Vocals by Francesca Allen.
Lyrics by Francesca Allen.
Bass guitar by Kev Cousins.
Production, programming and sampling by Sam Holloway.
Guitar and tuning forks by Sam Holloway.
Samples cello recordings by Anna-Helena McLean.
Microsamples ‘Sister Woman’ by The Gentle Waves.

Competition

Hiding In The Substrate

A psychedelic trance mix from quite a while back. Quite a pleasant little journey down the rabbit hole.  Some nice tunes from labels such as flying rhino & dragonfly etc around the time of the millenium.  Mixed from vinyl on two technics and an intimidation blue mixer.  Enjoy x

Help, Get Me Out Of Here.MP3

Don't call it a comeback. Ambient music – in the sense of immersive, long-form, abstracted, spacious sound designed to absorb passively or drift away into – has been with us for a very long time. Going right back to before electronic or amplified music, it's always been something that musicians of all stripes tend to gravitate to as a way of cutting loose, escaping enforced structures, or just relaxing.

Mixmaster Morris's t-shirt slogan of the early 1990s – "I Think Therefore I Ambient" – sums up a surprising amount. Like so much of the music played in the chillout rooms of the time, it's deeply silly, but kind of deep too, and sums up the fact that ambient is the music that does let you think. Not in the sense that it demands dour intellectual engagement, but in that it simply gives space for the mind to roam.

At the recent LEAF (London Electronic Arts Festival) at Tobacco Dock, just a couple of minutes up the road from the Boiler Room offices, I gathered together a panel including Morris himself, space-grime pioneer Mr Mitch, multi-faceted experimentalist Mica Levy (aka Micachu), and ambient party promoter, installation artist and WARP-signed musician Mira Calix, to discuss the past, present and future of this music. The first voice you hear is LEAF organiser Rob Da Bank, then for 45 minutes the panel goes in deep on what it is to be ambient.

Ambient Revival Panel At LEAF with Joe Muggs, Mixmaster Morris, Mica Levy, Mr. Mitch & Mira Calix

Collateral

Skirldrone

vespertindigo

Musical musings on the city and our place within it

EDDIE NUTTALL is a playworker and children's right's advocate who has written music about the lived environment for twenty five years. He lives in Bristol with his wife and two young children.

Hiding In The Substrate

Eddie Nuttall/ Backwater

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