Lost in Reverb - (H)ours (2023)

Nicolás Madrid from the Argentinian city of Marcos Paz is a drone artist whose music creates some beautiful, although harsh soundscapes. Ones that I'd imagine would fit perfectly the southern end of the artist's home country. His new EP is called (H)ours.

The music here is a nice combination of space, dark ambient with uncomfortable presence of drone music. Some of the cosmic peace, represented by the cover art's picture of the Moon, is also audible here. Especially in the hopefully titled second track on the album. And the more beautiful face of this music is shown when the piano keys are introduced in The Hours in Mare Imbrium, my favourite track here.

(H)ours costs 3 USD.

Check: The Hours in Mare Imbrium

Country: Argentina

Genre: droney space ambient

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Opollo - Archive 1 (2023)

Jarek Leskiewicz makes the best space ambient in Poland, don't try and change my mind. The artist known for collaborating with SPC ECO's Dean Garcia among others. He is so good that even a bunch of unreleased tracks put together under the title Archive 1 deserves a closer look into.

The soundscapes Leskiewicz offers here are vast and peaceful in this particular kind of peace that can suddenly and deadly turn into a life-ending event. There are parts of the compositions that reflect that, those nervously pulsating or sonically destroyed tracks are another proof that the artist knows what he does. So even if there was no exact idea behind the whole album, the tracks stay coherent and mesmerizing in the dark but attractive way.

Archive 1 costs 4 USD.

Opollo - JAFO (2020)

Opollo - Of a Distorted Star (2017)

Check: Withdrawn

Country: Poland

Genre: space ambient

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Secrets of the Third Planet - The Space Voyage (2021)

The Russian Secrets of the Third Planet already appeared on this blog with an interesting but short EP last year. Now they are proving that there's little they can't do, with a new, space ambient (in a way) album called The Space Voyage.

The origins of this album reach the Moscow Music Week in 2019 when the Moscow-based band presented their own live music for a Soviet sci-fi movie The Space Voyage from 1936. And as you could guess, the now-released new soundtrack is as old-school sci-fi as possible. There's not much of the modern, bass-saturated space ambient here, it is more about tangible, synth and old technology-like sounds. This is a concept album so everything is set in a similar tone, but Don't Worry Mom! may be just the most fitting music to this concept, making me think of the romantic and kind of naive old sci-fi texts by Lem or Asimov.

This retro approach is what clearly makes this album something unique. And tracks like Sleepy Boy, Signal or the noisier ones at the end of the release can easily function outside of the movie-soundtrack frame.

The Space Voyage costs 10 USD.

Secrets of the Third Planet - Only Love Will Save (2020) EN

Check: Signal 

Country: Russia

Genre: old-school space electronica

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T E Morris & Jo Quail - For the Benefit of All (2020) PL

Na początku września wyszła niepowtarzalna płyta dwójki znakomitych artystów: lidera Her Name Is Calla, T E Morissa oraz fantastycznej współczesnej wiolonczelistki Jo Quail. Należało się spodziewać, że taka dawka talentu zaowocuje czymś wyjątkowym i tak właśnie się stało no For the Benefit of All to właśnie to.

Trochę zaskakująca jest tematyka albumu. Sci-fi, kosmos, eksploracja - to nie są tematy, które osobiście utożsamiałbym z żadnym z tych artystów. Tymczasem temat obecny jest i w tytułach (fantastyczne nawiązanie do łzawego pożegnania łazika Opportunity) i w samplach (już od pierwszego utworu na płycie) i w końcu w muzyce - mrocznej, futurystycznej i z łatwo wyczuwalnym kosmicznym vibem. Space ambient i bardzo, bardzo delikatne smyczki oraz klawisze definiują to wydawnictwo.

To właśnie elektronika jest na pierwszym planie tworząc przestrzenne, kosmiczne pejzaże a dopiero dość późno, w 2116 (The Settlers), nabiera wyraźniejszej formy. Smyczki natomiast odpowiadają za atmosferę, ale raczej taką groźną, smutną i ponurą niż tradycyjnie podniosłą. Podobnie rzecz ma się z klawiszami, które, chociaż piękne, brzmią równie złowróżbnie (zwłaszcza w świetnym 1610 (The Polymath from Pisa). Zresztą tytuły to materiał na osobną opowieść - wszystkie zawierają daty i wydarzenia związane z kosmosem tylko że większość z nich... dopiero nadejdzie. Znakomity pomysł.

For the Benefit of All kosztuje 30 złotych (6 GBP).

Sprawdź: 1610 (The Polymath from Pisa

Kraj: UK

Szufladka: space ambient

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T E Morris & Jo Quail - For the Benefit of All (2020) EN

In the beginning of September, a unique album was released, one created by two great artists Her Name Is Calla's T E Morris and fantastic cellist Jo Quail. It should've been anticipated that such an amount of talent would result in something special and so it happened as For the Benefit of All is just it.

The theme of the album is a bit surprising. Sci-fi, space, exploration - these are not what I would associate with neither of the artists. However, it is present everywhere, both in song titles (like in the fantastic reference to the tear-jerking last words of the Opportunity rover) in sample (from the album's very first track) and finally in the music - dark, futuristic, with hard-to-miss space vibes. Space ambient and very, very delicate strings and keys define this release.

It is the electronics that plays the main role, creating spacious, cosmic soundscapes and rather late turning the form into something louder (2116 (The Settlers)). Strings on the other hand are there for the atmosphere, one that's scary, sad and gloomy more than traditionally lofty. Similar thing with the keys that, although beautiful, sounds also threatening (especially in the brilliant 1610 (The Polymath from Pisa). Also, the titles themselves are worth talking about - all of them consist of years when something important for the space exploration happened or... will happen as most of them is situated in the future. Great idea.

For the Benefit of All costs 6 GBP.

Check: 1610 (The Polymath from Pisa

Country: UK

Genre: space ambient

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Opollo - JAFO (2020) PL

Jarek Leśkiewicz pojawia się po raz kolejny na moim blogu. Nawet po raz kolejny w tym roku bo Sunset Wrecks byli postowani dwa miesiące temu. Tym razem artysta powraca z projektem, który zwrócił na niego moją uwagę, głęboko ambientowym Opollo i płytą JAFO.

Płyta powstała jako "lo-fi'owe wyspy stabilizacji na niespokojne czasy", a pomóc w niej mają niezliczone warstwy grubego, ciężkiego ambientu. Słychać w nim kosmiczną pustkę i monumentalność, ale też faktycznie pewną nadzieję. Najlepiej brzmi chyba Myriad, prawdopodobnie najcięższa na płycie kompozycja, urozmaicona delikatnymi efektami wziętymi niby z retro maszynerii (którą przypomina również cover art). Podobnie rzecz ma się z zamykającym album Thrust in Me (ekstra propsy za grę słów). Urodę tej płyty należy sprawdzić samemu. I spokojnie do niej zasnąć.

JAFO kosztuje tyle, ile chcesz zapłacić.

Opollo - Of A Distorted Star (2017) PL

Sprawdź: Myriad

Kraj: Polska

Szufladka: space ambient

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Opollo - JAFO (2020) EN

Jarek Leśkiewicz again is here on the blog. It's even the second time this year as Sunset Wrecks appeared two months ago. This time, he's back with the project that drew my attention to him, the deep ambient of Opollo and the album JAFO.

The album was created as "lo-fi plateaus for troubled times", and for that, there are the uncountable layers of the dense, heavy ambient. You can easy hear there the emptiness and monumentality of the cosmos, but indeed, also some sort of hope. The best is probably Myriad, probably the heaviest composition decorated with effect sounding as if taken from a retro machinery (that is also reflected in the cover art. It's quite similar in the album's finish in Thrust in Me (also, bonus points for the lay on words). The beauty of the album is to be discovered alone. And safely fall asleep to.

JAFO costs whatever you want to pay.

Opollo - Of A Distorted Star (2017) EN

Check: Myriad

Country: Poland

Genre: space ambient

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