New music haul

Went on a bit of a buying spree this week. Picked up some great stuff from Bandcamp, so in no particular order...

Ambient

Bordeaux—More slightly chilly, dreamy Russian atmospheres from Beautumn (Alexander Ananyev). This time mixed with distant vocal recordings that sound like found radio broadcasts. Released in 2016 its's been on my wishlist for some time. I think this was the last album he put out under the Beautumn moniker.

Next two by Robert Rich, one of my favourite musicians.

Offering to the Morning Fog—Released as a 'name your price' album this calm and relaxing, but has a lot of layers. In the same vein as his Somnium releases. Track 7 is a continuous mix of all 6 tracks, coming in just over an hour.

Neurogenesis—This is one of Robert Rich's more electronic albums. A mix of analog and digital sounds it dives into pulsing patterns like some of the track titles suggest; such as 'Dendritic' and 'Neurogenesis'.

Frozen Passages—Another one sitting in my wishlist for some time. This album is by poemme (Angela Klimek) who, with her husband Andrew, also runs Ambient Sleeping Pill internet radio here in Cleveland. This is another chilly atmospheres album, but not bleak. She describes it as...

Frozen Passages is an imagined journey into the far north of the continent, through boreal forest, across vast, barren landscape, through the iciest storm, and eventually finding warm refuge as the night brings a welcome calm to the tundra.

Electronic/Dance

Optical Delusion—The latest album by Orbital. 30 years and still going strong! This already has two of my favourite tracks this year; 'Ringa Ringa' with The Mediaeval Baebes, and 'Dirty Rat' with Sleaford Mods. I can see this moving up the list of my top Orbital albums.

Smiley—Another one by Orbital, this time a single from the '30 Something' album. Banger!

Ultra Truth—I can't say I'd heard of Daniel Avery before this album. I had seen John Darko mention it a couple of times, and it had appeared on several "top lists" from people I follow like Jon Hicks and Simon Collison. This is a huge album. Great swelling distortions then subtle pianos, the some D&B.

Wrapping up

I downloaded all of these as FLAC files, and made sure I paid a little over on the 'name your price' ones.

I still have 200 left on wishlist. How does it never get any smaller?