Flow State

Here’s our list of our 50 favorite albums released in 2024. The mix plays a track from the first 25, in order. In the list, we link to our recommendation post of the album where available. Paying subscribers can access the Best of 2024 Spotify playlist via this page.

This is our last post of the year. We’ll be back on Monday, 1/6. Have a great new year.

* Total Blue - Total Blue

* Lia Kohl - Normal Sounds

* Pat Keen - I Saw a Bug

* Loidis - One Day

* Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution

* amelia courthouse - broken things

* Cephas Azaria - Joy Paradox

* Kali Malone - All Life Long

* Patricia Wolf - The Secret Lives of Birds

* Belle Chen - Ravel in the Forest

* Kelly Moran - Moves in the Field

* Cowboy Sadness - Selected Jambient Works Vol. 1

* OMA - Bread ‘n’ Butter

* Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werliin - Ghosted II

* Kolumbo - Sandy Legs

* Ari Balouzian - Ren Faire OST

* Ryuichi Sakamoto - Opus

* Kiasmos - II

* Mong Tong & Gong Gong Gong - Mongkok Duel

* MIZU - Forest Scenes

* Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Challengers [MIXED] by Boys Noize

* Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements - Rain on the Road

* Jogging House & The Lifted Index - Whisper Glyphs

* SUSS - Birds & Beasts

* Elori Saxl - Drifts and Surfaces

* KMRU - forge

* marine eyes - to belong

* Jeff Parker - The Way Out of Easy

* Max Richter - In a Landscape

* taylor deupree - Sti.ll

* Prairiewolf - Deep Time

* Ezra Feinberg - Soft Power

* Hayden Pedigo - Live in Amarillo, Texas

* NUG - Bong Boat

* James Devane - Searching

* J. Albert - I Want to Be Good So Bad

* Sonja Tofik - Respire

* Aphex Twin - Music From the Merch Desk (2016-2023)

* Nala Sinephro - Endlessness

* Julian Davis Reid - Beside Still Waters

* Raphael Roginski - Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes

* Pan-American - Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road

* Arushi Jain - Delight

* Donato Dozzy - Magda

* Sarah Davachi - The Head as Form’d In The Crier’s Choir

* Yara Asmar - Stuttering Music

* Stuart Bogie, Sam Cohen & Josh Kaufman - Patient Music, Pt. 1

* Nico Georis - Plant Music Vol. 3 (The Golden Teachers)

* Four Tet - Three

* Seconds - Fascinating Stuff

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.flowstate.fm

Today’s mix opens with two tracks from the latest Flow State Records release: Fascinating Stuff by Seconds (available on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, and the other usuals). The first track, “Pacific Pond,” features Stuart Bogie improvising on clarinet over shimmering synths and an 808. The second is a Burial-style declinist ambient piece. The rest of the mix consists of tracks that influenced the record. There are ambient tracks from Pan-American and Ryuichi Sakamoto, as well as classics from Fripp/Eno and Harmonia. There are some idiosyncratic instrumentals from Hög sjö and Fera, as well as optimistic compositions by Ari Balouzian and DBH. We feature the track “Palms Up” which is covered on Fascinating Stuff. The last two pieces are >10m jams by Roy Montgomery and Steve Roach. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Seconds & Stuart Bogie - Pacific Pond

0:04:30 - Seconds - Andon

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.flowstate.fm

Today’s mix opens with new ambient pieces by Alaskan Tapes and zakè/From Overseas/James Bernard. We play a classic track by Brian Eno & Cluster which featured prominently in Gary Hustwit’s fantastic new documentary, Eno – or it did in the unique version of the film generated for a screening last week. There are some newer finds from Sega Bodega, Laurie Torres, and Alarmist. Hermanos Gutiérrez and Yasmin Williams make a nice instrumental guitar pairing. Then there’s some instrumental yacht rock (inspired by a different new documentary) from The Doobie Brothers and George Benson. A pretty chaotic instrumental track by oreglo wraps things up. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Alaskan Tapes - Canopy

0:03:00 - zakè, From Overseas, James Bernard - Cedar

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Today’s episode opens with an ambient piece from the great new record Flint by zakè, From Overseas, and James Bernard. Shortly thereafter we play a 13-minute track from Nico Georis’s new record, Plant Music Vol. 3 - The Golden Teachers, another new one worth checking out. Then we play some highlights from earlier 2024 records including Marisa Anderson, Andrew Tuttle, Hermanos Gutiérrez, and Barry Archie Johnson (Ambient Country’s Best of 2024 comes out tomorrow). There’s more experimental music from Sam Gendel and Lifted. We found a Kazumi Watanabe guitar-only cover of “Across the Universe,” and then revisit a classic by Pharoah Sanders. Some dub techno towards the end by TM404 and Gradient, and then we wrap with Tangerine Dream and Ichika Nito. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - zakè, From Overseas, James Bernard - Fir

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.flowstate.fm

Today’s mix opens with new ambient music from Jogging House, who’s soon to appear in conversation in this very newsletter. We proceed with some instrumentals from the American southwest by Harold Budd and SUSS. There are guitar-led pieces by Daniel Bachman and Tomo Katsurada, plus some new experimental tracks by Chloe Lula and upsammy. Roy Haynes recordings bookend three new beats by fellow newsletter author jade tree. We wrap with Model 500, Soshi Takeda, and Nick Schofield. (We’ll be off Thursday and Friday this week.)

0:00:00 - Jogging House & The Lifted Index - Ancient Siblings

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Today’s mix opens with new ambient music from Jogging House, Perila, Ibukun Sunday, KMRU, and Rafael Anton Irisarri. There are some instrumental throwbacks to Harold Budd and Brian Blade. Then some new piano-led tracks from Cephas Azariah, Julian Davis Reid, and Kolumbo. There’s some left-field guitar instrumentals from Pat Keen, Seefeel, and Greg Foat. We close out with Quincy Jones, Flying Lotus, Deepchord, and Jan Jelinek. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Jogging House, The Lifted Index - Teleological Causation

0:03:52 - Perila - Nia

Today we have a guest mix from FogChaser, who writes and produces a new instrumental song every month, shared exclusively through his newsletter. It’s another free multi-hour mix to take your mind off other things…

The first twelve tracks of today’s mix are from my most recent collection, Explorations, songs written with a mix of orchestral, acoustic, and electronic instruments along with field recordings from my home in the Pacific Northwest, USA. The next twenty-four tracks of the mix make up Volumes I and II of my newsletter, a collection of pieces in all twenty-four musical keys. There are a couple of lo-fi collabs near the end, and the mix finishes with a short score I wrote for a new book called Chasing Fog by Laura Pashby.

Each of the songs in today’s mix were first shared through my newsletter, and only some of these songs have been released on streaming platforms — this is the first time they have ever appeared together in one place, exclusively for Flow State, one of my favorite places on the internet. It’s an honor to be here again.

Thank you for listening,

Matt / Fog Chaser / Spotify / Apple Music / Website

Explorations, FC Vol. III (November 2023 - October 2024)

0:00:00 - Fog Chaser - Hearthside

0:02:38 - Fog Chaser - On This Winter Solstice

0:08:00 - Fog Chaser - Helvellyn

0:10:36 - Fog Chaser - Anthemon (vocals)

0:13:19 - Fog Chaser - Downstream

0:16:10 - Fog Chaser - In The Garden

0:19:40 - Fog Chaser - Heartwood

0:22:49 - Fog Chaser - Light Through The Valley

0:26:18 - Fog Chaser - Turnings

0:29:37 - Fog Chaser - Drift

0:33:11 - Fog Chaser - Stone & Light

0:35:57 - Fog Chaser - End Scene

Meditations, FC Vol. II

0:38:37 - Fog Chaser - Wingbeat

0:41:55 - Fog Chaser - Late Roses

0:45:20 - Fog Chaser - Melyn

0:48:21 - Fog Chaser - A Simple Carol

0:50:41 - Fog Chaser - Cascadia

0:54:45 - Fog Chaser feat. Niamh Fahy - Gathering Light

0:57:50 - Fog Chaser - A Little Window

1:02:32 - Fog Chaser - Soft Season

1:06:19 - Fog Chaser - After a Summer Rain

1:10:42 - Fog Chaser - Slow Bloom

1:15:21 - Fog Chaser - Cathedral Hush

1:19:31 - Fog Chaser - Beneath the Woodbine

Meditations, FC Vol. I

1:22:38 - Fog Chaser - Flight

1:25:38 - Fog Chaser - On The Path

1:28:00 - Fog Chaser - Foreign Morning

1:31:10 - Fog Chaser - Seeking / Calling

1:33:33 - Fog Chaser - An Opening

1:36:11 - Fog Chaser - At Smith Creek

1:38:49 - Fog Chaser - Unmoored

1:41:20 - Fog Chaser - Florescence

1:44:20 - Fog Chaser - Contentment

1:47:06 - Fog Chaser - Resolve

1:49:52 - Fog Chaser - Alluvial

1:53:40 - Fog Chaser - Alpine

Collabs

1:56:27 - Fog Chaser & Wowflower - An Opening (Rework)

1:58:50 - Fog Chaser feat. Wowflower and Kyle McEvoy - daydream

Scoring

2:01:13 - Fog Chaser - Chasing Fog Theme

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe

Today’s Flow State episode – three hours of calm instrumental music – is available to everyone, apropos of nothing. Along with new discoveries and recent recs from the community, this mix has some of our favorite ambient tracks from 2024 so far. Highlights include Alaskan Tapes, Surya Botofasina, Belle Chen, Oliver Coates, Nala Sinephro, Ry Cooder, Prairiewolf, Yussef Dayes, and Four Tet. The full tracklist with timestamps is below. If you enjoy the mix, hear future Tuesday episodes in full by subscribing to Flow State. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Harold Budd & Brian Eno - A Stream With Bright Fish

0:03:43 - Cheihei Hatakeyama & Shun Ishiwaka - M6

0:12:48 - Innesti - Dream Observatory

0:18:12 - Sachi Kobayashi - Moonlight

0:22:13 - Celer - Absolute Receptivity of All the Nerves

0:35:22 - Masayoshi Fujita - Nord Ambient

0:40:05 - øjeRum - Untitled (Selected Organ Works 7)

0:48:00 - Alaskan Tapes - Delirium Hums

0:52:48 - Lord of the Isles & Ellen Renton - Last Day

0:56:29 - Chihei Hatakeyama - Sometimes

1:00:53 - Jogging House - Gone

1:06:46 - Surya Botofasina - Turiyasangitananda Eternal Pranams

1:13:04 - Felicia Atkinson - Thinking Iceberg

1:25:23 - Saapato - Gone Away Again

1:30:23 - amelia courthouse - One Fine Morning

1:36:56 - Julia Gjertsen - In the Fog

1:43:30 - Masahiro Sugaya - Afternoon of the Appearing Fish

1:52:54 - Belle Chen - Half a Moment

1:56:50 - Nils Frahm - Butter Notes

2:01:54 - Sarah Davachi - Prologo

2:12:56 - Kalia Vandever - Temper the Wound

2:16:35 - Priori - Segue

2:19:47 - Oliver Coates - Please be normal

2:23:22 - Nala Sinephro - Continuum 3

2:27:18 - Felbm - Decay

2:32:02 - J. Albert - Dispel

2:37:10 - Ry Cooder - Paris, Texas

2:39:46 - SUSS - Wichita

2:45:10 - Prairiewolf - Lighthouse

2:48:10 - Yussef Dayes - Portrait of Tracy (Live from Malibu)

2:51:17 - Prairiewolf - Lunar Deluxe

2:58:22 - Paul Mauriat - Love is Blue

3:00:54 - Four Tet - So Blue

3:06:02 - Frunk29 - double rainbow

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.flowstate.fm

Good morning.

Today’s mix – the big two five oh – begins with a few tracks from øjeRum, the rec from yesterday. There’s some newish ambient from Bruce Brubaker (who has a new set of Brian Eno covers), Tristan Arp, and Landon Metz. There’s some instrumental guitar from Masahiro Sugaya, Josh Kaufman, and ML Buch. There’s a transcendent track from Lea Bertucci from 2021. The tempo picks up with Casino Versus Japan, Isan, and Kolumbo (h/t Dinner Music for them). Swing Slow wraps us up. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - øjeRum - Fraværsfugl

0:04:43 - øjeRum - Coreless Whisper

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.flowstate.fm

Good morning.

Today’s mix opens with a track from Alaskan Tapes’ new album, Something Ephemeral, followed by ambient pieces by Poemme, Taylor Deupree, and Harold Budd. We play an echoey cello piece from Oliver Coates’ excellent new album, which we’ll be recommending soon. There’s solo piano by Julia Gjertsen, Marika Takeuchi, and Henrik Lindstrand. A composition by Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou was recently given a beautiful arrangement on piano and strings, which we feature around the halfway point. The back half consists of a few longer instrumentals by Ghost, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Jill Fraser, and more. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Alaskan Tapes - Delirium Hums

0:04:43 - Poemme - Evening Wind