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.