Various - Air Texture Volume 2 (CD)

Feeling stressed? My curtain rail came down yesterday and it’s fair to say I went completely bananas. Started attacking it with a hammer and then I spilt polyfilla everywhere, banged my arm on the door and dropped a spoon on my naked foot. I threatened the hoover with instant death if it didn’t comply to my demands but it rebelled and sucked up an errant lighter. I had to open the whole thing up to get the lighter back and dust went everywhere, then the cat trod in it...I should stop now as I’m starting to get annoyed again.

What I needed was to sit down, have a nice cup of tea and listen to a soothing CD...such as this compilation on Air Texture. What these people do is release a double CD, each curated by a different star from the underground world of soothing pastoral ambience. On Side A loscil chooses people like Brian McBride, Pan American, Strategy (wa-hey!!), loscil himself and a few other people who are less well known to me. On CD2 Rafael Anton Irisarri chooses Simon Scott, Library Tapes, Benoit Pioulard (hooray!), Eluvium, bvdub and many, many more.

To review this would take me all week but I’ve been listening while eating a whole thing of Oatland Biscuit Company’s award-winning ‘Crispy Nutty Seed Bites’ and it is utterly gorgeous. The tracks flow together beautifully and this is a great place to learn more about the diverse world of electro-acoustic ambient bliss.