Voices From The Lake - II (Spazio Disponibile) [Ambient House / Techno]

The Slow Music Movement
16 hours ago
2 min read

*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's January 15th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

The cover for Donato Dozzy and Neel aka Voices From The Lake's II album, showing an abstract blue and white watercolor design with organic shapes. Text "VOICES FROM THE LAKE II" at the top suggests a serene mood.

Fourteen years ago I was living in Barcelona and leaning more to future soul, heavy basslines and global sounds, so that’s my excuse for missing Voices From The Lake’s debut album, although the more electronically inclined lapped it up and have been lauding it ever since. Well Donato Dozzy and Neel are back with the project’s sophomore album, and are making all my ambient house dreams come true.

Donato Dozzy and Neel aka Voices From The Lake, stand in a lush, green foliage setting. One wears glasses and a grey shirt, the other a black shirt. The mood is contemplative.

I skipped their debut quickly before sinking into this new effort and the ambient essence is still there, but there’s obviously been a lot of studio time in between and the extra polish and craft is noticeable. The new release is lusher, deeper and I can’t help thinking the sound more timeless, whereas their debut has something of the twenty-teens about it which were a miserable minimal house saturated period on the whole, and inspired me to start Barcelona’s musically eclectic Contraflow parties.

Like all good mixes the duo start off slow and gradually build intensity but stop well short of ten, politely drawing you into the musical depths, and boy do they go deep. The transitions are patient and seamless, obviously helped by the fact that the tracks were made to measure, and there’s not a duff track on there. It really is an ambient house/techno master class that will even appeal to people that think they don’t like house (go on try it); it’s dance music that works more for the head than the hips and it’s ambient music for people with things to do, not to mention the best mix I’ve heard since I tipped the Call Super album. If you like it then follow it up with a spin through my Ambient House Playlist.