Issue 109

Turn on, tune in, chill out. We're diving deep into the world of Ambient Music for the first Electronic Sound of the year and we're bundling the magazine with a superb double CD featuring 24 soundscapes from across the spectrum of this fascinating genre. 

The centrepiece of this month's cover feature is a jam-packed A To Zzzzz Of Ambient encompassing countless artists and records alongside labels, sub-genres, events, installations, books, fanzines, radio shows, concepts and much more. It's an entertaining as well as informative directory. Brian Eno pops up all over the shop, as does Alex Paterson, and the list also includes things such as Deep Listening, Whale Sounds, Drone Metal, Repetition, Tone Poems, Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals, Hypnosis, Floating, Ambient Church and Reversing Lorries. Yes, you read that last one right. 

There's lots of other good stuff for you elsewhere this issue, including a rare interview with enigmatic Swedish maverick Karin Dreijer, aka Fever Ray. Acclaimed Northern Irish DJ and producer David Holmes meanwhile gives us the lowdown on his new solo album and cultural polymath Don Letts talks about the influences that have made him the one-man tour de force he is today. Plus Mueran Humanos, Universal Harmonies & Frequencies, Peter Howell, Bas Jan, Montañera and Alex H Duncan. The latter is a plant and fungi synthesist. Yes, you read that right too.

We’re combining this month's magazine with ‘Ambient Light / Ambient Dark’, a magnificent double CD that brings together 24 ambient soundscapes spanning nearly half a century. Moving from weightless and dreamy drifters to eerie and unsettling atmospheres (and back again) over the course of its two discs, the full tracklist of this eclectic collection is:

CD1

Cluster & Eno – 'Ho Renomo'    
Roedelius – 'Wenn Der Südwind Weht' 
Serge Blenner – 'Phrase IV' 
Adelbert Von Deyen – 'Atmosphere Part II (Edit)' 
John Foxx – 'The Sea Inside' 
Stars Of The Lid – 'Articulate Silences' 
Pauline Anna Strom – 'Quiet Joy' 
Marta Salogni & Tom Relleen – 'Desert Glass'
Sofie Birch – 'Hypnogogia (Featuring Dolphin Midwives)' 
Tim Hecker – 'Winter Cop' 
Patricia Wolf – 'Under A Glass Bell' 
Dasha Rush – 'Light And Dust'
Legowelt – 'Botanical Garden Follow A Strange Illusion'
Mark St John Ellis & Lisa Gerrard – 'The Empty Vessel 013'

CD2

William Basinski – 'dlp 2.1'
Marta De Pascalis – 'Equal To No Weight At All'
KMRU – 'CPR-12*' 
Penelope Trappes – 'Heavenly Spheres' 
Phew – 'Snow And Pollen'
Philip Jeck & Chris Watson – 'Coop' 
Bill Laswell & Pete Namlook – 'From The Earth To The Ceiling – Part 1'
Legion – 'The Somnambulist' 
Woob – 'Wuub (Edit)' 
The Orb – '9 Elms Over River Eno (Channel 9)'

As with all our music releases, this double CD is strictly limited and is only available to readers of Electronic Sound, so be sure to get your copy straight away.