Future Astronauts - Vessels VII

Future Astronauts is a collective specialised in the making of astounding compilation of hand-picked chilly tracks, master-crafted mixes and podcasts. The 'Vessels' series of compilation serves a good cause (as does all music, is it not?) that of helping raise mental health and suicide prevention awareness and donating all profits to charity.

So here you go, you can do a good deed while listening to state of the art trip-hop, downtempo, UK garage, ambient... you name it!

I'll leave you to it then, see you later.

State Azure - Shadows

This album bears its name well, and explores the darker side of State Azure's music.

Usually very bright, shimmering like the ices of the arctic and brilliant like the afternoon sun. His music becomes here more earthly, not to say... well, I don't know. Feels like a tribal ritual, the whole thing.

Just listen, it's perfect for soul searching in the woods in the evening.

Confessor - Liminal Dive

Wow, alright, just let me take five minutes to land...

After a series of albums of an elegiac, nostalgic beauty, focusing on the passing of time, death, storms and rainy days, Confessor reaches for the stars in a rocket fuelled for a one-way trip to meet celestial entities. The final frontier is at hand.

The shuttle takes off softly amid a throng of neon butterflies, the trip is filled with dreams, you sleep, until you finally arrive at the Stellar Cathedral of Creation. You're in for a treat.

Best listened to in a calm atmosphere.

Wearing headphones may heighten the experience.

Oxynucid - Modular Allotment

A mystical sound that makes you travel around the tangible universe, a strange chariot stopping in front of your house, with full-blowing basslines as fuel and repetitive patterns used to steer... Well anyway, I don't know what to say.

Caution, this release begins well, but turns really bizarre, so mind you open your mind.

See you again soon.

IJO - Melancholika Vol.3

I rarely listen to Ambient music.

At least when it has no prefix.

But this album here, it has something, it makes me travel through time.

Space, a snowy forest, waterfalls, fire in the hearth...

IJO, a polyvalent artist, dabbles in everything.

Blikmuzik, the label, full of good things to find.

See you soon.

Sabanas - Ascension

J. Sabanas from Flanders, Belgium makes "druggy ambient hypnotic beats", the kind of music that expresses the state you're in when you get engulfed in a sofa in front of the hearth after having a good plate of mashed mushrooms, without sausage and applesauce (oh no ! some will say).

Sabanas will take you to a dream-state with rhythms that are sometimes slow and deep, sometimes broken in little pieces, hypnotic melodies that feel like being alone and barefooted sunday morning on a carless highway and subtle instrumentals.

This album is out at DRLR Records, a belgian label that you need to scrutinize a bit, full of strange and surprising music, and free-priced what is more. So listen, enjoy and share.

Let yourself go.

Alexander Saykov - Whitestoned

Welcome to the month of march, during which it is very important not to forget to massage vigorously your brain cells every day.

To do so, I suggest listening the latest album by Alexander Saykov, out at Cold Tear Records, well known for the great quality of every release they produce.

Deep layers of synthetic atmosphere fall down slowly on robotic rhythms and basses holding the whole together. Feels like a city abandoned for thousands of years with the electricity still on and functioning for no one. Yes, what a waste. You're right.

Download the album for free by clicking on the link Archives.org or buy it on Bandcamp to support the label and get the high-quality lossless format of the tracks.

Go with the wind.

Vejopatis - Anafielas

Winter is here, and bizarrely with it, the need to chill.

Either you roll yourself in the snow (if you have some, which I guess I don't) or you listen to a good album... And what luck ! I might just have the kind of album chilly people would like ! A treat from Cold Tear Records, a netlabel that wants all that's good for you. Dubby rhythms, slow moving basslines and dreamy synths, all playing together to relax your nerves and allow the brain to rest a bit, not thinking about anything but the snowy peaks, yetis playing cards and other stuff like that...

Get the album by following this link and click on download from archive.org if you want the mp3 for free, or buy it on Bandcamp to get the lossless format.

Auditive Escape - Auditive Escape

Have you ever thought of a particular artist whose work, whose every single piece you always really like, without any exception, a painter whose paintings you cannot stop looking at, a band whose music you never tire to listen to ?

Well I'm having this kind of issue with Auditive Escape's music. Actually I think I'm going to put all his discography on the blog. It will be the case one day, because each of his albums is such a pure concentrate of dreamy chillcore vibrating through moved air molecules. That is what you can find in the first eponymous album by Auditive Escape, to which I had never listened until today, shame on me. Do not hesitate to take a listen at his other pieces, but in any case, they will end here eventually.

Good listening to you all

Peace and lord.

Bustre - This One's For You

This sublime release does not pretend changing anything in the peaceful world of chill music, but merely adding its small contribution to it, because there is never enough.
Beautiful atmospheres, slow rhythms caressing your weary brain cells, nostalgic melodies from outer-space.

Here's the ideal way to lower your tension to a normal level.

Take your time to listen to each track closely.

With a cat on your knees, it's even more effective !

Cosmic Replicant - Soul of The Universe

From the start you will know what happens. Psybient it will be, and not Psydub. For certain people the distinction between the two is hard to grasp, that is why I grouped these very different styles together, also with the pragmatical view that they both begin with "psy" as do all my favourite musical genres. Still, they are very much not the same in their essence and in what they radiate.

Cosmic Replicant's music is soothing, makes the heart and soul vibrate in harmony, and not only thanks to his subaqueous basslines. Some weird sentences are given here or there, making us recall our place in the universe : small particles of dust whirling in the infinite.

I discovered Cosmic Replicant with his EP Supersensitive that I've also used on one of my mixes, and that is available for free on Ektoplazm.

Come on, it's time to sit down for a while and think about how to save energy by putting some clothes on the house. Happy new year to all of you.

Woops, sorry, totally forgot to put in the download link ! My bad... here it is : download Soul of The Universe by Cosmic Replicant

Huron - Pictures From The Past

There are a lot of interesting things to find and hear at Crazy Language Netlabel, after Astravel by Sk'p, here's Huron, with a long and subterranean album, raising strange ghostly atmospheres from the past to make us shiver in the present. I picture myself entering an ancient electronic xenotemple hidden in the arctic ice while listening to this music. And while I'm at it, you should definitely go take a listen at all the CL catalog, everything is free, and very... well, experimental.

Halo - Song of The Highest Tower

A bit of beautiful piano, inspired by the perfect moments we can sometimes capture in our minds' eye.

Elyonbeats - Milestone

Roots of Society Records, a name to remember. I did not check but I think all their releases are free-priced, and I do not remember at all how I discovered this one, maybe just browsing Bandcamp's catalog. If you want to, there are lots of ways to do it. Like googling "bandcamp name your price" and finding yourself suddenly ear to speaker with an incredible amount of sonic beauty. Not Sonic the Hedgehog. You know. Milestone is so otherworldly that I will let the extra terrestrial who made it speak for himself :

"Milestone is an EP created while looking back to my day 1 of beat making. It still feels so unreal to the fact that I came this far. Some of you may know, I am going on hiatus at the end of 2013. I do not know how long the hiatus will be, could be few weeks, months, or even years, but one thing for sure is that I will return. I want to end this year with one final release and say a short little good bye to all my fans who have been showing me so much love and support.

To all my fans, old and new, I want to tell you all, thank you so much for everything and I truly wish every one of you a happy and a wonderful new year. I will still be on facebook and many other social networking sites, so feel free to shoot me a message saying "hello" or what not.

I hope you will enjoy this EP. All the beats you'll here in this EP are original compositions written by, and created by me. As always, would greatly appreciate it if you would share it around and spread the news. It was a fun ride, I will see you all very soon, until then..."

He hopes you will enjoy it. I know you will. Do not hesitate to give a little something to show your appreciation of such tremendous work done for the beauty of art. It's never lost.

Erothyme - Circadia

After listening to all his albums, one can only understand that Erothyme is an artist of exception. This peculiar sound that is caracteristic of his own style, a quality of composition almost unequalled. Circadia, this astonishing album that continues the dreamogenic feeling initiated by Empathic Circuitry is an invitation to fly away from one's sofa to the skies and tickle the clouds, to go for a walk in the greens somewhere, to watch closely a colony of ants at work from a high-placed branch. One of my new favourite albums that's for sure. To all lovers of tranquillity : add it to your best-of folder...

Various Artists - Gem Drops

Haven't slept one bit tonight, too many things in mind, whirling bits of thought and dark matter crawling over my brain.

I needed experimental hip-hop ambient onirique chill to get better, and found just what I was looking for in this compilation. 21 tracks, name your price, all profits go to cancer research. Faith in humanity restored eh ? Thanks to Raphzor for this discovery.

All this music is brought to you by Dropping Gems. A label specialised in dreamy soundscapes and strange sonic experiments.

Vegetarian Meat - Factory Refurbished

I'm warning you, this is probably not the kind of music you'd want to hear on a (maybe) sunny saturday afternoon. Positioned between dark ambient and onirique chill music, this album reminds of days looking through a window, gaping portal to a world of nothingness, of the past and the possible future. Beautiful, yet sometimes darker or even a little gloomy. But I want to share it with you because I find it interesting and full of beauty somehow. This is not to dance, or to chill, this is just to look at the streets and ponder, to look at the leaves falling on the ground and think about the time passing.

Do not listen if you are somewhat depressed, it won't get any better afterwards. Or maybe it will, let's stay positive shall we ?

C418 - Seven Years of Server Data

I won't say why C418 is most widely known on the web because that is not the subject and also it is often the only thing people remember about him.

Here, a 18-track free release, it's peculiar enough.

But the weird distorted dreamy sounds that it contains, those I cannot find words to describe. You have to listen, but it's between chill and onirique, maybe, more or less. Just try it. I cannot help.

Camel Heads - Camel Heads

I woke up this morning and realised my dreams are getting weirder and weirder. Dreams, what are they ? Emanations of what transpired during the day or pure creation of unchained brains ? Let us hope nobody will ever know for sure.

Dreams of dark places, heat, of purple smoke, a setting sun in the desert while you run endlessly towards the horizon. Falling from a tiny platform in a gigantic sky filled with concerned thinking clouds.

Slow yet short, this album from the Camel Heads builds up a dreamy atmosphere and gives the listener cheap travel means : closed eyelids. Longing guitars and an omnipresent bass, as quoted on their Bandcamp page "Camel Heads sounds like a series of slow buildups for epic stoner jams".
 

Brickman - The Dark

Cold Tear Records is what is called in French "une valeur sûre". You can always rely on them to provide very good electronic chill music. I used to listen to some of their releases while studying for my exams, but I fell asleep each time because the music was so relaxing ! If you want to study efficiently, use coffee.

After listening to a good deal of Cold Tear Records' records, I decided to place their music in the Chillcore category, a music so powerfully chill and groovy that the frail mind of a human cannot resist it. It has to chill. There are no options.

Brickman's music varies between ambient and (very) deep-tech to provide a very good blend of chillcore. It used to be free on Bandcamp, as were all other releases from Cold Tear Records. If you don't want to give 7$, you can still get it for free via the official Cold Tear website. Enjoy !