Sonmi451 - Seven Signals in the Sky (2021)

Bernard Zwijzen, better known as Sonmi451, is present on the ambient scene for a decade now. To celebrate this fact, he released a brilliant album Seven Signals in the Sky with the help of people from the LAAPS label.

This is this kind of ambient music that strikes with peace and subtle atmosphere while at the same time presents a lot of things going on around the listener. It reminds me of a summer meadow where there's tons of tiny sounds around you which together create a symphony of peacefulness and beauty. In Zwijzen's music there are electronic samples with piano keys with ASMR-like whispers with ethereal backing vocals - and this is this kind of blend that makes me instantly fall in love with music. The whole album shows a variety of relaxing and beautiful sounds that together make a perfect whole.

Seven Signals in the Sky costs 6 EUR.

Check: Seven Signals in the Sky

Country: Belgium

Genre: relaxing ambient

Label: LAAPS

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:soundcloud:

:spotify:

Stijn Hüwels + Tomoyoshi Date - 遠き火、遠き雲’ ​(​A Distant Fire​,​ A Distant Cloud) (2021)

The French LAAPS label is on it again with another great ambient album. This time it's the (second already) result of collaboration between the Dutch Stijn Hüwels and the Brazilian/Japanese artist Tomoyoshi Date, known as part of the Opitope duo formed with Chihei Hatakeyama and a ton of other projects. Basically two hugely influential names on the ambient scene together on the album called 遠き火、遠き雲’ ​(​A Distant Fire​,​ A Distant Cloud). 

The legend says that the musicians met back in 2015 and at the same day recorded what in time turned out to be their first release together, Hochu-Ekki-Tou. The new album is described as "slow and bright", recorded "using field recordings, processed guitar, piano and synth". The title is also the title of a poem by Tadahito Ichinoseko who can be heard reciting it on the album too. The release strikes with calm and peace from the very first moments. It's not extremely quiet though, it's that the pace and ambiance of the processed guitar, synth and electronics sounds create this kind of comfortable trance that is only enriched with the omnipresent nature-based field recordings. There is quite a lot of things going on: the fields recordings, the spoken word, the neoclassical parts, a lot of electronic curiosities. However, the release never looses the best thing about it - the slow and relaxing flow.

遠き火、遠き雲’ ​(​A Distant Fire​,​ A Distant Cloud) costs 6 EUR.

Check: 遠き火、遠き雲’ ​(​A Distant Fire​,​ A Distant Cloud)

Country: Belgium, Brazil/Japan

Genre: complex soundscape

Label: LAAPS

:bandcamp:

:facebook (Stijn Hüwels):

:facebook (Tomoyoshi Date):

:instagram (Tomoyoshi Date):

:soundcloud (Stijn Hüwels):

:spotify:

Ian Nyquist - Endless, Shapeless (2021)

The Irish artist Ian Nyquist released his second (it seems) album under the experimental umbrella of LAAPS records. This is some music for the people who seek something that can be described and want to truly feel it. Perhaps they should reach for Endless, Shapeless.

This is a disturbingly chaotic music in a sense that it doesn't go in one direction for a longer time.  That's probably the reason for the "shapeless" in the title. There's a lot from ambient and electronic music as well as neoclassical bits (violins provided by Cornelis Jordaan and cello by Kristin Nyquist). Especially the electronics sound very tasteful and impactful in a non-invasive way (if it's not an oxymoron) - but this is what I take from songs like Plateau.  And of course the whole experimental stuff that includes unnerving and uncomfortable sounds like it is in Field & Cliff in which they are not soothed even by the ethereal backing vocals that support the composition.

The album comes to an end finally so the title's first part is an exaggeration but there are moments in life in which this album could play on endlessly providing the perfect soundtrack slowly dissolving into neoclassical soundscape.

Endless, Shapeless costs 6 EUR.

Check: Plateau 

Country: Ireland

Genre: experimental ambient

Label: LAAPS

:bandcamp:

:instagram:

:soundcloud:

:spotify: