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The prolific ambient producer Zake (Zach Frizzell) has his latest release out for out us to enjoy. B4 Plus 3 features seven compositions in all. Many of them are brilliantly done drone pieces that are expressive in beautifully done tones that rise and slide. The heavenly 'Braken' as the opener for example. The layered tones creatively mask the depth of the drones to the point of a spontaneous feel that is almost changed by anything as slight as a light wind. 'Betrayal' present bells that ring out from the meandering depth while 'Blight' is deep and foreboding tot he point of being machinelike. 'Bane' is one of the most moving pieces in drone we have heard in a long, long time. Limited to only 50 cassettes in total (+download code), act fast to get the brilliant, peaceful and moving B4 Plus 3.

ASC returns with a deeply emotive album on Past Inside the Present, showcasing a new chapter in his musical journey. Known for his versatility across electronic and drum & bass genres, James Clements channels introspection and healing in Loss. Quiet bird calls and field recordings intertwine with ASC's expertly crafted synths, creating a therapeutic sonic landscape. Each track evokes a range of emotions, from melancholy to hope, acceptance to sorrow. Loss invites listeners to embark on a poignant journey, where ASC's mastery shines through in every moment. It's a captivating and beautiful testament to the power of music as a form of self-expression and healing.

36's new album Reality Engine explores "the blossoming dynamics of artificial intelligence and the ever-changing definition of reality" on Past Inside The Present and does so with a continuation of his richly melodic sound while also evolving into new realms. The sheer beauty of these sounds is enough to uplift and energise, with chords ascending to the heavens on the opener 'Imagine The Truth' and then rolling out to infinite horizons on 'Axiom Haze'. 'Reality Engine' suspends you amongst the clouds and 'Beyond The Hyperreal' is a perfect marriage of immersive and organic sounds and hints of digital augmented reality engines. A sublime album, for sure.

36 and Zake follow up the epic work of Stasis Sounds For Long Distance Space Travel Part 1 with another eighteen chapters "of aural anesthetics" which "continue their journey through the outer reaches of space in hypersleep." The album comes in different coloured versions and this yellow copy boasts the sort of grainy and immersive ambient that immediately takes you out into the farthest reaches of space. It's widescreen and cinematic and makes for the sort of journeying album that is perfect for zoning out of everyday life and enjoying some mindful moments to yourself.

36 and Zake follow up the epic work of Stasis Sounds For Long Distance Space Travel Part 1 with another eighteen chapters "of aural anesthetics" which "continue their journey through the outer reaches of space in hypersleep." The album comes in different coloured versions and this yellow copy boasts the sort of grainy and immersive ambient that immediately takes you out into the farthest reaches of space. It's widescreen and cinematic and makes for the sort of journeying album that is perfect for zoning out of everyday life and enjoying some mindful moments to yourself.

Past Inside The Present wastes no time at all in getting back to serving up essential sounds in 2024, this time with Live Improvisations offering up music by zake, From Overseas, Hakobune and Chihei Hatakeyama. The first side is music made back in 2014 in a session between Yorifuji and Hatakeyama in rural Japan and the flipside is a response to it from zake and From Overseas. It makes for two delightfully crepuscular ambient pieces that slowly and subtly unfurl and draw you in deep to their ever-shifting layers and billowing synth-scapes.

This is a special audiophile vinyl version of Live Improvisations, an album featuring two sides of music, one the response to the other. The A-side is a recording of a 2014 session between Hakobune and Chihei Hatakeyama that was made with the colours of autumn and rural Japan in mind. Both of these artists have composed dozens of works that have established them as leaders in their field and this is no different. On the flip, zake and From Overseas craft 'Live Improvisation II' and 'forge an intercontinental bond' as they recorded the music in one take with no editing afterward. It's a gorgeous listen that shows a real mastery of tone and texture.

Minneapolis' Chris Bartels aka Blurstem, and Philadelphia's Andrew Tasselmyer of the likes of Hotel Neon and Gray Acres have hooked up once more for a second collaborative album Midnight Letters. This album's starting point was original concepts played out on guitar which were then processed and experimented with through an ages-old analog tape machine. Add in an array of iPad audio processing apps, samplers, and Ableton software and you have a perfect mix of tools to serve up a sonic journey that perfectly merges the old with the new. The resulting ambient soundscapes are immersive and sparse but packed with subtle details that convey all manner of emotions.

Tyresta's Small Hours album (a direct follow-up to 2020's All We Have) comes on beautiful 180-gram splatter green vinyl via Past Inside The Present and is another majestically subtle and intimate ambient work that explores "impermanence, grief, loss, healing, and growth". It's an album that reveals more with each listen as the carefully layered-up synths and melodies intertwine harmoniously to make for a perfect late-night soundtrack. There's plenty of soul searching to be done while lost in the midst of this album, but it will be a rewarding task as you cannot fail to find "solace, rejuvenation, and a rekindling of the unfettered spirit," as the label puts it.

Daljit Kundi and Ludvig Cimbrelius have Indian and Swedish backgrounds but actually came together in the UK music scene and specifically ambient jungle. They set off to explore that world totters and did so with aplomb across several great albums and EPs.

This new album was actually nearly done many years ago but was shelved owing to struggles with record labels. When Past Inside The Present heard it though they encouraged the album to be finished and so here it is. It's an emotional work which "attempts to represent a psychic darkness that is as deeply restful as it is ripe with creative potential." It's absorbing, beautiful ambient from a pair of real dons.

Another week, another new release from the unstoppable ambient powerhouse that is zake. His latest full-length LL has two new cuts by the American maestro with remixes from a hefty selection of equally prolific producers all served up on his home label Past Inside the Present and no fewer than six sides of vinyl.

Across this immersive two hours of music, there is a mix of ambient, drone, drum & bass, electronica, and deep techno from Warmth, Aural Imbalance, ASC and Bvdub. It is yet another essential release from zake and co.

It has been some five years since US ambient maestro zake dropped the first volume of his Orchestral Tape Studies. We're glad to finally have the second instalment in the series available because there has rarely been music as cathartic and soothing as this on our shelves. It's made from drones, field recordings and richly layered movements of fragmented orchestral loops.

It is heavily inspired by the sound of the greatest minimalist symphonic composers and orchestras of the last 100 years and comes in several different colours.

This version is a transparent rose vinyl LP and download code.

Thanks to this lovingly presented reissue from Past Inside The Present, you can own The Lower Lights by 36 in just about whatever coloured vinyl you wish: This is the Past Inside The Present translucent red version with others also available on Juno. It's an album first put together by the label back in 2019 shortly after 36 had finished a year-long 'Audio Diary' project. Not all of the tracks they wrote in that time make the cut, but the best 10 do. They are direct, absorbing and energetic ambient soundscapes that are emotionally charged and demanding of your attention.

The Lower Lights is well known as one of the most emotionally potent ambient records of recent years. It is a collection of 10 tunes from a busy period in which 36 undertook a year-long 'Audio Diary' project. The sounds are immediate and direct, demanding of your full focus and a mix of dark and urgent, cyberpunk-inspired and emotionally charged ambient sounds that bring all new thinking to the genre. Nice work.

Past Inside The Present has really gone to town with the re-release of this 36 album The Lower Lights: it comes in several different formats and vinyl versions with this one being a limited, numbered and opaque red vinyl including a download code. Musically it is just as essential as a collection of tracks from a year-long 'Audio Diary' project undertaken by 36 between April 2018 and April 2019. It first came back in May 2019 and soon sold out, such is the quality of the vibrant and eclectic ambient sounds within. This is not sleep-inducing background material, but rather emotionally charged soundscaping with a mix of dark, futuristic and urgent pieces all making the cut.

zake's fruitful contributions as an artist to his own Past Inside The Present label continues on this new album Deep Into The Unknown We Shall Endlessly Roam. It is an assemblage of arrangements made using archaic tape machines such as a Sony M-570V microcassette voice recorder and obsolete VSC Soundpacer, all on analogue tape. Of course that lends the music a misty, grainy quality that defines much of zake's ambient. Here his loops and found sounds meld and melt to create vast open spaces that are pregnant with emotion and tension. It's another magical work of ambient art that, says the artist, "is dedicated to those who continue to yearn for greater understanding."

Past Inside the Present's 'Pulse' series is an investigation into ambient tech and beat-driven ambient sounds. Who better for the job on this second edition than master craftsmen ASC and Joachim Spieth? ASC opens up with 'Tidal Disruption Event', an understated, underwater rhythm with jittery percussive patterns and bright shards of melodic light piercing through the mix as more coarse soundwaves break over the top. Spieth's 'Subtle' is just as artful and delicate a mix of persuasive rhythm and melodic beauty. A classy Nitechord remix closes out this fascinating EP.

Back in February, the prolific Past Inside The Present label boss Zake hooked up with Marc Ertel, James Bernard, and From Overseas at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis for a very intimate live show in a historic Gothic Chapel.

A vast array of instruments were used including a Fender Telecaster, Meris Mercury 7, Eurorack modular synthesizer, Stingray bass guitar and literally tens more tools and toys and the resulting eight tunes of absorbing ambient are all presented here. It is another mystic and mystifying release from this label that reaches sublime new emotional highs.

Aussie composer Cat Tyson Hughes is an experimental artist whose new album Crossing Water on Past Inside The Present marks her debut long player. It comes after she's been involved with several other projects and offers a fragile and delicate mix of subtle instrumentation and rich voice textures imbued with an array of lovely field recordings. These are superbly patient and slow-burn tracks that really have a cathartic effect as nature and natural sounds permeate each composition. The melodies take your mind away as the freely structured, minimal arrangements really make you take note.

UK producer Dennis Huddleston goes by the artist name of 36. He is a much-loved producer with a fine back catalogue which is investigated here with The Box, a new collection of his earliest and perhaps most admired works. They were all written between 2005 and 2012 and are drawn from albums such as 2009's Hypersona, 2010's Hollow and 2012's Lithea. The bumper six vinyl collection also features a bonus album, Orphans, of all new and previously unreleased tracks. There is a real depth of range and emotion to these tracks so it is no wonder the artist says they are some of the most personally cherished works he has written.

Clouds Without Water is a project that came about after the chance meeting of two ambient experimentalists. They were both in attendance to perform at the same electronic music festival but came together over their shared love of Bristol Sound. Working over long distances and through the isolation of the pandemic, they sent tracks to each other "without plans or discussion, only wordless questions buried in the music." What resulted was this album, which evokes celestial dreams, moon-lit otherworldly landscapes and plenty of deep introspection. It is space music for spacing out to.

Los Angeles-based marine eyes (aka Cynthia Bernard) and Melbourne-based IKSRE (aka Phoebe Dubar) come together for this new album on Past Inside The Present and it is one that draws on their respective backgrounds as musicians, multi-instrumentalists and sound healers, as well as their shared love of field recordings. The album came about when each heard the other's music and decided to share sounds through an email pen-pal format. The mail chain included notes and pictures and became a geographical lesson and exploration of emotional landscapes. It blends ambient drone with neo-classical, sound healing, dream-pop and gentle lullabies onto something warm, comforting and introspective.

zake's fruitful contributions as an artist to his own Past Inside The Present label continues on this new album Deep Into The Unknown We Shall Endlessly Roam. It is an assemblage of arrangements made using archaic tape machines such as a Sony M-570V microcassette voice recorder and obsolete VSC Soundpacer, all on analogue tape. Of course that lends the music a misty, grainy quality that defines much of zake's ambient. Here his loops and found sounds meld and melt to create vast open spaces that are pregnant with emotion and tension. It's another magical work of ambient art that, says the artist, "is dedicated to those who continue to yearn for greater understanding."

Stockholm's Havenaire follows up a series of head-turning ambient releases on the likes of Shimmering Moods, Polar Seas and Glacial Movements with a limited new long player on Past Inside The Present. Across six slowly shifting soundscapes he layers up his misty-eyed chords into music that is designed to empty your mind but that also gently sweeps you heart. There is subtle hope and optimism amongst the ambient fog here that leaves you feeling cleansed and soothed. All six pieces have their own character but are very much united by a sense of calm and serenity that is utterly captivating.

Given the respective outputs of committed ambient explorers and sound designers zake (best known for releasing no less than five fine albums in 2019) and 36 (most recently seen on A Strangely Isolated Place with the superb album "Fade To Grey"), you'd expect this trip into aural deep space to be rather good. It is of course, with the four tracks mixing echoing sonic tones and drifting sound effects with slow-burn electronic melodies and the kind of immersive, sustained chords that were once the preserve of German maestro Pete Namlook. The third track in the suite, appropriately titled 'Stage 3', is little less than stunning, in part because of its grandiose, almost classical intent. No surprise to discover, then, that after a stretch of being out of print it's back via a reissue, this version being a limited clear vinyl edition.

Given the respective outputs of committed ambient explorers and sound designers zake (best known for releasing no less than five fine albums in 2019) and 36 (most recently seen on A Strangely Isolated Place with the superb album "Fade To Grey"), you'd expect this trip into aural deep space to be rather good. It is of course, with the four tracks mixing echoing sonic tones and drifting sound effects with slow-burn electronic melodies and the kind of immersive, sustained chords that were once the preserve of German maestro Pete Namlook. The third track in the suite, appropriately titled 'Stage 3', is little less than stunning, in part because of its grandiose, almost classical intent. No surprise to discover, then, that after a stretch of being out of print it's back via a reissue, this version being a limited clear vinyl edition.

Anyone who's cast even the most casual eye over their ever expanding catalogue will have realised that one thing Past Inside The Present do best is bring artists together for unexpected and inspired collaborations. Departing in Descent is the first collaboration between James Bernard and Bvdub but their creative conversation effectively started as far back as 1994 when the latter bought Bernard's Atmospherics album in 1994 when it was "mistakenly stocked" in his local house music store. He says it was and remains his favourite ambient album, so when the pair found themselves crossing paths for one night in LA years later, a collaboration was the only logical conclusion. The results are more organic and friendly on the ear than some ambient offerings, with real instrumentation meshed with walls of woozy synths and delays, but no less fantastical and ambitious for it.

Regular collaborator with label boss zake, City of Dawn teams up with From Overseas, an aptly named producer based on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The result is classic Past Inside The Present - quivering, celestial ambient music that would fit into the drone category if it weren't for the fact it's constantly, subtly changing and evolving almost imperceptibly. Utterly horizontal in attitude, utterly heavenly in realisation, this is a corker even by PITP's very high standards, with this edition arriving in limited transparent sepia vinyl LP (+ download code) form.

Regular collaborator with label boss zake, City of Dawn teams up with From Overseas, an aptly named producer based on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The result is classic Past Inside The Present - quivering, celestial ambient music that would fit into the drone category if it weren't for the fact it's constantly, subtly changing and evolving almost imperceptibly. Utterly horizontal in attitude, utterly heavenly in realisation, this is a corker even by PITP's very high standards, with this edition arriving in limited transparent sepia vinyl LP (+ download code) form.

Unfurled Works is a collection of back-catalogue zake tracks that have been lengthened for this new cassette, which is a slow-moving cascade of ambiance that washes over you in a delightful fashion. It's an album of frayed edges and lo-fi production, of dream-like haziness and heart-warming subtlety. The five carefully layered tracks on it slowly and stylish shift from one to another with meditative pads and organic drones that are gently peppered with sombre keys. Some pieces are light and airy, others are more moody and heavy, and all of them are perfect for daydreaming and re-setting your mood. Silence takes on all new potency and the beauty of the barely-there grows ever more striking.

UK producer Dennis Huddleston goes by the artist name of 36. He is a much-loved producer with a fine back catalogue which is investigated here with The Box, a new collection of his earliest and perhaps most admired works. They were all written between 2005 and 2012 and are drawn from albums such as 2009's Hypersona, 2010's Hollow and 2012's Lithea. The bumper six vinyl collection also features a bonus album, Orphans, of all new and previously unreleased tracks. There is a real depth of range and emotion to these tracks so it is no wonder the artist says they are some of the most personally cherished works he has written.

Space is the place - at least, it's the place uppermost in the mind of midwest US label Past Inside The Present founder zake and his sonic partner Ossa - location given as the north pole according to his Twitter - as they embark on collaborative 10 tracks. The fact that that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA to you and me - has supplied them with celestial sound emissions for the tracks is a bonus. But ultimately, the real headline factor once it's actually on your turntable is the vivid atmosopheres and gorgeous textures that the pair are capable of generating. The album's closer, 'Metric Expansion', is a tremulous glory, peaking and slipping away like rays of sunlight. 'Space & Time', meanwhile, is a simple, gliding analogue delight, and 'Drifting' proves you can carve imperceptible beauty from a couple of well crafted chords.

Past Inside The Present co-founder Isaac Helsen - a multi-disciplinary artist from Michigan, creating photography and paintings as well as music - in action on this double cassette alone after a string of collaborations with labelmate 36 and fellow label co-founder zake. Helsen's sound works on a grand (electronically) orchestral scale at times, the proverbial cathedrals of sound coming to mind, at others (see 'Duniskwalgunyi') understated and intimate. On first listen, it's the simpler moments like 'Whisper At A Party' that grab you, but the 17 track selection slowly reveals itself to be quite special on repeated rotations.

Space is the place - at least, it's the place uppermost in the mind of midwest US label Past Inside The Present founder zake and his sonic partner Ossa - location given as the north pole according to his Twitter - as they embark on collaborative 10 tracks. The fact that that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA to you and me - has supplied them with celestial sound emissions for the tracks is a bonus. But ultimately, the real headline factor once it's actually on your turntable is the vivid atmosopheres and gorgeous textures that the pair are capable of generating. The album's closer, 'Metric Expansion', is a tremulous glory, peaking and slipping away like rays of sunlight. 'Space & Time', meanwhile, is a simple, gliding analogue delight, and 'Drifting' proves you can carve imperceptible beauty from a couple of well crafted chords.

zake & Wayne Robert Thomas come together to serve up a thoughtful and healing deep dive into "what it means to continue living life in the face of loss and uncertainty." Their album is one of great depth emotional and full of subtle struggles that we can all relate to. 'To Those Who Dwelt in a Land of Deep Darkness' was first put out as a 10" lathe but now gets pressed dup properly to 12" vinyl with three extra tracks taken from the original recording sessions. They say the best art comes out of adversity and that is certainly true here.