Experimental Electronic Music
The strength of D-R is that, like much of the best ambient music, it can be approached as the perfectly balanced backdrop which will subliminally change your state of mind, or as a full immersion, disclosing one more detail at each listen. In both cases, the album rewards the listener, and inspires them in its tranquillity.
Monologue Intérieur takes a more intimate, solitary path—rooted in daily life, field recordings, and almost post-Cage-like sparse and fragile piano sequences.
The year 2000 saw Aarktica’s debut bring post-rock perspective and a glacial sensibility to guitar-based ambient; Jon DeRosa enveloped us in ‘a new sonic world of haunting, aquatic darkness and shimmering tonal light.’ Its 25th anniversary sees a reissue, No Solace In Sleep [2025 Remaster], shed new light on this by now classic, reaffirming its enduring resonance.
As with previous volumes, For LA Vol. 3 not only highlights the creative brilliance of its contributors but also stands as a testament to the power of music in driving meaningful change.
Highlighting hundreds of releases in 2024 (and allowing December to set in), we’ve compiled a list of our favorites along with links to their corresponding Igloo reviews and release pages. Since the lists are arranged alphabetically by artist—and a snapshot of tracks are featured in our Soundcloud playlist along with selected Bandcamp tracks and random artwork selections—there are, as usual, no winners or runners-up.
Just in is news of continuation of a new chapter on Nettwerk with the release of Ash, rounding off his EP trilogy, initiated with Eev (igloo-’viewed) and Aer, with its conceptual theme of a ‘life arc’ from exciting new beginnings to the darkness of dealing with life’s challenges.
Through multiple evolutions along decades, with a refined combination of harmonies, a deep sense of space, a phenomenology of time and bright sonic manipulations based on acoustic timbres, Japanese artists invite the listener to enlightened and intuitive inner promenades.
A quarter of a century on from optimal.lp’s release, then, its timelessness is still palpable, even enhanced, with the reissue’s addition of three tracks made while working on it, plus a new take on the closing “Tank” (digital only): in prepping the reissue, running one of the masters through a customized reverb unit, he began recording the outcome of this haptic past-inside-the-present dialog.
We find it all confusing and compelling at the same time. A serious snapshot through our day-to-day lives and the mundane commercial messaging that unfortunately is part-and-parcel of corporate powerhouse greed taking over our devices.
Sti.ll is overall smoother and more pleasant, which is really fitting for the intimate and subtle sentiment of the original LP, making it a re-listen that fans of the original should not miss out on.
