Łabandzi Śpiew: ambient pop

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piątek, 19 czerwca 2026

Martyna Basta - Winged in Collapse (2026)

When you are called a "sonic alchemist", you know there is something special in your music. Martyna Basta, Polish composer and singer/songwriter based in the city of Kraków (my neighbour I presume) released her third album (but first under the acclaimed 7k records) filled with ambitious electronica turned ambient pop music.

The signature sound of this album focuses on the artful electronic samples sewn together into a sonic canvas on which beautiful though enigmatic vocals are displayed. This is not an easy kind of neoclassical electronica, it requires attention and brain power to process everything that is happening around you. But it's satisfying if enjoyed properly. I love the vocals, even if they are used sparingly, they show the range of the artist's voice and add to the mysterious atmosphere of the release.

I love that Basta invited some interesting guests, especially the harp-electronic duo LEYA (which, coincidentally, has also some Polish roots) in Laid and the British experimental rapper Rainy Miller in 2674. This is a beautiful, airy and ambitious electronic soundscape with elements of chamber pop appearing here and there that only make it more engaging to listen to.

Winged in Collapse costs 11 EUR.

Check: Laid

Country: Poland

Genre: experimental ambient pop

Label: 7k

Päfgens - Der Regen (2022)

sobota, 6 czerwca 2026

Päfgens - Westend (2026)

The Slovakian couple who has been releasing their music for some time now as Päfgens already appeared on this blog with two albums. But I couldn't ignore the 6th one in their discography either: a beautiful but also utterly melancholic, hopeful but dark like an autumn day ambient pop for emotional people.

As the artists say, this album was born "when we bought a drum machine with the intention of making pop songs", which can hardly be further from what eventually happen. The slow ambient pop ballads made with acoustic guitar, whispering voice and various field recordings, fill out the air with never-hurried atmosphere of wistfulness. And when I wrote that the album was "born", it's not a coincidence as it is dedicated to the couple's baby, as they summarize it: it "is a memory of those who are no longer with us, but also a celebration of new life".

And you can hear it both in the lo-fi, fuzzy sound that makes the songs so much more intimate, as well as in the lyrics with the poignant "everyone you know will leave" sentiment repeated endlessly in Poprad that for me became the focal point of the whole album already at its beginning.

Westend costs 7 EUR.

Check: Poprad

Country: Slovakia

Genre: lo-fi ambient pop

Päfgens - Der Sturm (2019)

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Richard Neale - EVES (2017)

środa, 27 maja 2026

Richard Neale - The Walls Fell (2026)

It's quite a story, while getting to write this piece, I thought of starting with saying that I hadn't heard such delicate vocals and music in a while but I checked my post on Richard Neale's 2017 album EVES and realized that it's EXACTLY what I wrote back then. And it's been almost a decade (sic!). This year, the dreamy and folky singer/songwriter from UK came back with his first longer album since... exactly 2017.

"Delicate" is an adjective you need to repeat over and over again when writing about The Walls Fell. I can hear this music as singer/songwriter acoustic guitar lyrical solo venture or a folky, nature-centred, forest-longing cry for escape, but ultimately it is all overshadowed by the utterly oneiric atmosphere that rules single-handedly on the album from the start to the final notes. The piano-based but very often built over with a range of other instruments compositions sound like coming from a dense fog in an English countryside in an early morning. And the vocals that join them are just... yes, delicate of course. Always but sometimes even more than that (King Blue!).

The album certainly feels like work of one man, although there are vocals by Karen Stally in some tracks too. But while usually I prefer a team effort in creating music, this time, it's just perfect. It gives me David Bramwell's Oddfellow's Casino (also south of England!) vibes, but even more foggy and sleepy. Love it.

The Walls Fell costs 11 EUR (9 GBP).

Check: King Blue

Country: UK

Genre: folky ambient pop

niedziela, 12 kwietnia 2026

Green Horizon - Blessing (2026)

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but let me repeat myself: one of my favourite ambient pop artists comes from Taiwan and is definitely not well-known enough. Green Horizon has recently released her new EP on which she blends ambient pop with soft neoclassical tunes, everything honest, real and intimate.

The album is meant to be a blessing "for the forgotten, for the unloved, for those in pain" and I must say that the neoclassical beauty of the piano keys that sometimes lead the compositions here but sometimes also drown in peaceful noise are something that has to bring some kind of relief to anyone in need. It doesn't matter if the compositions are mostly piano soundscapes or if they are written around the airy vocals, all of them are beautiful.

I don't know much about the Asian poetry, but to me and to my layman heart, Green Horizon's lyrics feel very much like a rendition of poems form this part of the world. Honest and clearly indicating certain things, but still mysterious. Telling everything without telling everything. Which I guess is true to the music itself.

Blessing costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Path

Country: Taiwan

Genre: piano ambient pop

Green Horizon - The Place I Buried Memories (2021)

Green Horizon - 沉睡 (2017)

środa, 25 marca 2026

LOLOET - Circle of Echoes (2026)

When I listened to this album, I didn't know the story around it. But apparently LOLOET is a project centred around Ayaka Wada, a j-pop singer and an idol known from girlsband Angerme, who decided to create... ambient pop? How cool is that?! What's more important, the effects are fascinating: the slowcore, jazzy and experimental pop feels both artsy and fun to listen to. This February, the band released their debut album and it's definitely worth checking out.

Wada says she wanted to make music "that resembles the paintings of Mark Rothko" (yes, those bright and colourful minimalist and abstract pieces) and I... don't see it. I mean the abstraction is certainly there, but this music is far from minimalism. But it's very, very possible I don't focus on the right thing, I have no idea about paintings. My point is that music here is very, very rich. Yes, it may start as ambient background, but it quickly evolves into jazzy and neoclassical structures that ripple around and change shapes all the time while Wada's soft and airy vocals charm their way into the listeners' hearts.

It's such a fascinating journey this album: you can't guess what's going to happen next. Some compositions are vocalless and they are magical too (I'm looking at you, les yeux) and some become a poetry reading that touches upon important, sociopolitical themes. The thing that makes this music special is also the use of trumpet sounds: Chan keng's doing what he can to add this trumpet charisma to the compositions without overwhelming the listener, which I really appreciate.

Circle of Echoes costs 15 EUR ( ¥2,800).

Check: Le matin

Country: Japan

Genre: slowcore/ambient pop

Label: Kankyo-ON

wtorek, 24 marca 2026

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys - Pale Bloom (2026)

It's been already almost 10 years since Lucy Kruger started releasing albums with her band as Lucy Kruger & the Lost Boys and she proves that she has innumerable layers of artisticness and pure talent within herself. The albums are released so frequently one can lose track of Kruger's discography, but that's ok. I can assure you, they are only getting better and better.

The characteristic minimalism the artist nurtures evolves with every release, at least that's how I see it: it's not as rough and lone electric guitar-heavy, less of the dark blues vibe and more towards softer, dreamier art pop music. In some places even bordering with ambient pop's soundscape-y unintelligibleness of the backgrounds. It may be softer but it's certainly not much lighter: the darker shade of dreamy is the signature skill of Kruger's music and, first of all, lyrics which play the lead role in every song on this and any other release. And those can be extremely poignant and uneasy.

But the thing I love about this music is how effortlessly it combines the ethereally catchy parts with artsy, slightly less approachable in form, very often within one composition too. That's why Ambient Heat is definitely my favourite here: the short lyrical phrases that create a mosaic of fear and existential uncertainty contrast the beautifully executed chorus that contrasts the ambient pop formless parts. I could hardly not love this one.

Pale Bloom costs 9 EUR.

Check: Ambient Heat

Country: RSA/Germany

Genre: dreamy art rock

Label: Unique Records/Schubert Music

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys - Teen Tapes (for Performing Your Own Stunts) 2022

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys - Transit Tapes (For Women Who Move Furniture Around) (2021)

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piątek, 6 lutego 2026

Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick - Tragic Magic (2026)

What can you get when you have an acclaimed harpist (Mary Lattimore) and equally acclaimed ambient pop artist Julianna Barwick in one room (I assume (EDIT: it was a whole philharmonie!) )creating music? Well, exactly what you've expected: pure magic (even if tragic). The two American musicians created one of the highlights of the dawn of this year and filled it with the perfect soundscape.

While I know some projects with harp music (LEYA!), it is still pretty exotic to me. I've seen Lattimore performing live already and harp sounds and subtle electronica make an interesting blend, but I feel like only now, with the addition of ethereal vocals, it is complete. I can't get rid of the picture of tall tree-stacked forest while listening to this album (curse you, fantasy movies!) so it's no wonder this is exactly what the album's cover art features. But there is also a certain amount of ethereal mist and omnipresent melancholia in the air present.

Naturally (sic!), this brings up the hippie, New Age vibes o the picture as well. But, according to the album's description, it is mostly focused on the human nature and inter-human relations. And nature. And the cosmic. I guess you can't escape these. Nevertheless, the combination of ambient pop with the sound of harp is something I did not have on my bingo card for 2026 music, but I'm glad I found it.

Tragic Magic costs 10 EUR.

Check: Perpetual Adoration

Country: US

Genre: harp-based ambient pop

Label: InFiné

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Hilary Woods - Birthmarks (2020)

piątek, 5 grudnia 2025

Hilary Woods - Night CRIÚ (2025)

Another female voice from Dublin this week, but it couldn't be more different than the energetic post-punk of SPRINTS. Five years after the fantastic Birthmarks, the ambient pop slash drone soundscapes artist Hilary Woods comes back with a surprising change in her music, shifting the style towards artistic slowcore sounds.

As the description of the album suggests, Woods focuses a lot on her voice here. But I can't say the vocals really feel like the main focus when they are joined by some beautiful instrumental slowcore-like instrumental sections. I can't NOT feel like the ambient/drone element was traded for the artsy and I quite appreciate it. The atmosphere doesn't change though: the music is as moody and intimate as ever, it's like listening to whispers of a loved one but there are also violins.

The description of the album says a lot of things, I'm not gonna try to understand the more contrived fragments, but I'm sure smarter people may find it inspiring. I will stick to the music as it feels strangely straight-forward, even when Woods is joined by a child choir (actually, I really like Taper), and artistically satisfying.

Night CRIÚ costs 9 USD.

Check: Taper

Country: Ireland

Genre: experimental pop

Label: Sacred Bones

czwartek, 6 listopada 2025

Nac/Hut Report - Blue Afternoon (2025)

There is few Polish music projects that can be identified after the first second of their tracks. Nac/Hut Report is certainly one of them: the uniqueness of their ambient pop is genuinely impressive and it's not only uniqueness for its own sake. The duo creates music that feels a bit like a journey to some extraterrestrial lands and a bit like something extremely close to the heart.

Normally ambient pop makes me think of drone backgrounds and barely audible vocals put over them. Basically Midwife. But the Kraków-based project refreshes the concept, developing the backgrounds into full-fledged experimental sounds with some industrial flavour to them, thoroughly pressed down by the gramophone-like noise that makes the colourful mosaic of very different sounds feel like a coherent canvas that can be painted over with the vocals. And those also are a little bit different: they are quite well audible but definitely not easy to decipher either so that the mystery that embraces Nac/Hut Report's music deepens and deepens with every song and every album they produce.

I particularly like when those layers of sounds, not very loud on their own, are placed on each other, creating a sound that is not far from overwhelming while still being the slowcorest of slowcores. The duo definitely makes for one of the most least-known-but-deserving-much-more artists based in this country.

Blue Afternoon costs 2.5 EUR (10 PLN).

Check: Comet

Country: Poland

Genre: experimental ambient pop

Label: enjoy life

Nac/Hut Report - Absent (2023)

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Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal - Snakeskin (2022)

środa, 5 listopada 2025

Snakeskin - We Live in Sand (2025)

It's been already some years since I posted about Julia Sabra, my favourite Lebanese artist who makes her name as a vocalist in Postcards but also as half of a music duo with Fadi Tabbal. The title of the album they debuted as a duo became the name of the project, but the music stays the same: more experimental than Postcards, but still fairytale-ishly ethereal.

The music here is different from your ordinary dream pop charmers' sounds. The glitchy, the uncomfortably noisy and a bit industrial meets the airy and wavy in the best way possible. It makes the skin crawl a little, but, before it gets too much to bear, it gets ironed over with some beautiful guitar sounds. Or flute. Or cute electronica. But at the same time, it's also very much minimalist: there doesn't have to be much to create the atmosphere and the duo proves it over and over again. The vocalizations in Olive Groves is joined by pipe organ-like sounds and not much more and that's just an example.

But everything here is glued together by Sabra's ethereal vocals. This is deceptive, however, as the beauty of the vocals is counterbalanced by the gravity of the lyrics, commenting on the situation in Lebanon loomed over by the never-ending Near East war. "It’s a stunning paradox — a song about birth, caught in the middle of destruction. Hope, fragile and flickering, seeps through the rubble. Snakeskin has always thrived in extremes, but here the contrast is sharpened to a knife’s edge". It's true, but it's also true that the third album from the duo is their darkest yet but seeing how the situation in the region develops, it may not be the darkest in general.

We Live in Sand costs 10 USD.

Check: Olive Groves

Country: Lebanon

Genre: experimental dream pop

Label: Ruptured / Beacon Sound

piątek, 6 czerwca 2025

Maria Somerville - Luster (2025)

Taking inspirations from everywhere, but mainly her home Ireland, Maria Somerville creates dream pop with many faces, but one soul: it stays intimate and close to the audience thanks to the slow pace and ethereal vocals. The artist's sophomore album is all about this close artist-listener proximity.

On this album, the artist's range goes from ambient pop to acoustic dream pop up to almost industrial-like tones. But generally the vibes revolve around the slowest, most intimate of genres. A beautiful voice, background hums and maybe an acoustic guitar is all the artist needs to enchant us. With Projections, she proofs that it doesn't mean that her songs are not catchy, but generally the melodies are less important than the airiness and softness of the sound. And softness is what I seek on albums like this.

Luster costs 12 EUR (9.99 GBP).

Check: Projections

Country: Ireland

Genre: intimate dream pop

Label: 4AD

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piątek, 30 czerwca 2023

Cruel Diagonals - Fractured Whole (2023)

Megan Mitchell makes music as Cruel Diagonals. Her new album is another example as of late of music created entirely with the artist's vocals (very recently I posted about Aphir's new album with similar theme), but Fractured Whole is as experimental as it's ethereal.

When you look at the titles of the tracks, you automatically think of Lingua Ignota and it's not my only connotation: there is something from Kristin Hayter in the vocals as well. But unlike her, Mitchell drowns the compositions in both extremely airy and very glitchy vibes. If you like sacral-like, ethereal vocals surrounding you from every direction but also being reshaped by experimental electronic music, this is definitely something for you. The compositions are rarely put within more formulated structures and often freely go wherever the artist wants them to.

Fractured Whole costs 8 USD.

Check: Penance

Country: California, US

Genre: vocal-only electronica

Label: Beacon Sound

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Midwife - Prayer Hands (2018)

środa, 31 maja 2023

Midwife & Vyva Melinkolya - Orbweaving (2023)

Everyone who cares about ambient pop as a genre, knows who Midwife is. This time, Madeline Johnston brings on a cooperation between her and Vyva Melinkolya, a Pittsburgh-based band led by Johnston's friend, Angel Diaz. Together, they created an album that will become one of the icons of the genre (as basically anything Midwife does).

The two artists created their music in the middle of a desert in New Mexico and these spiritual vibes can be heard on the record as it talks about very spiritual themes of "hopelessness, calling on a higher power, being alone, and the sublime horror of the natural world" in the form of the ambient pop genre. The inclusion of the band means that there is more of the melodic structures in Midwife's music. While the vocals feel as utterly ethereal as always, the fuzzy, hazy backgrounds hide more of the traditional rock-like music (like in Hounds of Heaven). But the best parts are where the music comes back to the definite, ambient pop ballad areas with the single NMP and its beautiful, charming and very sad melody as well as psychedelically noisy finish.

Orbweaving costs 8 USD.

Check: NMP

Country: New Mexico/Kentucky, US

Genre: ambient pop

Label: The Flenser

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Penelope Trappes - Penelope Three (2021)

poniedziałek, 1 maja 2023

Penelope Trappes - Heavenly Spheres (2023)

With her fourth album, Penelope Trappes, most probably the best ambient pop artist out there, continues with her ultimately ethereal way of creating music. Surprisingly NOT titled "Penelope Four", Heavenly Spheres

The artist is a queen of combining extremely dark, gothic and post-industrial ambient soundscapes with extremely airy vocals. There melodies here are almost non-existent, but it's on purpose: vocals are yet another way of creating the unbelievably eerie atmosphere of the compositions. And it's a vital part as the album is kept in a very minimalist way: it was created with "only [the artist's] voice, an upright piano and an old German reel to reel tape deck". The result are even more unnerving then typically with her music. Even if there are field recordings of spring-inspired bird chirping, Penelope Trappes can still transform the ultimate symbol of life into moody darkness.

The album was created during two-week residency for Britten Pears Arts that made it possible for the artist to embrace a particular way of creating her music. As she stated: "I immersed myself in solitude and often deafening silence, and coexisted with an enormous amount of history and books" and I feel like you can really hear it on this album.

Heavenly Spheres costs 8 EUR (7 GBP).

Check: A Seagull Learns to Sleep Alone

Country: Australia/UK

Genre: ambient pop

Label: Nite Hive

wtorek, 28 marca 2023

Bianca Scout - The Heart of the Anchoress (2023)

The London-based Bianca Scout has been making music for almost a decade now. This year she showed her new album called The Heart of the Anchoress and it makes perfect nutrition for the art-oriented parts of our souls.

Her music is certainly a kind of ambient pop, but unlike artists like Midwife, it is not based on grainy noise, but highly experimental electronica. Bianca Scout admits that her compositions have to be utterly transformed (twisted, teased, pruned and nurtured) from the way they look at the beginning to their final forms. The angelic voice of the artist is accompanied here by a variety of electronic sounds, artful instrumental bits and oneiric backing vocals. Everything resembles a very detailed collage of elements that alone don't mean much, but together are truly beautiful. Except for the pipe organ-based ones, they'd look fabulous alone as well, no doubt about it. No wonder that her tracks are called "mantra-like songs succeed in opening portals to heavenly vistas, where scenes of golden-hour/after-hour intimacy softly unfold".

The Heart of the Anchoress costs 8 EUR (7 GBP).

Check: Dedicated Two

Country: UK

Genre: art ambient pop

Label: First Terrace Records

środa, 22 marca 2023

Nac/Hut Report - Absent (2023)

With already their 7th album, the Kraków-based Nac/Hut Report continue to develop their very unique style that marries dream pop-atmosphere with experimental ambient electronica. Absent makes yet another extremely interesting album in the offstream landscape of Poland.

Brigitte Roussel is the singing part of the duo and her voice is utterly oneiric and atmospheric. It always sound like something that appears on the verge of a dream, difficult to decipher but enriching the mesmerizing ambiance of the compositions. Anyone who attended any of their shows knows how focused Roussel and Li/ese/Li are while working on their experimental ambient music. This music manages to be melodic and catchy while undoubtedly representing the very experimental part of the electronic music that directly borders with drone and noise genres.

The artists sprinkle this outstanding mode of operation with a captivating idea on this particular album on which "All music has been extracted from shortwave radio interval signals from different international broadcasters" named in the track titles (from Korea and Uzbekistan to Poland and Slovakia). This alone makes it even more mysterious and difficult to pass on.

Absent costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: 702 KHz, Radio Stockholm

Country: Poland

Genre: experimental ambient pop

Label: Crunchy Human Children Records

wtorek, 17 stycznia 2023

Nicole Dollanganger - Married in Mount Airy (2023)

I love what Nicole Bell does as Nicole Dollanganger. The Canadian artist for over a decade combines the violence- and love-centred poetry with ambient pop and this is a fantastic, although surprising at first, combination that works so well also on her seventh album to date, Married in Mount Airy.

Bell's child-like voice (and the overall image as well) heavily contrasts with the adult, often unsettling themes of what she sings about and this is something that makes the spine thrill when listening to her albums. Especially that, very much in the way country and folk music does it, the lyrics tell full-grown stories with many details that help the audience to find themselves within Bell's poetry. Amazing story-telling immersion capabilities. The minimalist music accompanying her vocals is equally disturbing: when the instruments sound like not exactly on tune, the whole message sounds distorted as well. But I especially like it when the vocals are complimented by the organ-like synth sounds, adding to how touching they are.

It's worth adding that the music on the album could also safely be described as dream pop, although the dreaminess here can be disputed, it's more nightmarish if anything. Still, the oneiric attributes are very much tangible and make the immersion even more complete. I feel like it's at its top in Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus, making it automatically my favourite track here.

Married in Mount Airy costs 7 USD.

Check: Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus

Country: Canada

Genre: gothic ambient pop

środa, 14 grudnia 2022

Drowse - Wane Into It (2022)

Floating Room's Kyle Bates is better known as Drowse as his ambient shoegaze project is well-established on the off music stage already. It's time for his sixth album already and Wane Into It may well be the best release under this moniker.

This is the subtlest of noise music kinds. Bates is really good at toning everything down to the necessary minimum without losing anything from the dense, murky atmosphere. His warm vocals lead the way here, channeling melodies and enchant the audience. But it is stil all about the music in the backgrounds: the softest of noise, the darkest of ambient, very skillfully put together to create an ambient-pop dreamy set of moody tracks that can feel as cozy as apocalyptic; hopeful and hopeless at the same time. The artist emphasizes how important it is to listen to his music through headphones and given all that happens in the barely audible sequences, it really is a must-do.

Wane Into It costs 8 USD.

Check: Untrue in Headphones

Country: Oregon, US

Genre: ambient noise pop

Label: The Flenser