Although most microgenres are just fairly pointless splinters of grander themes, I do like a good concept so I'm running with naturewave - a fusion of new age & ambient music with a vaporwave (discuss!) veneer, as I like its sonic genes. It certainly helps when the new LP from Kunisaki for naturewave enablers Liminal Garden is a perfectly rounded ambient cocktail and ideal weekend sofa soundtrack.

We are proud to feature this most special album by producer Kunisaki, who's been on our radar since his popular space-themed debut over on French dreampunk label Mobile Suits. The talented artist, who works as an astronomer, remains earthbound for “Everything it brings, everything it takes away”, a deeply personal album presented as an ambient walk through an autumnal forest.

Sunken in thought, the wanderer's mind circles around the transience of life and the unstoppable wear of time itself, while the soft chime of rustling leaves, the soothing chords of wind chimes and distant church bells are a constant presence on an otherwise solitary walk.

Tender, majestic pads paint a picture of colorful landscapes and wistful melodies sparkle like raindrops on an unresting river surface. The sunlight is filtered through yellowed birch leaves — a reminder of both decay and renewal, everything life takes away and everything it leaves us with in exchange along the way.

Elevating the album to another level is the eye-popping art of illustrator Christina Davies, who has mixed her traditional drawings with digital art much like the album combines field recordings and programmed music. Her colorful artwork graces not only the cover but also the individual track art.

The full album will be released in two weeks on Friday the 25th. And then later this year on a beautiful cassette (that's still being worked on right now).

CREDITS
All music by Kunisaki
Artwork created by Christina Davies
Tape design by LIMINAL GARDEN

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Support Kunisaki here:
kunisaki.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/0kunisaki

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Support Christina Davies here:
instagram.com/christinadavies42

Put some good natured funk, summertime jazz sparkle and mellow disco delight into your wintery weekend or dance around the pool in your swimsuits if you're in the southern hemisphere, with the classy vintage bells, bygone cinematic whistles & distinctive arrangements of Mocky and his West Coast warmed, extended edit begging grooves.

Following up last year’s orchestral album opus “Overtones For The Omniverse", Mocky has been releasing a number of upbeat and uplifting instrumental tracks and now collects them as "Goosebumps Per Minute, Volume 1" on classic vinyl and digital. Putting his vocals and songwriting to the side for this project, Mocky employs harps, horns, and 70’s analogue synths to provide a funky soundtrack that spreads a little of that California sunshine in the listeners direction. Built around Mocky's signature basslines and ensemble vocal arrangements that include his son Telly and his daughter Lulu, all recorded to his vintage ampex tape machine, Mocky did away with the normal metronomic BPM calculations in modern production and instead measured his music in "GPM" (the tempo at which music transmits Goosebumps) - and on top of a multitude of summery bass, drums & strings perfection, Vicky Farewell drops a blistering Rhodes solo on "Flutter" and Carlos Niño lends a percussive hand on the sublime "Iridescence”. Todd M. Simon handles the horn duties, and Liza Wallace infuses the dance tracks with live harp which recalls the floating approach of Alice Coltrane. Titles like "Refractions", "Wavelengths" or "Conduction" are hinting at a scientific approach to creating the conditions for "Goosebumps Per Minute" - his own calculus for the timing of how and when to hit and strum the things in his studio to make it raw & funky.

The songs were also inspired by his time hanging out at the Goldline bar in LA’s Highland Park. “Throughout the pandemic it was the one place I could go and sit outside and hear incredible music as I listened to my friend DJ Phonecalls playing from the Goldline's vinyl collection. He would be dropping these uplifting funk and disco cuts - and at the end of the night I would go home to my studio and make a track and upload it to my Bandcamp and the streaming services immediately ... It reminded me of my time in Tokyo's vinyl bars so "Goosebumps Per Minute" owes a lot to that inspiring culture as well“.

CREDITS:

Liza Wallace / Harp
Todd M. Simon / Horns
Carlos Niño / Percussion on Iridescence
Vicky Farewell / Fender Rhodes solo on Flutter
Molly Rogers / Strings on Conduction
Mocky / Drums, Bass, Piano, Synths, Percussion, Guitar, Flute Vocals by Mocky, Telly Salole and Lulu Salole
Group Vocals on Glide by Fi Campbell, Leslie Feist, Todd Dahlhoff

Produced by Mocky
Composed by Dominic” Mocky” Salole
Published by Heavy Sheet Music/Warner Chappell

Recorded at Ego’s Landing Studios, Los Angeles on an Ampex C440 tape machine
A1-A3 Mixed by Renaud Letang, A4-B5 Mixed by Ben Kane

Mastered by Emilie Daelemans
Executive Production by Jürgen Söder
Cover artwork by Rand Sevilla

P+C Heavy Sheet Productions 2022
Contact: management@mockyrecordings.com / www.mockyrecordings.com / www.heavysheet.com

 If you want to know what the afterlife sounds like as the echoes of your life flashing before you are still resonating - from early club adventures; the midlife Netflix years; the Caribbean cruise, on your way towards that funny light, then check out the disembodied ambient vibes of JJ+JS for Daisart.

All tracks written by JJ+JS
Mixed with Alex Talan
Mastered by Kassian Troyer
Lathe cut by Dubplates & Mastering
Cover art by Lowe Fehn
Back of sleeve by Craig Tattersall
Inner labels by J

I'm more inclined towards lubricating life's wheels with music, but occasionally I need to save on psychotherapy bills with something more poignant; scrape past the thorns of my first world bed of roses & spring clean some repressed emotions. In this case the hypnotic, aching beauty of Simon McCorry's cello motifs on his new LP for Polar Seas as they weave through the  cerebral synth shadows is just the therapeutic ticket & a stunning listen.

Written and recorded by Simon McCorry
Mastered by Ian Hawgood
Photography by Nikoletta Monyok

Simon McCorry returns to Polar Seas following his beautiful And Where Are You Really From? album released in March of 2021. Gorgeous and mournful compositions for cello and electronics.

Twice horn
Sworn to silence
Not quiet
But nothing
Limitless
Borderless
Skin flayed
Raw and contiguous

As the northern hemisphere skies are coloured grey, the cold winds taunt & the reservoirs fill once more, Strulgattu aided by the graceful strings of Meierkord & Messy Weekend Records, ruminate on the changing seasons in classic chill out fashion, helping to ease my start of week reticence & gently nudge me towards the inevitable workload.

When we make music, we always try to find a leitmotif. This album is about the four seasons and the weather, a popular topic when doing small talk with strangers, but also a subject for scientific observation in meteorology. When does the spring start? Is this really summertime? Is it autumn now? The album title “Ankomstkarta” (Arrival Map) refers to a map the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) use to define when different seasons arrive in Sweden, and the four songs are named after blog posts discussing this topic. The seasons are something we experience with our senses, and we also associate them with sounds. This is something we’ve tried to create here. Lately, this issue has become a disquieting matter. It has transformed from being a convenient way of getting in touch with people, to something that also concerns an existential dimension about our common future. This dark feature also comes from through in the songs featured here.

All songs written by: Haglunds, Meierkord & Persson
Produced by: Matts Persson
Mixed by: Magnus Haglunds
Mastered by: Henrik Gennert
Artwork by: Gabriel Wentz

I can't think of a more suitable day job for an ambient music producer to have than as a librarian, in fact now I think about it I'm surprised there aren't more. So say a hushed hello to Lee Hannah and his good natured, bucolic, New Age Ambient transmission via Healthy Tapes which is hitting the easy listening Sunday sweet spot. But please show some respect and Ssshhhhhh when listening.

Lee Hannah is a Naarm-based librarian, artist and educator. Their practice involves a hybrid of field recordings, new age synthesis and ecological composition to create works inspired by environmental artists such as Hiroshi Yoshimura and Yoshio Ojima. Mirror Reflections, their debut album, showcases the artist’s rich explorations into environmental sound design, utilising field recordings and samples to produce compositions that embrace their role as ambient tone-setting music for daily tasks, while also provide enough texture and hue for those who desire to slowly absorb them.

Tracks like Day Spa and Sunset Traffic transport the listener into the complex ecological world, not just with bird sounds, but with the intricacy of movement, wind and the physiological facets of nature, while Telese Terme and Moss Acrylic play with the environment captured in sound, at times mimicking natural moments with soft synths and washed out saxophones. The resulting work, accompanied by it’s Malevich-esque artwork, is a new age juxtaposition of organic landscapes and digital commodities with neither overpowering each other - a sharp contrast to the anthropological and technological dominance irreparably shifting societies today.

This work was made on land rightfully owned by the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land. 

The three members of Orions Belte each go solo then combine the results on this sprawling, (un?)surprisingly cohesive triple LP for Jansen that showcases their creatively uncompromised visions spanning dream pop, the avant-garde, psychedelic funk, new age noodling, cosmic Americana and spiritual jazz, & it's quite the ride.

For Orions Belte it has always been about bringing all the ideas to the table. It could be a weird song idea, taking a tune in a totally different direction, or collaborating with other artists.

When the idea came up to do three solo albums, it felt surprisingly natural. We saw it as an opportunity to show where each member of the band comes from musically, and what they bring to the party. The finished product will be three very different albums, put together in one magnificent box set. Every band member setting their own premise.

The idea vaguely came to life after thinking of the KISS solo albums from 1978, where every member released their own album under the KISS logo. And of course, from all the members of Wu-Tang Clan, releasing all their albums under the Wu-Tang moniker.

The first solo album from Orions Belte is produced, composed and performed by bass player Chris Holm, and is filled with beautiful indie-pop, featuring several guests like Sondre Lerche and Hajk singer Sigrid Aase. Guitar player Øyvind Blomstrøm decided to make an album where every note is written, recorded and played by himself. Last but not least – drummer Kim Åge Furuhaug, put together a wonderful ensemble with two of Norway's finest jazz musicians, Ole Morten Vågan and Andreas Ulvo, making it a very different instrumental album. Kim’s album is written and arranged together with Norwegian producer and regular Orions Belte collaborator Matias Tellez.

Why do this, when you could’ve done it as a unit? Well, why the hell not! We love pushing ourselves into new territories – this is just another way of doing it. 

If you need some bump and oomph but not the full rave then check out the deep start of night/emotional moment beats, after the dance ambient vibes and cascading synths from Amane for Música Macondo. One for your head and hips

The world is an increasingly dark place to be. Writing this music helped me find a brief escape from all the noise, I Hope that listening to it does the same for you.