Ambient Balm, Gentle Folk & a Post Post-Punk Revolution Soundtrack.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Try it, it feels good.

Probably in response to the global turmoil unleashed last week by the elected schoolboy bullies drunk on power over the water, the music gods have guided me on on a journey through calmative ambient, ambient Americana and acoustic folk this week and for that I thank them, it’s the right palliative music at the right time. I probably should have left it at that, but at the risk of angering them I had to slip in the new Snapped Ankles’ LP, just because they’re one of the most urgent, vital bands around and sometimes it can be helpful to let it all out. Aaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Try it, it feels good.

Jogging House - Unrund (Seil)

Despite stiff ambient competition this week Jogging House has narrowly pipped it to the #1 spot, with quite possibly his best work to date, and being as I pretty much support all of his music that is saying something.

If you’re not familiar with Jogging House then he’s a German chap called Boris who’s based in Frankfurt, and has decided to try slowing the world down a bit by producing good natured ambient music, enabling ambient community in the Discord shadows and also running one of my favourite ambient labels, the ever interesting and TSMM attuned Seil Records.

His new LP is a collection of studies on the movement of time, something most of us don’t consider until a chunk of life has swept downstream in a torrent of study, work, parenting and social engagements. Well if you’re under fifty then get ahead of the game, sink into this beauty and contemplate the march of time before it’s too late and your knees can’t cope with that Himalayan trek you always wanted to do.

Based around a velvety modular setup, he’s also brought along his electric guitar, kalimba, and various types of paper (I kid you not) to help translate his emotions to musical form, provide some tonal shifts and add some subtle sonic details for the attentive listener to explore. Remarkable all eight, thirteen minute plus tracks were recorded in single takes on 1/4” tape to further round the already soft edges and add that dull ferrous warmth so beloved of the ambient world.

Trying to describe the joys and sonic ambiguity of such formless music will take a better man than me, but if you need an extended sound bath then I urge you to get yourself comfortable, close your eyes and sink into the warm waters he’s kindly provided, before heading over to his, and the label’s back catalogue.

Michael Scott Dawson - Guitar, Solo (We Are Busy Bodies)

This week’s selection is also something of a trawl through TSMM’s pet artists. It’s always an exciting moment when a favourite act releases a new album, although there is also a moment of trepidation just before hitting play where I pray that it’s as good as previous releases, hopefully closely followed by elation when they deliver the goods yet again, although there have been plenty of tears along the way too.

Michael Scott Dawson is an artist who has yet to let me down in the five years I’ve been acquainted with his music, and he’s one of my favourite exponents of the ambient Americana condition. This new LP is a physically limited cassette and LP release in support of his current Japanese tour, and if that is your country of residence then check his tour dates and tell me what it was like. Oh yeah pick me up a signed vinyl copy from the merch table too.

After the collaborative delights of last year’s The Tinnitus Chorus - something of a TSMM wet dream, this is a strictly one man affair. If you’re a fan of his previous work then you’ll immediately feel at home in the consummately crafted soundscapes that, rather like his Canadian home seem to go on forever, augmented by symbiotic field recordings that bring some of that fresh air and fauna into your listening space and which act as the perfect backdrop for his minimal guitar meditations that I always imagine are recorded on a hill top looking down on a forested valley without a road or electricity pylon in sight. Keep ‘em coming Michael and don’t worry about that concept album.

Pan American, Michael Grigoni - New World, Lonely Ride (Kranky)

Another couple of artists determined to Make Americana Great Again are guitar, mandolin and synthesizer playing Pan American, aka Mark Nelson, and multi-instrumentalist, but dobro, lap steel guitar, and pedal steel guitar focussed Michael Grigoni, who have just released this wonderful lap around the ambient guitar sun for the evergreen Kranky records.

For some reason I was convinced the duo had teamed up before, perhaps because it makes so much sense, but this is actually the first time these like minds have collaborated and I’m sure you’ll agree that it should happen more often. In fact I might even start an online petition - Pan Grigoni, I can see it now.

Electronic augmentation is kept to a minimum and when it does slip into the mix it’s for good reason, adding an air of universal mystery and cosmic shimmer to the virtuoso guitar interplay. More often than not though it’s Grigoni taking care of ambient duty, using his various slide and resonating guitars to elongate notes beyond their normal lifespan whilst Nelson ponders modern life and changing social norms with his precision, all seeing picking. This album is a very real meeting of like-minds, the symbiosis is real and the results stunning. Check it out whilst you’re on your way round to an old friend’s house who you haven’t seen in far too long.

Cameron Knowler - CRK (Worried Songs)

Cameron Knowler is a force for guitar playing good, not just for his musical ability but also as a researcher and educator via his Rural Guitar project which focuses on the development of early American guitar styles through immersive lessons and creative research. He first came to my attention with the excellent Places of Consequence on American Dreams and I’ve been eagerly lapping up the singles from this LP for the last few weeks.

After returning to the place of his childhood after many years, the LP reflects on, and attempts to “make sandcastles out of grief” caused by Knowler’s upbringing in remote Arizona where he “grew up isolated, unschooled in a desert with very little contact with children my own age.” Well these sandcastles are quite the sight.

This time round he's eschewed the one man band approach of his previous LP to bring in some like minded, equally accomplished musicians - Jordan Tice on mandolin, Ethan Jodziewicz on Bass and Rayna Gellert on Fiddle for some group therapy. Luckily they’re all good listeners with obvious respect for Knowler’s virtuoso playing, and know just when to raise their instruments in encouragement and when to sit back and let the man say his piece.

Unsurprisingly introspection abounds, but this is no pity fest. Time and Knowler have obviously moved on and there’s a warmth and glass half full vibe to many of the songs, hell there’s even a couple of hoe down party starters amongst the reflection and moments of understandable melancholy. If acoustic guitar and the folk sound of America are your thing then look no further.

Snapped Ankles - Hard Times, Furious Dancing (The Leaf Label)

Snapped Ankles have been rocking my world for the last eight years with a string of potent, forward looking, post post-punk fusion albums that are trying to rouse the younger generations who know they’re screwed but receive so many app notifications they can’t work out what to do about it.

Their new LP keeps a similar trajectory of wrecking crew bass lines, urgent post punk and soaring space rock, DIY log synth noise meets reconstructed club deviance and motorik madness, all with a post-truth apocalypse meets the Anthropocene in an authoritarian police state where protest is criminalised urgency. They’re political (hallelujah), risky, Tesla egging and surveillance capitalism crushing - all those good things. They’re a wake up call. The revolution won’t be televised as the media is owned by billionaires, but Snapped Ankles might just be the soundtrack.

After me - Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhh.

Don’t Forget TSMM’s Playlists.

From ambient sound baths and wellness imbuing new age vibes to underground house via jazz, neoclassical, folk, dub and more, the twenty TSMM playlists cover a lot of ground.

They’re available on Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon, Youtube Music, Youtube, Deezer, Soundcloud and Spotify (if you don’t worry about them not paying most of the artists on the playlists). Just hit this smartlink to connect to the various services and TSMM profiles.