Music
Calm amongst the noise: 8 essential ambient artists you need to know
Listen to an exclusive mix from ambient aficionado Miro sundayMusiq, and acquaint yourself with some of the key artists of this ever-evolving genre – both old and new.
In recent years, ambient music has been having something of a resurgence. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s luscious, synth-led album The Kid and Midori Takada’s 1983 full length Through The Looking Glass garnered widespread critical acclaim last year, and you only need to scroll through Bandcamp’s monthly round up to see just how diverse releases are in this loosely-defined genre. Healing, eerie, melancholic, meditative, calming and cathartic - whatever the sound, there's currently a clear demand for music that grounds you in your environment, and encourages space to think.
In nightlife, too, chill-out spaces made popular in the '90s have been making a return to clubs and festivals across the UK. At the petite September festival Field Maneuvers this year, they introduced the Ambient Café – a late night sanctuary kitted out with cushions and a fire pit, and a rotation of DJs providing a soundtrack of calm and comfort for fragile ravers.
To help navigate the vast sonic terrain that ambient music occupies, we've asked for artist recommendations from connoisseurs like Nick Höppner, 12th Isle, High Fashion Technique and Miro sundayMusiq – a founding member of North London’s Netil Radio and host of Morning Transitions, his chilled-out and uplifting Sunday show for the early risers and post-club crew. Listen to a carefully-crafted ambient mix by Miro below, then scroll down to acquaint yourself with eight essential ambient artists of the past decades. In Miro's own words, "you can close your eyes now..."
Miro sundayMusiq
© Miro sundayMusiq
Mixmaster Morris
Picked by: Miro sundayMusiq
Mixmaster Morris has been conducting the ambient universe for a while, and Mixmag Live Volume 9 was my first contact with him back in late '90s in post-communistic Slovakia. Not only did this set simply blow my mind, but it also absolutely changed my view on DJing.
Morris is magician, able to take you on long journeys where you can literally ‘see the light’ at the end of his sets. You can play his fully loaded Mixcloud recordings one by one and each have a story of their own, making you feel that world is in good balance. Ambient is music designed to create emotions, relax your mind or meditate - and Mixmaster Morris is the true ambient evangelist.
Alapastel
Picked by: Miro sundayMusiq
Hidden For The Eyes is the debut album of Slovak composer Lukáš Bulko, aka Alapastel. It’s a beautiful collage of neo-classical and electronic music, with hint of Slovak folk roots. I grew up in Slovakia and this is the first album of proud folk influences – inspired by classical compositions, yet made in a modern way - that I have heard coming out from my country before. It is delicately balanced, emotional and powerful music, and Alapastel is the new artist to watch. I can feel that this is just the beginning of his journey…
Michael Turtle
Picked by: Nick Höppner
Michal Turtle certainly isn‘t an ambient musician in a more conservative sense. His music is highly rhythm based - he is a trained percussionist, after all. But I like to think of ambient as a genre rather forgiving to its own constraints. Its membrane is very permeable to a lot of influences.
In the early '80s, a twenty-something MichaelTurtle stuffed his parents' living room with all sorts of gear and captured his vivid and unique musical imaginations with a Portastudio, Tascam‘s first ever four-track-recorder. He went on to release some of the material in very small editions. Almost four decades later, Amsterdam-based label Music From Memories re-released some of it, and coupled it with more unreleased tracks to make the albums Phantoms Of Dreamland and Return To Jeka. Both have completely blown me away.
It‘s hard to believe what sonic universe he has been able to pull off with only four tracks. All of Turtle‘s music is so inventive, I find it hard to describe. There is a weird forward thinking energy here I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s quirky, it’s got some jazz to it, it’s definitely funky and outrageously trippy in places, mostly due Turtle‘s sense for space, his staging of sounds and his fresh arrangements. Most of the the time the music is lighthearted and has got a great sense of humour - a total inspiration!
Nurse With Wound
Picked by: Nick Höppner
I‘m am not a Nurse With Wound expert at all - in fact, I‘m only really familiar with the album I‘m talking about here, Soliloquy For Lilith. Steve Stapleton, the mind behind NWW, recorded the album with his wife Diana Rogerson in 1988. It‘s the result of a simple feedback loop of a few effect units plugging into each other, no signal coming from the outside. During the process Stapleton noticed the effects‘ hum changing when he came closer, so he started 'playing' the set up moving his fingers above the units. This chance discovery, plus the simple set up make up for some of the most mesmerising drone tracks I know. This album is as massive as it is hypnotic - pretty overwhelming, actually!
X.Y.R.
Picked by: 12th Isle
It’s probably fair to say that as a label we have a deep-rooted connection to ambient music. Earlier this year we released an LP by a St. Petersburg musician called Vladimir Karpov (aka X.Y.R.), using some of the standout recordings from his limited tape release, El Dorado. He utilises vintage soviet-era synthesisers which lend the album an unusual, seldom heard sound, and his recordings are heavily inspired by space music of the '70s with slight nods to new age atmospheres of the early '80s. On El Dorado, he combines wood flute and toy percussion with a loop station pedal and Tosya Chaikina’s mournful vocals, making Vladimir’s work stand out amongst lots of contemporary ambient music produced solely on synthesisers.
Cucina Povera
Picked by: 12th Isle
Cucina Povera's Hilja - a heavily minimalist local music record - debuted on Night School records this January. She takes the ‘voice is the original instrument’ philosophy to heart, and makes use of vocal loops ran through various delay pedals to mutate bilingual spoken word mantras, and an assortment of tongue clicks and hisses. The project is pure yet completely experimental - her live performances are almost entirely improvised. Faint synthesiser patterns often add another dimension of low-end frequencies to the mix, but never overshadow the primary focus. Although not exactly ambient music in theory, this is ‘Room 2’ through and through. Another Cucina Povera LP is due on Night School soon with more material probably arriving next year.
Chihei Hatakeyama
Picked by: High Fashion Technique
I'm in love with Japan's unique take on ambient music. It has a certain characteristic that I can't quite describe but can't get enough of at the same time, and Chihei Hatakeyama is the next evolution of this very individual music scene. Hatakeyama has the power to take you on a journey to the sea in a five-minute track, and his music is filled with a kind of euphoria that is hard to find elsewhere.
Helen Ripley-Marshall
Picked by: High Fashion Technique
Helen Ripley-Marshall is, in my opinion, one of the forgotten names in ambient music. Her output was overlooked at the time in favour of names like Brian Eno, but even though her output was sparse, she definitely favoured quality over quantity. The beauty of ambient music is that it makes you feel emotions you have seldom felt before, and in Green Chaos I definitely experienced that.
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