What We’re Listening to This Week (8.11.26)

Ambient Articles Dark Ambient Drum & Bass Electro Electronic Experimental Intelligent Drum and Bass Minimalist Ambient Pop Punk Punk Rock Rockwave Shoegaze Sound Collage Techno
James Krustofski
August 12, 2026
16 minutes read

Archives:

Miles by christelle bofale

I’ve had this song on repeat for the last couple of days, and after you hear it, you’ll know why. I have very staunch opinions about vocals in music. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating for any vocalist who might be reading: your voice is an instrument and people can tell when you’re not being honest. Maybe that doesn’t matter to you. Maybe it isn’t even something you think about while you’re performing. But when I hear someone sing, I want to HEAR someone – be honest and please let me listen. What I hear out of Christelle Bofale, is honesty. Beautiful honesty. Then there is what she’s actually singing about – the difficult negotiations between control and human connection, the way a life can pull against the people attached to it. Such a good song and beautiful soul. Definitely need to pour through more of her work.

Relampagueante by B_DWIL

B_DWIL played one of the Live in the Depths (number 97) I didn’t go to this year. Which, in retrospect, was clearly a tactical error. I see him around Portland shows fairly often, and he’s always been such a genuinely warm presence that I was curious to hear how that personality translated into his own work. His album, Relampagueante, released just yesterday, is pretty remarkable. It’s wonderfully whimsical and is right up my alley in terms of music production and that reverbed percussion. A lot of what he’s doing sounds genuinely original, though “genuine” may be the more important word. His music feels rooted in a personal vocabulary,with ideas that seem to come from his own instincts and curiosities – I know that sounds vague, but you’d have to have met him to understand what I’m saying. I need to spend more time with the rest of his catalog. One of those records is definitely getting a full review.

From the Cavern to the Beach by Silverface Deluxe

I’ve been holding onto this one for a couple of weeks and I finally got around to listening to it. Silverface Deluxe (aka Maximum Strength or a Fender reference) has done something particularly interesting with this release: alongside making the album, Silverface has created a new genre for it – “Rockwave.” Genre-making can be a dangerous academic sport (no pun intended), especially in electronic music where the taxonomic branches already resemble an overgrown botanical garden, but I appreciate an artist attempting to name the musical territory they have actually constructed. In this case, they’ve been explicit about what Rockwave means and where it comes from. I’ll let the artist explain it:

“Rockwave is sample based ambient/noise music that explores the history and lore of rock music through the use of archival audio. By manipulating the context of history, it aims to influence the listeners emotional connection to these stories. The initial inspiration for the genre came from the pioneering sportswave work of Minty 9 on Sponsored Athletics, working to expand this idea to other types of broadcast media.

https://minty9.bandcamp.com/album/sponsored-athletics

I hope that the concept spreads to all mass media and cultural traditions, providing commentary through sound collage. Filmwave, broadwave, VGWave, and TVWave are all possible future additions to this fertile pool of genres.”

So there you have it. For me, it’s a mixture of dark ambient and sound collage, which of course are my bread and butter. Give this one a listen.

Harold Budd and Laraaji perform in a Cave in 1989

Full disclosure: I listen to this about once a month and this article is merely a vehicle to get more people to witness the magic of two ambient legends honing their craft inside of a literal cave on the volcanic island (so appropriate) of Lanzarote, Spain. Laraaji and Harold Budd will always be two titans of electronic music. No matter how many times I hear “Kalimba,” a tear usually shows up somewhere along the way, followed by the old irrational certainty that things may, in fact, be all right. This performance was organized by Brian Eno and took place during the Lanzarote Music Festival in 1989. If any reader was actually there, please contact me immediately because I have approximately one million questions. Until then, stop what you’re doing and watch this performance.

HIIVES by UNIITY

Talk about genre-bending. UNIITY’s album HIVES has everything you could want. It’s industrial, it’s experimental, it’s electro pop punk … it’s refreshing. But you can also feel techno, metal, and hardcore on the edges. The result feels remarkably contemporary because what someone would see from their eyes as chaos, mirrors the chaos of the world they’ve created. Death’s Dead is, sonically speaking, particularly interesting. There is so much happening in the production that every return reveals another buried texture or rhythmic decision that just makes sense in the context of the record. Just when I think I’ve mapped out another little corner of music, something like this comes along and completely fucks my shit up. The best part about this, is that the artist was only 19 when creating this music, so … yeah … there’s hope. Really good record.

Sunlight Echoes by Whitelands

God, what a breath of fresh air. Just when I started thinking shoegaze had become an old family member who died years ago, Whitelands comes along and reminds me that I should give up the ghost and realize that my world is so much smaller in my mind than it is in reality. I hate to sound basic, but “Heat of the Summer” is one of the strongest opening tracks I’ve heard in a long time. I think ultimately an album like this reminds you of one irrefutable fact: Shoegaze is for everyone and its history continues to expand through the people making it now – Whitelands brings a perspective and musical identity that makes the genre feel vividly alive. I’m hesitant to say this in August, but this may be the best shoegaze record I’ve heard all year. Absolutely wonderful.