We are blessed as listeners to have a seemingly endless supply of new music, coming to us as a result of both production and distribution costs having declined drastically from where they were 30 years ago.
Back in the ’80s and ’90s, bands fretted about things like how to save up enough money for studio time and how to distribute their record once they’d made it. Now, lots of musicians are able to record at home, and distribution (at least the digital variety) has become simple through such avenues as Bandcamp (launched in 2007) and DistroKid (2013). The result: More music is being released than ever before. As an artist, that can make it difficult to get noticed — but as a listener, it’s an embarrassment of riches.
Luckily, when it comes to contemporary instrumental music, we have a lot of resources to help us sift through what’s out there. For the purposes of this post, I’m leaving out sites like Consequence of Sound, Aquarium Drunkard and Pitchfork — all of which cover instrumental music, but none of which specialize in it. Here are a few sites that cover instrumental music; if you have others to recommend, please do.
A Closer Listen– This is the most comprehensive and in-depth site covering instrumental music that I’ve come across. Founded in 2012, the site has a talented stable of writers and focuses on album reviews, covering ambient, drone, modern composition, field recordings and more.
Stationary Travels – Like A Closer Listen, Stationary Travels is ambitious in scope, covering modern composition, ambient and drone, as well as electroacoustic and experimental folk. (I’m adopting the site’s own genre names here; surely genre names will be a subject of a future post.) Among the artists I’ve recently discovered via Stationary Travels: inventive Canadian violinist Christopher Whitley, who creates all sorts of sounds one wouldn’t generally associate with the violin, and ambient artist The Humble Bee & Benoit Pioulard, who somehow retains a sense of blissed-out ambient while simultaneously bringing more energy to the endeavor than you often find in ambient music.
Contemplative Classical – From hushed minimalist piano to New Age-like instrumentals, ragged-around-the-edges ambient and challenging contemporary composition, there’s a lot to like — and a lot to sift through — on Contemplative Classical’s playlists. On the whole, though, Contemporary Classical’s center of gravity resides more with contemporary minimalist piano than, say, full-on ambient or challenging modern composition. The site also posts mixes by guest artists and a podcast by Matt Emery on Soundcloud.
Mes Enceintes Font Défaut (My Speakers Are Missing) – Based in Montreal, this site covers ambient, electronic and experimental music. This month’s featured album is a dark but beautiful work of ambient drone: Matt Jencik’s Dream Character.
Ambiance Glitters – The focus here is ambient music, but it’s not all textural soundscapes; you’ll also find delicate piano and cinematic music. Includes reviews, interviews and mixes.
Spellbinding Music – Most of what you’ll see covered on A Spot on the Hill falls under the general heading of minimalist and meditative, which I use not so much as genre categories (especially in the case of “meditative”), but more in the sense of general approach and emotional quality. That leads me to certain genre areas: contemporary composition, minimalist piano-based works, ambient (focused more on texture), compositional ambient (focused more on form), postrock, etc. Spellbinding Music casts its net wider, writing about contemporary composition but also getting into jazz, folk and roots music more generally. While there’s limited overlap with what I’m looking for specifically, it’s worth checking on this site now and then for an unexpected discovery (such as French poet and sound artist Félicia Atkinson).
Drifting, Almost Falling – Like most music blogs, this one is a passion project — and the passion shines through. A couple of things I particularly like: (1) The name “Drifting, Almost Falling,” tells you what you’re in for. The site’s focus is relatively narrow — defined as “minimal ambient, drone and modern classical sounds” — allowing a reader/listener to have a sense of the kind of artists they might discover here. (2) Write-ups usually start with a quote from the artist’s own bio/promotional materials, which — even if sometimes exaggerated, as promotional write-ups are — offer insights into where the artist is coming from and what they are trying to achieve.
I told myself (and my wife) that if I started a music blog, I wasn’t going to let it become an enormous drain on my time. “I’ll post my Top 10 list with just a few words about each entry — two or three sentences at most,” I said. Then I promptly sat down and spent several hours writing — and editing, and writing again — about Hammock’s Silencia.
Realizing that if I spent several hours on each of my Top 10 entries, I’d be well into 2020 before I finished it, I decided to revert to the original plan: minimal words. I did a bit better the second time around — but not by much. Such is the challenge of serving as your own editor.
This list is a good snapshot of where I’m coming from musically. If you’re coming from a similar place, perhaps you’ll find something worthwhile here or in future Spot on the Hill posts.
Here’s my Top 10 list, in no particular order.
Trio Ramberget, Musik att somna till – My tastes generally run toward piano, strings, guitars and ambient textures, so I was as surprised as anyone to find that one of my favorite albums of the year combines bass clarinet and trombone, along with double bass. This Swedish group bills itself as an “ambient/free improvisation trio,” and that’s true as far as it goes. But to hear their soul-enriching, stunningly poignant music — conjured out of a gracefully resonant blend of breathy, ethereal and sometimes achingly sustained tones — you’d do them a tremendous disservice to think of their improvisation as anything less than exquisite composition-in-the-moment.
Hammock, Silencia – This duo from Nashville returns with another album of mesmerizing beauty. Silencia features a 20-piece choir and was mixed by Francesco Donadello, who has also worked with A Winged Victory for the Sullen and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson.
Listening to Hammock, it’s ironic that I haven’t taken more direct inspiration from them. Their musical values — melody, pacing, arrangement, introspection, texture — mirror my own.
The truth is, however, that I’m a latecomer to their spacious, compelling music. Still, from the moment I first heard “I Can Almost See You” (many years after its 2006 release), the Nashville-based two-piece has been on my radar. The track’s subtly propulsive build — achieved through ethereal keyboard swells, postrock guitar echoes, angelic but fleeting vocals, and the careful building and removing of textures — makes a compelling case both musically and emotionally. It doesn’t hurt that the track also carries clear hints of postrock pioneers Sigur Ros and Labradford.
Thirteen years after “I Can Almost See You” (from the album Raising Your Voice … Trying to Stop an Echo), Silencia finds Hammock demonstrating both how far the band has come and how true it has remained to its vision.
At its foundation, the album shows Hammock developing the same mesmerizing dynamic builds it was using more than a decade ago — but the beauty and elegance of the whole endeavor is now on an entirely different level. Layers upon layers of keyboards, strings and vocals rise and fall, over and over, as Hammock’s musical architecture slowly unfolds. Cellos enter and recede. Notes float, seemingly suspended in midair. A low, gentle pulse gives a heartbeat that keeps the music pushing forward in a measured, stately procession. The pace is glacial (sorry, I couldn’t resist a reference to the band Seam), but never stagnant. Silencia speaks loud and clear.
Astrïd, A Porthole (1)(Gizeh Records) – The violin on the opening track, “Nemalion,” lays out a beautiful melody that is almost painfully exposed, liked you’ve walked in on a rehearsal you shouldn’t be in. Textural, echoey guitars, the drone of a harmonium and subtle percussion follow. Throughout, the French quartet — sometimes veering into Talk Talk territory — explores the edges of postrock where it meets contemporary composition. This album delivers on its name, offering a porthole into an enchanting musical world.
Anne Müller, Heliopause (Erased Tapes) – Fans of contemporary approaches to the cello — think Maya Beiser or Julia Kent — should love this beguiling debut, which Müller wrote, recorded and produced on her own. “Solo? Repeat” combines long melodic lines, rapid string crossings and layered cellos — and resonates like an ECM Records release.
Nils Frahm, All Encores – If you search for this album on Apple Music, you’ll find its genre listed as “ambient.” Look for the same album on Google Play, and you’ll see it categorized as “dance/electronic.” Before I had the chance to see Nils Frahm live last year, I would’ve thought “ambient” was a bit of a misnomer (due to Frahm’s hushed, but structured, piano works), while “dance/electronic” was simply a miscategorization. But there’s a reason that Frahm is one of the most well-known artists making instrumental music, and part of it is his multifaceted appeal and engaging versatility, moving easily from close-miked, felt-dampened piano to the sublime drone of a harmonium to the insistent electronic rhythm of a track like “Spells.”
Deaf Center, Low Distance – I don’t know how widely used or accepted the term “compositional ambient” is, but I find that it’s a useful genre marker to delineate the space between pure ambient music and what might be called modern or contemporary composition. Deaf Center, the duo of Erik K. Skodvin and Otto A. Totland, resides squarely in this space. From indecipherable atmospheric sounds and drone notes to strings, static hums and slow arpeggios from a felt-dampened piano, Low Distance shows Deaf Center to be absolutely masterful at making dark, riveting instrumental music, no matter what you call it.
Sarah Davachi, Pale Bloom – Davachi, from Canada, holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in electronic music and recording media. Her bio states what her work is about far better than I could, so I’ll let it speak for itself: Davachi’s work “is primarily concerned with disclosing the delicate psychoacoustics of intimate aural spaces, utilizing extended durations and simple harmonic structures that emphasize subtle variations in overtone complexity, temperament and intonation, and natural resonances.”
Davachi’s music is both heady and astounding; her 2018 release Gave in Rest is a magnificent display of her compositional power, full of multilayered elegiac meditations. Pale Bloom, meanwhile, opens with the focus squarely on her first instrument, the piano. The somber but elegant “Perfumes I” evolves out of a foundation of Bach and introduces electronics only in a subordinate role. “Perfumes II” sticks with the piano while also introducing vocals, while”Perfumes III” offers sustained drones overlaid by piano chords.
The last track on this four-track album, “If it Pleased Me to Appear to You Wrapped in this Drapery,” opens in a manner similar to Astrïd’s “Nemalion”: with beautiful yet painfully exposed violin, conveying a sense of musical and emotional vulnerability. Augmenting the violin are sustained tones and overtones whose origins I can’t identify. While the first three tracks take Davachi back to her pre-electronic roots as a pianist, the 22-minute closing piece finds her working with strings, organ and electronics, exploring subtle harmonic overtones in the tradition of avant-garde composer La Monte Young. Twenty-two minutes of minimalist drone isn’t for everyone — at least not every day — but wherever Davachi goes, it’s at least worth a visit.
Sjors Mans, Noord(Piano and Coffee) – If you had told me a year-and-a-half ago that ambient music made by brass instruments would become a theme among my Top 10 list, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. But then I heard Trio Ramberget and Sjors Mans. Noord gives us six tracks of blissful swells, atmospheric textures, delicately delivered trumpet and patient dynamic builds, along with some intimately creaking piano and occasionally frenetic synth work. All of it is thoughtfully constructed and mixed, delivering a result that’s profound and deeply satisfying.
Cenes, Carried – Comprised of cello, violin and piano, Carried is a meditative exploration of sound, with long drone notes and warm, sustained harmonies. Borne of an effort by composer/pianist Jim Perkins to step away from the grind of academic composition by taking a more instinctual, organic approach, the result is a wistful collection of brief and simple-yet-effective pieces.
r beny, Echo’s Verse– Two prominent features of ambient music are its dual focus on creating aural textures and on creating a feeling of drifting. San Francisco’s Austin Cairns excels at both, weaving complex, multilayered works from modular synths, tape loops and samplers. What separates r beny from, say, Hammock or Deaf Center, is where his music falls on the spectrum of ambient to compositional. Yes, of course it’s composed in the sense that Cairns is creating and organizing every sound — but the emphasis here is more on texture than on form, and the textures he creates are striking. On the title track, Cairns offers an ambient gem: an intermittent, wobbling hum carried along by a languidly paced melodic motif and punctuated by a static-y, higher-end tone cutting in and out and bouncing back and forth between left and right channels. Echo’s Verse is ambient enough to serve as background music, but you’re better off actually listening.
