Ambient / Drone Recommendations October 2014

Review: Tamed Monsters EP is an inaugural release of the new record label Pandora. New imprint will focus on ambient sounds, music for home-listening and unique artwork. The VA includes works from german producer Benedikt Frey, russian producers Shine Grooves, Unbroken Dub, and an ambient group Kurvenschreiber. Each artist offers a different sound, which lets the music evolve like a story and makes a nice combination of dreamy ambience and mesmerizing repetitive beats.

Review: Comprised of Kranky regulars Mark Nelson, Robert Donne and percussionist Steven Hess, Anjou make their debut on the esteemed Kranky imprint. The trio trade in a unique kind of ethereality, where tracks like "Specimen Question" take you far away into a melodic daze and bring you back to planet earth feeling shaken. Beautiful snippets of field recordings, enchanting voices and a little bit of hardware fuzz created by analogue machinery make up the album's core, and tracks like "Inclosed" feel both sparse and rich at the same time, a characteristic of all the tracks herein.

Review: Weaving finds Seattle label Further coaxing a wonderful album of meditative synth and ambient music out of Jo Johnson, who is perhaps best known for her role as a DJ in the London-based Bleep43 collective. Dig a bit deeper and Johnson's musical heritage stretches back to the 90s London indie scene as part of various bands, whilst more recently she's been engaged as part of VLF with fellow Bleep43 member Emile Facey (aka Plant43). This album feels far removed from the electro one might expect from Johnson however. Opening with a homage to Johnson's primary influence Alice Coltrane in "Ancestral Footsteps", Weaving unfolds as one of those albums that welcomes you in from the off and it's all too easy to get lost amidst the luxuriant flourishes and moods that follow.