Playing With Nuns - Wave Equation

Genre: Ambient

The Belgian Kopp netlabel specializes in dark ambient and underground electronica. They have quite a few albums available for free and legal downloads and this intriguingly dark and drone-based album by Playing With Nuns may be among the best. Wave Equation is a dark journey that is a bit uneasy on the brain but hypnotic nonetheless. The artists plays with your ears by mixing unusual sounds with the drones which always keep you guessing where the music is going. This is one of the better dark ambient albums you can get on the internet.

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Fabio Keiner - four albums

Genre: Ambient

Austrian composer Fabio Keiner appears to owe more to the post-modern classicism of Morton Feldman and La Monte Young than the latest array of internet based sound artists. His four albums on the Petcord netlabel are epic tomes of improvised sounds that only hint of possible structures. Reminiscent of the Musique Concrete composers of the late 20th century, there is also a similarity to Buddhist chants and other world meditative music. I find this music to be the kind that can immerse you into an other world experience. It is especially good for quiet uninterrupted listening. Check out all four albums which are linked below from the Petcord internet pages.

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Abstract Cello
Resonant
Slow Movements
Without Words, Without Silence

Seconds Before Awakening - eight albums

Genre: Ambient

Michael S. Waller makes drone-filled ambient music under the name of Seconds Before Awakening. It also happens to be my favorite name for an ambient project. He releases his music under his own netlabel, Completely Gone Recordings. Unfortunately it appears that music project and netlabel are…completely gone. But as is the nature of the internet, Waller’s eight online ambient albums still hang out at The Internet Archive where listeners can bask in the drones. They are simply labeled Zero through Seven. This is very good ambient; simple but effective. At time the looped drones and motifs can become a bit repetitious but such is the nature of ambient. It makes for good relaxing and meditation material which is what it is intended for.

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One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Zero

Subterrestrial - six albums

Genre: Ambient

It isn’t necessarily the music of Subterrestrial that is the main attraction here. The San Francisco based project does delivers good dark ambient. However it is the overlying theme that makes these six online albums unusual. The artist states that his goal is to explore “hollow earth and subterranean themes that appear in science, literature and religion using a variety of experimental musical styles as a vehicle.” Does anyone still believe in the hollow earth theory? I thought it went out with the flat earth. Nonetheless, the music of Subterrestrial is very moody and somewhat ominous sounding ambient that uses both drones, layered industrial sounds and other dark things. It does have the feel of deep dark caverns. There are six albums with varying descriptions such as “Tribal”, “Noise”, and “Psychedelic” and “Doom Drone” all of them fitting this strange music. Other albums have varying concepts such as Mata Hari or conspiracy theories. Recommended for those who like their ambient dark and forbidding.

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Godddess of Atvatabar
H-21
Camera Obscura
Conspiracy Music
Transmission from the Hollow Earth
We Live Inside

Lee Rosevere - The Ambient Baby

Genre: Ambient

Lee Rosevere’s new album titled The Ambient Baby is a creative mixture of environmental sounds and rhythms designed to “capture the interest of the child, and then slowly soothe it to sleep”. The target age appears to be from infancy to two years of age. The artist stated that the music has been tested with both infant and adult and has shown to be effective to promoting sleep. I guess you can say the music has been “toddler tested”. It is quite pleasing. It does make for a different and useful addition to the Free Albums Galore family.

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Bing Satellites - thirteen albums

Bing Satellites classifies his music as ambient shoegaze which is a good a label as anything. Whatever the label, the sounds emanating from his thirteen free and legal online albums is easy on the ears yet meditatively stimulating. This is music for calming down after a stressful day, The overall feel of each album varies from a jazzy new age chill (Summer Night) to ambient drones (The Twilight Sessions) yet each album is quite accessible. Bing Satellites puts a lot of work into his creations.

The first few albums have more of a new age lounge chill to them. Summer Nights certainly fit that category. Forever has some lovely acoustic piano on the first two tracks. Slow Motion is a collection of remixes of other musicians’ works. Little Waves concentrates on the ambient side of Bing Satellites with a very experimental fling in the track titled “Good Morning”.

Lines in the Sky collects collaborations with Manchester DJ OnSpiderPark and is on the glitchy side of electronica. Nothing For Miles is notable for the use of guitar and fretless bass on all of the tracks and it is my favorite of the albums. Experimental Music Vol. 1 is clearly what the title says it is and focuses on long ambient drones. Piano Cascades is the first release of 2011 and is a series of piano pieces with electronic backing that are, as described by the artist, “based around generative loops where each note is played on a loop, the length of that loop varying according to its pitch”. It is a bit more post-classical in style than any of the other recordings.

Finally there are the five Twilight Sessions which are live improvised performances. All the albums tend to be about an hour and a half long except for volume 5 which is over three hours of music. They are long ambient pieces which are perfect for extended listening or even soothing background sound.

All of these albums can be found at the artist’s website or you can go to the album page linked below.

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Summer Night
Forever
Slow Motion
Little Waves
Lines In the Sky (with OnSpiderPark)
Nothing For Miles
Piano Cascades
Accidental Music Vol.1
Twilight Sessions Vol. 1
Twilight Sessions Vol. 2
Twilight Sessions Vol. 3
Twilight Sessions Vol. 4
Twilight Sessions Vol. 5

Adern X - four albums

The XeVoR netlabel tells us to “Worship the loop.” If you are going to take that advice you can’t go wrong with these four albums spearheaded by sound artist Adern X. His albums are loaded with loops and samples that incorporate both electronic and field recordings. They tend to be challenging while bordering on the industrial but they are always interesting. All of them are live fully improvised performances. There are four albums with two being solo efforts, Polaroids and Concept Building. Slicer is a musical project of Adern X and Luca Privitera. The album titled Ricordi di un’Apostasia mai Avvenuta is also a live performance. ATX is a duo consisting of Adern X and Tomaso Azara. Again improvised live, the music is described as a “clash of two esthetics based on samples, where meaning arise in the crossroads of sound, melody and noise.” These are truly fascinating sound experiments and well worth your time.

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Janes Scenic Drive - two albums

Genre: Ambient

Luscious layers of extended tones is the hallmark of the ambient music from Janes Scenic Drive. Now and Then is a single track over an hour long that is perfect for long periods of relaxation and meditation while Colors of Heaven spreads its audible textures over seven separate tracks. Janes Scenic Drive is a music project by Phillip Wilkerson and is freely available on his Amorphos Music netlabel.

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Now to Then
Color of Heaven

Wacky Southern Current - Like The Wind Within The Hollow Tree

Wacky Southern Current isn’t wacky or southern, unless we talking about Southern Italy, perhaps. The musical project is the brainchild of Italian musician Marco Cervellin who uses acoustic instruments with a gentle electronic persuasion. The sound is down-tempo post-rock that is soothing to the point of dream inducing. I’ve featured the first album at Free Albums Galore and this new recording titled Like the Wind Within The Hollow Tree is even better. The No-Source netlabel scores another win with this beautiful release.

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Wasaru - four albums

The music of Wasaru is a mix between new age ambient and trip-hop. It is generally downbeat and sometimes melodically repetitive but it makes up for this with lush and fragile arrangements using both acoustic instruments and electronics. The first three albums are mostly instrumental. Prisoners of State is the first album. It is brief at 14 minutes and is mostly a chilled-out dance club effort. Fragments of Stories changes this. This album uses more acoustic keyboard. It has the feel of a film soundtrack. The same can be said for Undefinable States In fact, most of Wasaru’s music take on a cinematic atmosphere . Undefinable States also exhibits more hip-hop influences.

But the best is Wasaru’s latest ear-feast, Imperceptible Memories. The artist invites some guest vocalists to participate and it gives the music a new dimension. Trip-hop dominates and there is a nice balance between down-tempo and hip-hop. The guest artists include the Dada Weathermen, Gracielita, and [mUE]. I especially like [mUE]’s two contributions, “When I’m a Boy” and “Recall”. This is the album I would recommend to download first. But if you like it you will enjoy the rest too.

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Fragments of Stories
Imperceptible Memories
Prisoners of State
Undefinable States

LeVant - Naked Light

Levant uses Vangelis styled electronic, choirs, and orchestral texture to create a music that is part symphony, part world music, and a bit spacey. It is relaxing and inspiring. A good bet for those who live new age symphonic sounding synth music.

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Zero-Project - eight albums

Genre: Ambient

Zero-Project appears to have a strong following over at Jamendo. He currently has eight albums of synth music ranging from symphonic fantasy to electronic ambient/new age to acoustic meditative music. The most popular albums seems to be the Fairyland Series consisting of two albums and an “Orchestral expansion”. I really like the title track from Celtic Dreams yet the Celtic influences are subservient to the easy-listening new age vibes. Las Luces Ya Se Han is described by the composer as “Chill-out/lounge/Latin”. Ambient Symphony has lots of beautiful sounds and melodies with a good amount of variety yet is somewhere between ambient, classical, and a electronic lounge sound. Earth is a concept album that “represents the human consequence because of our way of living”. Autumn Prelude may be my favorite due to its use of acoustic keyboard with some very nice orchestral synth backing. It is a perfect album for meditative listening. Finally, Disabled Emotions Suite is very similar in style to the previously mentioned album.

All of these eight album plus a few shorter EPs can be found on the artist’s Jamendo page or you can access them for streamed listening of downloading from the album pages linked below.

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Ambient Symphony
Autumn Prelude
Disabled Emotions Suite
Earth
Fairytale
Fairytale 2
Fairytale 2: The Orchestral Exoansion
Las Luces ya se Han

Epsilon Eridani - three albums

Genre: Ambient

As far as dark ambient goes, Epsilon Eridani plays some of the darkest ambient music I’ve ever heard. The tracks on all three free and legal online albums are little horror stories of sound. Lamentos Lejanos and Retrospective certainly falls into that strange genre called dark ambient. However, I really like Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft which is an attempt to give a soundtrack to Lovecraft’s supernatural stories. It is the perfect background for reading Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos by or, for that matter, the horror fiction of your choice.

These three albums are provided to us by DNA Productions

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Tribute To H.P. Lovecraft
Lamentos Lejanos
Retrospective

Meczup - Hanging From The Purgatory’s Pendulum

Genre: Ambient

Here’s something you don’t hear every day. A theremin album worth listening too. I don’t mean to be mean but the theremin is a rather neglected instrument partially due to its overuse in grade B horror films. But Istanbul-based musician Cihan Gülbudak, recording as Meczup on Hanging From The Purgatory’s Pendulum, shows that this instrument can be a thing of beauty. Vital to its success is the way Meczup plays and loops the instrument into gorgeous arrangements . You do not have to listen farther than the first track, “A Tale For Lancinant Screws” to realize what an exquisite recording this is. And it is amazingly free and legal from BFW Recordings.

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Ballpen - The Dreams Trilogy

Genre: Ambient

Alessandro Coronasaka aka Ballpen states that the goal of his album titled The Dreams Trilogy was to write songs as they are dreams. To a large extent he has succeeded for, like dreams, his compositions are loosely organized and meandering. I expect you will need to use Ballpen’s actual dreams as sort of a Rosetta Stone to decode most of this pretty album. Yet the idea works and our ears intuitively unravels the beauty of this album. On some tracks such as “The Sea Dreams” he uses vocals that are as ethereal as his instrumentation. Overall, it’s a oddly attractive minor masterpiece of bits and sounds that should keep your enthralled.

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Makunouchi Bento - two albums

Romanian musicians Felix Petrescu (Waka X) and Valentin Toma (Qewza) founded the experimental electronica project Makunouchi Bento (also a form of Japanese box lunch) in 2001 and it is still going strong. Swime is their newest album and it is available as a free and legal download. Their music uses both electronic and acoustic instruments. The sound is rather free-floating, using various and sundry sound elements while still having an apparent structure. That’s not to say their music is predictable. There is a feeling of exploration that is transmitted to the listener. Overall it is excellent electronic music, if a bit on the avant-garde side.

Milano Brothers IV seems to be part of a soundtrack for an imaginary movie. Created early in the formation of Makkunouchi Bento, it was thought to be lost but re-discovered in a basement. The four excerpts are , for the most part, very tonal and atmospheric. My guess is that this movie was some type of foreign crime syndicate idea but I may be wrong. Nonetheless, the movie is very beautiful and should be a good one for just chillin’ out.

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Swime
Milano Brothers IV

Mo-seph - three albums

Dave Murray-Rust aka Mo-seph is a electronic music artist who gets it. He creates sounds and music to tickle that inner part of you that wants joy and serenity and actually manages to bring it to you even if only for the duration of his two serene, ambient albums. Mo-seph says he makes music that makes him smile and it does that trick for me but in a down-tempo, chilled-out spacey sort of way. Two of the albums are delightful soundscapes and they are titled Growth and Form and The Other Place. Speaking of The Other Place, if you like your techno chill-out a little funkier, you will love “Ubervamp” by Mo-Seph and Ariel. SOMOS NANAS is a collection of tracks that are collaborations between Mo-Seph and Josie Davis. They are a bit glitchier to my ears than the other two albums. But I enjoy all three and think you will too.

Mo-seph’s albums are available through Black Lantern Music or you can get them at his Free Music Archive page. Or, of course, go to the album page linked below and download from there.

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Growth and Form
The Other Place
SOMOS NANAS

Rho - two albums

Steve Setzepfandt and Josh Wittman are the masterminds behind the electronica project called Rho. They have two albums on the No-Source netlabel titled October Turnout and Cedarleaf. The music sounds to me like a cross between Jean Michel Jarre’s symphonic electronica and the IDM soundscapes of Boards of Canada. I find Cedarleaf the better of the two mainly due to the variety of the tracks and a certain unpredictability as to where the artists are going in each song. Give it a listen.

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Cedarleaf
October Turnout

Melting Clouds - Melting Clouds

Melting Clouds is described a a “post-rock, psychedelic, experimental, meditative band from Kyiv”. With that kind of description, you probably would except something on the esoteric side and you would be correct. This self-titled album tends to be more ambient than post-rock but when the band does a vocal, as on “Teneleventwo”, it is sort of a super laid back early REM thing layered with psychedelic jam. This is the type of album you want to just listen to and catch all the nuances and moods. It is something very different from Clinical Archives, a net label that specializes in the very different.

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Motionfield - The Sound of Snow

Genre: Ambient

So it is not necessarily a Christmas album but snow is certainly considered seasonal and Motionfield’s new album The Sound of Snow is all about snow. Or at least they are attempting to capture a cold and wintry feel in this ambient drone-filled effort. It is quite hypnotic but also very listenable and…dare I say it?…Chillin’. Each of the ten tracks has its own personality but stays in the realm of an ambient dreamscape. Highly recommended for your meditative times.

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Various Artists - The BFW Christmas Album 2010

Genre: Ambient

Here’s another ambient collection of holiday-themed music, this time from BFW Recordings. Not all of these track are really ambient, especially the great opening song, “Christmas Time is Here” by Oniero. However, that is the strength of the album. There is lots of variety and lots of music that will appeal to almost everyone. These appear to be very original songs by very original artists. Some are ambient but other borders such genres as new age, post-rock and good old Christmasy easy listening. It makes for a good mellow listen for after you trim the tree.

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Frank Harper - two albums

Frank Harper’s two full-length albums on Jamendo can be called jazz but is probably closer to the ambient neo-classical that you might hear from ECM. Or perhaps intelligent new age.

I was Harper’s first commercial release but it is now available free thanks to the permission of Harper and the album publisher. The eight tracks are calming and perfect for a meditative listening experience. The artist use both acoustic instruments (primarily guitar) and synthesizers on this album. Spheres is an ambient translation of a number of Vivaldi compositions. Harper uses exclusively synthesizers to recreate the works. While Classical purists may be rankled, there is no doubt that Harper meant these exquisite pieces to be a work of love.

You can also buy CDs of the this music. So if you like the music, support the artist by purchasing the CDs in higher quality sound.

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I
Spheres - Vivaldi

Various Artists - May Cause Drowsiness

Genre: Ambient

Despite the name, the Digital Vomit net label serves up some high quality ambient that won’t make you nauseous. Instead you are more likely to be lured into a warn audio spa that, as the album title claims, May Cause Drowsiness. This is their first ambient compilation and it is a joy from the first track on. It is actually 2 CDs worth of music from what the Digital Vomit people call a “decentralized music collective”. The first track by Meep you can almost dance to but the rest of the collection is more in the sense of minimalism , drones, and dreamy sound waves. I especially like the Eno-influenced “The Disquieting Muses” by Doug Sparling. Other intriguing tracks include Turning, Returning’s “Galileo’s Cough Drop” and the only slightly industrial “Gentle Intrusion” by Alien Hands. This is a good sampling of new ambient.

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Various Artists – no-r-mal II

The Just Not Normal netlabel recently released one of the best experiment music compilations I’ve ever found on the web. It is call No-R-mal offering four CDs full of interesting music and was recently reviewed and featured here at Free Albums Galore. However, it appears the Just Not Normal people are not resting on their laurels. They followed up with no-r-mal II, stretching the length to six CDs of equally fascinating, but often challenging music. There are 71 artists, 71 tracks and over seven hours of sounds. The six CDs are grouped in six atmospheric categories titled from CD1 to CD6 as Warm Voices, Dark Places, Strange Paces, Ca-Dance, Art Sounds and Outta Here. There are a few already raved about artists here like Phillip Wilkerson and Mystified but most are brilliant musicians languishing in obscurity waiting for the adventurous listener to discover them.. That adventurous listener just may be you!

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Carl Sagan’s Ghost - five albums

Genre: Ambient

Daniel Davis is a composer in ambient and electronic music. He records under a variety of names including 2 Phantom 4, Twin Cam Akiko, and Carl Sagan’s Ghost. All of his music is distributed free from his web site. All of it is interesting but I chose to feature those albums under the project name of Carl Sagan’s Ghost. The music is drone heavy and decidedly ambient. Any of the five albums listed below will provide you with soundscapes that will lull you into a calm dream. You will find all the albums that Mr. Davis has released here or you can go directly to the featured album’s download page through the links below.

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Especially For Them
At The End of It All
Darkness and the Light
Behind Clouds
Music For Home Offices: Volume One