A Pictured Now

Another year has jettisoned past - this one spent mostly on screenwriting & redefining home. And all along, ambient music was a constant color in our room. 

As they do, the algorithms began chasing me - especially with thinly veiled “songs” used to game the very system taking all of us down. Some were by artists I knew, while others were either AI or so hopelessly generic and anonymous it was hard to tell. Gauzy cover art, nature sounds, synth drones… These are things we love, but they know it.

In paying attention to this data-driven vomit, I realized only if I wanted to forget these motifs of everything and nothing did they too become forgettable. And so I began compiling them, then added shorter pieces by artists I know and love, and what resulted is a gateway drug to long-form ambient for a generation that finds it “stressful” watching a video over a minute long. 

So press play on this collection of tiny infinities for an age of distraction. Each song is a vessel that shatters as soon as it’s formed. And fuck shuffle: this was curated by a human being, and intended to be played in order. 

From now to always another, thank you for listening.

Photos by Alex Mastoon

Cover art: a painted tile by the late Pam Landry. 

TRACKLIST:

1. Ulla - Indoor Type (from Foam)

2. Jon Hassell - Clairvoyance (from Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street)

3. Chihei Hatakeyama - Les Paul Sanitarium (from Void XXI)

4. Benoit Pioulard - Downwind (from Halocline [2018 - 2023]

5. Esprit - Purity 202 (from 200% Electronica)

6. Orchid Mantis - I Was Above My Body (from Holograph Tapes Vol. 1)

7. Roy Montgomery - Jaguar Unseen (from Temple IV)

8. Casino Versus Japan - Not Dreaming (from Suicide by Sun)

9. Zakè, City of Dawn, Ossa - Whispers Unheard (from A Pale Shelter)

10. Terekke - Ambien (from Improvisational Loops)

11. Pye Corner Audio - The Long Now (from Entangled Routes)

12. Satin Sheets - Can’t You See? (from St. Francis)

13. Shed - The Traveller (from The Traveller)

14. William Basinski - Tear Vial (from Lamentations)

15. Aphex Twin - I - from Selected Ambient Works 85-92

16. Beach Fossils - Ascension (from Clash the Truth)

17. Josiah Steinbrick - Blue Age (from Liquid/Devotion & Tongue Street Blue)

18. Belong - Crucial Years (from Realistic IX)

19. Boards of Canada - Under The Coke Sign (from Trans Canada Highway)

20. Lee Noble - Bed Spell (from Motion Forever)

21. Burial - Forgive (from Burial)

22. Chris Herbert - Untitled Interlude I (from Mezzotint)

23. Halftribe - For The Summer, Or Forever (from For The Summer, Or Forever)

24. Otorongo - Terpsichord (from Aquatic Embrace)

25. Caural - The Shadow of Someone I Never Knew (from Stars On My Ceiling)

Compiled September 17th, 2024 by Caural