Techno yesterday, ambient today. At least you can’t accuse me of being too repetitious in my music recommendations. 😀

Ambient is a genre that I really love, and more so over the years.
I still remember the feeling when I discovered the genre, or rather: Fully understood it. I believe it was the online radio station “Cryosleep” that was the preacher of this gospel, and I became a convert. Up until then I thought ambient was just some slow, boring piano and a field recording of flowing water in the background… How little did I know. Cause what a universe that unfolds within a good ambient track!

Like, this track here. Absolutely gorgeous. And – interestingly – it features a piano as the main instrument. Interesting on a personal level, because I don’t really like piano in my ambient. The transients are too sharp. And usually, whenever I hear a piano appear in a ambient track I go like, “ah fuck, that was that” and expect the track to transform into a cheesy harmonic piano piece.

But not so here. The piano is just so tender, abstract and well portioned throughout the track that even an ambient piano sceptic like myself totally buys into this. Not to mention it does remind me of contemporary jazz (for example from the fantastic Helge Lien Trio) where the piano are just as well used as an ambience effect and not just a traditional vehicle for melodies.

The perfect ambient track, according to me, is a slowly evolving landscape. An ambient track is not something to whistle along to. But an ambient track should also be more than just a drone running for ten minutes straight. There should be some variations, some exploration, some shifts throughout the track – it just needs to happen s-l-o-w-l-y. No sudden moves, and for heavens sake; No drum or percussion patterns!

This track does all that. So, per my definition, it’s the perfect ambient track. Of course, the “perfect” is impossible, but this track here works damn well as a reference to it.

So take a break from your everyday life and just let this one pass through your head.

We added this track to our quite calming “The Ambient Universe” playlist. Well worth to follow if you need an hour of ease of mind. We never go to sleep without it.