Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody. It uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.
Kieran Hebden, known as Four Tet, is an English electronic musician. He came to prominence as a member of the post-rock band Fridge before establishing himself as a solo artist with charting and critically acclaimed albums such as Rounds (2003), Everything Ecstatic (2005) and There Is Love in You (2010). In addition to his eleven studio albums as Four Tet, Hebden's work includes a number of improvisational works with jazz drummer Steve Reid and collaborations with Burial and Thom Yorke.
Kranky is an American independent record label in Chicago, Illinois. It was started in 1993 by Bruce Adams and Joel Leoschke. It houses predominantly experimental music artists, often branching into or inspired by ambient, rock, electronic or psychedelic music. Their first release was Labradford's 1993 debut album Prazision. Adams left the label in 2006, after which Leoschke continued running it, with the help of Brian Foote of Kranky band Nudge.
Richard David James, best known as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic styles such as techno, ambient, and jungle. Journalists from publications including Mixmag, The New York Times, NME, Fact,Clash and The Guardian have called James one of the most influential and important artists in contemporary electronic music.
Chelsea Joy Wolfe is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Her work has blended elements of gothic rock, doom metal, and folk music.
aTelecine is an American industrial band featuring Ian Cinnamon and Ništa Nil Nada. The band was co-founded by actress Sasha Grey.
Laurel Anne Chartow, known professionally as Laurel Halo, is an American electronic musician currently based in Los Angeles, California. She released her debut album Quarantine on Hyperdub in 2012 to critical acclaim; it was named album of the year by The Wire.
Alejandra Ghersi Rodríguez, known professionally as Arca, is a Venezuelan musician and record producer based in Barcelona, Spain. She initially began releasing music under the name of Nuuro. After attending the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, Ghersi first released the EP Baron Libre (2012) under the name Arca and subsequently released the EPs Stretch 1 and Stretch 2; the latter experimented with hip hop and brought her attention from prominent music publications.
Tahliah Debrett Barnett, known professionally as FKA Twigs, is a British singer, songwriter, and dancer. She was a backup dancer for numerous musicians, and made her musical debut with EP1 (2012). Barnett's debut studio album, LP1 (2014), reached number 16 on the UK Albums Chart and number 30 on the US Billboard 200. It was nominated for that year's Mercury Prize. She released the EP M3LL155X (2015) and took a four-year hiatus, after which she released her second studio album, Magdalene (2019). After signing with Atlantic Records, she released the mixtape Caprisongs (2022). Her work has garnered acclaim and has been described as "genre-bending", drawing on various genres including electronic music, trip hop, R&B, and avant-garde.
Camae Ayewa, better known by her stage name Moor Mother, is an American poet, musician, and activist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is one half of the collective Black Quantum Futurism, along with Rasheedah Phillips, and co-leads the groups Irreversible Entanglements and 700 Bliss.
Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides is the only studio album by Scottish recording artist and producer Sophie. It was released on 15 June 2018, through Transgressive, Future Classic and Sophie's own label, MSMSMSM. The title may be a mondegreen of the phrase "I love every person's insides". It was met with widespread acclaim by critics and received a nomination for the Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. A remix album, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides Non-Stop Remix Album, was released in July 2019.
Brittney Denise Parks, better known by her stage name Sudan Archives, is an American violinist, singer, and songwriter based in Los Angeles, California. Parks learned to play the violin by ear as a young child in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Daniel Avery is an English electronic music producer and DJ from Bournemouth.
Katie Gately is an American musician, composer, producer and sound designer based in Los Angeles, California. As well as her own releases she has remixed Björk and Zola Jesus and produced for serpentwithfeet. Her most recent album, Fawn/Brute, was released on 31 March 2023.
J’Kerian Morgan, known professionally as Lotic, is an American electronic musician based in Berlin. Lotic rose to prominence through her involvement with the Janus Collective in the early 2010s as well as with a string of EPs released during this time. She was invited by Björk to produce two official Vulnicura remixes in 2016. Her full-length debut, Power, was released in 2018.
Frederikke Hoffmeier, better known by her stage name Puce Mary, is a Danish experimental musician, composer and sound artist.
Fatigue is the second record by Brooklyn-based experimental musician Taja Cheek, under the moniker of L'Rain. It is her first recording with record label Mexican Summer. Fatigue builds on Cheek's experimental compositional approach, drawing from an eclectic collection of genres and employing field recording elements. Instrumentally, it has help from twenty collaborators, who lend the record clavinet, saxophone, and more.
Loraine James, also known as Whatever the Weather, is a British electronic producer and musician.
Lucrecia Dalt is a Colombian experimental musician who currently resides in Berlin. While her earlier releases were rooted in electronic dance music, her work has evolved over time to become more overtly abstract and experimental.
Yu Su is an electronic dance music producer and DJ. She was born in Kaifeng, China, and moved to Vancouver, Canada, in 2013. She started to produce music the following year and after a tour of mainland China in 2019 from Qingdao to Xining, she set up the record label bié in order to release the music of the artists she had met. In 2020, she self-released her debut album Yellow River Blue. The Quietus review called it "warm and inviting", whilst Pitchfork described the songs as a mixture of "ambient dub, synth pop, and left-field house".
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