Tagged with chillout

Silent Saturday: Two moments of low gear livin’

I’ve discovered so many great, calm tracks lately so it warrants a whole weekend dedicated for the calm and silent: Silent Weekend!
For today I have picked two tracks that is slightly leaning towards chillout, one more than the other, and both are really very good. Enjoy.

Patiotic – Hopeless Land

A piano based track that really has a lot going for it. Lovely, calm atmosphere – but also quite original.
And that latter part is crucial for me. I mean – if there’s one thing this world don’t really need one more of, it’s yet another a quiet piano piece, right?

Unless… It brings something a bit unique to the table. As is done here. And we dig it.

Regular readers of Beatradar may recall the name Patiotic. He did a fantastic track with Sophia Garvey a while ago, “Doesn’t Matter“.
A track that I’ve still not grown tired of.

HaTom – Naya

My second track this Saturday is also a very harmonic and calm composition. Lovely chill-out vibes. A guitar is one of the cornerstones of this track, and the instrument that seduced me on my first listen.

I don’t have much info about HaTom at hand, but as far as I understand he’s a rather new producer and as such it’s impressive to hear that he seems to already have found his own unique sound.

Of course, it really helps getting there when you are focused on “keeping my own vibe without samples“, to quote him. And in this case it’s every good reason to do so: The result is well arranged, well produced, and with a unique flair.
Keep up the good work, buddy!

HaTom is not on Spotify yet, but Patiotic is added to two of our playlists: The totally new and utterly calm “All Chilled Out” playlist, as well as our ambient playlist “The Ambient Universe”. I suspect that the track is a bit too energetic for the latter list, but I’ll try it out the coming days! On the chillout list it will however reside for a very long time.
Follow it today for a trustworthy source of calm electronica.

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Hard To Label, Easy To Love: Chop’em up, baby!

Here’s two tracks that are very different from each other but with one thing in common: Really great glitch/chopped vocal effects. One very chilled, calm and harmonic, the other a majestic psychological trip. No less.

Wheel – You

On Monday I shared with you a glitchy dance monster. This track here also flirts with a layer of glitches, but is of a totally different energy level.

Can we call this Chill Glitch? I mean, the electronica world is riddled with so many genres now it seems as soon as we discover something slightly non-formulaic we eagerly feel the need to give it a new label. Ridiculous, really. And here I am promoting that same attitude. Gotta get a grip of myself.

But whatever we call this, there’s no denying it is gorgeous. I so totally love how the vocals are processed here. There’s not much sense to decode out of this chopped up feast, but man how elegant it is. As a matter of fact, as a fan of instrumentals I much prefer vocals used only as instruments, not as vehicles of a message.

So this track suits me perfectly. How about you?

Fabian Schober – Earth Suicide

This next and quite hard to label creation is one of the most cinematic pieces I’ve covered in quite a while. I mean, listen to this!

And here we have that same demonstration of excellent vocal chopped up processing. Chopped and repeated in such an elegant way I honestly get goosebumps while typing here now.

And the atmosphere! Ohmygawd, the atmosphere. If there ever was a perfect opening to pretty much ANY genre DJ set, this is it. It just cranks up the expectation of something fantastic coming up, it just BEGS to be used.

Furthermore, there’s the sudden change around half-way. How about that one, huh?
I mean, just as you think you know the track it just totally throws you off its back and you crash land into a psychological abstract little room with a doll singing. I do not like the expression of that doll. I want to get away. And away we go. Saved by a gigantic Alice from Wonderland picking us up and asking us what the hell our business were being there.

Trippy? You betcha. And we want whatever Fabian’s got. Never stop making music, Fabian.

Both of these tracks are found on our “Beatradar Selections” playlist, where all our selections are added as we discover them.

In addition we added Wheel to our list “All Chilled Out“, and Fabian were added to our eclectic “Electronica Outskirts” playlist.
See, we curate a lot of great lists. You’ll get an overview on this page!

Summer chill: Come count waves with us!

Finally the summer has reached also us here up in northern Europe! Yay! So it’s time to pull out a really light, bright, and just plain beautifully chilled track:

Waywell & Charlotte Newman – Wave 9

It has a quite long introduction, but I would not have it any other way. When you got something this harmonic and beautiful then by all means: Take your time!

And it doesn’t get any worse once the beat starts rolling. Oh no. This track is sprinkled with elegance and gorgeous details. Great guitar play, wonderful voice, sweet light groove on the keys, it begs the question: Can chill-out really get any better than this?

The only thing I’ll hold against it is that with an intro that long the remaining duration of the track is way too short. They could have added at least two more minutes. At least!

I receive a lot of calm tracks over the course of a month. But this is what I want to hear more of. And if you happen to be an artist that think you can match this, please read this page on how to submit your track to our blog!

You find this track along with all our other selections of excellent electronica in our Spotify playlist “Beatradar Selections”:

Double Downtempo: Lo-fi moments of harmony

Here’s two tracks with the piano as the main instrument, interesting arrangements and served in a perfectly tempered lo-fi wrapping. This is chillout/downtempo we can like here at the ‘radar.

Bokki – Bases

For reasons unclear to me this track reminds me of something Prince could have made back in the eighties. Released on a b-side or something. I think it’s the arrangement, the quite oldschool delays and the way the guitar and piano is played.
Very interesting sound on the piano, by the way! With the old/worn/un-tuned timbre. Very atmospheric, works perfectly here.

The soundscape is also elegantly filled with details along the way, curious little abstract loops and effects.

It’s a bit on the short side, this one. That’s unfortunate. But what we do receive is a gorgous two minutes draped in lofi aestetics. And are left with an urge to hear more from this artist.

Prospect Lux – STRRD

Lovely piano play here as well. Maybe particularly so. And with a similar lo-fi beat rolling effortlessly across the track. Prospect Lux tells us that Moby is one of his inspirations, and one can understand so. You got a great mentor there, Lux. 🙂

Two tracks that really fits our bill of what good, downtempo electronica can sound like.

Both of these tracks are now found on our fantastic Spotify playlist “The Deep Lounge“. A list well worth adding to your library. New tracks added weekly!

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Double Synth Session: A magic carpet ride

Sometimes I just wanna hear a good synth instrumental. Sure, yeah, I dig the underground kind of tracks. The dark and gritty, more percussion than melody focused, repetitious, hypnotic tracks.

But there are moments when I look for the exact opposite. When I need the exact opposite. And then it’s nice to have artists like these two around, to provide us with a piece of quality old-school synth instrumentals in the footsteps of giants like Jean-Michel Jarre and Kitaro.

Surya Kris Peters – Ragamati

A classic sounding lead synth takes us on a travel through exotic landscapes, in one gorgeous continuous jam. And the way he plays this lead, I don’t know about you but it totally takes me to Jarre-land. And I’ve missed that.

Not to say this is a copy-cat. Absolutely not. But he belongs to a kind of sound that really is quite rare – always was, and still is. The bag where we also place the mentioned Jarre.

And the lead makes me think this is a semi-improvised session. If it’s not then please don’t break my illusion. I see a guy totally lost in this melody, riding it on his analogue synth.

Jeremy Estes – Clockwork Bound

The next piece is maybe a bit more western sounding, maybe a bit more modern production techniques are used too – but it’s equally gorgeous.

Piano, guitar, and synth leads are taking turns in this composition, contributing to an utterly harmonic and soothing experience. Just beautiful.

So: I’ll return to my own grumpy and dark self tomorrow – today I just want to have these two on repeat and take a magic carpet ride across synthetic harmonies.

These tracks totally belongs to a dedicated chill-out playlist. But we don’t have that one set up for public consumption just yet, so in the meantime you’ll find them on our excellent list “The Deep Lounge“, where quality electronica of the deeper and calmer kind are gathered.

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