The most 'otherworldy' music I've heard since Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. II
934786
Hard to believe, but 20 years ago Aphex Twin released perhaps an amazing double disk called "Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II". Many critics and people working even in other genres of music hailed it as masterpiece of electronica and the work of a genius. What was so remarkable about the record was that it was so original that it sounded like nothing else that had come before it. It was eerie, spacey and sometimes even creepy. Time magazine said "if aliens communicate, this is what it might sound like". But the downside of Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II is that the eerie mood never lets up.

I mention this because I get a strong hunch that what Boards Of Canada was trying to achieve was a similiar alien landscape as Aphex Twin but instead making it more listenable and accessible by leaning heavily on atmosphere. Some critics have said Tomorrow's Harvest has no soul, well I disagree with that because there is a pervasive sense of "a watcher", of someone so numb and disconnected from the world. This is also the first time I've ever heard any electronic act try to build upon the foundation of Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II and actually succeed.

But it's not just Aphex Twin that Boards Of Canada seems to be quoting. I hear alot of vintage 70s "space rock" and new-agey trappings. Tangerine Dream's classics Rubycon and Phaedra come to mind. There are also creepy synth string sounds that recalls the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

My first impression of Tomorrow's Harvest is very favorable. I could see this record becoming a classic, but because it references electronica music that's already been made, it could also be a bit of "a flash in the pan". Time will tell if Boards Of Canada have planted the right seeds. I get a sense they have.
325968
For a 4-disc set with 90-something tracks to have only one song that I truly dislike, that is quite remarkable (and yes, that track is "Otherworld.")  I turned on this music and got favorable feedback from two people (both over 40) who were later surprised when I told them it was a video game soundtrack.

Some music on this set is relaxing, some mystical, some haunting, and some beautiful.  The pulse-quickening tracks have a depth to them that many popular songs these days don't.  "Otherworld" may be a bit out of place in this set, but other fast-paced songs like "Challenge," "Confrontation," and the Seymour Battle Song fit in beautifully.  If you like instrumentals with some depth, you won't be disappointed.

This is a deep music collection created by talented musicians from Japan with proven appeal to non-game players.  And unlike music that's on the USA charts these days, this music won't go out of style.
2001592
I needed some new sounds for my workstation...Massive Attack, Morcheeba, Scientist...i'd played it all out.  My muse Estella had been telling me about the Ibiza mixes for weeks, but i was too busy (stubborn?) to take her advice.  I guess i finally got bored enough.
 Good thing too. This might be one of my "year's best".  You can indeed chill out to these mixes, but producer Rob Da Bank (!!?!) hasn't forgotten that music is for listening as well as  dancing and cooling  out.  It's been a while since i've heard a DJ with such an organic, almost bio-electronic approach.  Fragile glockenspiels give way to sensual polyrhythms that vanish into keyboard washes which part to reveal etherial vocals that carry you into a bright and soothing afro-cuban groove....and it never gets cluttered or busy.  In fact the effortlessnes path the music travels adds to the thrill of it.  The only problem i have with Ibiza Sunset is where i can get more...more...more...
1811855
This is the trippiest CD Steven John Kilbey has ever composed. The Church lead vocalist mixes nihilistic, spiritual, cosmic and psychedelic genres on this very eclectic, harrowing, entertaining and creative CD. Eastern mysticism imbues some of the tunes. Amidst all the diverse array of vocal songs are two truly far-out instrumentals that could make excellent soundtrack music. Kilbey's mesmerizing vocal tracks allure you into "Remindlessness", a CD that audibly transports you to the outer limits.
3498600
_____________________________________________(Balam Acab - See Birds - 2010)

...slow, syrupy and hallucinogenic. This is fantastic chill-out music and it's gorgeous. Amazingly, it was created solely from samples collected from the Internet by a 19-year-old named Alec Koone. It's more interesting and flat-out better than most of the "Witch House" it's associated with, one of the labels that's cropped up to define this recent musical trend. I'm not big on labels, but in an effort to describe this music, it can be viewed as a sub-class of "chillwave." One could argue that it has its roots in "trip-hop" (slowed-down hip-hop, more sensual and atmospheric) which it certainly resembles although it's less beat driven with more emphasis on tonalilty and ambiance. It's often characterized by distant, ghostly vocals, spoken or sung, with incoherent words. But it's not really fair to label Balam Acab and lump it in with this so-called genre because it really stands as its own thing. It's absolutely wonderful.

"Sea Birds (Moon)" - dubby, full of echos and trippy aural caverns and a mysterious, pulsing rhythm. Distant, ethereal, heavily reverbed vocals sound like they're floating down a dark tunnel. Very hypnotic and a little spooky.

"Regret Making Mistakes" - Opens with a strange, backwoods atmosphere featuring a sampled banjo, quiet and slow, and the rocking of a porch swing before a humming, monolithic synth pulse emerges. Contains qualities similar to the first track but with gently swirling notes, heavenly peaks and a brighter atmosphere.

"Big Boy" - lush and hypnotic. The high-pitched, cavernous vocals are hazy and beautiful. Particularly great are the clipped injections of flowing water that help propel the rhythm. Amazing.

"Dream Out" - As the ep grows progressively lighter in tone it culminates in this ethereal wonderland of flowing harps, chattering cicadas and gorgeous undulations of bliss.

"Sea Birds (Sun)" - a reinterpretation of the first track after being submerged into this watery, welcoming heaven full of wondrous sounds, percolating beats and feel-good vibes.
1669030
This album constantly surprises with an eclectic range of sounds and moods, pulling you through trances, awakenings and everything in between - DM really pushed this album to another level - they've grown in such an organic way - it's new ground for them and for the listener - mind-bending at times, thrilling at others, it's breathtaking from start to finish
3057905
This compilation begins with Richard Burmer's fabulous "Across The View".  Truly a trip to the otherside.  Constance Demby's "I Set Myself Free" continues this otherworldly journey, with heavenly  synthesizers and brass.  Chris Spheeris & Paul Voudouris contribute  "First Kiss", a song dramatic enough and sappy enough to be on a  movie soundtrack, but it fits in well here.  Christopher Franke's  "Flower Hill Trail" is similar but has a bit more energy.  Anael's voice is the voice of an angel, and "One Brief Dream"  shows that off stunningly,in this jazz-influenced, sparsely arranged  composition.  Ayman's "Seduced By An Angel" is a long but  enduring track, with soft vocals and a driving bass line.  This is calming  music.  "Amy's Lullaby IV" by Mars Lasar combines beautiful  pizzicato strings and sparkling synthesizers to create a perfect lullaby.  Cheryl Gunn's "Elesian Fields" create images of a wide expanse  where time stands still.  A very Yanni-esque composition.  Back To Earth's  "The Hidden Smile Of Nalad" is a guitar based track of the  highest quality, and the ethnic flutes add to the mysterious quality.  Richard Burmer's "Reunion" has an Asian influence to it, and  retains the ethereal feeling of his first song off this disc.  Collette  Baron-Reid's "The Only Answer" combines Baron-Reid's glorious  vocals with mystical drums and heavenly synthesizers to create a beautiful  sonic landscape.  Miriam Stockley's uncomparable vocals bless  "There" with the touch it needs, as a mainly piano track, to give  it the emotional complexity it has.  Michel Rubini contributes  "Improvisation 1", which is a beautiful yet repetetive track.  "Desires Of The Heart" by Chris Spheeris is a dull track, which  focuses on a very uninteresting piano melody line.  The disc closes with a  simple yet engaging piano solo from Gary Lamb called "In The  Cathedral".  After hearing this compilation I am eagerly looking  forward to hearing "Ascension 2".
3548637
I am always hungry for new music. I think I continue to consume the sounds, so that I can recreate that moment. That moment of when one hears that sound, and is taken away out of this world into another. That moment, reminiscent of your childhood memories, when you would put on your headphones and melt away in the hypnotic beat beyond all thought and worries. It is the music you would turn to, for answers and escape. Remember? I do. And so I search, among the hundreds of albums, for the one that would bring back those memories, and take me to that place. What can I say? I think with Liumin I have found it. Big thanks to Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell of echospace [detroit]. First of all, I think it's a huge plus, when an album seamlessly transitions from one track to another. That solidifies my reasoning for listening from beginning to end. The tracks flow smoothly, in that velvety, dubbed out, and incredibly hypnotic beat. The duo is not apologetic for letting the tracks evolve over the ten minute marker. Although some may find this rolling rhythm a bit repetitive, I think that it's only after the first six or seven minutes that the mind latches on to the beat and new environments unfold. If there was a science behind this process, then Hitchell and Modell should base their thesis on their work, their magic, and their art. Incredibly simplistic, yet awesomely complex percussion is drenched in vaporous white noise, as it envelopes the chords that swirl around in the stereo field of infinite dimensions. Complimented with a touch of field recordings captured by Modell in Tokyo, Japan, the kick trends on, falling out of the foreground of the typical warehouse sound system, into the ether of organic pulse. For me, the absolute masterpieces on the album include "BCN Dub" and "Maglev". The latter, in particular, takes me to a mysterious place, elusive in its existence, with hidden doors and passages that only open up somewhere in the middle of the track. Liumin is the duo's second full length album, releasing under the alias DeepChord Presents Echospace for Boomkat's Modern Love. Of course, both have been pretty active in their Chicago and Detroit dub techno scenes. Rod Modell has recently released Incense & Black Light Plop, 2007) and a two-track 60-minute dedication to Michael Mantra (Silentes, 2007), while Stephen Hitchell has been busy releasing remixes on Kompakt and Echocord as well as his critically acclaimed 2009 beauty, The Seduction Of Silence on echospace [detroit]. Together, they have been making quite a splash on the scene of dubbed out minimal beats, specifically after the absolutely incredible The Coldest Season  back in 2007. This double-disk release, contains a bonus 80-minute CD with the original field recordings from Tokyo. This second place is only accessible after you've made the journey through the hollow caverns of Liumin, revealing itself like a secret garden hidden deep beneath the earth. This is indeed a surreal, almost narcotic, experience, which, like that most treasured childhood memory, is a  momentous trip. Move over Basic Channel, and let the boys from echospace impress you for a change.
3474966
After fully listening to this album I have discovered why it had recently scored the "Best Electronic Album" grammy. There's so much hand-crafted analogue in this album, it makes it sound and feel wonderful. Also, having been a listener of Aphex Twin and his various aliases, I can truthfully say that this album was hard to beat in the first place.

Even if you never listened to Aphex Twin, and want to try something, do go for this. Like I said, the full-analogue usage in this album makes it amazing. I definitely wish to hear more prominent artists experiment with analogue machines. Other Warp artists are a fine listen but I am overall amazed at Syro, I think it's my only favorite album for 2014.
2366002
This forty track / 4-CD box set is a bit better than what most fans (and critics) have given it credit for. One upside for me was that a good most of these ambient and electronic artists are 'totally new' to my ears. I mean - there are a few that I'm vaguely familiar with like for example Children Of Dub, Fluid, Alien Mutation, Optica, Green Light and too many others to list here. However, there are only three bands here that I already know of - Hawkwind (duh!), Melting Euphoria and Loop Guru. I would suggest (when / if) you can find the time, to sit down and listen to all four of these CD's in one evening or at least two CD's in the same day, then the next two the following day. Many audio surprises in this four-hour plus of music.
3501047
Great music should take you somewhere , a temporary displacement to a different hopefully better place , space or time. This CD will do it better than most I can think of. A perfect amalgam of electronic soundscapes, ambient grooves and world music elements. It is pretty much a continuation of his previous CD, Different Space. There are chants by African bushman, and latin percussion interlaced , synthesized ambient backbeats and Asian sounding synthesized strings. It is mostly down tempo, great chill-out music.
147007
If you want ambient chillout msuic, this album can provide that for you and will do it in a much more interesting way than 99% of "ambient" albums.  If you want IDM & glitch, this album will also more than satisfy your needs.

What really makes this CD shine for me is the huge contrast between the exceptionally robotic, glitchy, inorganic sounds of Noto and the organic piano playing of Sakamoto.  Anyone could bring live instrumental music together with machine music.  Only someone with an incredible amount of skill can make the two fuse into such a perfect marriage while at the same time,  emphasizing the wide gulf between the two types of sound.
484070
This is proving to be one of my favorite pieces of electronica by Steve Roach and an ideal platform for anyone not familiar with his 'soundscapes', as he calls them.  Check out longer downloads of his music at [...] , and try some of his other releases.  He is a prolific producer of music that ranges from the traditional German analogue sounds of 70s bands such as Tangerine Dream, Popul Vuh, Kraftwerk (know known as the Berlin sound); right up to the extraordinary beautiful minimilist structures of sound called 'deep space' that defy proper description.  This album contains a perfect blend / balance of both.  That's why it makes an ideal step along the soundworlds path for the faithful, or an enticing and intoxicating start for the novice. Either way - beautiful music and sound design for today's stressful urban world.
I gotta say that I have been listening to Steve for ten years now and his albums seem to be getting better with each release - either that or I am so spaced out with his sounds I no longer know my analogue from my digital.
This release contains elements of his low volume ambient works (such as A Deeper Silence - my all time favorite piece) where the sound carries you out of this world - into the space between spiral arms of our galaxy; to the analogue frenzy of Arc of Passion, Core, Light Fantastic.  However, it most closely resembles Steve's last release: Dynamic Stillness for a general mix of all the soundscapes he has made uniquely his own.
Whatever, I love this album and consider it part of my escape kit back to sanity - a toolkit for the soul.
Boyce
3724128
Discovered this a bit late in 2013.  The best way I can describe it (for all you BM experts out there), is as follows.  Spektr, on this album at least, is what would what happen if Thorns, Darkspace, and Blut Aus Nord got together and created a freak experiment in the lab.  It's a left field audio soundscape that mixes elements of BM, ambient, industrial, psychedelic, and even jazz....not to mention samples from movies.  Yes, it's also essentially instrumental.

There's an intro and outro, plus other short intermissions of industrial/noise.  Only four actual tracks (none shy on length), it honestly feels like that's all this album needs to get its otherworldly point across.  Song structures always changing and morphing into something different, peaking and receding in such curious ways.

So, if you're knowledgeable of the French BM scene, or are a fan of listening to a melding of the styles I described, this album is for you.  I have admiration of both BAN's The Work Which Tranforms God and Deathspell Omega's Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum.....both of which are, IMO, uniquely chaotic and abstract records.

Spektr's Cypher is just the next step in what I view as the most unorthodox BM scene.
3369952
Mind-altering sounds arose from my CD-player when I listened to this talented and, in its very own way, subtle piece of art.  Dream Theatre has taken instrumental and progressive rock to new, utmost heights (or depths - how could I know for sure?) of mesmerising and disturbing virtuosity.
The leading song is, no doubt, 'Strange dj vu'.  However, it does not come alone, for the whole disc is a great continuum of themes which do not tend to conclude until the story itself does.
Because this album tells a story.  And my advice is to learn about it in a quiet, gloomy room, having plenty of time and preparing to feel a rare set of sensations as this awesome opus comes to an end.
4432163
Native American chant and musical sensibilities fused with remarkably well crafted ambient electronica integrate to form a timeless, emotion-laden sound. A must add to any Ambient World Electronica collection. I've not run across anything like it in my exploration of this and other genres.
2541934
Boy am I in a rut right now!  But what a WONDERFUL rut.  For the last few months I just haven't been able to listen to anything but Neo-Psychedelia.  I've been listening to stuff like Area C, Boris, The Black Angels, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols, Brother JT, The Warlocks, you know...

But right up there on top are the Gibbons Brothers bands Bardo Pond and Alasehir.

Alasehir, the side band of the larger Bardo Pond, has become one of my all time favorite records.  Being a fan of modern "Serious" music too, Reich, Glass, Thompson, Adams, Torke, I especially appreciate the length and breath of these instrumental works.

Thick, heavy guitar chords wash over you like the waves of the ocean while Michael Zangha's drumming smashes at your brain like a rivet gun.  These four tracks are just a wonderful (acid) trip through the world of modern 21st Century Psychedelic music.

PLEASE don't let this record pass you by.  If you enjoy any of the music I mentioned above, you'll LOVE Alasehir!