The Best Ambient Music of 2024 | Bandcamp Daily
"As someone who has spent the last three years closely surveying ambient’s dense topography, it has been fascinating to observe the genre’s rapid, but subtle evolution. When I began writing this column at the start of 2022, the popularity of atmospheric music was at a fever pitch, as wellness culture latched onto the so-called “healing qualities” of ambient in the wake of pandemic trauma.
The world has only become more complicated and turbulent since then, but ambient’s mainstream appeal has slightly dwindled. Yet it is increasingly ambitious upon its return to the shadows, entering a bold, amorphous chapter. Over my past 18-or-so months immersed in ambient, it has led me to Brooklyn dancefloors; smokey German warehouses; secretive industrial venues; muddy Revolutionary War bunkers; and beyond—stimulating, sometimes unnerving zones, far removed from the sterile confines of meditation centers and treatment clinics.
As I reflect on another period of jam-packed listening, I cannot quite locate the words to accurately summarize the broad condition of ambient right now. That is exactly how I can tell it is in an exciting place. From Dialect to Slowfoam to Buttechno, here are a handful of ambient-leaning albums that stuck with me throughout an intense, albeit musically fruitful 2024." – Ted Davis
TD: "Many of the best instrumental compositions possess an ability to transport. Andrew PM Hunt’s latest record as Dialect, Atlas Of Green_,_ rises to this task. Released by RVNG Intl., the album envisions the life of a musician named Green, who is operating against the backdrop of a plausible near future, in which flora and fauna mingle with technological relics from a toppled civilization. On these 12 tracks, earthy strums rise from synthesized soil, like lavender growing out of stone. In a societal moment marked by overwhelming uncertainty, Atlas Of Green confronts themes of dystopia while radiating hopefulness."
TD: "It’s difficult to classify CS + Kreme—a trait that works to the project’s advantage. The Melbourne-based duo of Conrad Standish and Sam Karmel is just as likely to dole out dubby murk as they are to offer a melancholy guitar sketch. Their latest album for British label and streetwear brand The Trilogy Tapes, The ButterflyDrinks TheTears Of The Tortoise_,_ highlights their range. Across eight pieces, prickly billows and bulging minimal grooves inject modernity into murmuring folk arrangements. The Butterfly Drinks The Tears Of The Tortoise wanders in and out of focus, the whole thing seemingly engulfed by tendrils of gray smog."
Also one of my favorites of the year.
TD: "Mari Maurice (aka more eaze) has gradually but persistently climbed to the forefront of the New York City indie scene. The Austin, Texas transplant debuted as a solo artist in the 2010s, prolifically releasing material and performing in tandem with Claire Rousay, Lomelda, and many others. In 2024, Maurice expanded further, exploring dismantled Americana, harsh post-rock, and computerized noise. The mellowest of her efforts was the more eaze album lacuna and parlor_,_ which arrived via reliably solid Polish label Mondoj. Whispers of chamber music and incidental recordings turn up across these seven tracks. Bowed swells and trembling slide guitar hover atop elongated chord progressions. For as scholastic as what lies beneath the surface is, the thing that makes lacuna and parlor shine is its coziness. It conjures the enveloping woodiness of a cedar cigar box, stuffed with incense instead of tobacco."
TD: "London’s underground is in a healthy state. Endlessness_—_the entrancing sophomore album from Nala Sinephro—is a testament to the UK city’s communal inventiveness. The album is an interwoven suite, carried by a repeated arpeggio that’s passed between players. Endlessness features contributions from celebrated bandleader Nubya Garcia, black midi drummer Morgan Simpson, Ezra Collective’s James Mollison, and others. This hodgepodge of guests enable the chic blend of synthesis, harping, and featherweight orchestration that Sinephro has honed to traverse cosmic summits and aqueous valleys. Endlessness makes me imagine what might have happened if kindred harp innovators like Alice Coltrane or Dorothy Ashby had recorded for Sinephro’s label Warp."
Also one of my favorites of the year.
TD: "It is hardly shocking that a label run by seasoned electronic music journalist Philip Sherburne and Lapsus founder Albert Salinas would quickly become one of the greatest ambient resources going. Launched in 2021, Balmat has established a bookish lane with records from Patricia Wolf, Hoavi, and nueen. The imprint maintained its stride this year, with burbling albums by Coral Morphologic and Nick León, Panoram, Bartosz Kruczyński, Luke Wyland, and Luke Sanger. Sanger’s Dew Point Harmonics firmly captured my attention due to its pairing of dissonance and naturalism. Shaped by one-of-a-kind software, pretty melodies are woven together over coarse rustles and atonal timbres. The 13 pieces on Dew Point Harmonics are the result of solitary hikes on the English coast. While they were generated using modules and algorithms, they exude a deceptively human spontaneity."
Love the artwork from José Quintanar, someone I've been following as part of a small number of artists working in what I guess I'll call "formalist comics."
TD: "Joseph Kamaru, who records as KMRU, has quickly ascended to the foreground of the avant-garde, thanks to both his academic methods and conceptual approach. He continued to roll out albums at a steady clip this year, one of which was a notable collaboration with The Bug’s Kevin Richard Martin. But my favorite KMRU of the year was Natur_._ The 52-minute track is an homage to the stillness of his adopted home in Berlin, contrasting it with the bustle of his native Nairobi. A grainy hum, peppered with skittering field recordings, shifts from a sharp rattle to a fathomless void. Tweaked over tour dates alongside Fennesz, Natur emphasizes KMRU’s dynamic simplicity."
It's a nice record like all of the rest of the KMRU albums I've heard but it still doesn't really hit the right spot for me. Something about his production style just doesn't connect with me. It's probably my favorite that I've heard from him, though!
TD: "Over the last few years, forward-thinking composer Elori Saxl has drifted between New York City and Wisconsin. Her Guggenheim-supported release for Western Vinyl, Drifts and Surfaces_,_ is inspired by stints on Madeline Island, Wisconsin during Covid-19 lockdowns. Existence on the small settlement in Lake Superior led Saxl to ruminate on the intersection of physical and digital realities. The three faltering pieces on Drifts and Surfaces have a distinctly Midwestern aura, evoking a frigid beachside terrain with windswept drones on processed acoustic instruments. Appearances from the Third Coast Percussion and Tigue drum ensembles add to Drifts and Surfaces’s inward-gazing glow."
TD: "Frequent collaborators Ulla Straus and Aleksandra Zakharenko (aka Perila) marry trendiness and technicality. For as bloopy and withdrawn as their respective work can be, they’re also heavily influenced by jazz. Jazz Plates_—the pair’s aptly-titled partnership for Barcelona’s Paralaxe Editions—is the result of the duo recording together IRL for the first time. The end result is freewheeling and springy, calling to mind jasmine wafting on summer breeze. Since this album dropped in September, I’ve been hung up all over again on Ulla’s excellent 2022 album Foam—_an instant addition to the pantheon of classic glitch records. Jazz Plates pulls from a similar palette, but reframes it in immediate, organic ways."
TD: "As is the case for many people who work on the creative side of music, I don numerous hats in my daily grind. Away from journalism, I frequently DJ and book events around New York City. One of the better decisions that I made this year was cold-emailing Lo Bise (aka Liai) to ask if they would play at a psychedelic loft show I co-ordinated. Their set that night was strikingly nuanced, made spellbinding by bubbling vocal snippets and beds of glacial texture. It reinforced my infatuation with their April album, Pastoral Stills From Every Age, which recalls a hypothetical video game soundtrack or the ‘90s output of Oval. Liai dwells adjacent to the club, not club realm, while also building a singular, lush microhabitat."
TD: "Over the course of the last few years, the chillout room has been resurrected. The decompression space was a staple at ‘90s raves, but largely disappeared from consciousness at the turn of the century. Due to the emergence of queer lounges like Kwia in Berlin and parties like Osmosis in Oregon, public relaxation and formless electronics are once again being reunited in interesting ways. Near the heart of this movement is Madelyn Byrd (aka Slowfoam), a Berlin-based artist originally from the United States. Their March full-length for Somewhere Press, Transcorporeal Portal_,_ utilizes thumping percussion, deep pads, and manipulated acoustics to ponder gender and ecology. Masterfully twisting familiar timbres into baffling structures, Transcorporeal Portal’s universe is mirrored, yet brambly. Byrd’s prior releases for Jungle Gym Records and Mappa hinted at their knack for wordlessly tackling cerebral subject matter. Transcorporeal Portal takes things to the next level, enhanced by Byrd’s virtuosic aural design."
TD: "Berlin-based DJ and producer Pavel Milyakov typically releases his aloof outings eponymously; he employs his alias Buttechno for livelier cuts, which have landed on the labels like Kalahari Oyster Cult, Incienso, and others. March’s unjustly overlooked Buttechno album, Lost Sounds, channels a barren wintriness that reminds me of latter-day Burial. Frosty pads splash oceanic strokes on a bleak canvas of crackles and hisses. Occasionally, vague breakbeats and 2-step rhythms push into eclectic, driving territory. Even at these pummeling crests, Lost Sounds is remarkably introspective—a record I have kept returning to on hushed nocturnal walks."
TD: "On paper, the idea of an ambient release serving as an incitement to motion seems somewhat contradictory. But—in a 2024 defined by boundary destruction—DJ Birdbath’s Memory Empathy toed the line between propulsion and airiness exceptionally well. The album arrived via Australian label and mix series Theory Therapy, and fuses dubby chords, woozy samples, and downcast grooves. The majority of the record is suited for glazed-eyed discombobulation, but its energetic peaks are particularly gripping. Disassembled jungle opener “Kitsch Memory” embodies this essence, begging to score bouts of euphoria and fluttery anxiety in equal measure. Memory Empathy offers many such examples of bleary beat-making at its most emotive and bittersweet."