"Garlands" by Gem Club

I am so pleased that Chris Barnes of Gem Club has released a new song, "Garlands" and it is as beautiful and moving as all his other pieces. His IG hints of more to come...I can't wait.

https://www.instagram.com/gemclub

"your milk is cold now" by Neon Genesis

OH.MY.GOD. I am in love with this floaty, dreamy, ethereal track "your milk is cold now" by L.A. duo Neon Genesis.

https://www.instagram.com/_neongenesis_/
https://neoncatalog.bandcamp.com/

"Anywhere But Here" by Noble Oak

A lovely song from Noble Oak, the nom de musique of Patrick Fiore (previously here)..."Anywhere But Here" from his new release "When It Finds You."

http://www.nobleoak.net/

"Seraphim II" by How To Disappear Completely

I am thrilled that How To Disappear Completely (previously here) has released another collection of incredible ambient drone music, "Seraphim II" which is a follow up to the equally stunning "Seraphim." Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream...

https://htdc.bandcamp.com/

"Industry" by Harry Talin

I am currently mesmerized by this ambient, drone-y track, "Industry" by Harry Talin (previously here, as Trailblazer) from his 2015 release "The Exciter.". The layers, the overdubbing, the reverb, the trumpet...it all strikes me right. *sigh* Where are you Harry? Are you still making music?

https://harrytalin.bandcamp.com/

"Ephemera" by How To Disappear Completely

"Ephemera" is a new three-song collection just released by How To Disappear Completely. It's dreamy, ethereal, melancholy...described by the artist as:

Flowing in a state of deafening solitude. Visions of sadness murmured in dreams. We know how the end always is.

https://htdc.bandcamp.com/

"Nuit Ensemble" by Perry Frank

Exquisite, sublime ambient music from Perry Frank, "Nuit Ensemble" is a collection of 10 hypnotic, dreamy tracks.

https://www.perryfrankmusic.com/home

"Environments" by PJS

I've been on an ambient music kick (again) lately...I have loved ambient music since I first heard Brian Eno's seminal work "Music For Airports" about forty years ago (!). This genre has occupied a constant position in my life. And I am glad so many current artists have taken up the mantle and are producing gorgeous ambient works. I just posted the brand new (August 2022) release of How To Disappear Completley's new album "Aural Stream" here.

And another ambient music group making ethereal soundscapes is PJS, a project by Canadians Patrick Dique and Jordan Christoff. They released their collection "Environments" several months ago and when I play it, time seems to stop...

"Aural Stream" by How To Disappear Completely

I am thrilled that the ambient musical group How To Disappear Completely has released a new album called "Aural Stream." It is a beautiful, dim, moody, droning collection...highly atmospheric, otherworldly, soothing, penetrating.

https://www.instagram.com/htdccollective/

"A Memory Away" by Dynastor

I am in love with this new release from Dynastor (the nom de musique of Dutch musician and DJ Maurits Nieuwenhuis). It recalls the works of the legendary Harold Budd and Eno. I like all the tracks but the first three--"A Memory Away," "Beyond The Lens," and "Behind The Curtain"--really are a sort of floating perfection.

The release statement says:
"Lingering fingerprints of a time bygone, hints of a scent once always, a photograph. The dust settles, dancing in the the last rays of sunlight. These days were felt and the smiles and tears we shed are now or the past. The letters we wrote remain, the pictures fade as the world beyond the lens morphs into its ever changing continuum, leaving us with just our creation; a memory away. This album is an expression of nostalgia, capturing the bittersweet evocation of reading letters from the past, seeing the photographs, the wrenching effect of smelling the familiar scents of a time long passed and realizing that the world is always changing, and so are you.

Created with many recordings of nature, instruments, non-instruments and processed using a wide variety of techniques including tape, granular synthesis and analog synthesis, Dynastor explores the storytelling quality of music, creating evocations of places, people, memories and their passing."

https://shimmeringmoodsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-memory-away

https://dynastor.bandcamp.com/

"Your Shadow A Pale Glow" by KAGAMI Smile

KAGAMI Smile (American-born Ryan Hill now living in China) has released several songs this year so far and this dense, hypnotizing track, "Your Shadow A Pale Glow" is a standout for me.

https://kagamismile.bandcamp.com/

"Mycenaean Age" by Telenights

Oh my god, I am so grooving on this amazing, hazy, chill out song, "Mycenaean Age" by Telenights.

https://telenights.bandcamp.com/music

"Spirit & Decline" by Gem Club

Wow, I am so glad to hear some new music from Gem Club, the nom de musique of Christopher Barnes (previously here). This new track "Spirit & Decline" is just tremblingly, agonizingly beautiful. Although the song has apparently been around for a little while, he just officially released it earlier this year and I am really hoping this means a new full release is on the horizon.

hushed among the bells
the arrow struck your shoulder
forced to the ground
with the shredded pulp
of red apples

and you're near
your hands are touching hands
and you're near
the violence swells with its song
i am starting to lose focus
the distance in decline
while i'm watching your spirit

rise

watched for the point
when you'd wake from it
with the sun against your back

http://iamgemclub.com/

"Lake" by The Monk By The Sea

Croatian guitarist Ivan Ujevic goes by the nom de musique The Monk By The Sea, a name which conjures up serene, Zen-like images. And his music is exactly what you would want from such images. Using only an electric guitar and complex signal processing, his ethereal, ambient sounds are soundtracks to dreams or other mystical journeys. This track, "Lake," from his release "Soundscapes V" is one of my favorites.

https://themonkbythesea.bandcamp.com/

"Krigsgald" by Heilung

How fascinating that there is a whole sub-genre of music dedicated to pre-Christian Northern European culture! Heilung are a band from Denmark who play a very specialized kind of music. Their official information says:

"Heilung is sounds from the Northern European Iron Age and Viking period. We used everything from running water, human bones, reconstructed swords and shields up to ancient frame drums and bronze rings in the songs.

The lyrics contain original texts from rune stones and preserved spear shafts, amulets and other artifacts. Furthermore poems, which either deal with historical events or are translations/ interpretations of the originals.

Every attempt to link the music to modern political or religious points are pointless, since Heilung tries to connect the listener to the time before Christianity and its political offsprings raped and burned itself into the Northern European mentality.

Heilung means healing in German and describes the core of the sound. It is supposed to leave the listener eased and relaxed after a sometimes turbulent musical journey."

I can see a wide audience for their music: people who listen to ethnic music or folk and neo-folk music, people who listen to spiritual music, people who listen to alternative music or even Goth music... I get a bit of a Dead Can Dance (previously here, here, and here) vibe too.

Fascinating.

Take a look at this video of the group singing "Krigsgald" live in concert. Believe it or not, this spectacle is their first live concert performance ever. Filmed at Castlefest, a medieval/fantasy festival in the Netherlands, the live recording album called "LIFA" is available.

https://www.facebook.com/amplifiedhistory/
https://heilung.bandcamp.com/

"Pandora" by How To Disappear Completely

I am floating in a delicious, transcendent Alpha state listening to this phenomenal ambient/drone track called "Pandora" by How To Disappear Completely, a live collective based in Poland. The song is part of a new release called "Mer de Revs II," intended to aid in relaxation.

Their release notes say:
"Mer de Revs II - Music For Insomniacs

A study in deliberately soothing textures designed to give the listener space to find stillness and collapse into rest - late night lullabies.

How To Disappear Completely presents Mer de Revs II, second installment of our experimental sleep music project. Almost eighty minutes of new music composed and recorded over twelve month period (a song per month), 2016/2017. Recording this album we wanted to keep the same aesthetics - simple as possible, minimal amount of gear as possible. We hope you enjoy our latest release as much as we did recording it and we can't thank you all enough for your support. As always, thanks for listening.

Mer de Revs Sessions (Recorded in 2016/2017)

NOTE: The sound contained on this release is intended and specially designed to fit the headphones. All perceived silence and audio deformations were intended."

https://www.facebook.com/HTDC-319195858174808/

"Everywhere at the end of time" by The Caretaker

The Caretaker is one of the many names under which English composer/producer/musician Leyland James Kirby records. Started in 1999 with the release "Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom," The Caretaker project was inspired by the last scene in Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant horror film "The Shining," which features the 1934 song "Midnight, The Stars And You" by Ray Noble And His Orchestra. Without giving away a plot point for those who may not have seen "The Shining," the chilling scene alludes to the ideas of ghosts, time, and (the changing nature of) memory. Kirby took that chilling scene and began developing ideas about the echoes of memory and how those echoes can fade. The antique 78 records he samples and loops end up being snippets of songs connected to a time and place but that connection is deliberately tenuous. Aside from the initial spectral sound of this idea, I am sure we have all had the experience of having a melodic phrase or a single line of a verse from a song stuck in our heads, unable to recall what the song is, who sang or played it, or how we know it to begin with. But there it is, a little isolated moment in our brains, surrounded by nothingness, a void. Thus The Caretaker project morphed into the aural manifestation of the disintegration of memory itself...of dementia or Alzheimer's. And now Kirby is in the midst of the final installment of the project called "Everywhere at the end of time," a series of six collections of music, released every six months. According to Kirby, the project itself has dementia. You can listen to Stages 1 and 2 in their entirety through the link below.

THE CARETAKER IS RELEASING SIX NEW WORKS.

'Everywhere at the end of time' is a new and finite series exploring dementia, its advance and its totality.

Featuring the sounds from the journey The Caretaker as artist will make after being artistically diagnosed as having early onset dementia.

Each stage will reveal new points of progression, loss and disintegration. Progressively falling further and further towards the abyss of complete memory loss and nothingness.

Viewing dementia as a series of stages can be a useful way to understand the illness, but it is important to realise that this only provides a rough guide to the progress of the condition.

Drawing on a recorded history of 20 years of recollected memories this is one final journey and study into recreating the progression of dementia through sound.

--

Stage 1 - September 2016 (A+B)
Here we experience the first signs of memory loss. This stage is most like a beautiful daydream. The glory of old age and recollection. The last of the great days.

Stage 2 - April 2017 (C+D)
The second stage is the self realisation and awareness that something is wrong with a refusal to accept that. More effort is made to remember so memories can be more long form with a little more deterioration in quality. The overall personal mood is generally lower than the first stage and at a point before confusion starts setting in.

Stage 3 - Released in September 2017

Stage 4 - Released in March 2018

Stage 5 - Released in September 2018

Stage 6 - Released in March 2019

http://brainwashed.com/vvm/

"Alcohol & Adrenaline" by Secular Ghost

From Secular Ghost (the nom de musique of Ryan James, one half of the electronic group Man Without Country), "Alcohol & Adrenaline." Found on his eponymously titled 2016  release.

Every man has it inside of them
An emptiness
This exposé has lived in my drafts folder
For an eternity

This is the antithesis of everything that I am
Don’t look for the closest exit
I wanna be a better man

Every man has it inside of him
An emptiness
Alcohol, adrenaline
Money kills everything

This is the antithesis of everything that I am
Don’t look for the closest exit
I’m gonna be a better man
I wanna be a better man

This is the antithesis of everything that I am
Don’t look for the closest exit
I wanna be a better man


http://secularghost.com/
https://www.facebook.com/secularghost/

"Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams" by Alex Menzies

Composer Alex Menzies wrote a hauntingly beautiful score for the 2013 BBC documentary "Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams." Here are a few tracks...

If you'd like to purchase the entire album, visit:
https://kathexis.bandcamp.com/album/mechanical-marvels-clockwork-dreams

For more information and more music:
https://alexmenzies.net/

"Magic Hour" by Trailblazer

OH. MY. GOD.

I am LOVING this hypnotic new track called "Magic Hour" by Trailblazer (Coleman Guyon a.k.a. Harry Talin) from his collection "Regret." Just the right amount of reverb and distortion...dreamy, float-y, yet still with a groove... stunning.

https://harrytalin.bandcamp.com/