Stay calm; there is still beauty in the world. One can glean this message in this season’s ambient releases, many of which draw inspiration from springtime, the great outdoors, the environment and the cyclical nature of the seasons. There are consolations to be found in the melting snow, the returning birds, the blossoming trees and the blooming flowers. Pristine environments still exist, and even a few minutes in a park or a field can change one’s mood for the better. Add the tranquility of ambient music, and one might even be able to conquer the day. This is the first of six articles that will appear this week, featuring hundreds of spring releases: the first of the flowers to flourish. We welcome you to the sights and sounds of A Closer Listen’s Spring Music Preview!
Our cover image comes from the compilation Into Calm on Friends of Friends Music, listed below.
Home Normal has been extremely pro-active in announcing their 2025 releases, previewed in Ian Hawgood’s Sampler Mix, which includes excerpts of albums released from January through the end of the year. The first spring release is David Cordero & Rhucle‘s So Far, So Close, a meditation on nature specifically timed to coincide with the new season (April 4). Federica Deiana offers Fragments, which nudges against modern composition with healthy servings of strings and piano (April 18). This will be followed by anthéne & Simon McCorry‘s wellspring, “a companion piece to the season’s change” (May 2). On June 6, Monogoto (David Newman, Porya Hatami, and Ian Hawgood) will release Partial Deletion of Everything Volume III, the continuation of an inter-label series that began on Polar Seas and 12k. To peer further into the future, play the sampler below!
The beloved Ceremony of Seasons series returns with Christopher Hamilton‘s Euthermia, which refers to the warming body temperatures of a new season. Spring peepers coexist with synth, guitar and effects, coaxing new life from the ground (March 20). The ongoing Music to Watch Seeds Grow By series has been a wonderful addition to the musical world. The latest edition comes from E Ruscha V, whose Cosmos comes with a packet of seeds to sow while enjoying the bright, encouraging electronic tones (Secret Circuit, March 28). Schatterau takes a wide angle approach to seasonal change, as Übers Jahr (Throughout the Year) addresses the cyclical nature of time, with tracks applicable to all four seasons. Spoken word and swelling soundscapes emphasize the ephemeral nature of existence (Hands in the Dark, March 21). In similar fashion, The Album Leaf switches from electronic to ambient and purple to blue on ROTATIONS, which includes tracks titled “Dance of Seasons” and “Celestial Spin” (Nettwerk, April 11). Four Seasons in Tokyo is the final installment in a trilogy by The Kyoto Connection, a reflection of life in a fictional rural village (Isle of Jura, April 11). Olivia Font‘s Invictam is a “meditation on the passing of the seasons,” with ritualistic voices and a blend of the organic and the electronic. The music is mysterious and alluring, an invitation to head into a sonic forest (Modern Obscure, April 11).
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma‘s Gift Songs is an ode to the natural world, inspired by the spirituality of the Shakers (’tis a gift to be simple). The artist, whose other incarnations are hospice worker and Zen priest, proves holistic in his approach (Mexican Summer, March 21). Five years of environmental works are gathered on Michael Begg‘s WITNESS: Ambient Chamber Works 2020-2024, which includes data from migrations, currents and collapsing glaciers and a preview of the forthcoming Out of Whose Womb Comes the Ice (Omnempathy, May 19). Elori Saxl‘s score to the film Texada delves into the connections between the Canadian island and the people who live there, giving particular attention to nature reclaiming its own (Western Vinyl, April 25).
Okla Records took an unusual approach on its fourth batch of releases; for the first week, they held back the names of the artists, so their intricate music could be appreciated on musical merits alone. We now know that the tapes come from Heroarky, whose Healing Process chronicles a bout with cancer, the yearning for healing and the subsequent recovery; and Mute Branches, whose Us Without the World imagines a “mythical Elsewhere,” where humanity leaves Earth for the stars, only to realize that they have brought their problems along with them (March 28).
Slow dissipations grace In Fondo, which is described by Manuel Carbone as “a diary or sparse shreds of a diary.” It may be the season’s softest release (Dragon’s Eye Recordings, March 28). The Air Outside Feels Crazy Right Now is a close second, described as “a whispered conversation in the quiet moments of the day.” On this album, Perila‘s voice brushes up against sedate, patient guitar (Vaagner, April 3). Billow Observatory‘s music may be calm, but The Glass Curtain is meant to reflect “slowly spinning globes being knocked slightly off axis.” The album marks a return to a purely ambient sound (Felte, April 25). Andreas Lutz uses “resynthesized versions of original voice samples” as the foundation of Aura Trans; the manipulated voices are nearly unrecognizable in their tendril-like forms (Kasuga, March 28). Synthesizer, French horn and bass guitar cause “time to fold in on itself” on greater honeyguide, a set of ambient drift that features marching minstrels, from the duo Fraufraulein (mappa, April 3).
Electric guitar is the only instrument on Le bleu de la rivière tournesol, a meditation on color and flow. Stéphane Odrobinski‘s e-bow donates a haunted timbre (April 4). Somnambulant loops create the backdrop for Aaron Landsman / Norman Westberg‘s spoken word monologue about the Night Keeper, a study of insomnia based on the eponymous play. “Who else is awake?” asks Jehan O. Young. Depending on how interested one is in the narrative, the album may either keep one up or lull one to sleep (Hallow Ground, March 25).
Will Graefe is releasing two albums of folkish, Western-tinged solo guitar works on the same day; Compositions for Guitar Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 drop April 25. The Balloonist jumps slightly forward with Dreamland, which is meant to produce a hazy nostalgia for halcyon summer days in Britain. The artist succeeds with a blend of shoegaze and languid ambience with a soupçon of post-rock (Wayside & Woodland, May 2). more eaze & claire rousay present an unusual Americana on no floor, which seems like a dusty Texas dream, melodies sinking into soundscapes as time and place distort (Thrill Jockey, March 21).
Calming River is a wonderful name for an ambient folk artist, and the music matches the moniker. Macdui is a meditation on modern environmental destruction, an elegy inspired by Michael McCarthy’s Fergus The Silent (April 4). Musik för vänskap may have a giant nuclear explosion on the cover and have been recorded in a bomb shelter, but the piano and guitar-led set is “a soundtrack to friendship,” perhaps a friendship that endures even after all else is gone. Jäverling and von Euler‘s album is released April 3 on Flora & Fauna. The first of four interrelated albums in JICS‘ Quadrants project is already out, with more following in March, April and May. Each has its own character, folklike and warm, 46 tracks in all (Imaginary North).
Henrik Lindstrand reflects on the concept of Ma (last heard here on Manja Ristić’s album of the same name) on Space Between, which expands past piano to incorporate organ, strings, synth, woodwinds and drums (Lime Tree Beach, April 25). Trumpet, violin, upright bass, cello and more appear on H.D. Reliquary, a collaborative album on which Ben Shirken is joined by a host of like-minded musicians, including MIZU. The album comments on the ability of hard drives to preserve components of our existence as they inevitably break down (April 11). Kara-Lis Coverdale uses a wide array of orchestral instruments on From Where You Came From, which also includes guest appearances from Anne Bourne and Kalia Vendever. While the music is calm, we keep worrying about the woman on the cover (Smalltown Supersound, May 9).
Metallic flute and jazz trumpet cast a spell on In Cmin, the title an homage to Terry Riley. Andreas Tilliander and Goran Kajfeš compose tributes to the moon, the tides and the night, adding a slight electronic undercurrent (Kontra-Musik, April 7). Jazz and ambience combine on the allusive Stark Phenomena, released on KMRU’s label OFNOT. The duo HxH uses trumpet, cello, electronics and spoken word to weave a colorful tapestry (April 4). Piano and saxophone create a tranquil sonic environment on Rindert Lammers‘ Thank You Kirin Kiki, an ambient jazz set that takes the form of a film, from the trailer to the closing credits (Western Vinyl, April 18).
Heart of Snake and Mira join forces for the forty-minute Chamaerops, a single track that operates as an imaginary score. The piece uses a wide array of approaches, from exotica to waltz, sprinkling in some folk and field recordings along the way (Maple Death, March 21). Kim Hiorthay plays with perception on Ghost Note, asking listeners if what they think they hear is really there (Blinkwikel, March 21).
My House Is Full of Faces, claims Mutestare, which seems slightly intimidating until the listener realizes that the house is friendly, filled with footsteps and voices and paws, windows open to the sounds of the birds and the breeze (March 23). Where else can one hear humpback whales, hematite magnets, violin and a sample from “Alien”? Only on Gryphon Rue‘s “woodsy record” I Keep My Diamond Necklace in a Pond of Sparkling Water, a potpourri of uncorked samples and sounds (April 18).
“The transformative power of breathing” is the subject of Arborra‘s Mind Over Matter, a healing album of synth and saxophone that produces an early highlight in the single “Sumerian Green” (7K!, May 9). Music Belongs to the Universe, says Nico Georis, who sends electronic and organic signals into the ether in hopes they will return. The album will be out April 4 on Leaving Records. Gorgeous electronic patterns mingle with keyboards on Juha Mäki-Patola‘s Solar Nights, which sounds like the energy generated by solar panels converted to sound (Moderna, March 21). As it has both ambient and electronic tracks but exudes the sensibility of modern composition, Conrad Praetzel‘s Angels Set in Motion is difficult to define. But since it comes with a Shrinky-Dink, it’s a whole lot of fun! (April 23). nightloops is releasing the soothing hush EP on May 6, the lowercase letters a preview of the sound (Friends of Friends). Prajñāghoṣa‘s ambient-electronic Flow of Adhisthana chronicles an inner and outer journey with birds and beats, a placid undercurrent that carries the listener away (Into the Deep Treasury, April 1). The compilation Into Calm does exactly what it promises as multiple artists from Lightwerx Collective journey into the heart of rest (Friends of Friends Music, March 21).
Loscil returns with Lake Fire, a concept album of sorts that includes tracks titled “Bell Flame,” “Spark” and “Ash Clouds.” Blending ambience and light electronics, the artist establishes an appropriately smoldering sound (kranky, May 2). The sci-fi themed Dead Petals at the Other is an ambient-electronic offering from Stereo Minus One. The album investigates alternate realities in tracks such as “Another Me Is Probably Being Asked If He’s Okay” (Machine Records, May 2). Lying on the border between ambient and electronic is Beatrice Dillon / Hideka Uwazama‘s Basho / Still Forms, as each artist takes a different approach on a different side. They share a love for percussion and an experimental approach (Portraits GRM, May 16). Inal Bilsel‘s Once Upon a Cloudtop Meadow is an album that looks and sounds like a storybook. Be sure to check out the artwork for the individual tracks, as well as for the album itself. A smooth melding of children’s voices, cinematic strings, lullaby bells and languid jazz flavors, the album includes a story that one can read along with the music (March 28).
Richard Allen
