Category: Quiet Space

Two stellar labels have just released compilations for very good causes. Mailbox from the UK have put together 32 tracks for Music For Another Sky, in order to raise awareness and/or raise money for the UK charity, Refuge, helping women and children – against domestic violence. Polar Seas Recordings offers a compilation in celebration of the label’s 50th release, all proceeds go to All Creatures Rescue in Toronto. Both releases are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, please support both of these amazing releases.

Slow Autumn At My Window is a new double album by Adrian Lane, written and recorded as a reflection on the ephemeral nature of life prior to the new normal of COVID-19.  Adrian composed and recorded phrases on the piano spontaneously, before cutting them up and putting them back together. This is his sixth album for the Preserved Sound imprint and it’s our feature release on this edition of the Quiet Space.

Our focus on this episode on a small edition cassette label operating out of Saint Louis, Missouri, focusing on ambient, drone, new age, and minimalist music. Distant Bloom is run by Fitz Hartwig (Oxherding) who donates a portion of labelproceeds to an organization of the artist’s choice. Featuring the latest tapes from Solid Waste and Azaleas plus Norah Lorway, Endurance, Aster and Anthene. Gorgeous listening.

John McCaffrey has been creating blissful music under a variety of guises over the years. He started in a duo, Clickits while in the UK, moved to Melbourne and has been creating incredible sounds that weave modern classical, folk and electronic stylings under the name Part Timer, Upward Arrows and Scissors & Sellotape. He recently got in touch with a series of works created/compiled during lockdown last year, so I thought it time to focus on his amazing work. I’d forgotten about some of his releases as I put this together and it’s been a real pleasure to reacquaint myself with his work. I hope you love it as well.

An excellent new release to start 2021. Wil Bolton returns with ‘Cumulus Sketches’ , an album of fragile, drifting ambient structures for daydreaming and cloud-watching. Pastoral analogue synthesizer melodies and effects pedal textures are intertwined with rural and urban environmental sounds recorded in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka. As well, the excellent Hibernate label with a series of releases available online for a charitable cause.

In our annual look at the best ambient works of 2020, we reveal our Top 100 releases. We conclude with Part 5 – counting down 20 to Number 1.

In our annual look at the best ambient works of 2020, we reveal our Top 100 releases. This is Part 4 – counting down 40-21