Flow State

Good morning.

Today’s mix opens with some 2020s ambient from Luke Schneider and Belly Full of Stars. That’s followed by a choice track from Mary Lattimore’s stellar new album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, the subject of tomorrow’s email which will also include an interview (spoiler). Back to the mix, we then play some Nine Inch Nails and Grieg pieces as well as a Bruce Langhorne score. We play some Mary Lou Williams songs and a new, long jam from Blood Incantation. On the home stretch we play a couple tracks from legend Suzanne Ciani’s new album with Jonathan Fitoussi, and then wrap up with a deep cut from CAN. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Luke Schneider - Gloria

Good morning.

Today’s mix opens with two ambient tracks from Haruhisa Tanaka, a Japanese ambient composer and sound engineer. We then move through new ambient music from Purelink, Alaskan Tapes, KMRU (excerpt), and Christina Vantzou/JAB. We revisit classics such as Peter Gabriel’s score to Scorsese’s Jesus movie and Gavin Bryars’ “Sinking of the Titanic.” There are newish offbeat instrumentals from Salamanda, Mac DeMarco, and Celia Hollander. We play electronic music from Aphex Twin and Siriusmo before wrapping up with shredding from Mdou Moctar and Oneohtrix Point Never. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Haruhisa Tanaka - Vertigo 1

0:02:51 - Haruhisa Tanaka - Middle

Good morning.

Today’s mix opens with our favorite track from Laurel Halo’s excellent new album, Atlas. We continue with some other ambient favorites such as “Sand Partina” by Oneohtrix Point Never (who also has a new album out this Friday). There’s a track from Natalia Beylis, an outstanding sound designer whose streaming presence is scarce but whose physical media output is rich. We move through other ethereal ambient music from Gacha Bakradze, Astrid Sonne, and Emeralds. There’s an ambient country detour featuring SUSS, William Tyler, and Bert Jansch. We play an electronic track from Robert AIki Aubrey Lowe’s new score for the HBO documentary Telemarketers as well as a classic Boards of Canada track. We wrap with a 1969 jam on “Bolero” from Colosseum, the band James Blake’s dad was in. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Laurel Halo - Atlas

Good morning, glad to be back.

Today’s episode begins with ambient pieces by Ex Confusion, Will Samson, Harold Budd, Purelink, and Hiroshi Yokoyama (performing John Cage). We continue into instrumental performances by Lavinia Meijer, Golden Brown, and Alessandro Sgobbio. We resurface select tracks from Brian Eno, Air, Black Moth Super Rainbow, and Emeralds. And then we wrap with an epic Weils track and a cacophonous, searching Robert Hakalski track. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Ex Confusion - Grass Harp

Good morning

The first half of today’s mix selects tracks from across Brian McBride’s ouvre: solo work as well as tracks by his duo Stars of the Lid. Then we play new ambient music from KMRU and Brian Eno. We feature two tracks from Christina Chatfield’s 2021 quasi-ambient record Sutro (to be recommended on Friday). And we wrap things up with Slowdive, Harmonia, and a Pink Floyd instrumental track that came out a year before Dark Side of the Moon. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Stars of the Lid - The Atomium Part 2

Good morning.

Today’s episode begins with two singles from upcoming LPs we’re excited about: Christina Vantzou & John Also Bennett’s Klima and Laurel Halo’s Atlas. We include other recent discoveries such as Aria Rostami (yesterday’s rec) and Jeff Tobias, whose new album Music from Milky Way Underground is worth a listen. So is Edsel Axle’s Variable Happiness, a solo guitar instrumental record whose title track we feature here. We play some Harold Budd and Akira Ito from the archives. The last few tracks are more upbeat, from Grandbrothers (more on Friday), Cameron Graham, and Alexandre Bazin (more last Friday). We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Christina Vantzou & John Also Bennett - Pottery Fragments

0:06:42 - Laurel Halo - Atlas

Good morning.

Today’s mix opens with ambient pieces from Mark Pritchard, Brian Eno, Chino Yoshio, and others. There’s some contemporary classical from Simon Fisher Turner as well as Sova Stroj, new discoveries for us who may appear in the weekday newsletter soon. We move into new electronic from Purelink, Tomu DJ, and Jet Jaguar (who has a great new LP out on Sound as Language). There’s some instrumental music by Charlie Parker, Can, and The Hygrades. We wind down with Aphex Twin and an entrancing finale from Arnold Dreyblatt. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Mark Pritchard - Sad Aldron

0:02:32 - Metric System 1981 - Dark Star, Far

Good morning.

Today’s mix opens with two piano tracks from Kyoto-based composer Chino Yoshio, a recent discovery. We move onto contemporary ambient music from GAS, Corntuth, and The Inventors of Aircraft (via A Closer Listen). We revisit a Hans Zimmer cue from The Thin Red Line, which Christopher Nolan recently called “the forbidden cue”: whenever another filmmaker used it as temp music, they found it to be irreplaceable and inevitably left it in the final cut. We then excerpt two tracks from Sulah Jordan’s promising debut EP, Lady Bug, and pair them with instrumentals from Air and Nine Inch Nails. There’s some electronic music toward the end, including footwork from DJ Manny and drum n bass from Goldie et al. We wrap with a swift performance of a Beethoven piano sonata by our repeat recommendee Alice Sara Ott. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Chino Yoshio - The Letter to You (Vintage Version)

0:02:07 - Chino Yoshio - 193193 Sleep (Pure Soft Version)

Good morning.

Today’s episode opens with new singles from ambient musicians Green-House, Carmen Villain, and Hollie Kenniff. We then do a survey of British composer Angus MacRae’s discography, featuring four of his piano and film score tracks. Next there’s George Winston and upcoming Flow State rec Nani Wolfgramm, followed by jazz musicians George Duke and Matthew Halsall. There’s a fantastic Roy Ayers rendition of “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” via Louise Chen’s recent NTS show. We close out with legend Paul Johnson, house producer Eamon Harkin, and a beat from Hudson Mohawke. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Green-House - Castle Song

0:02:50 - Carmen Villain - Multicolor

Good morning.

Today’s mix opens with a few ambient tracks from Japanese producer Hakobune, French composer Maxime Denuc, and Americans Forest Management and Tim Hecker. We play a couple tracks from Greg Foat including a new collaboration with Gigi Masin. There are some cool instrumentals from Lynn Avery, Cole Pulice, and Dylan Henner, as well as a demo from the Flow State Records archives. We continue with pieces by Tortoise and Antônio Carlos Jobim before winding down with new Aphex Twin and finally a 12-minute track from The Soft Pink Truth. We hope you enjoy.

0:00:00 - Hakobune - Shadow on the Lawn