Experimental Electronic Music
No Beats Aloud’s inaugural compilation, Nostalgic Bandwidth Anomalies, navigates eighteen ethereal transmissions where ambient dronescapes, fragile textures, and cosmic echoes converge into a meditative journey across sound, space, and suspended time.
Faex Optim channels his gift for luminous, emotive electronics into a radiant new chapter with Touched Music, crafting an ambient journey whose every shimmer, drift, and pulse feels like a quiet beacon of hope.
More than a mere meeting point of like-minded musicians—Full Spectrum 2 is an ecosystem of sound, vibrant with diversity, purpose, and heart.
Both Martin Boulton (aka Min-Y-Llan, Touched Music founder) and Jeroen Bax (aka exm) build incredibly surreal audio worlds. As their earlier releases were characterized as a “real demonstration of powerful synergy,” this eponymous release draws a recognizable pulse.
Full Spectrum, a perplexing assemblage put together by Richie Welch, includes beautiful and colorful artwork by Matt Hampshire (Pulse State), distinctive mastering by exm, and a start and conclusion without any fuel loss along the way.
There is wonderful fusion is styles and influences under the Heogen moniker, fusing the complex and surreal composition style of exm (aka Jeroen Bax) with the melodic and rhythmical style.
Yage have taken a great bunch of pieces and turned them into something even more incredible, while scattering their own works (under the guise of FSOL) here and there.
Think of all of the most highly regarded compilations of this ilk, and I think you will find fewer with such a rich and diverse selection of artists, coming together to deliver a tour de force of ambient.
After covering several hundred releases in 2022, many notables—including links to their respective Igloo reviews or release pages—are cataloged here. As usual, there are no winners or runners-up as the lists are alphabetized by artist and selected tracks are featured on our Soundcloud playlist.
For the slew of strong releases that come our way from Touched left, right, and center, it’s easy to forget that the label has its roots in the compilation and that it’s something they’re incredibly good at.
