Pure Ambient

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DINORWIC

Faith

Looked Me Right In The Eye

The Way Of Time

Melt

Waning Traces

Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity

Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity One

Fluid Audio presents Giulio Aldinucci & Matteo Uggeri - The Promise of a Threat coming soon on Fluid Audio...

In The Promise of a Threat, two veteran composers of ambient and electroacoustic music - Giulio Aldinucci and Matteo Uggeri - converge on a collaborative terrain that is at once intimate and immense, reflective and unsteady, beautiful and unsettling.

Created between June 2021 and early 2022, and mastered by Aldinucci in 2025, the album stands as a slow-burning document of digital and emotional correspondence. It reflects the language of ambient music not as static wallpaper, but as a deeply expressive form - one that allows silence and signal, memory and disturbance, to coexist within the same fragile space.

A Digital Dialogue Across Distance...

The entire work emerged through remote exchanges between Aldinucci (based in Siena, Italy) and Uggeri (Milan, Italy), unfolding gradually through shared sessions, sketches, and iterations over time. The process was not unlike the movement of tectonic plates - imperceptible at first, yet with weight and intention. Layers of processed field recordings, abstracted rhythms, and spectral textures accumulate into dense yet transparent forms. Every detail is traceable, yet elusive.

Giulio Aldinucci, known for his deeply spatial drones and sensitive treatment of field material, builds immersive sonic beds that seem to hover just above the surface of the Earth - simultaneously grounded in place and untethered from time. Matteo Uggeri, by contrast, applies a more tactile touch: assembling beats, samples, and environmental recordings into patterns that give pulse and tension to the atmosphere.

Together, their styles intersect in subtle and surprising ways - sometimes bleeding into one another, at other times standing apart in contrast. The balance between order and entropy, harmony and noise, creates a dynamic that speaks to the album’s title: The Promise of a Threat. Beauty does not arrive alone. It is always shadowed by its inverse.

Processes of Presence and Absence...

Across the album’s runtime, the listener is drawn through zones of dissolving melody and shadowy rhythm, passing through spaces that feel neither entirely natural nor entirely artificial. A drum sample on Track 2, provided by Andris Brinkmanis, adds a skeletal percussive element - a quiet agitation beneath the calm. The rhythms are not dominant but suggestive, like distant industrial echoes or memories of forgotten structures.

The artists manipulate the digital medium not as a tool of perfection, but of erosion and transformation. Hiss is preserved. Glitches are welcomed. The human ear remains present in every detail. The processing - granular, filtered, stretched - is not ornamental but fundamental, a way of sculpting emotion out of signal. Field recordings are often submerged, embedded beneath layers of drones and rhythms, yet their presence adds a layer of organic residue - a trace of wind, rust, or breath beneath the circuitry.

A Tactile Offering...

True to the ethos of Fluid Audio, the physical release of The Promise of a Threat will be crafted with great care and material sensitivity. Expect a limited, hand-assembled edition that honours the intimacy and intricacy of the music - an object to be held, as much as heard. Full packaging details and release date will follow.

For now, The Promise of a Threat lingers just at the edge of hearing - like the low hum of an incoming storm, or the quiet reassurance of knowing something is coming, even if its shape remains undefined.

www.fluidaudio.co.uk

So Finally I Stared at It All, Still and Satisfied

After decades of chasing, accumulating, and then sharing new music with you, I think I've hit some saturation point. I think I'm done spinning in the vortex of the "new", being pulled in all directions, catching up on all the "fresh" and "innovative" tracks. I'm not saying that I will stop covering new music. No. But I think I'll focus the virtual lens of my listening on a very narrow point, investing my time and attention over more extended periods. I think I will turn inwards... towards music and the artists that genuinely make me feel. This is the case with Rafael Anton Irisarri's A Fragile Geography, an album from 2015, which captured my attention then as it does now, triggering memories, triggering thoughts, and emotion. A decade ago, during a move between coasts, Rafael lost his possessions - stolen with the moving truck - along with all his audio archives, forcing him to rebuild his studio and sound from the ground up. The pain of this loss is reflected in almost every single track on the album. This music is slightly dark and melancholic. It's visceral, and it gets under your skin. And there it stays with you for ages. Becoming part of you, becoming part of your existence.

On September 19th, the album will be reissued, beautifully remastered by Stephan Mathieu at his Schwebung studio, along with a limited edition cassette of remixes by the most renowned artists, handpicked by Rafael. "This record has always been about letting go of one life and rebuilding another", says Irisarri, "It feels fitting to return to it now - ten years later, in a different country, a different world." These reworks are worthy of your precious awareness as well. I know that there are more than a few in the pipeline (at least six), which will be revealed one at a time. As of this writing, there is already a gorgeous rework by the one and only William Basinski, with his version of "Secretly Wishing For Rain" with Gary Thomas Wright, which incorporates field recordings of Reseda rain and birds captured by Basinski himself. You can check out a digital stream of that track here. *BUT!* Today, I am premiering for you a second rework by Abul Mogard! This piece bears not only the original elements of "Persistence" but, of course, Guido's extremely personal touch that breathes new life into this sound.

Head over to headphonecommute.com to read more about this release, including a quote from Abul Mogard on the rework.

TRACK PREMIERE : Rafael Anton Irisarri - Persistence (Abul Mogard rework)

Tracklist

01. Aiko Takahashi -  Soap and glass beads
02. Amble - Where i vanished for a while
03. Maps and Diagrams - Still blue
04. Paul Beaudoin - They thought it would be better if he didn't know about it
05. Thme - Ombre
06. Rosales -  Half-Light IV
07. Harry Towell - Snowdrops
08. James Murray - Feverfew
09. Rhucle - In Haze
10. James Osland - The Mountain Will Forever Be My Home

433. Sleepy Sunday Podcast (Elm Records)

Gray Acres has always been a space for subtlety and restraint, distinct from the denser, more cinematic atmospheres of Hotel Neon. Where that project often explores process, technique, and narrative arcs, Gray Acres tends to be produced "in the moment" and stays still. It lets you think for yourself. Soft Erasure especially embraces that characteristic stillness.

This is the first full-length Gray Acres album since 2021’s “Dreams and Phantoms.” It’s a project that came together slowly with an intentionally light touch…more about dissolving sounds than constructing them. Subtraction vs. addition.

The title Soft Erasure came about as we noticed a recurring quality across the recordings: a sense of tangible things like guitars, pianos, and strings fading, softening, and slipping just out of reach as we shaped and processed them. The music feels like it’s constantly on the verge of vanishing, or being gently wiped away into an indistinct atmosphere. That idea of erasure not as violence, but as gentleness, decay, or transformation, felt like the right metaphor to latch on to. It speaks to memory, distance, and time, and how all of those forces shape and reshape our perception of sound and self.

Musically, this album is built mainly from resampled acoustic instruments: delicate piano lines, sustained strings, frozen and looped guitar textures. Much of the source material was recorded clean, then stretched, blurred, and layered until it became something abstract…like an impression of a song, or a half-remembered phrase. In some ways, we were trying to find the most washed-out and ephemeral version of each sound. The result is a record that is designed less for narrative and more for immersion.

If you’ve followed this project before, I think you’ll hear a natural continuation of its aesthetic. But if you’re new to Gray Acres, this is a great entry point. It’s music that tries not to demand attention, but rewards those who tune in closely for a while.

Gray Acres - Soft Erasure
Music by Andrew & Michael Tasselmyer
Mastered by Alex at Quiet Details

Gray Acres - Vestige

From the album Solo Three, available January 23, 2026 on Western Vinyl
Pre-order / listen https://lnk.to/solothree

Erik Hall - "Music for a Large Ensemble" (Steve Reich)

Aether Part 2 09 - Voyager

Nothing's like home. A place we can return to, whatever happened, whoever we are. A place that doesn't judge but listens.

There should be a home for everyone. A refuge, somewhere. A quiet place to be tended like a garden. Whether it has walls of air or bricks, or is bordered by skies and mountains, or by flesh and bones. "Will I find my true home inside myself?"

Nothing's like home.

Alessandro Barbanera is an Italian musician and composer based in Assisi. He moves in ambient, drone, and electroacoustic genres, using guitars, synths, tape machines, field recordings, and found sounds, seeking a sound that combines experimentation, artisanal approach, and emotional impact.

Produced, mixed and mastered by Alessandro Barbanera
Cover picture by Alessandro Barbanera
Cover design by Dionis Afonichev (Dionisaf)

Nothing Like Home

Nowhere (Inner Refuge)

Echoes

👪 Family man
👨‍💻 Web developer
☕ Coffee lover

Waning Traces

Kazuma Okabayashi

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