Ola Budzyńska - Lanquidities (2025)

In the era of fantastic neoclassical but also experimenting Polish artists like Hania Rani and Resina, there are still somewhat lesser known artists that need to be discovered. Ola Budzyńska is hardly one of those since she is known as a member of a chamber pop duo Ljos, but Lanquidities makes for her debut solo release and it's absolutely charming.

Budzyńska is a violist and this is the base of the new album. But there is so much more here. The subtle soundscapes hide electronic sounds and vocalizations that add some spooky and airy vibes and make everything just swarm with life. The ethereal sounds come and go throughout the whole compositions, making the audience mesmerised with ease. Everything just radiates this atmosphere that is beautiful even if dark, inviting even if mysterious, especially when for one song Budzyńska is joined by Tomasz Mreńca, creating one of my favourite cooperations in Polish music this year.

Lanquidities costs 12 EUR.

Check: 22:22

Country: Poland

Genre: viola-led soundscape

Label: Left Eye Blind Records

Ljos - A Foreword (2020)

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In Inertia - To Whom It May Concern (2025)

This February, an Indonesian music project In Inertia released their debut album filled with "music that is light on lyrics but rich in instrumental storytelling", situated somewehere on the border of various genres. But all of them are airy and soothing.

The Fitrah Akbar and Annissa Utami duo's work is an ode to reflective music that may or may not be called post-rock or instrumental ambient. The base is the guitar sounds, but, and this is strongly underlined in the band's description, unlike the absolute majority of post-rock music, it is far from being overwhelming or powerful. Or even loud. And unlike all those minority examples of calmer instrumental music I know, it is built on hope and light more than on the melancholia and darkness. It works like a warm bath, like a soothing oil. Every note can light your soul.

Talking about light, as the artists mention, their music is light on lyrics. But when the lyrics and vocals come, the ethereal post-rock momentarily transforms into memorable dream pop, which tells a lot about how airy and calm the music is. And the best example of that must be In Motion, song that is so warm that it can melt anyone's heart. But it's not always about "normal" vocals. The backing, angelic vocals are almost everywhere on the album, creating a misty soundscape that, if I had to compare to something, makes me think of Lights & Motion and his synthy post-rock.

To Whom It May Concern costs 10 USD.

Check: In Motion

Country: Indonesia

Genre: instrumental ambient

Label: Angular//Momentum

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Solkyri - Cranebrook (2025)

The Australian post-rock icons decided to change what we know them of and instead of the melodic guitar-based music, on their new album they put the weight on the minimal but meaningful atmosphere, making Cranebrook sounding more like an instrumental ambient release.

Let's quote the band themselves: "we made something different. It’s slow, at times it’s really slow, but it allows a moment of reflection, a chance to stand still and importantly, rest". And so the tracks are quiet, acoustic, making me think of a slow Sunday somewhere in the country side drowning in sunlight. The acoustic guitar, piano keys and violins make the sound carefree and filled with light which interestingly contrasts the cover art which looks like the band wanted to show how they destroyed the concept of the previous album, Mount Pleasant. Instead of the violent destruction, however, the change seems to be smoother. I'd think of it as a house slowly devoured by the lush green than crumbled from some disastrous blows.

Anyway, the change is clear. "This is a brave leap, but it is one that we are proud to take" add the band members and I'm curious to see if that's the direction they will go in the future as well. I'd be very happy if the answer is yes.

Cranebrook costs 6 EUR (10 AUD).

Check: I Guess I'll Be Leaving Now

Country: Australia

Genre: instrumental ambient

Solkyri - Mount Pleasant (2020)

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Julia Gjertsen & Juha Mäki-Patola - Dive (2023)

While known for collaborating in the past, for Julia Gjertsen and Juha Mäki-Patola, Dive makes the first longer (although not very long) album made together. The piano sounds from Norway and the electronic soundscapes from Finland make a stunning whole together.

The result of the collaboration can be described as beautiful "glimpse(s) of melancholic and emotive piano melodies mixed together with lush and ambient textures". Those are inspired by the beauty of the Scandinavian nature with the titles of the compositions referring to specific aspects they want to focus on. While the central part of this music certainly is the piano, its beauty is not all here. From my perspective, it works even better than it would in an empty space with the darker notes provided by the super subtle electronica, making the compositions include both the beauty and the sadness.

Dive costs 3.5 EUR (3 GBP).

Check: When the Birds Start to Leave

Country: Norway/Finland

Genre: piano neoclassical

Label: bigo & twigetti

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Hammock - Love in the Void (2023)

Last week I posted about Hammock-inspired Driftless and now it's time for the OG band itself. The Americans consistently release new albums pretty frequently and it has to be stated that they are not short and never disappointing. It's the same with this year's Love in the Void.

The album is a way of breaking up with the pandemics lockdown monotony, "an album that looks to the future, seizes the present, and unabashedly relishes the experiences and bonds that bring meaning to our days" and the follow up to the most recent works of the band that were based on the feeling of grief after a loss of a close person. As always, the duo does everything from the instrumental ambient soundscapes, through loud post-rock compositions to dream pop bangers (like Undoing). The album's dreamy atmosphere lasts through all of this, creating this unique and coherent, well over an hour-long work of music. There are some heavier fragments, there are some fragments that immediately draw attention (like the clean-cut finish of Release), but with time, all the tracks blend into one, extremely oneiric whole. 

Love in the Void costs 11 USD.

Check: Release

Country: Tennessee, US

Genre: ambient post-rock

Label: Hammock Music

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Tajak - La sombra del agua (2022)

Tajak are from the capital city of Mexico and they have been doing their extremely entertaining psychedelic rock since 2015. Their new album, La sombra del agua (or "The shadow of the water") is already their fifth, although it is my first meeting with their music. Hopefully not the last.

The artists admit that the way they recorded this album was different from the previous, more improvisation-oriented ones. This one was created through a "much more patient, meticulous and intimate process" and I have to say that I dig this creativity-filled, complex playlist. The other thing is the range of various instruments used during recording, including ocarina, sitar, flute and more with a heavy dose of field recordings from the lush, Mexican landscapes. 

One thing that is very special about this album is the huge amount of instrumental ambient passages that create a unique, exotic but also extremely moody atmosphere which can soon enough transform into noisy sections (like in Soñar es despertar). The whole thing feels closer to the subtle, mysterious soundscapes than any kind of rock and the delicate, barely audible vocals add to this feeling too. But the whole album is structured like a post-rock song: it gets louder and louder throughout the whole hour. Still, even if, in my favourite parts, guitars take over, the overall feeling is still slowly mesmerizing and this is something I appreciate a lot at this release. 

La sombra del agua costs 7 EUR (140 MXN).

Check: La puerta

Country: Mexico 

Genre: psychedelic rock soundscape

Label: Látigo

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Random Forest - Ascension (2022)

Aaron Gilbert and David Walters (the latter known, also to the readers of this blog, as The Echelon Effect) create a post-rock music duo called Random Forest. And while their discography is certainly not short, my interest in their music came with the latest EP called Ascension.

It's a short but very moody release filled with soothing, relaxing instrumental compositions that are based on the sound of acoustic guitar and certainly inspired by the calm of the nature surroundings. Together with hazy synth backgrounds, they create a beautiful, foggy soundscape that makes you feel like tucking in under blankets. This kind of atmosphere changes half the way of the second track, making way to heavier guitar sounds, but the overall feeling is the same: it is cozy, warm music that should make you feel better in no time.

Ascension costs whatever you want to pay.

The Echelon Effect - Drift Static (2020)

Check: That Bird of Prey Casts a Long Shadow

Country: UK

Genre: easy-listening post-rock

Label: Glidescope Recordings

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ourhomeisthesky - Reflections (2022)

The Tasmanian artist, known only as ourhomeisthesky, released his first EP under this moniker with the Scottish label vaporgaze back in August. And I must say, although his music has not the highest quality of sound, the compositions here are fantastic and based on pretty interesting music ideas.

The first track gives more instrumental ambient vibes with the use of subtle drones and the beautiful piano keys, but it soon turns into more sinister way with the marching-like pace and metal guitars in the backgrounds. Those electronic guitar sounds transferred to the compositions' back rows are a theme on the album, but what is layered onto them, changes from track to track. Deserted introduces the melancholic vocals, early Crippled Black Phoenix-style, that eventually evolve into full-blown blackgaze distant screams. The further the album gets, the more metal-like the guitars become and it's clear that the Australian artist aims at creating the moodier but also quieter kind of (post-)metal music.

Reflections costs 2.5 EUR (4 AUD).

Check: breathe

Country: Australia

Genre: lo-fi blackgaze

Label: vaporgaze

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The Glass Pavilion - When the Blazing Sun Is Gone (2022)

The first album released in 2022 on my blog is a debut album by Ashley Owens. The English artist makes music as The Glass Pavilion and he filled his first ever album When the Blazing Sun Is Gone with subtle solo post-rock pieces that often are closer to instrumental ambient than guitar-raging compositions.

Owens was forced to give up on his "bedroom indie" way of playing music so he chose to continue pursuing music career in the electronica post-rock field. He merges synths and electronic sounds with sampled guitars to create moody and slow soundscapes of pure atmosphere. The compositions are long and quiet, delicate noise makes a background for non-invasive guitar sounds while in many places, the soundscapes are made more beautiful with synthy melodies (so great in Open to the Sky). They are very well developed and it's only more amazing knowing that the artist created them "at [his] kitchen table (mostly), with studio equipment consisting of a laptop, a small MIDI keyboard, a smartphone and a pair of headphones".

As the title and cover art suggest, the album has the winter's dark vibes all over. it But the darkness here is not dangerous nor unsettling - quite the opposite, the music feels cozy and making the audience feel at peace. Perhaps that was the tool the artist used to settle after the difficult time in his life. As he states, "it’s not a despairing, ‘share my pain’ album, or at least I hope it’s not. I hope it’s music people might be happy to escape into" - and this plan of escaping works, especially when, in the impressive finish of the album in The Most Glorious Birds, the organ-like synths lead your way.

When the Blazing Sun Is Gone costs 6 EUR (5 GBP).

Check: The Most Glorious Birds

Country: UK

Genre: synth instrumental ambient

Label: Little Lights Recordings

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Sarah Davachi - Antiphonals (2021)

The Californian artist Sarah Davachi has already an impressive career behind her, with almost a decade filled with impressive albums. Only this year, she released two: one together with Sean McCann and one, Antiphonals, on her own.

Davachi is very well-known for her music that combines drone electronica and extremely intimate neoclassical vibes. The minimal music takes a lot from different part of the world's folk/classical scene (just take a look at what instruments she used on this album alone, the list goes on forever) but also combines very different atmosphere styles into what could be called epic minimalism. Surely, this comes from the fact that a lot of her work is based on the pipe organs sounds and those, even when used carefully, give away the feeling of massive grandeur. However, whatever instrument she uses, it always sounds gloomy and melancholic, especially that they are drowned in moody, sad drones.

Antiphonals costs 8 GBP.

Check: Magdalena

Country: California, US

Genre: drony neoclassical  

Label: Late Music

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Linalab - Desire Paths (2021)

Lina Bautista, visual and audio artist from Barcelona, is better known as Linalab and, under this moniker, she released a very post-rock album that may be a bit of surprising considering she's a solo musician. Nevertheless, Desire Paths presents some quality and modern take on the genre.

On this album, the Spanish artists joined forces with Rafa Camisón who is responsible for drums, but otherwise, it was all Bautista and her musical inspirations from Vladislav Delay to Mogwai. The fresh sound of this music comes from the fact that this post-rock comes from guitars as well as from synths use which adds to the experimental and very artistic vibes on the album. The weight put on guitars is actually somewhat new for the artist and it seems that betting on this was the right move. The whole thing sounds very post-rock-like but there's also this beautiful, clean order of sounds, you can feel that everything is in its right place, there's no place for chaos, it is this kind of clinical beauty so characteristic for electronic music.

This doesn't mean that Bautista's music is emotionless. Quite the opposite. The compositions are almost programmed to evoke intense feelings within the audience and songs like Far are the best example for that, while other compositions are more into the quietly melancholic ambiance (so good in A Hard Rain Has Fallen). It may be a surprising title, but it has to be said that Linalab's new album makes a perfectly good post-rock with a twist.

Desire Paths costs 7 EUR.

Check: Far 

Country: Spain

Genre: electronic post-rock

Label: Synth Vicious

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SALTO - Cappuccino (2021)

Saying that I'm not huge on jazz music would be an understatement. There are, however, projects clearly inspired by the genre that I enjoy to say the least. One of them is SALTO, debuting band from Poznań, Poland, who make this tasty blend of jazz, noise, post-rock and music improv I find particularly attractive. 

The trio released their debut album Capuccino last summer and it's a release with a lot of potential. Coming from behind such Polish bands as Lonker See or Ciśnienie, SALTO captured their music during live performances and now it's used to make the debut album. In their music, there are parts that are chaotically psychedelic, perhaps even bordering with instrumental ambient, ones that clearly set up the mood towards emotional contemplation. However, they do give place to guitar-based, high-paced compositions soon enough. Those are carried by the jazzy, very clear bass line with guitar riffs that are both noisy and artsy. And the whole things ends with a loud and guitar crescendo in a very good post-rock style.

A worth mentioning addition to the music makes the cover art by Ania Cywińska - such a beautiful and psychedelic image that combines the classical painting with modern distortions. No wonder SALTO's members say it "brilliantly captured and visually communicated" the music on the album.

Cappuccino costs 3.5 EUR (15 PLN).

Check: Cappuccino

Country: Poland

Genre: noisy instrumental

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Green Horizon - The Place I Buried Memories (2021)

I discovered her already four year ago when she released her album 沉睡 , now the Taiwanese artist known as Green Horizon is back with this brilliant release called The Place I Buried Memories. And as always, she brings with her music tons of borderline ethereal and noisy ambient pop.

Her take on the genre is simple: very slow melodies with her beautiful, distorted voice and minimal arrangements in the backgrounds. Those can involve heavy basses and very, very noise guitar drones as it is in the opening track Once, but more characteristic for the artist is basing the compositions on piano keys that dance around very subtle noise in the backgrounds. The way the tracks here are made, makes the audience pay attention to every word the artist utters, every note the piano enchants and every bit of noise.

It's no surprise that her lyrics are filled with heavy and hopeless melancholia, "The rain has fallen all the day/Outside my room and inside me" is just an example, but such a beautiful one too - the songs are fairly simple and yet poetic enough to hide the pain within an artistic form. For me, it makes them only more poignant and telling a lot about the artist's melancholic soul.

The Place I Buried Memories costs whatever you want to pay.

Green Horizon - 沉睡 (2017)

Check: When the Pure Exploded (The Weight II)

Country: Taiwan

Genre: noisy ambient pop

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Ben Haskins - Oh Believers, Run! (2021)

Ben Haskins is an artist from Canada, who creates instrumental music from the borders of post-rock and instrumental ambient. Oh Belivers, Run! makes a beautiful comment on today's world in which there's so many things to worry about.

The album contains music from the "sightings series of soundscape videos, peppered with some new material" and is said to be darker and heavier than Haskin's previous works, made so to reflect what is going around us in the world nowadays. This is music that is a tone lighter than post-rock and a ton heavier than instrumental ambient, something that gives the sense of urgency (the pace of Oh Believers!) and inexplicable nervousness while at the same time enchant the audience with the ambiance. In the artist's words, it also is meant to have the cinematic vibes that affect the listeners with the sound grandeur and I can definitely hear it in some places.

As mentioned already, the album has a pretty harsh messages regarding the condition of our world and it's audible in the bleak Absence of Colour, nervously pulsating Pyramind Scheme and Our Nature - it can't be a coincidence that the gloomiest track on the album is entitled like this. Also, let's not forget about the cover art that I found especially climactic and aesthetically pleasing at the same time.

Oh Believers, Run! costs 5 EUR (7 CAD).

Check: Absence of Colour

Country: Canada

Genre: ambient post-rock

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Lost Films - Vauxhall (2021)

Lost Films is a duo (or at least it seems it is) out from Russia focused on making very cinematic music that feels like a great and climactic soundtrack to a movie that never was. Their new album called Vauxhall brings a lot of nostalgia to the audience and this is its best side.

The music here is mostly instrumental ambient/post-rock with clearly old-school vibes: there's no fast pace, no heavy sounds, it's mostly reflective and relaxing while still hugely atmospheric. There's a place for accordion sounds, for violins, a lot of keys. And the most outstanding elements: movie-like samples with dark voice reciting in Russian. It does sound a lot like movie music and it's no coincidence but the project's theme. They introduced themselves saying "cinema starts with the arrival of the train. Old vauxhalls where we used to have our promenades listening to the music before setting on a journey to the outermost region of the country and self" - these words show the main ideas behind the music here: retro vibes, slow pace and fascination with cinema. 

Vauxhall costs 7 USD.

Check: Moskva

Country: Russia

Genre: slowcore instrumental

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Free Return Trajectory - Free Return Trajectory (2021)

Free Return Trajectory is a "music project with no boundaries" developed in Poland by two artists known as Michael Eple and Jack von Bøker. They make some quality guitar-based ambient-to-post-rock music that can be now checked out on their debut, self-titled album.

Space music is usually associated with heavy electronica-vibes, but the Poles prove that it doesn't have to be so. The project's main themes are definitely cosmic-oriented, the music, however, at least at the beginning, is mostly instrumental ambient and heavy guitar post-rock. The intensity of this music changes rapidly when the guitars are initiated, much like the engines of a space shuttle. It can also appear as synth-heavy passages in the intriguing and very much mesmerizing (though rather short) Planet of the Ants or almost trip-hop-meets-guitar-post-rock-vibing track called Descent. 

The space theme is obviously also present in the cover art and in the tracks' titles, but the most important thing is that you can feel it only with the music. Especially that the longer the album goes, the more electronically-trippy it gets, up to its poignant finish in Black Hole Era.

Free Return Trajectory costs 3.5 EUR (15 PLN).

Check: Descent

Country: Poland

Genre: space post-rock

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Bardia Haddad - As the Remaining Shreds Quiver in the Afterthought of a Storm (2021)

The Swansea-born but residing in Iran artist appeared already on the blog with his beautiful single release Fly/Burn. The instrumental ambient/post-rock-like music is now being followed up with a new EP called As the Remaining Shreds Quiver in the Afterthought of a Storm.

Haddad started as a metal artist in VitaPhobia but he continues his career under his own name making slightly quieter music. It's balancing on the verge of instrumental ambient and guitar post-rock, getting close to post-metal from time to time. There's tones of mystery and atmosphere here, mostly provided by heavier guitar sounds that channel the storm and heavy weather phenomena alluded to by the album's title. The coming and passing of a storm is actually the concept behind the whole album and it can be easily felt: the long compositions change the pace frequently and feel quite chaotic in a good, surprising sense, but the main plan behind the album is clear: the tension goes up and then is being released (although even the final act gives us the feeling of ecstasy rather than peace).

As the Remaining Shreds Quiver in the Afterthought of a Storm costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Quiver as the Storm Fades Over the Ruins

Country: Iran

Genre: solo guitar post-rock

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Michael Peter Olsen - Yearning Flow (2021)

Hand Drawn Dracula presents a new album from the Canadian cellist Michael Peter Olsen. His instrumental ambient based mostly on the string sounds has ability to poses a soul and this can be tested on Yearning Flow.

Olsen is absolutely not a debuting artist, he accompanied some huge names in the music industry including Drake, Arcade Fire or Haim. Accompanied by other artists who add synths and basses to the mixture, Olsen produces works that are described as "electric cello in ambient, avant-garde influenced compositions". Those comprise not only of thick and rather heavy synth layers but also other electronic-infused patterns and audio samples both very much of cosmic (especially in MoonMist) or quite apocalyptic flavour (Ours). With the very ethereal finish in Cloud Parade, the summary can be only one, the album is a very much eclectic and multi-layered study of cello sounds in very different environments.

Yearning Flow costs 7 CAD.

Check: Ours

Country: Canada

Genre: cello ambient

Label: Hand Drawn Dracula

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Michael Denny & Simon Sylvester - Imaginary Mountains (2020)

Michael Denny is a composer, Simon Sylvester is a writer, both are related to the land of Cumbria, and together they created an album with music stretching from ambient soundscapes to mild post-rock ornamented with poems read by Hilary Pezet. This is Imaginary Mountains.

The album makes a "soundtrack to a walk in the wilds of another Cumbria" that was created for Aerial Festival, a festival of sounds and words in the Lake District. Very folk culture vibes here. And so the presence of the land and its people with their folklore and history is extremely audible throughout the work. This is, first of all, due to the lyrics/poems with the themes of last year's tough experiences of pandemics and lockdowns situated in the first rows but also considering a lot of other burning matters. 

But there are also samples of nature sounds and people's lives incorporated into the music and being its vital parts. Some pieces are extremely touching, most notably Fools We Are with its existential theme and very post-rock-like composition and ecologically engaged Ever Smaller Circle. There's a lot of  difficult topics here but aren't they all parts of our life now? 

Imaginary Mountains costs 6 GBP.

Check: Fools We Are 

Country: UK

Genre: spoken word post-rock

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Dagmar Gertot - Os Lacrimale (2020) EN

First time I heard about Dagmar Gertot while posting about Darja Kazimira's album last year. It quickly turned out that the two artists are a perfect fit and their fascinating approach to the art in general inspires me all the time. The Russian released a new album and it has to be said that Os Lacrimale fits so well to their unique style.

It's difficult to describe the artist's music. For sure there's something from the Balkan and Roma people folklore there, certainly a lot of dark ambient and folk the liveliness of which is washed out so only the extremely strong atmosphere prevails. A lot of experiments with vocals too because the compositions here are as minimalist as can be, except of various forms of vocals, there's only single instruments playing in the backgrounds. But those are widely represented, from accordion to Bosnian folk batalo.

Gertot's music is not a simple one - there's tons of improvisation here with this very theatre-like mood with grotesque, unsettling and art in general. The artist's experiments, just like it is in her visual art works, is well though through and extremely unique. This atmosphere of the higher artism is her characteristic trait.

Os Lacrimale costs 8 EUR.

Darja Kazimira & Dagmar Gertot - Ο θάνατος του Ταύρου (Death of The Bull) (2019) EN

Check: Nude Metamorph

Country: Russia

Genre: experimental dark folk

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