Welcome to Ambient Explorations! This is your first visit so please feel at home. Comments are appreciated! -Flict

Coming soon, on Mind Tweekers records!

Made another bandcamp.com discovery yesterday: Tangram

This ambient/downtempo project from Budapest is defined by its own creator (Peter Fabok) as “When Solar Fields meets Jean Michel Jarre”. I confess that I was never a big Jarre fan but since he mentioned Solar Fields I jumped in immediately. He has two albums and one EP released on bandcamp, all of them with  ”name your price” tag. My favorite one, Micropolis, has Ultimae Records written all over it. You get 9 psychedelic tracks, some with a beat, some minimalistic, others melodic, most with a nice nostalgic atmosphere.

Chek it out, specially if you like the artists mentioned above.

Since last week I’ve been immersed in this fresh new compilation released by Shulman and DJ Sahar (owners of Aleph Zero).   After a little disappointment with “Natural Born Chillers 2” (to oriental for my taste most of the time) this time they went for a similar mood that from the amazing “Midnight Soul Dive” compilation released three years ago: serious cutting edge chill and ambient with a quirky high-tech flavour. Do they succeed? Hell yeah!!

All the tracks, without exception, have top-notch production and are filled with fresh ideas and beautiful (and most of the time quite simple) melodies. There is also a big IDM and Glitch influence, giving the whole trip a more upbeat feeling this time. In fact the album was certainly made to be listened as a one great composition or journey since the tracks work better as steps than as individual entities.

But please don’t think there are no highlights! The Krusseldorf track (Boxing) gets me amazed with his sonic wizardry every time I listen to it, the Aligning Minds one (Tee-child) is a hell of a trip filled with tasty sounds, Eitan Reiten managed to transform Shulman’s “One Step Closer” with weird hypnotic alien sounds and finishing everything with great style comes Minilogue with gorgeous and deeeeeeeep tech-lowfi monster (“When The Roof Is Low Open Your Heart And The Sky Will Follow”). You can easily buy the album just for the above tracks… but you still get famous names that never disappoint like Vataff Project, Robert Rich (!!!), Omnimotion, I Awake and Hibernation. Together with less famous but not less exciting ones (who the hell is Alexander Daf and why I never heard him before?!) you get what probably will be the best 2010 ambient/chill compilation.

My only complaint is about the transition between the tracks. Sometimes they are quite abrupt and not DJ friendly. But this is only a small point and should not distract you from what is, in my opinion, the best compilation released by Aleph Zero so far!

Listen to samples and buy it here. Highly recommended!!!

2004 saw the release of one the best down tempo albums ever in my humble opinion, Phutureprimitive‘s Sub Conscious. It’s blend of tribal rhythms, twisted synths and highly psychoactive atmospheres rocked a lot of chill stages around the globe and it is still a benchmark for the style.

When the awesome Interchill Records VA “Future Memmories” was released two years ago I was really surprised by the direction of his track “Deeper”. Much more commercial (vocals!) but very well produced and still retaining the Phutureprimitive touch. How wrong was I to think it was a one-track-only offering… Going the same direction as Simon Posford,  now the Phutureprimitive project is a live band with more 3 members! And it seems to be quite a treat, watch for yourself:

The “Luminous EP”, released on May, follows on the same path. Twisted psychedelic down tempo with male and female vocals. Very well produced and with great refreshing sound, reminded me a lot of the ProSect vs Reflekshum album (“Imagination Corporation”). And it even contains a remix of one of mys favorite tracks from “Sub Conscious”: Darkness.

Highly recommended!

Kalpataru Tree‘s first album, Scattered Fragments Of The Eternal Dream, came out of nowhere in 2007 and became one of the most listened during this great year for ambient music. I was mesmerized by the effortless blend of dubby grooves and dreamy guitar riffs.

I was very happy to find that he released a second album in June and it’s very good! The production quality evolved a lot (the first one was a little low on this) and you can feel that the compositions are more mature and held back. Even if it’s not as original and beautiful as the first one, the highlights are still here: organic textures and dreamy trippy dubby atmospheres.

Recommended to lovers of psydub, guitar, and easy listening chill.

After reading on The Echoes Blog that the guys from Future Sound of London won the Mojo Award for “best Compilation” I got curious about what they are doing nowadays. I already knew about their modern day 60′s psychedelic band Amourphous Androgynous but didn’t knew that the FSOL went on this road to.

So armed with a lot of curiosity I started listening to The Isness and was hit with a bang. This is great music! First thing: Forget “Lifeforms” or “Dead cities”. Forget eletronic music. Instead, think of Syd Barret, King Crimson and all the big progressive rock names. This is psychedelic prog rock made on 2000′s! If you like the style check this album, you will not regreat it. It was released on 2002, how I have missed this is a mystery to me.

And if you are wondering “who the hell is Future Sound of London” do yourself a favour and listen to “Lifeforms” album, a milestone of the ambient genre (released on 1994!) that still works like a charm. Prepare to be transported…

Came across this project last week on thesixtyone and immediately downloaded their new free release: Raja. Ambient music with a lot of instigating emotional melodies passing by and a oriental vibe. Reminded me of the first Koan album, “Two Moon Butterflies”. High quality production!

Download it here.

Following Magnus Birgersson (aka Solar Fields) musical recommendations, I purchased the new Hammock album in flac format… and it is amazing!!

The first thing that came to mind when listening to “Chasing After Shadows… Living With the Ghosts” was Godspeed You Black Emperor. Like the Canadian band, Hammock uses a lot of guitar feedback drowned in reverb. But sounds here are a lot more gentle and melodic than the former. It is also a very visual album, reminding me of childhood memories and places that I miss.

I can tell this is one of the albums that will grow on me. A lot of depth and atmosphere here. Can be quite transcendental at times… Recommended, especially for fans of Post-rock!

Buy it here.

If you like indie and/or electronic music you need to know about this website. Launched last week, Altered Zones is portal (or group of blogs) with reviews, releases, and everything about weird, strange and cutting edge music. The amount of information is staggering!

Fluid Audio just released a new gem. No one seems to know who “Hummingbird” is and I’ve being told that he want this to stay that way. In my opinion it just enhances the aura of mystery around the album.

First thing that one notices (as always with Fluid Audio) is the beautiful package, containing an original photographic polaroid slide, dating back to the 1940’s! I’ve said this before but will repeat: there is no better way of making folks buy an album than creating a nice and desirable package.

The music can be categorized as modern classical and is very gentle and introspective. A lot of sustained piano notes and minimal arrangements, make this an album that reward repetitive listens. I’ve read a review that captured the atmosphere of this album perfectly: “it creates a place in order for the listener to exist and giving that place meaning or definition.”

Limited to 100 copies, this is ambient music perfect for artistic creation and deep thinking. Get it here.