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Tag:

dark ambient

  • Best of the Year

    Best Albums of 2024 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 December 30, 2024 • 00:00
    December 30, 2024 • 00:00

    It was 16 years ago that my first Best Albums of the Year list was published, and for most of the years since there have been 40 entries on the list. However, there were many times when recommending 40 as genuinely ‘best’ felt like a struggle, and a few years …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Gareth Davis, Jan Kleefstra, Romke Kleefstra – Sieleslyk

    by 5:4 January 9, 2023 • 08:24
    January 9, 2023 • 08:24

    To begin my usual January focus on interesting free music, i’m returning to the ephemeral world of netlabels. Rural Colours appeared in 2010 as a tangential off-shoot from parent label Hibernate, which had begun the previous year. What distinguished them both from other netlabels was the fact that their releases …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Christopher McFall – A Starved-Strafe Lancing Machine; Siren

    by 5:4 January 25, 2022 • 16:38
    January 25, 2022 • 16:38

    US sound artist Christopher McFall first started putting out work in 2005, on a variety of netlabels, and his output since then has consisted of a pretty equal split between CD releases and a generous quantity of free music. However, the last decade has seen McFall’s output reduce considerably: just …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Man:Sha – Kakugo / 覚悟; Moon Eater / 鮮綠色龍

    by 5:4 January 21, 2022 • 15:10
    January 21, 2022 • 15:10

    The next freely-available music i want to explore in this series is by Man:Sha, an artist whose work suggests them to be Japanese, and based in France. i’ve not been able to find out any meaningful additional information about them, and only discovered their work in the first place due …

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  • Mixtapes

    Mixtape #27 : Drone

    by 5:4 July 1, 2013 • 22:26
    July 1, 2013 • 22:26

    It’s 1 July, so here’s the new mixtape, focusing on the intense genre of drone. Drone music suffers the same kind of malaise as more generalised ambient music—immobility and drift as tacet apologias for a dearth of imagination and subtlety of ideas. But these 21 tracks offer an insight into …

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  • Thematic series

    The ambient tradition: black on black – Lustmord and the dark side of ambient

    by 5:4 July 10, 2008 • 11:15
    July 10, 2008 • 11:15

    At its best, ambient descries a vista that is vast in scope, epic in scale, often ablaze with light. However, light presupposes darkness (check Genesis if you don’t believe me) and likewise all landscapes have their shadows. From the deepest of them (perhaps their very source), comes the voice of …

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World New Music Days 2025 Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

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5:4
  • About
    • Other writings
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions explored on 5:4
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form