James Bernard - Atmospherics (30th Anniversary Edition)
Many of you will know James for his releases here on ASIP, but since then, James has made a home with the crew at PITP, and so of course they got first dibs on reissuing this beast of his. Atmospherics is one of the seminal electronic ambient albums of the 90’s, and one for the heads. You won’t often find it on many, ‘best of’ lists, but you will hear many reputable DJs and producers reference it as a major impact on their productions, with its acid-tinged synthesis that James is now well known for, and straddling the lines of trance, downtempo and ambient with a full throw-back to the chill out rooms of the time. One of the people it impacted some 30-years ago, is Brock van Wey aka bvdub, who has been enlisted to reinterpret the entire album for this Anniversary Edition.
I would imagine an entirely new set of tracks to be born from Brock’s mind - not just remixes, but complete deconstructions, reimagined from the ground up.
Old Amica - För alltid
About as organic and textured as ambient music comes, this is one of those records to find subtle details in every time you listen, while wandering an expansive landscape of nordic winter. For fans of Ous Mal; with Sigur Ros, Johann Johannson and Thomas Koner on backing duties.
Minotaur Shock - Salina Pulse Streams
I’m new to Minotaur Shock, and it looks like I’ve got some catching up to do. I gravitated toward this album due to it’s ‘mixtape’ nature as described in the album notes. Experimental downtempo and trip-hop with lush metallic tones and clean, clean drum programming. Recommend a full album listen from top to bottom to hear the evolution as intended.
Ovid - Dream Sequence
Synkro’s Ovid alias turns out a beautifully lush piece of dub-techno on Dream Sequence EP. The title track is as classic dub-techno as you can wish for, with its muddled beats, syncopated patterns and subtle hi-hats. One to get lost in. The other two tracks open up the highs a bit more, but remain on point with more glitch-focused elements, for an all-round superb EP.
3.11 - Illuminate
Lastly, it’s an awesome day when a certain ‘vinyl-only’ artist until now, releases their collection on Bandcamp. 3.11 has made some of the most sought-after ambient and ambient-leaning techno vinyl of recent years (I’m only missing a couple luckily!). 3.11 styles can vary between lush swathes of ambient textures and swampy dub-techno, to italo house and 90’s sounding downtempo. Now they’re all available digitally.
Expect to see more 3.11 music in ambient mixes in, 3, 2, 1….
Find these albums and many more over on my Bandcamp Collection.
