The ASIP Places Series is a selection of releases inspired by the artist’s very own strangely isolated place. No one place is the same, no musical inspiration is identical. Everybody’s place of escapism is different. The Places Series aims to unearth the personal moments, the detailed sounds and the inspirational story behind the music, transporting the listener to that very moment of conception.

View all of the releases on our interactive Google Map http://asip.me/PlacesSeries

Download on Bandcamp

The Places Series

Elevator music

Compilation of ambient musics that are particularly suitable for work. That is set a peaceful background and do not interfere with the listener's thoughts.

A-Lin's favorite ambients (good while working) part I

Nerd

ambientscape

Patrick O'Hearn - Approaching Summit

Patrick O'Hearn - Panning the Sands

Inspired by the sky above while walking back, my heart full of wonder and love, at home I sat and wrote this.

Image shows one of the Perseids meteors during August.
http://www.facebook.com/intrnlextrnl

And the stars

Elsewhere

Local Forecast - Elevator

elevator (feat. falcxne)

Pharrell Williams can i have it like that (Jaziah remix)

'Great Hair' is a true example of how Flamingosis flips samples with his own signature; switching from boom-bap, to disco, boogie, soul, funk and chill wave. UKNOWY is proud to release the first physical album by Flamingosis with a limited run of cassette-tapes, out 12th Feb 2016.

"The cover picture was taken in 1977 at The World Frisbee Championships in Pasadena, California. My father is on the left of the picture & my uncle is on the right and they both went on to win their 2nd World Frisbee Freestyle pair title. The name 'Flamingosis' comes from a freestyle frisbee move that my father invented." - Flamingosis

OUT NOW
uknowymusic.bandcamp.com/album/great-hair

Download Album

Elevator Pass (feat. Tokyo Megaplex)

A Little South Of Sanity

Love In An Elevator (Live Version)

This track totally sounds like something you would hear while in an elevator, or waiting somewhere aha

Dope photo by Samalive follow him on Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/samalive/?hl=en

Elevator Music

After his inclusion on Helios’ brilliant compilation ‘For Nihon‘ last year, http://soundcloud.com/exconfusion was finally given the platform he deserved with an album on the legendary N5MD label. Released at the end of March, Embrace is a perfect example of simple, touching ambient music. So, needless to say, I couldn’t be happier that Atsuhito has produced two tracks for the Places Series. For many people, ‘Where The Time Goes’ will form the perfect introduction to Atsuhito’s music, or an extension to an already proud, Ex Confusion library.
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Atsuhito’s work is a double dose of gentle, indulgent ambience. Distant and wistful, it retreats to a time of safety and comfort when your parents were the gentle giants that made the world a smaller, safer place.

Drawing inspiration from conversations outside his room, they provided a reminder of childhood memories “when everything was perfect and I wasn’t afraid of growing up”. There’s purity and a heart-breaking naivety to the soft reflection of both ‘Before We Begin’ and ‘If Only’ as Ex Confusion cocoons us from the world and finds sanctuary in the hometown recollections of Nara, Japan.

Guided by voices, Where The Time Goes is an ode to appreciating the value of what’s passed but it’s also a tender edict to seize every moment. Wherever that may be. “I heard voices in my head, telling me how things are hard to take back and how important each moment we have right now, is. Then I took my guitars and piano to record everything in my heart". Words by Reef Younis.
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More info + Bandcamp download: http://asip.me/ExConfusion

ASIP004: Ex Confusion - Before We Begin

Free download ... Sharing is caring ... Fuck Sony

If you feel this, like the page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nasrawi/213323548680837

Pharell Williams - Frontin' (Nasrawi Re-work)

From Catnapp's Pharrell Williams EP (2012/2013)
Free Download -> https://soundcloud.com/gooddeliveryrec

Pharrell Williams

Some nights are made for sitting back and just letting the world spin on its axis; nights to watch the snow fall and gaze over misty neon hazes in the distance. Dark skies and white snow always seem to cast a sleepy contrast but it’s also one shared by an almost motionless state.

It’s times like these Benjamin Dauer treasures; the still hours where life is yet to accelerate towards its grinding daily regimen; the wait before the first creaks of cold bones and commuter trains amplify the city. 

“By day, I am a problem-solver,” Benjamin starts, “and each project comes with a slew of new requirements and problems. Things can move pretty quickly and before you know it, months have passed and the next one is coming down the pipeline.

“It means I cherish the early morning hours before I go in. It's during these times that I feel a deep sense of peace and quiet and so my mind can wander, free of project goalposts and timelines.”

Free of these pressures, his “Twenty Three and Twenty Six EP” is testament to operating in a haze of AM detachment. Four drifting scores of ambient invention, tape echo and swimming delay, they’re musical explorations that are beautifully, subtly metrical. Awash with hypnotic rhythms and an unpolished human touch, each track feels like it plays out to its untraced, natural end. 
  
“I love these happy accidents as I feel they are a natural part of the improvisation process” he explains. “I enjoy these opportunities to practice improvisation and I’ve discovered that these free-spirited explorations often end up feeling finely choreographed in the end. Perhaps this is some sort of primal response or urge to seek rhythm in my life?” he ponders.

Whatever the thought process, the still hours just got more beautiful.

More info and HQ EP download: http://asip.me/ASIP023

http://asip.me/PlacesSeries


ASIP023 Benjamin Dauer - Eight and Forty

Sometimes, an album comes along which blows everything else out of the water. Then, you learn it’s the artist’s very first release in this particular style. And then, that little tingly feeling you get from discovering a new favourite artist creeps up your back at you sit clasping your headphones with eyes wide open, in anticipation for the next track, for more, and more.

This sounds pretty dramatic, but this is exactly how I felt when I first heard Roger Martinez’s self-titled production as Horizontal Excursions. The electronic DJ/Producer from the Netherlands had well and truly grabbed my attention under his new moniker and his album, was easily one of the best releases of 2011.

Two years later, Roger has revisited his Horizontal Excursions ambient guise, taken a trip into nature’s beating heart and pulled off another absolutely beautiful piece of work that ambient enthusiasts like me, simply fall for again and again.

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The wilderness stirs something primal and unfathomable in us all. We become overwhelmed, awestruck, even emboldened, by these untamed frontiers, content to revel in the unspoiled beauty or compelled to explore what lies within. For some, it’s a cold, harsh reality; an unforgiving tundra of survival and subsistence. But, when afforded the indulgence, this isolation is the purest of them all.

“There aren’t many places left in Western Europe where you can still immerse yourself in pure wilderness” Roger begins, “in fact, the only environment where I have truly experienced this is in certain parts of Switzerland. My latest trip to Zermatt, located in the canton of Valais, has greatly shaped the music in this symphony and I was reminded that all of nature is something that should be respected and revered.”

A regular traveller through the country, Roger’s willingness to lose himself (in every sense of the word) in the abundance of natural beauty heralded Symphonica Helvetica – an untainted journey through the mysticism of the Alps, velveteen swoop of Swiss valleys, and the siren-song of nature.

“Away from the large cities of Zürich and Basel, you enter into a totally different kind of environment,” he states. “For me mountainous areas epitomize something indescribable, something sacred. I lose sense of identity and, sometimes literally, become lost in the landscape around me.

Inspired by the power of his surroundings, Symphonica Helvetica crystallizes those moments, and Roger captures, and softens, the endeavour of trekking through the terrain. A symphonic soundtrack that casts a heavy ambient blanket, there’s a sense of uphill resistance as the summit nears; the enormity of casting an infinite gaze for miles; the deep, contented inhale as you survey the forest canopy thousands of feet below and feel, for that moment, like it’s all you.

“In these places you really see nature at work: sculpting, flowing and grinding through the mountains,” Roger explains. “The fruits of my past trips through the mountains of Switzerland have amalgamated into the symphony that I present to you here. This is the musical translation of the visions and experiences I had standing on the edge of mountain cliffs, overlooking valleys, walking through snow-clad forests, enchanted by mountain tops in full view. These are the shamanic songs of Mother Nature still at reign in her grand domain: a living myth put into sound pressure waves.”

http://asip.me/ASIP024

ASIP024 Horizontal Excursions - Symphonica Helvetica

We’re so busy navigating concrete jungles and determinedly juggling schedules with mindless routine, it’s a welcome rarity for many of us to experience true postcard perfection. But walking in the shadows of New Zealand’s Southern Alps, Micah Templeton-Wolfe found that the snow-capped surroundings stirred something as he travelled through the south of the country.

“’Frozen Skies’ captures the feeling of the first time I travelled throughout the South Island of New Zealand in 2005,” he explains, “I was truly amazed by the raw beauty of the landscapes, from the stillness of the vast lakes to the majestic heights of the Southern Alps. Every time I’ve visited this place, there is an overwhelming feeling of solitude, of being totally immersed in the vast and striking textures of this beautiful place."

A track that hums into life from atmospheric beginnings, it feels like Karin Dreijer Andersson’s warped yelp is lurking, ready to wickedly cut through the drone. Instead, ‘Frozen Skies’ evolves into a track of yearning discovery, its moody, glacial pace mirroring the cold beauty of the landscape that inspired it.

Awash with fleeting builds and yearning strings, it feels like a mournful journey of a dying day; the sun sinking into the glacial lakes in the distance, a soundtrack to just staring ahead and seeing life, not death, in a ruggedly endless horizon.

http://asip.me/ASIP025

ASIP025 Stray Theories - Frozen Skies

Pharrell williams despicable me

Standing tall on Kompakt’s Pop Ambient compilation back in 2003, Leandro’s lush ambient sound set the precedent and style for what is now a remarkable ongoing series for the German label. It was tracks like Leandro Fresco’s, ‘Buenos Amigos‘ that really took my love for ambient music up a notch, and also opened my eyes to this new style of deep, heavily textured electronic ambient music. It’s an understatement to say how proud I am to have such a remarkable producer contribute to the Places Series.

Fast-forward ten years, and last week Leandro gave us a gentle reminder of his beautiful, warm ambient style, with this mix for Sgustok Magazine. And as if timing couldnt be any better, we’re now treated to Leandro’s latest masterpiece for The Places Series.

Patagonia’s always held a personal fascination. With a small, Welsh-speaking population over 7,000 miles away from Wales, it’s an odd displacement, but for the 5,000 that speak Patagonian Welsh, it’s undoubtedly home.

It’s a theme that poignantly plays out for Leandro Fresco – the lure of his parents’ house providing the happy, creative escape from the frenzy of Buenos Aires. “I wrote this song in a beautiful small city in Argentinian Patagonia where my parents live,” he explains. “This has been my favourite place to write for a long time, a place where I can escape from Buenos Aires.”

And it was this transition from the hustle of the Argentine capital to the serenity of Patagonia’s San Martin De Los Andes that helped provide the snowy inspiration for ‘Almas Sin Prisa’ (‘Souls without Haste’).

“I remember sitting in my room facing the window, watching the snowflakes fall and improvising on the keyboard,” Leandro reminisces. “Looking through the glass, I saw two people walking away in the storm, holding hands. These were the first minutes of the night when the sun was just beginning to hide and I kept on thinking about who these strangers were.”

This sense of the unanswered lends ‘Almas Sin Prisa’ a baleful, blissful feel. Beautifully layered, you can almost feel the weight of the snowfall cloud your line of vision, those first delicate snowflakes amassing to become tumbling white walls; the delicate movement and feather-light melodies conveying a distance as they gracefully drift away; the subtle drone lending a dreamy finale as the snowy silhouettes fade out to white.

“I’ll never know,” he smiles, “but while the music played, and I drank my cup of tea, I was happy to be in the warmth of my home and glad that I saw this simple show. Just two people in the storm. Just two souls without haste.”

For HQ download please visit http://asip.me/ASIP026

ASIP026 Leandro Fresco - Almas Sin Prisa

Music from A Strangely Isolated Place + 9128.live.

Ambient & electronica music blog, mix series, record label and radio station. Est. 2008.

ASIP004: Ex Confusion - Before We Begin

astrangelyisolatedplace