This year brought with it an enormous range of such incredible ambient music, from the minimal ambient-dub, to the ECM inspired new age, to the 70s kraut rock influenced synth explorations, blurring the lines of categorization and genre. As disparate as they can be, the one unifying theme of all my favourite ambient records is a distinct sense of place. The ability to turn a dark bedroom into an echoing cathedral, a place of whispers and prayers, a lonely bus ride into a journey through the fathomless voids of unexplored space. A favourite ambient album will always bring you where you need to be, even, and especially, if that place is within your self. I can say with certainty that every album on this list took me somewhere I needed to be this year, revealed a part of my self that I needed to see, gave me solace or stillness or sleep or the ability to see or cry or think. This is the music of the universe, and of the mind. Thank you, creators, for the most important music of my life.
*NOTE* I don't usually like to rank my favourite albums, and have avoided doing so on my other lists thus far, but there were two albums from this year that became such a huge part of my life, quickly establishing themselves as all time favourites in such a short period of time, that I decided to give them the recognition they deserve with the top 2 spots. Everything else is in no specific order.
MY NUMBER 1 PICK:
Hotel Neon - Context
My favourite ambient album of the year is also, by far, my most listened to album this year, totalling at 113 complete front to back listens, many of which were spent fully engaged in the experience; lying on my back, staring into darkness, allowing the sounds to envelope me completely. Over the passed few years, Hotel Neon have quietly been producing some of the most impeccable, soaring drone music I have ever heard, this being the third year in a row that they have an album at the very top of my year end list. Within seconds of pressing play, deep meditative tones wrap the listener in a soft, loving embrace, guitar and bass perfectly in tune with the vibrations of the earth. Like ambient masters Stars of the Lid, Hotel Neon are able to access a sound so pure and organic, it feels as if it has descended directly from the heavens, that it almost seems wrong to quantify with the limits of human language. Painting wide brush strokes across the night sky with thick, sleep inducing guitar tones, Context lulls you into a state of utter peace and stillness, leaving you safely dreaming in the loving arms of the ether.
https://hotelneon.bandcamp.com/album/context
RUNNER UP:
Northumbria - Markland
Jim Field and Dorian Williamson of Northumbria are two of the hardest working people in ambient music, constantly evolving and pushing their sound to unbelievable new heights with each successive release, and their latest album, out on Cryo Chamber, might be their best yet, an absolute masterwork in ambient guitar music. "The second album in Northumbria’s trilogy inspired by the Norse discovery of Canada", the sounds here are utterly transportive, sweeping you up in their enormous drones that gently carry the mind to a place not touched by man, the music moving purposefully like a boat down a river. Jim's delicately bowed guitars swell towards the heavens and crash to the rocks like waves in a storm, Dorian providing a thick, subterranean bass that rumbles from deep within the earth, the pure, raw power of nature and the fury of the old gods on full display in the composition and execution of this hugely ambitious accomplishment in ambient music.
https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/album/markland
THE REST:
Emra Grid - Shay's Vacation House
Opal Tapes has been absolutely killing it this year, expanding beyond their signature sound of hard hitting industrial techno and dark, saturated electronics, into new and unknown territory, this time, a surprisingly gorgeous ambient record. Dynamic and engaging throughout the entirety of it's 37 minutes, Shay's Vacation House is a largely narrative listening experience, sometimes feeling less like an album than a very well paced story told through sound design. The massive, sweltering drones of the first few tracks hang in space like a monolith before collapsing in on themselves in a crash of scraping metal and flying dust, taking a turn for the beautiful as lush cavernous notes begin to pour in from every direction, bathing the sound in dusty beams of light, leaving the listener in a state of suspended bliss.
RIYL: Tim Hecker, early Stars of the Lid
http://opaltapes.com/album/shays-vacation-house
Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement - Ambient Black Magic
Dominick Fernow's music under the Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement alias has always had a vaguely threatening quality to it, bringing to mind a sort of Heart Of Darkness journey into the inner depths of the unknown, and on his latest release, Dom insists on bringing us deeper into the darkness than ever before. Submerged in a dense tropical heat, we are led on a boat ride through sparse percussion and soft bass throbs that ebb and flow like the movements of a river, the sounds of trickling water and insects in the distance hiding something deeply sinister, watching us from the shadows.
Echoes of the minimal dub work of Porter Ricks and Wolfgang Voigt are heard in this work more than ever before, bringing a new level of substance to the project, a faint heartbeat amidst the smoke.
https://boomkat.com/products/ambient-black-magic
Bitchin' Baja's - Baja's Fresh
Much like the gorgeous artwork on the front of the album, Bitchin' Baja's weave a colourful tapestry of sounds on their latest record, analog synthesizers bubbling and dancing around Motorik grooves that vibrate in a constant state of motion. Their signature sound, inspired largely by the Kraut-Rock and Kosmiche music of the 60's and 70's, is as blissful and exciting as ever, urgent and purposeful yet allowed the necessary space to breathe and grow organically. Holding the album together at the very centre, and providing a much needed rest amongst all of the modular gymnastics, is a 23 minute pure drone piece; woozy, narcotic tones drifting in and out of phase, allowing the mind to drift inward before throwing the listener right back into the kaleidoscopic universe where the Baja's reign supreme. Capping off the album is a heart-wrenching, wide eyed sax solo sitting atop a soft bed of synth drones, sounding like communion between player and cosmos; a profession of love to the universe, and a soft kiss goodnight.
https://bitchinbajas.bandcamp.com/album/bajas-fresh
36 - Tomorrow's Explorers
The music of 36 has been on my radar for quite a few years, mostly in a peripheral sense, but it wasn't until the release of this album of crushingly beautiful space themed music that I truly begun to understand what the fuss was all about. The most positively enlightening music of the year (not to mention that album art!), lush, Steve Roach-esque synth pads wash over like some celestial message from the sun, bathing the listener in a warmth and positivity much needed in this world. Like some of the strongest, most uplifting moments on Brian Eno's Apollo, the music on Tomorrow's Explorers reaches astounding heights of inspiration and beauty so arresting as to make one step back, and simply appreciate what it is to be alive, like a cosmonaut staring down at earth from the vastness of space.
http://3six.net/album/tomorrows-explorers
Wordclock - Heralds
Following up 2015's excellent Self Destruction Themes, Wordclock's latest album on the always incredible Cryo Chamber label is a brave change in direction that pays off enormously, bringing to the forefront elements of darkjazz and modern classical, while still maintaining an incomparably rich sense of atmosphere that wraps the listener in a warm, impenetrable darkness that doesn't let go. Heralds manages to match it's haunted atmospheres and impressive production techniques with some of the most thoughtful and deeply textured compositions heard in any music this year, looped cello's and shifting electronics crawling up the spine with cold fingers, as horns, piano, and an array of acoustic instruments swirl around each other like a spectral, living fog.
https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/album/heralds
Bing & Ruth - No Home for the Mind
Bing & Ruth is the project of pianist/composer David Moore, who's minimalist, ambient take on neoclassical piano music is some of the most undeniably affecting instrumental music being made today. The sweeping, arpeggiating piano notes that define Moore's sound drift plaintively along the horizon, each soft note a drop of rain on warm pavement, falling in unquantifiable numbers to create a steady rush of sound that carries you away in it's heart-wrenching beauty. As the storm subsides, we are left in moments of stillness, spacious notes leaving enough silence between for the mind to reflect and ground itself before, once again, being swept away in the weightlessness of the sea.
http://bingandruth.com/
Joseph Shabason - Aytche
Without having ever heard his music before, I was lucky enough to catch this Toronto local open for Hans-Joachim Roedelius a couple of months ago, and was absolutely bowled over by his unique blend of fourth-world influenced processed saxophone experimentations, and soft, new age jazz inflected sounds of the early ECM recordings. Unabashedly romantic, these are the sounds of a lustful encounter under neon light, fretless bass and gauzy synths creating an atmosphere of mystery and seduction for Shabason's lonely saxaphone to dance along to, drifting sleepless between streetlights in the early hours, searching for a bed in which to spend the night.
https://josephshabason.bandcamp.com/album/aytche
Gailes - Seventeen Words
Rafael Anton-Irissari and Thomas Meluch (a.k.a Benoit Pioulard), have both been, as usual, very busy this year. Between the two of them, having released three solo albums as well as a handful of collaborations in 2017 alone, and each album holding up extremely well in their own rights, they have made for some tough decision making on this year end list. Luckily, out of all of these impressive works, the one that has resonated with me the deepest also happens to be the album that these two masters of introspective ambient music worked on together. Gailes opens with a long, narcotic bass drone that billows and drifts like a sail in the wind, washed in lush synth pads that rise and fall with the calm breathing rhythms of a sleeping lover. Decayed piano notes and swirling processed vocals soon drift into being, borne out of thin air and bringing with them sad reminders of the past, a melancholic nostalgia seeping through the calm. Though collaborative efforts between artists with such distinct sounds can often become an unfortunate matter of artistic dissonance or incompatibility, the collaboration between Rafael Anton-Irissari and Thomas Meluch is a major success in that it not only highlights the merits of each artists individual work, but also serves to push each others sounds to whole new heights of beauty and emotion. With open minds and pouring hearts, this is the sound of two respecting peers teaching, and learning, and somewhere along the way, creating something truly phenomenal.
https://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/seventeen-words