Altus - 24 Hours

canadian producer and hiddenplace music favorite Altus has re-released his 2001 album, 24 Hours in lossless flac format- a perfect reason to revisit this beautiful work. deep, spacious drones, soft ambient pads and subtle environmental sounds make this album perfect listening for a relaxed sunny weekend.

Nunc Stans - Land

i was quite pleased to discover some excellent ambient music from a new netlabel exploring abstract, ambient and experimental sounds called ping things. for his release Land, Nunc Sans draws influence from the stark, expansive landscapes of northern canada. long pad notes and subtly blended atmospheric sounds evoke a mood which is melancholy but not dark, sombre and subdued but at times hopeful. a 40-minute drift into a landscape of stillness...

ILAD & A Northern Chorus

Tying together topics of the previous few posts (canada and post rock), i just saw an excellent show at The Boot with virginian spazz-jazz-jam-rockers ILAD and canadian post-rockers extrodinare, A Northern Chorus. ANC has been one of my favourite spacey shoegaze-rock bands since the MP3.com days and it was great to see them live again. this time i had my camera and i took a few artsy photos. check out the gallery here. anyway, i highly recommend both these bands, you can check out their websites and myspaces to hear the music. i especially recommend A Northern Chorus' album Bitter Hands Resign. its an excellent album of slow spacey but powerful post-rock jams full of swirling strings, guitars and guy+girl vocals.

Altus

now for another complete change of pace - spacey ambient music from canadian musician Altus. at times reminiscent of Jonn Serrie, Chuck Wild (Liquid Mind), Thom Brennan, or Steve Roach in his more melodic moments. peaceful synth pad chords with just the right touches of ambient sounds and atmosphere. almost all of his excellent releases are available as hi-quality mp3s for free download, released under a Creative Commons license. especially recommended are: The Wanderer, Autumn Breeze, Winter Embrace, Excursion One, Elements - Air. if youre a fan of ambient spacemusic, dont miss this very prolific musician!