Sleeping In Sound

Chilean composer, performer, and producer Edmundo Toloza T, who goes by the artist name cel gris, draws from an artistic upbringing in the rainy Chilean south and a modern appreciation for music, cinema, and the simple things (coffee, olives, family) to create sonic worlds expansive in scope. Minimal would be an understatement, and discernible musical ideas are cosily blanketed by layers of effects and experimentation to create a single clean result. Listen closer and you'll hear worlds unfolding.

Gentle sounds of a flowing river introduce "Seasons Turn Like Pages", a naturalistic collection of songs from Saapato, the ambient music project of New York–based sound artist Brendan Principato. This field recording of water is eventually married with lush synths and ambient textures, though neither ever overtakes the other. Principato seems to view the music of nature and that made by humans to be on equal footing. At least, that is how he balances them on the eight tracks here.

Catapult Elpam is a Romanian producer currently based in the East Midlands. His debut album, Boredom And Other Evil Spirits, was recently released by Cruel Nature Records, and features ten mid-bending tracks. The album title might have a touch of irony to it, but the music here is deftly serious, and pulls the listener to a deep underground world marked by delayed strikes, atmosphere-colouring synths, emotive instrumentation and deceptively-minimal downtempo percussion.

Gorgeous neo-classical piano lines play alongside hurried cymbal work, with subtle ambient tones holding down the low end on "Guardians of Memory", the opening track to Australian jazz and electronic scene stalwart Laurence Pike's latest collection, "Possible Utopias for Jazz Quartet". There's a floating ambivalence to this song that introduces an album of charmingly aloof, rhythmically centred, explorative, and experimental arrangements. Thematically, this album deals with ideas of freedom.