Experimental Electronic Music
Austin-based composer/sound designer TJ Dumser (Six Missing) returned to roots for drift, sway—eschewing scale for intimacy in a minimal set mixing guitar loops and vintage synths with tactile timbres to create soundscapes for deep listening, reflection and filmic ambience.
(Mood Starters) is a dark, hypnotic, and eerie techno-ish industrial album surrounded by dystopian themes of a humanity trapped in an uncertain future, standing before unspeakable malefic forces.
The songs flow right into each other and are only composed of what seems to be a few layers each, but there is a fond fuzziness to them, that glistens like the light reflected off the water. There is a slight melancholy tinge to the music, but it’s not overpowering.
A peaceful, singular, and cozy post-ambient journey made of lush sounds, with some chilling moments based on fragmented memories, that will ravish listeners of digitalized tape music and carefully crafted, slowly moving soundscapes.
Following chilling mysteries emerging from Arctic expeditions and unveiling the metaphysical strength captured in ice-cold landscapes, the droning sound art project Netherworld (alias Alessandro Tedeschi, founder of Glacial Movements Records) is back to the forefront.
Operating as Simon Pyke (aka Freeform) and various collaborative ventures, unveils Drift Works—twelve fractured post-ambient sketches unfolding in slow, seamless disintegration.
Mastered and recorded at Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm between 2024 and 2026, I Det Vassa Ljuset is based on close-miking of organic materials such as wood, metal, stone, and glass. These recordings have then been processed and transformed into software instruments that can be played live. Released on her own label Istid Records, I Det Vassa Ljuset is available digitally and on cassette.
What makes Chambers work is that it doesn’t feel like an experiment for the sake of it. The processing serves the music, not the other way around. It’s the kind of release that sneaks up on you, not flashy, but it sticks. By the time it’s over, you realize there’s more going on than you initially thought. This is a strong showing from Ruben, and for a limited run of 30 cassettes, it punches well above its weight.
Kin is a record that offers hazy soundscapes, with layers of noise stacked on top of serene melodies, making it almost seem like a series of distant tunes you can’t quite recall. There’s a faint melancholy woven through it, sure—but that’s not what keeps pulling me back. What really hooks me are the songs themselves; track by track, they’re just exceptional.
At once conceptual and profoundly sentient, Notes de saisons guides the listener through a somber canopy (flowing, blurry textures and windy chimes, distant echoing voices and detached notes), occasionally punctuated by fragile and ethereal light (designed through sinuous, melodious timbres and repetitive acoustic microtonal patterns).
Released by 13/Silentes in a double limited vinyl edition, An Apple a Day You Die Anyway confirms the quality of a catalog that continues to intercept the most sensitive areas of Italian ambient and electronic research. And it confirms that Up To 23, now a trio, possesses a recognizable voice, capable of holding together vision and rigor, emotion and structure, darkness and momentum.
