I’ve talked plenty before about my affinity for ambient music. So when those healing frequencies are made more accessible through pop production techniques, it’s absolutely an attention-getter. And if there’s one pair from North of the Border you ought to keep on your ambient pop radar, it’s unmistakably Best Fern.

Built from the ground up by composer-producers Alexia Avina and Nick Schofield, Best Fern showcased subdued rhythm patterns, breathy, effects-drenched singing, and heavenly synth harmonics on their eponymous 2016 debut EP. Best Fern nurtured a fertile collection of covers the following summer and again at the top of 2018 with a-ha’s “Take on Me”. But after that April’s sole original, “I Know You Know”, Best Fern’s left us a bit bereft…until now.

With a half decade of studio silence finally behind them, Best Fern is set to return with their first-ever full-length, Earth Then Air. These dozen new originals drop on February 3rd and’ll definitely let you discern how rooted Best Fern still is in soothing, misty soundscapes. Earth Then Air‘s initial offering “Way Inside” came out last November, and today Best Fern’s tossed us another spore, “Before I Go”. Other than the trademark ambient crescendo/decrescendo bookends, the pale pulsations, reverb-and-delay-enveloped vocals, and nuanced synth-bass work make “Before I Go” one of the best ambient-pop bops you’ll hear in the 2020s.