Music makers

Deep drones, not much info online.

A duo of electronics and piano, Europe in Flames describe their music as “film noir apocalyptic ambient music” recorded in the depths of winter.

John Kingston layers up fx-laden guitars under this alias. He’s also been collaborating, introducing other primarily acoustic instruments into the mix of what he does.

Rachel Shearer, having earlier been associated with bands on labels like Xpressway and Flying Nun, went on to make more drone-based material as Lovely Midget, released by cult NZ noise label Corpus Hermeticum and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore.

Most of Signer’s music is spacious dub techno, a lot of which is either a bit or very ambient, depending how you feel about beats. Signer is another alias of Bevan Smith, aka Aspen, Introverted Dancefloor, one of Glass Vaults, and more. Amongst the dub techno numbers there has always been plenty of atmosphere, tipping over into more-ambient-than-dancefloor on many occasions.

Wellington-based Andrew Thomas went and got himself on German label Kompakt back in 2003, after some interesting CDRs and things you might not find online. His sound is often glitchy piano loops, but also often with pretty tonalities among the clicks and pops, like you might find in the Big Names™ of the era like Fennesz or Oval.

A collaboration between Andrew Thomas and Bevan Smith (Signer).

Ike’s music has a bit of a conceptual bent, often featuring clean digital synths, spoken word samples and dramatic bursts of sub bass.

Film composer, synth enthusiast, keyboardist in atmospheric rock bands, music editor who has received enthusiastic praise from Brian Eno… Stephen’s adventurous scores will likely often appeal to people looking for ambient music.

One curious little ambient pop EP features acoustic guitar and psychedelic atmospheres. Perhaps not all the most typical ambient gestures here, but still in the zone.