to the becalmed, slowly unfurling dreaminess of 'The String Thing' and the Tangerine Dream-does-ambient loveliness of 'Florian's Flute'.

Review: We also heard from Andrew Wasylyk late last year when he offered up his second LP for the esteemed Clay Pipe Music label. Now it is to Edinburgh's Athens of the North for Parallel Light, another collection of sumptuous ambient sounds that are so much more than just background music. The album is actually an alternate mix of his 2020 long player Fugitive Light And Themes Of Consolation so offers a different perspective with plenty of moving spiritual-jazz and neo-classical sounds that help paint alluring musical landscapes.

Review: The latest release on Astral Industries comes from Toki Fuko, otherwise known as Sergey Korotaev. With a catalogue reaching back to 2008, Korotaev has explored subliminal approaches to techno on labels like Joachim Speith's Affin and delivered albums to Space Of Variants and Lowless. From the ritualistic, immersive strain of machine music he has always dealt in, it's a natural progression towards the flickering, ethnological mantras he weaves on Spirit Medicine. The Fourth World tag is the most immediate one to reach for, but as with many artist operating in this field, Korotaev finds his own voice from within a panoply of sound sources, favouring a brooding, murmuring and mantra-like approach to composition which you could easily let your mind wander in for days.

Review: BVDUB's Fumika Fades is a glorious new double pack that is again stuffed with inspired sonic detail and moving ambient soundscapes. The subtle complexity of his sound is laid bare again here with just eight long and involving pieces that ebb and flow, rise and fall, pull you in and push you out. It follows on from a busy 2022 in which Bay Area dub techno titan Brock van Wey put out several great double packs. This one comes with beautiful artwork, too, and is another great addition to the shelves from this man's ever-more spotless catalogue.

Review: The first Quiet Places album, 2020's simply titled Volume 1, had its roots in a late-night, whisky-fuelled 'laptop jam' by three experienced British producers, progressive house legend Charlie May (most famously a member of Spooky in the 90s) and Dennis White and Dave Gardner of Bedrock-signed outfit Knives Out. We're not sure whether whisky was involved in the production of this similarly immersive sequel, but it certainly shares its predecessor's alluring blend of field recordings, outer-space electronics, pastoral instrumentation, undulating melodies and abstract sounds. This time round, they've taken us on four lengthy trips, each stretched across a side of wax, which bob, weave, rise and fall like the greatest early 90s ambient mixtape (or, if you're more academic, sound collage) that you've ever heard.

Review: Noted as a "beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue" (we're looking at you, Spotify) Tim Hecker's No Highs is a righteous paean for what ambient music should be. And that certainly isn't mindful background music for turning you, the listener, into the best and most productive capitalist you can possibly be. Instead, Hecker's latest invites considered and focused listening; an alternative to the mediated, telescreeny musical SSRIs that impose on us today. A world turned upside down, the album presents highlights such as 'Lotus Light', 'Pulse Depression' ad 'Winter Cop', which suggest anarchic themes, while also fastening a sense of jaggedness and tumult, in a style of music that is so incorrectly expected to be neither of those things.

Review: Icelandic musician Gunnar Jonsson Collider debuts on A Strangely Isolated Place with an expansive trip through six fictional environments, brought further to life through an accompanying video by artist Arna Beth. S.W.I.M. is an equal parts trip through space ambient and hauntology; 36 meets Pye Corner Audio if you will. Intense, low-centric 'Environments', 1-6, inspire hazily glimpsed vistas in the mode of ambient warmth. As if accidentally finding oneself witnessing celestial phenomena one isn't meant to witness - the space-trip from 2001: A Space Odyssey springs to mind - each of these tracks are almost like time-locked landscapes, slowed down by their lo-fi temperaments and subby pulses of feeling.

Review: Wanderwelle's All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea album comes on the esteemed Important Records! and consists of "electro-acoustic threnodies for an environment at risk due to the effects caused by receding coastlines around the globe." The Amsterdam-based duo tells the story of the catastrophic activity of eroding waves and winds shaping the land that is enhanced by the climate crisis with the music. They have had some real-world and direct experiences of this and have had meetings with local maritime experts who have told their tales and in turn, inspired the pair to compose this moving and poignant music.

Review: Seoul-based duo Salamanda clearly struck upon a persuasive formula when they first cropped up on Good Morning Tapes in 2020. Somewhere between delicate ambient and a modern kind of deep house, their music carries a tenderness which feels absolutely at home on Facta and K-Lone's eminently soothing stable, Wisdom Teeth. In Parallel builds on the sound laid out on previous records for Human Pitch and Metron by presenting a more focused duo seemingly conscious of their rapidly grown audience and considering how to best build upon their tender sound without losing the charm. Threading subtle pop elements into their gossamer-light constructions, this is a rich, satisfying listen from a duo it's so easy to love.

Review: Fluxus drone pioneers La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela present the latest reissue of 31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM/23 VIII 64 2:50:45-3:11 AM The Volga Delta, a historic and mesmerizing soundworld which captures the '60s pioneers' twin paths through the worlds of performance art, sculpture-based acousmatic music, and an overall real alternative beatnik lifestyle . Made between 1964 and 1969, the album has gone down in history as a captivating fusion of dreamy electronic sounds and Eastern-influenced vocalization, with techniques such as microtonal tuning and extended repetition laying its experimental groundwork.

Review: Back in February, the prolific Past Inside The Present label boss Zake hooked up with Marc Ertel, James Bernard, and From Overseas at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis for a very intimate live show in a historic Gothic Chapel. A vast array of instruments were used including a Fender Telecaster, Meris Mercury 7, Eurorack modular synthesizer, Stingray bass guitar and literally tens more tools and toys and the resulting eight tunes of absorbing ambient are all presented here. It is another mystic and mystifying release from this label that reaches sublime new emotional highs.

Review: The White Arcades ranks amongst one of Harold Budd's best loved solo works. The ambient pioneer and celebrated pianist is of course well known for his work with the likes of Brian Eno, but this 1988 album demonstrates how clear-sighted his approach became when he was recording on his own. There's a pristine quality to this kind of ambience which allows it to sink into any number of settings, but it's far from banal. The subtlety of Budd's composition and performance as the piano and synth lines enmesh is a marvel to behold, suggesting half-hidden mysteries waiting to be solved, but only when the time is right. If there was ever music to soothe a troubled mind, this would be it.

Review: Los Angeles-based marine eyes (aka Cynthia Bernard) and Melbourne-based IKSRE (aka Phoebe Dubar) come together for this new album on Past Inside The Present and it is one that draws on their respective backgrounds as musicians, multi-instrumentalists and sound healers, as well as their shared love of field recordings. The album came about when each heard the other's music and decided to share sounds through an email pen-pal format. The mail chain included notes and pictures and became a geographical lesson and exploration of emotional landscapes. It blends ambient drone with neo-classical, sound healing, dream-pop and gentle lullabies onto something warm, comforting and introspective.

Review: The mighty Hospital Records is reissuing Green Graves, a classic album from Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement from back in 2016. It's an album that, as the title suggests, soundtracks a trip through the jungle with steamy pads and humid atmospheres, distant animal sounds and deep tribal rhythms. It's full of ambient and experimental mystery and intrigue, with suspenseful pads over barely-there skeletal drums that snake through the undergrowth on cuts like 'Red Protection Against Black Magic'. 'Nocturnal Anatomy' is darker and more dubby, hitting at the arrival of humans and their machines who come to destroy the forest.

Review: The latest project from Basic Channel pioneer Moritz Von Oswald examines the sonic relationships between human voice and synthetic tones. The initial outline of the album was shaped out in Von Oswald's studio on an assortment of synths, before Finnish composer Jarkko Riihimaki wrote the compositions out as sheet music to be interpreted by Berlin-based choral group Vocalconsort. Recorded in a nearby church, these austere compositions strike a neo-classical note, but they also naturally align with Von Oswald's accomplished legacy in the realm of minimal music while pushing the renowned artist and his listeners in challenging new directions.

Review: Last year, Brian Eno served up his latest critically acclaimed album in the form of FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE. Now he follows it up with the much anticipated instrumental version. Despite his advancing years and the sheer scope of what he has already accomplish dint he ambient world - not least devising the genre in the first place - Eno still manages to excite and intrigue here. The artwork alone is beautiful, and the music inside is similarly lush - widescreen cosmic soundscapes with subtle melodies and shifting timbres, pregnant empty space and a knack for sounds designs with meaning few others can match.

Review: Way back in 1995, the late Susuma Yokota joined forces with Ray Castle, an Australian producer then based in Japan, for an album of 'tribal-ritual ambient' tracks as Mantaray. For whatever reason, the trippy, partially mixed patchwork of effects-laden percussion, mind-altering electronics, dreamy chords and mind-altering vocal samples was not released on vinyl first time round - hence this edition from archival release specialists Transmigration. It's a genuinely unique album that's alternately becalmed and unsettling, offering a psychedelic drift through hallucinatory, dawn-ready soundscapes that features plenty of subtle nods towards Japanese and Indigenous Australian musical culture. It's basically a slept-on 90s ambient classic, so this vinyl reissue is well worth picking up.