Various Artists - Spaciousness - Lo Recordings - LP/CD/DD - Released November 2nd 2018
The term 'ambient music' can be interpreted in many ways - from Satie to Eno, Budd to Jarre, Schulze to Brook, The Orb to Frahm, Fennesz to Sakamoto, from natural sound sources taken from the land to the sea. It's a somewhat generic term that is often used to describe music that is anything but dull, despite its lack of obvious floor-fillers and fist-pumpers.
Lo Recordings, celebrating 20 years of peerless music, are seeking to explore the relationship between composed music, minimalism and silence by issuing several works centred around the theme of space or spaciousness, starting with this double album. Inspired by an e-mail to the label from meditative ambient composer Laraaji (who appears on here as Seahawks with Jon Tye and Pete Fowler on the gorgeous Space Bubbles), Spaciousness covers all styles of chilled-out electronica and organic soundscapes, providing something of a journey through calm and meditation without triggering comparisons to 'new age'.
Familiar names are plenty. Ulrich Schnauss, Susumu Yokota, Laraaji and Carlos Nino have had regular mentions on numerous review and blog pages in recent decades and all four contribute typically measured symphonies of spatial eloquence. Private Agenda's Ultramarine sounds a little like, er, dubby Essex beatsmiths Ultramarine, while Cathy Lucas relies more on percussive ambience on the aptly-titled Chatterscope, which recalls the equally bonkers jazztronica soundtrackers Startled Insects (remember them).
If you like choral sounds, MJ Lallo delivers the spine-tingling and somewhat celestial Birth of a Star Child, while lovers of cyclical music - think Mike Oldfield's Incantations or Philip Glass's Uakti collab - should warm to the blissed out Rest by New Atlantis signee India Jordan. Label co-founder Yamaneko evokes warm summer rains with the pretty Burial-like Lost Winters Hiding while the rest of the contributors range from the melancholic (Andras - beautiful strings and vinyl-record crackles a-go-go) to the downright seismic (Carlos Nino and Iasos, take a bow). Basically, from Abul Mogard's captivating opener Flecks of Endless Spaces onwards, you'll be hooked.
For the first time in aeons, here is a collection that lives up to its billing - Spaciousness is living, breathing, atmospheric proof that reflective ambient music is alive and chilling and a sign of the timbres.
9/10
Lo Recordings, celebrating 20 years of peerless music, are seeking to explore the relationship between composed music, minimalism and silence by issuing several works centred around the theme of space or spaciousness, starting with this double album. Inspired by an e-mail to the label from meditative ambient composer Laraaji (who appears on here as Seahawks with Jon Tye and Pete Fowler on the gorgeous Space Bubbles), Spaciousness covers all styles of chilled-out electronica and organic soundscapes, providing something of a journey through calm and meditation without triggering comparisons to 'new age'.
Familiar names are plenty. Ulrich Schnauss, Susumu Yokota, Laraaji and Carlos Nino have had regular mentions on numerous review and blog pages in recent decades and all four contribute typically measured symphonies of spatial eloquence. Private Agenda's Ultramarine sounds a little like, er, dubby Essex beatsmiths Ultramarine, while Cathy Lucas relies more on percussive ambience on the aptly-titled Chatterscope, which recalls the equally bonkers jazztronica soundtrackers Startled Insects (remember them).
If you like choral sounds, MJ Lallo delivers the spine-tingling and somewhat celestial Birth of a Star Child, while lovers of cyclical music - think Mike Oldfield's Incantations or Philip Glass's Uakti collab - should warm to the blissed out Rest by New Atlantis signee India Jordan. Label co-founder Yamaneko evokes warm summer rains with the pretty Burial-like Lost Winters Hiding while the rest of the contributors range from the melancholic (Andras - beautiful strings and vinyl-record crackles a-go-go) to the downright seismic (Carlos Nino and Iasos, take a bow). Basically, from Abul Mogard's captivating opener Flecks of Endless Spaces onwards, you'll be hooked.
For the first time in aeons, here is a collection that lives up to its billing - Spaciousness is living, breathing, atmospheric proof that reflective ambient music is alive and chilling and a sign of the timbres.
9/10