Aspirational Arias : Experimental & Ambient Music to Breathe To

There was a recent article slamming many ambient albums I love and it seems so strange because that’s the beauty of the genre- it’s abstract, thwarts tradition, and what’s incredibly boring to one person could be extremely soothing to another, and vice versa. It’s like, criticizing dreams?? Weird. I already know I’m going to get some backlash for this article so prefacing now with a disclaimer that I am not any sort of scholar of ambient music and as someone who just barely started listening to it, I understand that there is depth and nuances I cannot yet grasp. I know what sounds good, though!

There’s a lot of squabbling to be had over what exactly qualifies as ambient, and I’m not trying to start shit. To me, it’s music that elicits a mood or feeling, and softly surrounds you. And on the artist’s side, it can be whatever you want it to be. It can be made solely on a desktop, it can be purely field recordings, or it could be layers of lush instrumentals and vocals. It can be listened to as actively or passively as needed. It can be dark and heavy, or light and bright. Many of these albums – arguably, perhaps even most of them – may not qualify one person’s definition of the amorphous genre. I’m just not sure who the authority is to ask if I’m allowed to make a list like this. Maybe Brian Eno, but I don’t have his press contact info. If it makes my brain shut up for half an hour, I’m lumping it into this list, and I apologize, and I’m endlessly grateful for it.

Every evening (that I can) after work, I swim for an hour or so, then sit on my back patio overlooking a valley at twilight and listen to these albums, among an ever-growing list. It is as close to meditation as I get, and a necessary ritual for my beleaguered brain. Admittedly, I am a very recent convert to the stuff- bewildering to me now to think that not very long ago, I was vehemently anti-synth, and now it’s all I want to listen to? Anyway. Music is healing, and miraculous, and magic, and if you don’t like it, maybe you’ll like one of these instead!

Vicious Kisses

by Marcel Sletten

Sletten’s “insomnia album,” this has been a major evening accompaniment for me since it came out just last week. There’s something strange yet familiar in the hypnotic, somnambulist soundscapes. I’m not sure if it’s ambient so much as “psychedelic folk music for the digital age.” This description makes my own crossover more sensible.

Life After The Digital Spa

by Ki Oni

Master of aquatic music and creating sonic biospheres, Ki Oni’s music brings about the same inner peace that floating in a body of water does – for maximum results, try both simultaneously.

Cambria Sessions – A Tidal Meditation

by Hark Madley

This is Mark Hadley’s attempt to create music reflective of California’s central coast, where he made the music while staring out into the vista and contemplating the urgency of taking action against climate change. Instead of freaking out and feeling hopeless, let these tunes soothe you and restore you in order to continue fighting.

Unfailing Love

by zakè & marine eyes

marine eyes’ solo album from earlier this year, idyll, was absolutely a gateway drug to my blossoming interest in ambient music. Enya-level soothing. On this new release with her friend zakè, there’s an additional air of romance and beauty with all the same calming tones and illustrious vocal harmonies.

Reflections of the Samith

by Starbirthed

Starbirthed and many other Flower Room Records releases are intentionally made for meditation, and with each new release I know the northeastern-based duo will induce a state of calm and peacefulness. This new one is especially lovely.

HEALTH – +

by Imka

Imka is a Washington D.C-based artist who makes plant-based music. I don’t know exactly how it works, but Imka uses plant biodata translated into musical notes and it is just as therapeutic as it sounds. Very much the sound of chlorophyll seeping through a leaf’s veins, photosynthesis in action, chutes unfurling. Better than any salad.

Pneuma

by Michael Hix

I got to know Michael Hix through his stunning compositions with Nashville Ambient Ensemble, but the composer and musician has a bevy of electronic, ambient releases that are uniquely shimmering, complex, and fascinating.

Scenes of Scapes

by Kenji Kihara

Shoutout to Jeffrey Silverstein for sharing this one. Gossamer strands of light beam out between field recordings. Another genius release from Inner Islands.

Bashi

by NikNak

NikNak uses organic samples and field recordings, manipulated in turntablism and meditating on bashi, the Turkish word for “peace.” Capturing her time in Turkey, it’s extremely soothing noise.

Under the Lilac Sky

by arushi jain

One of my favorite releases this year from Leaving Records, the modular princess uses traditional vocal ornamentation to expand her atmospheric sound.

May

by Lawani

Lawani made this album to help himself deal with an unexpected onset of panic attacks after finding that yoga, meditation, and listening to ambient soundscapes helped him deal.

Spells

by Nailah Hunter

Very much appropriately tagged as #fantasy on Bandcamp, Nailah Hunter’s music is enchanting, ethereal, and immersive, absoltuely the kind of sound you want to escape inside of, promising other worlds and better tomorrows.

Becoming

by Taranoya (Out 9/24)

Droning, resplendent synth, ethereal vocals, personal exploration. Taranoya’s new album, out soon on Sound as Language, showcases vocals-as-an-instrument and modular experimentation.

A Place In The Sun

by Joshua W Bruner

Josh is doing some crazy cool things with biofeedback, EEG machines, brain waves. He fully believes in the healing power of music and can likely cite some studies that back it up. In addition to his Bandcamp, check out his audiovisual meditations on platforms like Insight Timer and YouTube.

III

by IKSRE (out 10/15)

Australian soud healer IKSRE’s III is her third album and also a record reflecting on personal tragedy and healing after a miscarriage. With III, artist Phoebe Dubar comes to accept that her family will be three. It’s an intensely gorgeous body of work, and hopefully as healing for the artist as it is for the listener.

Lamplighter

by Gerycz/Powers/Rolin

Probably not “ambient” in the traditional sense, whatever that means, but in a recent interview with Chuck Soo-Hoo (the real name of artist Ki Oni, see above) on his show Contact Wave, Matthew Rolin and Jen Powers discuss the meditative quality of their music – and listeners alike get equally lost in their blend of steely guitar riffs, rippling dulcimer, and gently scuffling percussion. Interestingly, the artists also discuss their anxious brains and how meditation isn’t necessarily something they can do so this is the next best thing. I agree.

Birmania

by Zpell Hologos (out 10/4)

At first I thought it was just a solo piano record – but then, all of a sudden, it was so much more. Birmania is a distress call from Brazilian artist Zpell Hologos, also known as Babe Terror or Claudio Szynkier, and is a bit more ambivalent in terms of portraying a sense of foreboding, yet also self-soothing in the face of hopelessness. “In terms of music, it’s a writing proposal with muffled, sketched synths, orchestras and pianos, but with a tender, warm and radiant feeling too. It is, I think, evocative of animals– elements of great strength and inspiration. It’s a kind of a hunt in search of a lost civilization, which is also a civilization of the future, which takes place with the help of these mystical and somehow redemptive forms of fauna, and with their correspondent musical ambiences”, says Szynkier.

Dreams and Visions from the Llano Estacado

by Andrew Weathers

I’ve been really inspired by Andrew Weathers’s innovative use of field recordings, and how he transmutes the natural world into synthetic sounds, and vice versa. Love the concept of sonic land art. His prolific Bandcamp output is absolutely worth a subscription.

Music for Saxofone and Bass Guitar More Songs

by Sam Gendel & Sam Wilkes

I did not expect to love this, as, perhaps similar to my experience with dismissing everything under the giant umbrella of synth music, sax and most other horny, doot-y tones haven’t done it for me historically. But as we age, we mature and try new things. This blend the Sams came up with is far from jarring or cliché, just cool, warm waves.

Vision Songs Vol. 1

by Laraaji

I love Laraaji so much. His voice and music are just pure joy. I’ve been especially taken with this record lately, especially the opening track and “Cosmic Joe.” I just love him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!