Long before I was fortunate enough to release The Last Season through Earth Mantra, this excellent netlabel was one that I followed closely as a source of consistently inspiring ambient music. The output tends more toward light ambient, though other styles are well represented, and the roster includes many of the most prolific and talented artists that you will encounter in the contemporary ambient scene (mainstream or otherwise). Though I have never been a big consumer of light ambient music, the source of my aversion has typically been the musical inanity and shallow new age-ism adhering to those instrumental pop artists considered “ambient”  by commercial media. I never had any problem with the music in itself, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the day I first surfed the Earth Mantra web page was the day I rediscovered how uplifting and outright entertaining light ambient could be.

Allowing that you couldn’t go wrong with any Earth Mantra selection, some of the most outstanding releases overall are those created by Lucette Bourdin. Her compositions demonstrate true musical finesse and a genius for enveloping ear catching melodies within harmonically engaging, spacious and shifting ambiance. The prospect of her collaborating with Darrell Burgan (Palancar)  is a promising one – Darrell’s music has always been remarkable to me for it’s emotional range and an inviting sense of play that runs through even some of his darker pieces. Last week I discovered that some music they had co-produced would be featured in a StillStream podcast, and my hopes for a concurrent Earth Mantra release were high. Samhata, the first of what promises to be multiple releases by the duo, became available a few days later and more than exceeds my expectations.

Comprised of six pieces, the release flows without interruption between songs. Listening all the way through in one sitting, the effect is that of one exceptionally well conceived long form piece. Two passages, Neti Neti and Meru, add some rhythmic and melodic textures to the predominantly drone oriented release, while Sarga and Sanatana respectively bring listeners into and back out of the sonic space that Bourdin and Burgan have created. This is a work that could serve as the background for meditation or reading, or which might just as effectively be used for quiet entertainment or a concentration aid at work. By this I’m not implying a lack of consistency – the music is simply so good that it will suit any context. Let’s hope that Bourdin and Burgan release more of their collaborations – and soon.

As a Zenapolae artist, it’s a privilege to be aware of and have access to the great glitch and ambient music that the label puts out. Recently, I began work on a podcast for the label which would highlight Zenapolae releases along with other gems from the netlabel scene and was very excited when I first heard Kamil Kowalczyk’s Kontakt. The release consists of a series of untitled, minimalistic pieces that are immediately engaging and yet benefit from repeated listens.

The generic titling – Untitled I, Untitled II, etc. -  may seem uninspired on the surface, but ultimately does a lot of justice to the music. Here again, there is a strong sense of sound design and consistency between the pieces, yet each individual track has an internal continuity and some unique qualities that make it stand out from the others.  I’m very partial to Untitled I and Untitled V. V in particular features a great, buzzing drone that comes on like a distorted dial tone but gracefully evolves into a swirling and densely textured mass of sound. Overall, the music is intensely electronic but free of heavy synth pads or other standard ambient texturizers. It’s like noise with soul, and I love it.

I got turned on to the label Beep Beep Back Up the Truck back when they released “Reverence for Fallen Trees,” by The Black Atlantic. Having not browsed their collection for some time, I checked them out again last week and was very pleased to discover the release,  “How It’s Done In Italy,” by Danish trio My Bubba & Mi. This is not ambient music, and doesn’t fit with the other releases reviewed here any better than Juanitos do. Similar to Juanitos, however, My Bubba & Mi do what they do with such verve and feeling that anyone who appreciates soul in music will have to check them out.

It’s tempting to call this old time music, and indeed the songs contain all the qualities that people love about old time; lyrics and melodies that evoke nostalgia and lost romance, acoustic instrumentation, two and maybe three part harmonies. The band know this well and capitalize on it – the hard copy design and image files are all candy-stripes and brown paper wrapping, along with grainy photos of the group that recall summers between the wars. But at heart this is contemporary pop music, and I mean that in the best sense. The opening track, “Gone,” is really a blues rocker that hits as hard as it does because the band aren’t afraid to slow down and put the power in the vocals.  “After You” swaggers and “I Will Never Love a Young Boy Again” lilts and you could call either of them folk music, but there’s an alt-country and cabaret edge here that even the best of today’s string bands wouldn’t touch. This is neither a criticism of string bands nor My Bubba & Mi – it’s simply an observation that making music with heart is about doing what you do well and not getting hung up on what might pass for “authentic.” And these ladies have heart. It’s all over every track on this highly recommended release.

The band has a website at http://mybubbaandmi.com/ but I have linked the cover photo to their release site on Bandcamp. This is because Bandcamp allows users to download music in a variety of lossless formats, and may really be the best starting point for getting to know new bands and labels.

Bow Echoes is a sublime collection of droning guitar and ambient minimalism from Canadian musician Damian Valles. Released through the excellent Resting Bell netlabel back in March, I was made aware of it yesterday when the track Ground Truth played on StillStream. The guitar textures really made the piece stand out, prompting me to immediately download the full release.

Regardless of how many musical styles an artist may work in, any single ambient release requires a certain amount of tonal and compositional consistency in order to hold up to repeated listens. Of course this is a matter of taste, but from my own listening experience, ambient works are invariably concept-oriented. Accordingly, each project requires the expression and exploration of melodic and/or textural themes and an approach to sound design that is consistent across each of the pieces that comprise a release. In this respect, Bow Echoes is a tremendous achievement – the individual songs are remarkable in their pacing and composition, while the release as a whole exists completely within a sonic space that is utterly alluring. There’s an attention to detail here that, without seeming contrived or too rigid, engages listeners and allows our appreciation to evolve over repeated listens.

Overall, this is a truly inspiring and enjoyable work which encourages me, as a musician, to challenge my own concepts of pacing and the limits of minimalism. Favorite tracks are Ground Truth, Derechos, and A Wake Pattern.

Hermelin’s self-titled, full length debut on 12rec is about two years old now. For some time it had fallen out of rotation on my playlists. But as I was streaming random selections the other day, I Felt Xetrov kicked in and sent me back to this gem of a release. In fact, you won’t find this one on 12rec’s current site – since it was released, the label has moved to a Bandcamp affiliated site. So you’ll have to go to the Internet Archive for this one: http://www.archive.org/details/12rec.049

12rec releases music in a variety of styles, and depending on the style I don’t always share their enthusiasm for particular artists. However, when it comes to post-rock, I think they’re dead on. Both Hermelin and Milhaven,  12rec’s featured post-rock outfits, have a fresh sound and an energy that comes across powerfully in their recordings. The songwriting from both bands is very strong, combining sparse guitar melodies and noise textures with minimalist bass and drum beats. Of the two, however, I strongly prefer Hermelin. Their songs have a bit more structure and movement, and they take a broader approach stylistically. Melodies and themes may evolve slowly, or they may come crashing towards you with spastic distortion. It’s a varied approach that really works for instrumental rock.

Standout tunes on the release are Nova Police, Pliant Fur, and …Sharp Teeth. If you like this one, the band also contributed to half of an earlier 12rec release which they shared with the band Junique Fois Pi.

This is the first release of 2010 for the netlabel Phantom Channel. It came out in January and I heard it for the first time recently on StillStream – I had entered into that state of perceiving the music as an environmental element, ambient indeed, when And The Rain Embraced Our Closing Words came on, caught my attention and blew me away.

It’s probably not really fitting to use the phrase “blew me away,” since this is light ambient music of the highest order; textured, melodic, and peaceful yet with an undercurrent of tension that adds a kind of narrative structure to the whole. But the music grabbed me, I jumped to the download link right away and haven’t listened to anything else since.

It might be illustrative to compare the release to Manitou’s All Points North, with regard to the heavy synth pads and melodic minimalism. But where All Points North has a kind of tonal asperity that makes it a bit monotonous on repeated listens, the use of piano and more prevalent melodies on Memories… keeps the music moving. Each time I’ve listened to it, my ear has grabbed on to some new bit of melancholic contemplation that keeps the whole release sounding fresh. Another comparison might be made to the various ambient tunes that Sigur Ros employs to move between their pieces of epic bombast, except that Language of Landscape maintain a pervasive calm and attention to detail that listeners don’t get from the Icelandic quartet.

Of the few reviews I’ve done so far, Memories… is the first that is truly ambient and one which I highly recommend. For those like me who are never turned off by noise and dark drones, but who have to be very selective when it comes to “light” ambient, this release is a compelling blend of structure and aural tension that makes for a very rewarding listening experience.

Here’s another one that came my way courtesy of the good folks over at Phlow. I’ve been on this kick lately of searching for releases and artists that use a lot of ambient textures but who can keep the music going with a pop drive, and Dead Line by Stockfinster completely fits the bill. If you can get past some of the glitchy trance-house fills incorporated by the drum programming, and I hope you can, you’ll find that this is a consistently engaging full length release, full of hooks and excellent song writing.

In parts, the overall release puts me in mind of Enigma, though I know that’s a comparison that can be taken many ways. I mean it in the good way – technical sophistication, ambient moods, suggestive but not overpowering vocals. All the things a person might go back to Enigma for, but less predictable and more edgy. For myself, I like the heavy synth sounds and the bass grooves. Phlow dubs this release as “Epic Electronic Prog Pop,” and there’s not much I can say to improve on that.

Click to hear the first track, Push Push.

I was holding out for a dark ambient release, or even a light ambient one, to feature in my first review. But then I came across these guys courtesy of a recent Phlow mixtape and have hardly listened to anything else since. The reviews and blurbs on the corresponding Jamendo page tend to emphasize the 60′s vibe and the summer-fun-surf-rock aspects of the music – that’s all fine, but what really grabs me is how tight the band is and how adept they are at cramming the groove into your ear-hole. There’s tons of hooks, and the organ work in particular stands out for adding some funk and jazz riffs without overdoing it. Even the forays into salsa and meringue, which I’ve never much cared for, are big on low end groove. The singing is gritty, and the sound is clean but not over-produced. All in all this is one of the funkiest and most beneficially mood-altering releases – commercial or otherwise – that I have heard in a long time.

Favorite tracks are Glitter Bomb and Supernatural.