Music makers

A Sonic Arts grad who releases electro-acoustic material often based around manipulated vocal sounds including the breath.

This alias of Cory Champion is definitely more well-known for house, but A Path (2021) is a collection of floating melodies and chords sans drums.

After a very established run of 19 electronic drone albums between 2001-2009, Seht (aka Stephen Clover) has eased up a bit, with only two more albums in recent years. While Seht’s first decade may be typified by longer drone tracks, the recent albums lean towards shorter, more melodic tracks and include some sturdy, Kraut rock-ish drum parts. And it’s fair to say these elements showed up in earlier releases.

A husband and wife duo making soundscapes that often mix acoustic instrument as well as plenty of electric guitar. Their music ranges from long and slow drone-based pieces to something closer to folk songs, including some spoken word and singing. They have put out half a dozen releases in the last couple of years.

Derek Pearson makes richly-textured ambience out of Wānaka, using a modular synth setup incorporating sampling and tapes. He’s a film-maker and has previously written music for film. I don’t know exactly how, but I feel like it shows. A certain touch of drama?

TRDRT (as in “traderoutes”) is a space-themed synthy ambient project. There are sometimes beats, but just as often not.

A project of Tom McCone, who also records ambient music as Solipsist, Asleep. Expect a varied combo of hazy drones, strummed guitar and different synthy bits.

Jimmy Solórzano is an electronic musician and sound artist from Guadalajara, México, based in Auckland. His album of soft synth work, Tonos (2021), was mastered by contemporary ambient titan Taylor Deupree.

This Wellington producer has three long, soft synthy tracks available on their own Bandcamp page, as well as another on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon’s lockdown compilation Psi-Solation (2020).

This Dunedin duo made two collections of ambient music. One says all sounds are piano and field recordings, and the other sounds like it could well be the same. Giles Thacker is another alias of the musician you may know as Fuckault.