Am I Conscious Now?

Am I Conscious Now? is the latest release on Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, an album that gets its full release today. Hawksmoor (James McKeown) has been making music since 2017 and in that time has released thirteen albums and EPs. It's ambient with a side dose of cosmische/ krautrock, expansive and immersive and full of textures. 

For this latest work, James undertook some extensive experimentation and research with a psychedelic compound called 5- MeO-DMT, a substance found naturally in some plants and in the glands of toads found in the Colorado River. Many people who've used it describe it as producing a mystical experience and what Hawksmoor himself describes as a 'total psychological reset'. He adds, 'It completely changed my life, outlook and perspective'. Not something to be taken lightly then. Am I Conscious Now? is a musical/ ambient response to that experience.

Trying to describe ambient music sometimes feels like a fool's game at the best of times. 'Language doesn't really work', James/ Hawksmoor says about the use of psychedelics, 'it's everything and nothing'. He followed this by saying that his experiences with 5-MeO-DMT culminated with him feeling like he was reborn. 

The album is it goes without saying a bit of a trip, a haunting but beautiful record that works best as one single piece. There are drones and oscillations, the Moog and Organele M producing long sounds that rise and fall. Opener Amygdalla Opening is the entry, a two note drone, layers of synths combining to push and pull. Golden Dolphins follows, chords and chatter, single key notes and an acoustic guitar, the sound of dolphin squeals and whistles and a wordless human voice. It's either deep below the surface or very high above it. Waves of echo and elements of sound bouncing back and forth. Flooding A Maze (In Slow Motion) is golden guitar chords strummed slowly and dancing, ringing sounds, things shifting slightly as the track unfolds, a diagram or oil pattern slipping in and out of focus. Towards the end a bleep comes through, like someone far away trying to make contact. On Urdhva Hastasna (a Yoga pose, the raised hands pose) two guitars pick their way round each other, one a circling finger picked part and the other a counterpoint. Behind them, there's a hazy backdrop of cosmic synth sounds. Infinite Tapestry sounds ancient, what could be a dulcimer or some other archaic instrument pressed into psychedelic service, notes and drones and ringing sounds. Water droplets fall, the guitar returns, synth whooshes rush in, a track that has both motion and stillness- the sense of sitting still while the world moves around you. 

Side two offers more. Ti Kallisti has piano and reverb, ambience that suggests... I don't know, emptiness? Fulfillment? The past? Now? Adviata swims back towards the drones and the submersion sounds, a voice possibly appearing along with an Indian sounding guitar part. Clear Light breaks the surface and lets the light in- a voice singing an ah ah ah ah part, beamed in from an ashram in 1967, George Harrison drifting in to Hawksmoor's ambient world. Into The White Sun changes the sound and tone again, bass guitar notes, cosmische drones coming via Cluster or Harmonia, the pastoral kraut sounds of mid- 70s West Germany. Our trip ends with Astromeria, three minutes of ending, the bass guitar again prodding away, warm and woody, the synths like flares of light, blasts of horn and disembodied vocals, a landing, a coming round or coming to. 

As I said, writing about ambient music can sometimes feel like a fool's game, trying to describe sounds and the feelings they provoke. Some of what's written above might look like nonsense in the cold light of day and Am I Conscious Now? is much more than I can sum up in a few paragraphs. It feels like a profound and intense album, not the kind of ambient to put on in the background but a record to immerse yourself inside and be open to the effect it might have.  

You can buy or listen to it here. 

Forty Minutes Of Music For Sunday

Today's mix is just some music that seemed to fall together well. I was rediscovering some tunes from five years ago, some of them by ambient/ Balearic duo Seahawks*, and started weaving them and some much more recent tracks into one piece. No theme, just some music, mainly ambient or in the ambient area, I like and that strikes a chord with me right now. 

Forty Minutes Of Music For February 2026

• Seahawks: Islands
• Kevin McCormick: Passing Clouds
• Hawksmoor: Storm Bird- Storm Dreamer
• Le Carousel: Echo Spiegel (Psychedelic Mix)
• Private Agenda: Malanai Ascending (Seahawks Remix)
• Thurston Moore: Asperitas
• Boards Of Canada: Olson Version 3 (Peel Session)
• Olodum: Farao Divindade Do Ogito (Pandit Pam Pam Deep Into The Bowel Of A Dub)
• Maria Somerville: October Moon

Islands is from Seahawks 2014 album Paradise Freaks, a beautiful piece of music that comes in at under two minutes long but which says and suggests so much in that time. It's the final track on Paradise Freaks, a short closer after an hour of longer tracks that seems to sum the whole album up. 

Kevin McCormick is a guitarist from Manchester, who should be better known than he is, whose early 80s recordings were recently re- issued and who plays on the 12" from Arrival that came out on Before I Die last month, a highly recommended release. Passing Clouds is from October 2024, a guitar meditation on sky watching.

Hawksmoor's Am I Conscious Now? will be out on Before I Die soon and is going to be one of the best ambient releases of 2026. Last year a two track EP called Life Aboard The International Space Station came out, reprising two unreleased tracks from 2021- one of them was this one, named after a JG Ballard short story. Storm Bird- Storm Dreamer is several guitars, acoustic and electric, playing together.  

Le Carousel is Phil Kieran from Belfast. Next month he's going to release one of 2026's best post- Weatherall/ electronic albums, The Humans Will Destroy Us. Last year's WE're All Gonna Hurt was a big tune round Bagging Area way and Echo Spiegel came out right at the end of last year. Phil's own Psychedelic Mix is an ambient/ psychedelic journey, four minutes of beatless, floaty, slightly trippy synths that spin further and further with each passing bar.

Private Agenda are a duo split between London and Amsterdam. Their six track mini- album Submersion came out in May 2021- remixes of material from their Ilse de Reve album. Seahawks created something spectacularly otherwordly with their remix of Malanai Ascending. Malanai it turns out is a gently cooling breeze found in coastal parts of Hawaii which makes perfect sense when you listen to the music. 

Thurston Moore's Asperitas came out last Monday, a ten minute guitar instrumental with drum machine taken from a six track album of instrumentals based on the skies as seen in England, wales and Ireland. All six tracks are named after types of cloud. Asperitas is a total joy, thudding primitive drum machine and Thurston's chilled, repetitive and evocative guitar parts. 

Now I'm looking at the tracks I've chosen for this mix and wondering if there is a theme after all, one I wasn't even aware of as I was pulling the tracks together- islands, clouds, skies, storms, breezes... 

I've been on a Boards Of Canada binge recently and their Peel Session, released by Warp in 2019 but recorded for Peel back in 1999, has been on repeat. Olson is one of four tracks from the session, the one that made the most sense in this mix.

My friend in Sao Paulo Eduardo records as Pandit Pam Pam and has been featured at this blog several times. Last month he sent me two new tracks, one out at the end of the month and also this one, an edit of a song celebrating the Pharaohs and deities of ancient Egypt. Eduardo said his wife was listening to it and his kids loved it too and it drew him in, and with carnival approaching he did a new version, something dark, danceable and dubby. Mardi Gras is on Tuesday next week, 17th February, and the carnival started over this weekend- it seemed apt to put it into this mix.

Maria Somerville's album Luster came out last year and I slept on it a bit, not really appreciating it, or just giving it enough time, until recently. It's an album inspired by the mythic and the real, the wild coastal landscape of Connemara, Ireland, a mystical swirling record that blurs ambient, early 80s 4AD and dreampop. Another subliminal nature nature- how strange that this only became apparent after pulling the tracks together and I began writing about them.

* Maybe this was subliminal influence from the Superbowl, not a sporting event I take any interest in, but Seattle Seahawks were in the Superbowl- the final I think we call it in most other sports- and they beat the New England Patriots 29- 13. I didn't know that until I looked it up. The main interest in the Superbowl from my end over here was that trump didn't go 'because it was too far away', and the half time entertainment was by Bad Bunny who sang entirely in Spanish (he's from Puerta Rico) and this was widely viewed as an anti- Trump, anti- MAGA performance especially when he announced 'I love America' and began listing countries from South, Central and North America while his dancers carried their flags. Trump predictably said that it was, 'absolutely terrible, one of the worst EVER!' and added 'no one understands a word this guy is saying'. Trump is a cunt.

Ti Kallisti

At some point in the next couple of months Jason Boardman's Before I Die label is going to release an album by Hawksmoor called Am I Conscious Now? and I feel fairly confident in saying it will still be around at the end of the year and beyond. There's one track from it available to listen to, Ti Kallisti, at Bandcamp- a gorgeous, low key four minutes of piano, synth, space and echo. There were ten copies of a super limited vinyl version of the album but they've all gone (obvs) but don't worry, it'll be getting a full release soon- ish. 

Exploring Hawksmoor's back catalogue is a joy. In October last year a two track single originally recorded in 2012 appeared on Bandcamp. The A-side is titled Life Aboard The International Space Station, an instrumental that drifts weightlessly for four minutes, acoustic guitar and electric guitar, keys, Mellotron, some bass and a Moog pedal called the Moogerfooger. Some patterns, sequences and refrains, orbiting gently. It's lovely and in dealing with the ISS, constantly circling above us at a speed of 17, 500 mph, revolving round the earth once every ninety minutes and giving the occupants sixteen sunrises and sunsets a day, its somewhat existential too.  

You can listen/ buy the single here. 

The B- side has a title borrowed from J.G. Ballard, Storm Bird- Storm Dreamer, more finger picked acoustic guitar, more cyclical guitar patterns- there's something quite pastoral about it. It's a bit shy of three minutes long and I'd happily listen to a much longer version. 

Ballard's story is taken from a compendium of science fiction short stories called The Disaster Area, first published in 1967. In Storm Bird- Storm Dreamer giant birds accidentally fed on new hormone fertilisers used in industrial agriculture have started attacking large animals and people. The story's main character Crispin survives a bird attack and then joins a volunteer force to defend the country against the giant birds. He develops a fascination with a woman living in a remote cottage whose husband was killed by a bird, ripped into pieces, which then flew off with their infant son. There's plenty more as you can probably imagine. What this dystopic story has to do with the tranquil, lilting Hawksmoor instrumental of the same name I'm not entirely sure.