Ambient Universe #118

I like most directions of ambient. But if I had to choose one particular, it’d had to be the darker ones. Those dark, quiet, subtle and experimental atmospheres.

So what better way to spend the last Ambient Universe of this year to dive into two excellent new releases of that kind. Enjoy the darkness.

Timothy Conan Young (USA) – Black Garden

This track here contains everything I seek in ambient, being it dark or not: An amazing soundscape that never grows stale but is ever evolving, and without sudden changes or surprises. We can trust it, and lower our guard. It will not snap at us.

And just as important: A sound design that is not just a handful synths and that’s that, but clever use of distortion, field recordings and various other effects to build a rustic, worn texture to the sounds used. It comes to life.

And here that life is led in a cold, deserted and hostile environment. But still, no immediate dangers. It’s just… Dark. Very dark. But peaceful.

Like a lone starman in his capsule, lost in deep deep space.

Niclas Tamas (Hungary) – Geomorphology Bots

Another thing I love in ambient (and music in general), is when silence is used properly. Space in the arrangements. As demonstrated here. Bursts of harmonics, like firework. Now it’s there, now it’s gone. Left behind is the glowing tail as it falls to the ground.

I also like it when ambient composers try to explore arrangements that’s a bit more than the rather formulaic “long pads in slowly revonving harmonics”. Here we have something else. Something… New.

And this new land is for us to explore. It’s brighter grounds than Black Garden above, but still quite dark, quite gloomy, quite deserted.

Quite post-apocalyptic to my ears. One of my favourite sci-fi scenarios.


Both of these gems are added to our utterly atmospheric and longest running Spotify playlist, “Ambient Universe”, where we collect only the finest new ambient releases as we discover them. No beats, guaranteed.