8Sided Blog

thoughts about music’s place in the 21st century

Ralph Kinsella and the Poetics of Bedroom Listening

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Ralph Kinsella contacted me through this blog and emailed a link to his just-released Bandcamp-only Abstraction EP. The tunes blew me away — this was an ambient music I wanted to hear, melodic and optimistic, dynamic rather than constant, and featuring guitars, both processed and clear. I wrote about it in a previous #Worktones segment, giving the Abstraction EP high marks. But, behind the scenes, I emailed Ralph asking if he thought of following up with an album. And if he’d like my 8D Industries imprint to release it.

Ralph responded with the completed demo of his album Lessening. Though recorded at the same time as the Abstraction EP, Lessening felt like a step forward. Hearing Ralph’s music at a 50-minute stretch suited his sonic world-building. The music is glistening and evolving, taking on suggestive textures that convey movement from place-to-place. I’m loath to bring up ‘the lockdown,’ but these hopeful, outward-reaching tones are an antidote to seclusion.

Today Lessening is available on all the streaming platforms as well as Bandcamp. I can’t think of a better way for 8D Industries to close out this year of uncertainty — it’s an album of hesitant lightness and a resolve to keep going. 

I briefly spoke to Ralph Kinsella about this album, his music, and the beautiful part of Scotland where he resides. 

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I take it Abstraction is your debut under your own name. If so, what’s your background before that? I believe you were in a band or bands, correct? 

Ralph Kinsella: Abstraction and Lessening are the first records I recorded alone, and roughly at the same time, during the COVID-19 lockdown. They are siblings in that way, separated at birth. I wanted to do nothing more than capture something — a feeling, an emotion, maybe. Certainly, the unassailable need for extended and stretched forms of expression. Hopefully, listeners might relate to feelings of detachment and piercing melancholy, as I felt when making the records. 

I spent a long time improvising and experimenting with sounds in the lead-up to these releases. Before making these sounds, I was in various bands (mostly lo-fi bedroom rock). 

Tell me a little about your recording process. Anything surprising, either in technique, location, or even the gear you use? Do you approach the music with a ‘philosophy’? 

I record everything in a spare bedroom, and all the music starts with improvisation — usually on guitar (or synth) with a series of effects pedals. I try to use as little equipment as possible: a Stratocaster, harmonium, delay pedals, a cheapo synth, and a good synth. I use Logic Pro essentially as an eight-track. Limitations are the most important thing for me when working alone. So I avoid using any plugin instruments or too much DSP after recording. Like Keats, the philosophy is ‘truth’ – even though no such thing exists.

As a guitarist, how did you fall into this ambient style of music? Who are your inspirations/long-distance mentors for developing this sound?

The Swedish record label, Häpna, changed my life as a teenager. I’ve been obsessed with experimental music with post-rock leanings ever since. I’d go to Monorail Records in Glasgow and pick up anything new from the label (usually based on the cover art – the aesthetic curated by the label/artists was wonderful). I found the record labels and artists contributing to this creative ecosystem inspiring. It showed me a different model, one centered on creative expression.

At the moment, I enjoy listening to (and trying my best to understand) the music of Elaine Radigue, Francis Dhomont, Loren Conners, and, most recently, Cucina Povera. I think they’ve all been unknowingly collaborating with me for a while now.

When I reviewed the Abstraction EP, I pegged it as “bright, gentle, and optimistic.” Do you think that’s a fair assessment? If so, how do you arrive at that ‘vibe’ when a lot of ambient electronic music nowadays is dark and droney? And the world being dark and droney, too?

You’re right – I’m always looking for a way to make instrumental (and more left-field music) without the ‘higher access mode’ approach (by that I mean, the “my music is hard to listen to, therefore it must know more than you do” approach). I like to thread/tread fine ground between pop/experimental and abstract/structure.

Tell me a little bit about Dumfries and Galloway. I know much of The Wicker Man was filmed in the vicinity, which is wild. How does the landscape affect the music?

Liminal, fringe spaces are always interesting places for creativity. The way that land visually falls away into the sea in the imagery of The Wicker Man has a similar energy to the kind of stuff I’m interested in: where rural and (semi-rural) Scotland uncomfortably meet urban areas. The boondocks, interspersed with fragments of debris and flickering housing scheme street lights. These places (and the artistic exploration of these places) imbue my work. 

Is there an ideal listening environment or frame-of-mind for Lessening? 

The records (as with most music of this genre) require a certain amount of engagement. The pieces are musical conversations – they want to start a dialog with the listener and, I think, reject passivity. I like the poetics of the bedroom for music listening – that’s where I created the music, and that’s where it probably resonates best. 

• Ralph Kinsella’s Lessening is out now on 8D Industries.

#Worktones: Autechre, Oliver Coates, Giadar

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Autechre – SIGN → Sasha Frere-Jones interviewed the legendary Autechre in one of his recent SF/J newsletters. It’s a lovely interview, with insight into the new album’s mechanics and how the duo manages to work together from different cities in COVID-times. But a highlight is the prose of Frere-Jones — I love how he writes about the music he loves. Check out his on-point description of Autechre’s album:

SIGN flirts with disintegration but only lightly, throwing its weight into a smooth ravine lined with translucent panels and reflective tape, a river of light running below the wind of turbines.

That’s a chilling reminder that I really need to work on my metaphors. But that won’t stop me from dropping some words of my own about this fascinating album.

Undoubtedly, there’s programming and coding involved in making this music. Numbers and figures set into a machine, then let loose to create tones and noises. How random are these tracks? Is this set-it-and-go music? Like Eno’s generative experiments, the process would border on ‘the joke’s on us’ if the result weren’t so lovely. 

I also like how this album can float in the background but is also open to deep listening. In other words, SIGN is a prime #Worktones candidate but also enjoys attentive ear-analysis. I haven’t immersed myself in Autechre’s back catalog in a while, but I can’t recall other efforts sharing these opposing qualities throughout an entire tracklist. 

SIGN has already received its fair share of accolades — and also criticism of what some see as a compromised sound. As the follow-up to an eight-hour album, SIGN won’t seem anything but a compromise to those critics. But, for me, the tug-of-war between the off-putting and the inviting is a sweet spot. Autechre’s done it, and, judging by how many times I’ve already listened to SIGN, it’s right in the pocket. 

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Oliver Coates – skins n slime → The new album from the innovative cellist finds Coates exploring his mesmerizing string-layers in forms halfway between compositional and textural. The music is also lightly confrontational, Coates’s instrument overdriven to excess and crackling with electricity. skins n slime appears separated into two sections, with the five-part “Caregiver” suite comprising the first half while the second half begins after a brief song ‘from The Bird Game soundtrack.’ “Caregiver part 2 (4am)” and “Caregiver part 5 (money)” are striking by how the strings take on the quality of either a distorted harmonium or Robert Fripp’s multi-layered guitar-tronics. Other moments resemble the cathartic plod of dark metal, a righteous feat for an artist working primarily with looped cello. The highlight for me is “Honey,” the penultimate track described in a RVNGIntl. press release as “tender, individual moments of pure cello beside decaying drone and the soaring planes.” It’s lovely, and I could listen to it all day.

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Giadar – Lost In My Underwater Unconscious → I recently watched this video essay about ‘the meaning of swimming pools in movies.’ The narrator tells us that filmic pools and bodies of water are often symbolic of a character’s subconscious feelings and thoughts. Dario Giardi, recording music as Giadar, captures this sentiment with his gorgeous EP, Lost In My Underwater Unconscious. The five tracks — each named after a different word in the release title — study ambient music’s melodic strain. The thematic inspiration and overall sound classify as ‘new age’ but lack the pomp and schmaltz often found in that genre. Piano’ed tones, embraceable synth pads, and iced gully reverbs pleasantly spill over these tracks. Dario tells me, “We have reached a kind of alienation from sound that has turned us into passive players without being aware of it. We are no longer used to paying attention to the features of what Murray Schafer has termed our soundscape.” Through his soundscapes, Schafer promoted the idea of acoustic ecology — understanding our relationship with the surrounding environment through the sounds around us. As Giadar, Dario explores this gentle power and its capability for healing — a welcome prospect in a year of turmoil. This EP, his debut, I believe, is a promising addition to a greater curative mission.

Put the Blueprint Down

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Season 3 of KCRW’s Lost Notes → This week, I spent 30 minutes each morning listening to the third season of KCRW’s Lost Notes podcast series. The other two seasons are terrific, but this latest particularly grabbed me. This time, each episode focuses on a prominent event or artist from 1980. The host is poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib, approaching his subjects with an engaging language. The series suggests 1980 as a pivotal year, setting the tone for the next decade and reverberating into the present.

If you’re me, the temptation is to skip to the end and listen to the fantastic Grace Jones episode (which also throws in a short history of Chicago’s Disco Demolition, occurring the previous year). But roll through them all, in order, to get a grander picture of the influence that year had on music and culture. Stevie Wonder, Ian Curtis, John Lennon and Darby Crash (together), Minnie Ripperton, The Sugarhill Gang, Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba — each topic is fascinating and offers something to learn. 

You can also read each episode online via KCRW’s site (click on the artist’s names above). But Hanif Abdurraqib’s personable narration, peppered with audio and musical examples, is the way to go. It’s a compelling production.

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Throwback on a Comeback: The Last Cassette Tape Factory → I enjoyed this mini-doc on ‘The Last Cassette Factory‘ — though I’m wondering if any tape manufacturers have popped up since the video’s release four years ago. As noted in the video, there’s a resurgence of cassette releases. This growth is partly thanks to Bandcamp and a need to give fans a limited, physical version of a release without breaking the bank for vinyl pressings. It’s an excellent idea for emerging bands to offer cassettes, especially when personalized with homespun artwork and packaging. Just don’t believe that your fans are listening to your cassettes. For one thing, as the first commenter on the video’s page notes, “The problem is I don’t see any quality cassette players being made today.” As for this video, we’ve all seen footage of the whirring machinery found in record pressing plants. It might be surprising to see that a cassette factory’s inner workings are also fascinating and highly technical. 

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A Guide to Sun Ra on Film → A useful list of long-form Sun Ra footage found on YouTube and elsewhere. Some of this I hadn’t seen before. The Magic Sun film, intended as a projection behind the Arkestra as they performed at Carnegie Hall, is particularly wild. And I think the writer of this piece somewhat downplays Space Is The Place — it’s a great movie, low-budget or not. 

As a proponent of focusing influence on one’s own ‘world,’ I like this quote from Ra in the listed French television interview: “You want a better world, put the blueprint down.”

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Ralph Kinsella – Lessening → My 8D Industries label released a new album today on Bandcamp. Titled Lessening, it’s the debut album from Scottish guitarist and ambient producer Ralph Kinsella. I’ve written about Ralph before — I discovered him after he reached out to this blog with his music. A few months ago, he sent the demo for this album, and I haven’t stopped listening. An antidote to lockdown — this is travel in a small room.

The last paragraph of the press release does a great job of describing Ralph’s music:

Kinsella’s guitar is the even thread, sometimes bare and then often processed, awash in texture and synthetic glares. Tracks like “In the In-Between Light” use the guitar to express enormity — of space and emotion — before the song is gently brought close by calming lines and reassuring synth patches. There’s also a soft tension in songs like “Lung Noises,” sharing the masterful slow build of the shoegaze genre’s finest practitioners. Lessening‘s closer, “Born on the Cusp,” offers a resolution — chiming guitars and reverberant tones signaling both loss and promise. This is the sound of an uncertain present feeling its way to that better world.

I hope you’ll check it out. Lessening is available now exclusively on Bandcamp and, like all 8D Industries releases, is set to ‘name your price.’ 

A Singing and Dancing A-Team

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Why Are K-Pop Groups So Big? → Initially, I thought the headline was referring to the immense international popularity of K-Pop groups. But it relates to the growing membership sizes of these acts. Did you know there’s a K-pop group with 23 members? The article also details how larger groups can have multiple spin-off groups (‘subunits’). And there are specific roles and ‘divisions of labor’ within each act’s membership. These acts end up sounding like elite military brigades — or a singing and dancing A-Team, with each personality assigned a duty or specialty. A typical ‘old,’ I find all of this confusing and fascinating. Check out this bit:

Wanna One, the 5th highest-selling K-pop group of the past decade, was formed in 2017 on the second season of survival show Produce 101. Produce 101 supposedly allowed fans to “produce” their dream K-pop group from 101 trainees by voting on the member lineup. For some, a spot in the final group was too valuable to leave up to chance—the show is currently under investigation for vote-rigging by internal staff and external agencies.

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Jazz Musician Lettering → It’s often annoying when modern album covers ape the classic design style of the jazz-era, but there’s nothing wrong with the aesthetics serving as inspiration. And there’s a lot of inspiration found in this compilation of typography and lettering found in the artist names adorning records from the mid-century. Many jazz covers are so iconic that we overlook the inventiveness behind the text. This format invites an examination without the images and layout that complete the full design. Blogger Reagan Ray says, “Rather than post 100s of covers and posters, I wanted to isolate the lettering for easy browsing and analysis. There’s a lot of lettering out there, and a lot I left out.”

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Newsletter Subscriptions → Haven’t you heard? Email newsletters are a thing! Even I’ve got one. Newsletters are a significant move away from the information chokehold of social media — personalized ‘posts’ arriving in email inboxes with our permission and without the judgment of indecipherable algorithms. Finding the right newsletters for you is a little more complicated. First thing: check out the websites of your favorite authors and thinkers — chances are most of them have a newsletter. There’s also a fun newsletter about newsletter recommendations, Thanks For Subscribing. And, though it’s limited to the growing Substack platform, the search engine Stacksear.ch is useful. You type in a word or interest, and the search results show Substack newsletters where your phrase has recently appeared.

One quick thing you might not know about Substack: each newsletter domain has an RSS feed. That’s great for readers as they can get Substack newsletters delivered to an RSS reader without necessarily subscribing. That’s how I read many Substack newsletters. But I feel guilty as this is also bad for newsletter publishers — if we’re reading via RSS, we’re not actually subscribed, affecting the newsletter’s subscriber count. A compromise is to use something like Feedbin, which gives you a special email address to use to subscribe to newsletters. This email address delivers them into your RSS feed. That’s what I do now, and it makes for a better reading experience and keeps my email inbox relatively sane.

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Khemkhaeng – บ้าน → This ambient mini-album from a mysterious Thailand-based producer is a wonder. It’s not often a release in the ambient genre sounds fresh and new. Khemkhaeng rises to the challenge, and these five songs have a rare quality — I want them to last longer. As I wrote in my short Bandcamp review, “Everything here is beautiful, sublime, and seemingly of its own world — but ‘ดูรู้สึก’ is especially distinctive and fascinating. I may have to edit a seamless loop of this track so I can sit inside it all day.”

Memory Color and Kankyō Ongaku’s New Age

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Memory Color's Blue Sun Daydream

Blue Sun Daydream‘s opening track, “Night at Sotokanda,” instantly evokes a scene. A playful melody chimes in layers of background noise before getting washed in reverb tails and floating tones. It seems we’re lost in the Sotokanda district of Tokyo. The sounds continue, echoing grinds and bells, the occasional voice. I’m imagining a railway depot — Akihabara Station, perhaps? — and by the end, we’ve walked on and into the gentle songs of birds. The bells have become meditation bells. These eight minutes are quite the journey.

Portland-based experimental producer Elijah Knutsen has crafted five expressions of Japan on Blue Sun Daydream, released through the new imprint Memory Color. Knutsen pays homage and updates the micro-genre of Kankyō Ongaku, a style of ambient recently popularized by Light In The Attic on the compilation Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980​-​1990. The music is known for calming atmospheres, sparse but memorable melodies, and environmental sounds. It’s music for head-traveling, a concept I’m eager to embrace in lockdown times. 

I’m fascinated by this album and the origins of Kankyō Ongaku, so I requested a Q&A with Elijah Knutsen. His generous responses detail his intentions with this project, the history of this musical aesthetic, why a compact disc release of Blue Sun Daydream is essential, and so much more. And Knutsen opens up many rabbit holes to explore. His recommendations alone are worth several deep dives. (I slightly edited this interview for clarity and concision.)

8Sided: What draws you to Japanese ambient music? What makes it different from other electronic ambient music of different eras?

Elijah Knutsen: The unique sound palette that stems from field recordings and environmental sound is unlike many things I’ve heard before. A lot of Japanese ambient albums are awash with sounds of flowing water, birds singing, rain, and thunder. It takes the music into another dimension of immersion, bringing you to a place you can feel and experience. It adds depth to the idea of music and sound as an art form. 

Second, the unique presentation of these albums is interesting to me. Two of the most well known Japanese artists, Takashi Kokubo and Hiroshi Yoshimura, made their groundbreaking records in collaboration with skincare and air conditioning companies, included free with orders and accompanying sales installations. The idea of creating an entire album based around an inanimate object is intriguing and shows how creative and talented these artists were.

Something I find notable about this genre (and ambient music as a whole) is how it completely shifts your idea of what music could be. Rather than focusing on a melody or chord progression, this music encourages a different way of listening. Things as simple as distant train horns, wind chimes, or muffled conversations are now music. You can go outside and experience that music whenever you want to. 

8S: What is ‘Kankyō Ongaku’? How would you explain it (and its history) to someone new to the genre?

EK: Kankyō Ongaku started in Japan in the 1980s as an offshoot of more contemporary ambient music and became a distinctive form of art. It focuses on ‘background noises,’ including the natural sound of life, with bits of melody blended between the long stretches of environmental sounds. Synthesizers are typical yet used carefully. The patches and sounds used are soft and simple, much like the compositions. The melodies are simple yet evolving — and sometimes not even there.

8S: The Light In The Attic compilation only covers the years 1980-1990. But how did Kankyō Ongaku evolve into the ’90s and to the present?

EK: I feel that the art of Kankyō Ongaku was significantly overlooked, and only now is it becoming apparent how special it is, especially to western audiences. The artists of the ’80s continued making their music, and many went on to work in the film and video game industry (Joe Hisaishi – Studio Ghibli). However, the specific type of Kankyō Ongaku explored by Light In The Attic is mostly from ’80s artists. But Hiroshi Yoshimura’s final album before his passing in 2003, Four Post Cards, sounds directly taken from one of his earlier works.

The sound of Japanese ambient in the 1990s was defined by the artist Tetsu Inoue. Tetsu worked with Pete Namlook and his pioneering FAX label, releasing groundbreaking albums like World Receiver and Ambiant Otaku. These albums defined the genre differently. Instead of programmed synth arpeggios and babbling creeks, Tetsu’s music clouds the listener with dense textures of sound set upon ever-changing noise sheets. Tetsu, unfortunately, dropped off the radar in 2007 and hasn’t been heard from since. 

8S: Are there any notable artists missing from that compilation?

EK: Artists like Hiroshi Yoshimura and Takashi Kokubo are probably the most well known in this genre. Yet, there are other talented artists not included in the compilation. Right now, my favorites are Yutaka Hirose, Tetsu Inoue, Kensuke Mitome, Takao Naoi, and Kazuo Uehara. 

8S: Who are some current artists carrying on the Kankyō Ongaku tradition that you’d recommend?

EK: There may not be another artist exactly like Hiroshi, but there are tons who can fit the idea of Kankyō Ongaku. One of the more experimental artists I’m listening to is Tamako Katsufuji, a sound artist from Osaka, Japan. Her albums are incredibly eclectic pieces of sound art, using field recordings, cat sounds, and singing bowls, all arranged in a strangely calming fashion. Although Tamako’s music is different than Four Post Cards or Tetsu Inoue, her work is as ‘Kankyō Ongaku’ as the giants of the ’80s. The best part about this genre is how encompassing it can be.

The main reason I started Memory Color was to explore the sound of Kankyō Ongaku and experiment with it. I’m also hoping to find others doing the same thing. There are many amazing artists out there who are entirely unnoticed. 

8S: Why is it important to you that your releases are on compact disc or physical formats?

EK: It’s important because, when creating an album, everything from the song titles to the cover design should be meticulously crafted. These things are as equally important as the music. Why should the album have to be stripped down to its bare parts for a streaming website? Many people overlook how special it is to hold something in one’s hands, especially after engaging services like Spotify. Like with a book, the cover and the packaging is as essential to the experience as the content inside.

8S: Do you think there’s a difference in how fans see physical formats now — CDs, vinyl, cassettes — or are they mostly ‘totems’ to represent affinity to the music? That said, should people listen to music on physical formats? Why or why not?

EK: I do believe that many people buy physical releases for the sentimental value. But there are still arguments that formats such as tape or vinyl are the optimal way of listening. I do believe that we can grow tired of the stale sound presented by streaming platforms. One of my favorite bands, Mercury Rev, recorded their groundbreaking album Deserters Songs on physical tape. The frontman claims that the tape captured the music’s emotions in a way digital formats can not.

Going back to what I said earlier, the packaging and artwork are crucial to the album as the music itself. I’ve purchased many releases on CD after listening to them purely on digital, and the artwork and design not shown on Spotify add another dimension to the overall experience.

Elijah Knutsen

8S: You, and the label, are out of Portland. But the label’s website has a .jp address, and song titles have Japanese translations. Are you specifically targeting Japanese listeners?

EK: One of the main reasons I chose to market my label to Japan is its still-thriving physical market. A big goal is to get our releases into actual music stores, so why not try with one of the only places still buying physical releases? I also felt it was important to make the music we’re releasing accessible to Japan, especially if we’re taking such a large amount of inspiration from that country’s sound. 

8S: The press release notes that “the album explores the idea of yearning for another time and place, even if one has never been there.” Is Japan one of those places?

EK: Definitely. I often have vivid dreams about living in another country or place, and then wake up wondering what I’m missing. This feeling also ties into the music on the album. I base many of my albums on places and the feelings and memories they bring about. I like to capture the entire essence of a moment and relive it through the music.

For Blue Sun Daydream, I went on Google Earth’s street view and wandered around in small Japanese towns, noting the names of areas I thought were evocative. I wondered what it would be like to live there. The song titles you see on the album are all real places, more or less. 

8S: The album features evocative sound design. It really is transportive. I assume this is the contribution of Kato Eiji, mentioned in the press release. Can you tell me about this collaboration and how his recordings and input influenced the album?

EK: Yes, I met Kato through an ambient music forum. He posted a link to his Freesound page — that’s a site where I get many field recordings and samples for music. Most of his recordings were done in Southern Tokyo, ranging from train station ambiance to street sounds and rainfall. I used some of his recordings on Blue Sun Daydream, as well as sounds I recorded. His recordings added the extra level of atmosphere that I was looking for. They set the scene for the album. 

8S: What is a ‘memory color’? What does that mean to you, and how does the concept inspire the label’s output?

EK: A “memory color” is, scientifically, a color typically associated with an object through memory, such as a banana being yellow or a leaf being green. It’s the relationship colors have with our memories. Some colors will remind you of the specific things you’ve seen and experienced throughout your life.

However, the label name ‘Memory Color’ is inspired by the feeling of wanting to record moments and emotions somehow and revisit them whenever you want to. It’s a reference to that feeling related to the nostalgia that many people feel when listening to music.

It’s also very much inspired by the sensation of dreaming, and how that plays into memory. In a dream, you can witness an incredibly vivid place or moment. Yet as soon as you wake up, it quickly dissipates, and you can only remember a particular color, sound, or emotion. I believe that the music of Kankyō Ongaku is as close as one can get to capturing those dreams.

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Blue Sun Daydream is available now from Bandcamp and a limited edition handcrafted compact disc from the Memory Color website. 

#Worktones: Onlee’s United Isolation Ambient Mix

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Our ‘strange times’ lockdown has inspired many artists and DJs to create ambient mixes. These mixes help calm the thoughts and nerves of others, especially those not used to working from home for long stretches. But it’s safe to say these mixes also serve the DJs creating them — something is reassuring and meditative in compiling a set focused on texture rather than beats.

My good friend Boris, DJ’ing as Onlee and running the cool experimental techno label Lichen Records, has undoubtedly delivered on both results with his United Isolation Ambient Mix. It’s nearly four hours long and reaches into selections that aren’t too dark or dramatic but never dull. There’s no tracklist, but, honestly, keeping tabs on the songs would distract from treating this as one long evolving soundscape.

I’ve played this in the home office for the last few days, and it’s effectively kept rogue brainwaves at bay. So, yes, this mix is a suitable prescription for strange, unsettling times.

Commodifying Coziness and the Rise of Chill-Out Capitalism

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In the article Why Are So Many Brands Pivoting To Coziness?, Vox’s Rebecca Jennings reveals a curious marketing trend: brands displaying promises of comfort to attract millennials and Gen Z’ers. In youth-oriented magazine advertisements, we’re used to photos of adventurous consumers climbing mountains or traversing an exotic, unfamiliar city. Now you’re as likely to see a picture of someone sitting at home seated on a couch or maybe even — gasp! — reading a book. Combined with emerging products like weighted blankets and CBD shampoo, it’s evident that chill is ‘in.’

Media theorists point out that horror movies are popular during times of unease and distrust in society. Jennings has a similar reason for the rise of coziness: “Things are bad, and people are anxious about whatever ongoing horrors are metabolizing in geopolitics, the environment, and capitalism.” However, there’s an always-online twist to this movement. “The selling point is that this product will make you feel calm and safe, but the experience of using it is still supposed to look good enough for other people to see.”

Ambient music isn’t exactly mainstream, but it’s more in vogue — and pervasive — than it’s ever been. The flavors are varied, from dark drones to nature noises, from New Age throwbacks to chill-hop YouTube streams. If we’re defining ambient music as music that sits in the ambiance, politely ignored as we go about our lives, then all of those styles qualify. And, like brand-marketed coziness, the music is often pushed as an antidote for a hectic life. There’s something spacey and unobtrusive playing in the background as that person sits on the couch reading his book.

Streaming has enabled an even more utilitarian strain of ambient music, something that The Baffler’s Liz Pelly refers to as “emotional wallpaper” and “music that strategically requires no attention at all.” This music is made to fall into playlists that play on repeat as we study, or meditate, or slowly fall asleep. The primary purpose isn’t to calm our brains but to rack up Spotify plays as the playlists churn in repetition. Ambient music is perfect for this — we can only listen to the same pop hook so many times. An ambient drone might as well be endless.

Of course, music has always had calming and self-healing properties. That’s ancient history. And it’s untrue to say that ‘western’ music ignored this aspect, with blues and — of course — gospel as examples of genres containing elements of spiritual remedy. But the connection came as a surprise to many of ambient music’s forerunners. Take John Cage, whose life and direction changed after a conversation with Indian composer Gita Sarabhai in the 1940s. She pointed out that it’s okay for music to be meaningless, to exist solely to “sober and quiet the mind.” It makes sense to us. But this was a revelation for Cage, a stone thrown in the pond with ripples continuing outward.

What’s new is our era’s odd commoditization of relaxation music. Sure, the New Age genre was a small phenomenon in the late ’80s — those Windham Hill CDs flew off the shelves at the Camelot Music I worked at as a teenager. But playlists targeted to sleeping ‘listeners’ for money-making purposes is a bizarre twist. Consider the Sony-affiliated Sleep & Mindfulness Thunderstorms playlist, featuring 990 one-minute tracks containing sounds of rainstorms. Why a single minute each in length? Because Spotify will deliver a micropayment to a track that plays for at least 30 seconds.

But let’s get something straight. Personally, I love ambient music. I work to it. I relax to it. I sometimes sleep to it. And, if you can’t tell, I’m fascinated by it. That presents a quandary as I’m using the music in the same way as those studying to ChilledCow’s YouTube channel. What makes my cozy space so sacred?

Simon Reynolds’ recent Resident Advisor long-read about the state of ambient music is worth a look. He grapples with chill-out capitalism in his article, stating:

Still, there is something unnerving about the idea of ambient and New Age music uncoupled from any higher purposes and applied to the task of self-repair. Like power yoga or microdosing, it is taking an agent of change that was originally part of a culture of liberation and discovery, and putting it in service of the status quo. As David Toop, author of ambient bible Ocean Of Sound, wrote recently, “if ambient music only serves as an app to incentivise or a backdrop to productivity, networking and self-realisation, then it has no story of its own, no story worth hearing.”

Are we adding too much baggage to ambient music? Perhaps it’s just meant to be, like a soothing wallpaper hue or the bird sounds outside my window. Burdening this music with a special purpose or the responsibility of solace might be self-defeating. But, true enough, so is placing a profit incentive on our coziness.

This post was adapted from Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, a weekly newsletter loosely about music-making, music-listening, and how technology changes the culture around those things. Click here to check out the latest issue and subscribe.

#WorkTones: Mileece, Laraaji, Roedelius

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As I toil away in the home office, I often listen to quiet, experimental music from artists found on Bandcamp. I’ve started collecting and writing about these albums in a series I’m calling #Worktones. Here’s the 2nd installment:

It’s rare to hear something as simultaneously captivating and gentle as the series of staccato ‘pings’ found on Formations. Mileece — an artist who happens to be the granddaughter of the man who programmed the first computer-generated song — is fascinated by seemingly random processes in nature: the patterns of a snowflake, or the leaves of a fern, or rain’s gradual effect on a landscape. Applying this obsession to music construction creates rules within randomness, and we’ve taken to calling this ‘generative music.’ 2003 was an early time to purposefully dabble in generative electronics but Formations sounds seasoned, assured, and surprisingly organic. The album closes with “Nightfall,” revealing Mileece’s breath and soothing voice, reminding us of her guiding human influence on Formations’ otherwise arbitrary systems.

Laraaji, who of course we originally know from Eno-aligned collaborations, joins English musician Merz and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily for, in Merz’s words, “a type of music that could co-exist in sanctified temples and in city urbanism.” Dreams of Sleep and Wakes of Sound might veer close to that lofty description, blending unmapped sounds of a heavenly nature with the hustle-and-bustle of layered treatments and aural tension. Each of the three participants isn’t present on every track (Laraaji contributes to just a few) but the sound and techniques remain unified. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on a song, shimmering washes of instrumentation build and surround what was once a simple structure. Titles like “That’s Your Blue Home” hint at introspective inspirations, apropos of how the music often suddenly expands as if soundtracking an epiphany.

It was an honor to see the legend that is Roedelius a couple of years ago at Orlando’s wonderful Timucua White House. The music was experimental and quiet, not at all jarring, and serenely transmitted the artist’s feelings in a tumultuous world. After Roedelius’s reassuring performance we left the venue calm and satisfied. Lunz 3, his latest collaboration with the equally prolific Tim Story, is no different. It’s pretty, but not so pretty as to hide a subtle agitation underneath. But that’s what makes this music so comforting — the impression that there’s room for beauty and contemplation in spite of the burning hum that encircles us.

#WorkTones: Bana Haffar, Nicola Cruz, Ditherfix

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Rather than whistling while I work, I listen to weird music. Cleverly (?) labeled worktones, here are a few office selections from the past couple of days.

The venerable Touch label has issued a live set from Asheville synthesist Bana Haffar. Described as a Saudi-born ‘life-long expatriate’, Haffar has worked to distance herself from the musical discipline learned as a classical violinist and electric bassist, presently opting for the unrestrained dialogue of modular electronics. This release captures the 33-minute “Genera” as performed at AB Salon in Brussels. Haffar’s modular wizardry is on full display, accompanied by gentle field recordings to shift the listener’s imagined landscape. The result is adventurous, though also hypnotic and warm. I’m pleasantly lost in this.

Nicola Cruz’s Siku takes its name from an Andean panpipe and, if I’m not mistaken, you’re hearing it played throughout this promising album. These tracks are an example of ‘fourth world music‘1And ambiguous ‘fourth world’ music is my favorite kind of music, it should be noted. that not only blurs worldly genres but mixes these styles with contemporary electronics. Not completely liminal, the cuts retain an ethnicity and the electronic elements — mostly focused on the rhythms — often hover away from the primary focus. But the experiment is rewarding and there are moments when the collision is of its own category. The final track, “Esu Enia,” is the most intriguing, pivoting back-and-forth from traditional-sounding tuned percussion to dark, synthesized responses. Siku could have pushed further, but I anticipate Cruz will continue to explore these fascinating combinations.

Ditherfix (or [ d i t h e r f i x ]) is creating horror-movie drone ambiance mainly on iOS. That means he’s on an iPad — or maybe even an iPhone — conjuring these cinematic noises in settings that include “in the woods, on a train, at the kitchen table, a corner chair, or at times operating from an ironing board in the bedroom.” I love the idea of this mobility and it’s exciting to see iOS gain traction as a production tool. Just as the walkman changed how we listen to music, an untethered yet sonically capable portable electronic studio undoubtedly produces music directly influenced by the surrounding environment. In the case of the seven thunders, that must have been an incredibly spooky ironing board. (h/t Daniel Fuzztone)

Jogging House’s Lure: A Quiet Resistance

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A review of the album Lure, by hopeful ambient artist Jogging House.

There was this charming quality to a lot of ambient music in the ’90s — optimistic and melodic, far off from today’s dominating dark drones. It was a different era, and perhaps the sound reflected a rosy view of what awaited in the new millennium. But what we find in the 2010s are the hushed rushes of disconcerting noise and queasy clashing of synth lines, an ambiance of tension and uncertainty befitting our times. It makes sense — the world is an increasingly scary and debilitating place, and sometimes our music sounds like it. But optimism is resistance — it really is — and that’s what makes Jogging House’s latest album Lure so welcome, special, and quietly radical.

Jogging House — whose name is apparently a letter added to ‘jogging hose,’ AKA sweat pants — states the album is “about accepting the things we cannot change and finding comfort in uncertainty.” This philosophy is the pragmatism of the stoic, and it’s also not being paralyzed with helplessness when the world is out of control. Staying in motion and hopeful as an artist and creator rather than blocked and immobile in the face of hourly ‘breaking news’ and topical turmoil. That’s resistance.

I want to connect Jogging House to Brian Eno, but not to compare him to another composer working in the ‘ambient’ realm. Instead, I think Lure‘s songs closely reflect something Eno said in an interview: “One of the reasons one makes music or any kind of art is to create the world that you’d like to be in or the world that you would like to try. You would like to find out what that world is like.” That’s how I feel when I listen to “Tulip,” Lure‘s opening track. It’s transportive — light and playful, melodies as aspiration and reassurance that’s calm and kind. And it’s gorgeous, on the verge of sadness but not quite getting there. This is a world I’d like to try.

The album’s eight tracks share this gentle atmosphere, evoking a separate era. It’s the optimism of the past looking forward, like the mentioned-above ’90s electronic acts but also not too far from those pioneering the form in the ’70s. I’ll give in and sonically connect Eno anyway, as the beautiful “Weavings” wouldn’t be out of place on a Cluster album. Lure was recorded on 1/4″ tape, after all, using a variety of not-in-the-box gear.

But I emphasize this isn’t merely a throwback — it’s music fit for our times. These sounds are an encouragement to persevere rather than wallow; to foster hope and the imagination of something better for us all. You may ask, how can something so serene inspire action? It can, I respond. It really can.