Nels Frahm - Felt

Im super grateful to have been turned on to this record through NPRs All Songs Considered podcast (highly recommend you subscribe to that one).  This is in heavy rotation when I'm in need of ambient tunes. I think what's most gripping about this is all the captured noise that surrounds the notes. It gives it this gentle industrial quality, as if you're hearing what it's like to be inside the instrument, rather than experiencing the sounds coming out of it.  

Sample some shitty youtube uploads: Less Familiar More 

Buy some good sounding copies!: iTunes, Erased Tapes 

Calexico - Algiers

Personal favs Calexico have an album due next Tues, Sept 11th.  You can preview the entire thing over at their facebook page.  So far my personal standout is the intimate number "Fortune Teller", listen here.  

Silver Lake Chorus - From The Snow Tipped Hills

On September 18th, The Silver Lake Chorus, a 25-peice vocal group, will release an EP which features songs written by a slew of big indie names, including Of Montreal, Aimee Mann, Sia, Tegan & Sara, the Bird & The Bee, and the following track, written by Bon Iver and A.C. Newman.  

Groundislava - Suicide Mission ft Baths

Evocative new music from Groundislava, aka so-cal based Jasper Patteron, who has a record due by the end of the month. This one features Baths, whose 2010 record Cerulean remains one of my favorites from that year.  

Hauschka

A few weeks back I caught Sigur Rós at the Prospect Park Bandshell. As we waited for the band to take the stage, I was captivated by the textured music that played through the speakers. Piano based and built on repetition, it was like nothing I had heard before. I struggled and continue to struggle, to define the genre - ambient, neo-classical, avant-piano? Much like Sigur Rós, the music seemed to effortlessly exhume emotion, and transport the listener without them really realizing what had happened. And much like that night's headliner, the music seemed perfectly suited for a film soundtrack, while simultaneously needing no moving picture with which to ground itself. I "shazamed" the track, and the app turned up with an artist called Hauschka, an album called Ferndorf.  

A little research turned up a classically trained German pianist / composer Volker Bertelmann, who is the man behind Hauschka. I have only begun to dig into a catalogue that adds up to 10 albums in 8 years, but I'm finding each one to be an adventure in sound, texture and emotion. 

2005's The Prepared Piano

Washed Out - A Dedication

A little over a year ago Washed Out released Within and Without (my review), a lush record that varied between doped out and triumphant.  It's one of those records that exposed more and more of itself to me with each listen - which is not to say that I had low expectations for it, but there just seemed to be only so much one could do with the chillwave trend of a few summers back.  Washed Out upset that expectation for me, and the album wound up on my top 11 of 2011 list.  Closing track "A Dedication" was recently set to some beautiful imagery that nicely compliment the song's melancholic nostalgia (qualities that landed it on my january mix).  It is a lovely track to end a great record, one that feels as though it rides all the highs and lows of a sticky summer, only to finish with the kind of sigh that comes from wondering where it all went.        

Trampled By Turtles - Walt Whitman

MySundaySweater favorites Trampled By Turtles teamed up with the folks at Squidbillies for this here video.  The track is Walt Whitman, the record is Stars and Satellites.

Sun River

Folk rock from Denmark.  

"Overall the album is saturated by a dreamy, chilled-out atmosphere, with the production emanating a warm and natural glow, allowing the room it was recorded in a prominent place in the mix. One can almost smell the wood of guitars and drums and feel the warmth of glowing amplifier tubes when listening to this album. This is the kind of music that's perfect for summer afternoons, or for driving somewhere, or nowhere, in twilight. These nine compositions invites the listener to join the flow and roll gently towards the sun." - El Paraiso  

Danny Brown - Grown Up

pretty much speaks for itself.

Paul Kalkbrenner - Icke Wieder MegaMix

Here's a really nice minimal techno mix of the best tracks off Paul Kalbrenner's 2011 release Icke Wieder. Grab a pair of headphones and dive deep.