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Ryan Burns

[YEAR END] Nostalgic Noise: The top experimental and ambient of 2015

Was something in the air? The year was lovely, heartbreaking, grating, crumbling of frosty moss below boots while rime travels your respiratory system as glacial floes, almost-too-sunny because – well, who knows, maybe El Niño overcame dire global climate change for another record-breaking year, and maybe it’s really time I finished things up here with […]

[Minimalist/Ambient] Steve Hauschildt – “Vicinity”

Towers, constructed of brick and granite, float by like a cardiac pulse against my window. the morning sun paints my face in warm orange bursts as if by flash, as its waves navigate through the passing office buildings and cafes. Green Street Coffee, bank, New York style falafel, University Hospital, bank, bank, bank. Longing faces […]

[EXPERIMENTAL/MINIMALIST] Tyondai Braxton – ‘Hive1’ Album Review

Movement creates movement. Inertia. I keep moving because I’m moving, and because at this point it takes less energy than slowing down. Those bruising strides one through one thousand, man, they drilled mine shafts deep enough to swallow the light and the sound and the world and all thinking. But I feared losing inertia: in […]

[AMBIENT/EXPERIMENTAL] Benoît Pioulard – ‘Sonnet’ Album Review

Sometimes the cliche “got what it takes” doesn’t even approach your doubts: what if you have no idea what it takes in the first place? What if your target was wrong altogether, and all this invested time has now been squandered? You throw back a few bourbons, if you’re me, decide you’re a multifaceted person […]

[ELECTRONICA/EXPERIMENTAL] BJÖRK – ‘Vulnicura’ Album Review

Fuck your calling Vulnicura a “breakup album”. Actually, fuck your use of that phrase at all. A “break-up” used in that way is something you do in high school and early years of college before you figure out who you are. Vulnicura is a “break-up album” about as much as the Donner Party was a […]