Ambient Diaries Vol. 2 – Production Unit Xero (2025) – Album Review

Album: Ambient Diaries Vol. 2 [HTX148]

Artist: Production Unit Xero

Release Date: November 2, 2025

I have a longstanding belief that the ambient genre, on the whole, has been in a holding pattern for quite a while. Ambient music is the underwater lake in the ocean of musical expression. Too many approach it without learning how to actually live there. What we often get is musicians trying to emulate ambient music without actually creating something unique or, if I dare say, REAL. Something tangible. A slow chord soaked in delay doesn’t earn its keep by default. Reverb doesn’t confer truth. At its core, ambient music carries a kind of melancholic seriousness – a willingness to sit with weight, with duration, with the quiet pressure of existing. To move forward within this genre, is to labor in all directions at once. Ever widening, ever spiraling. Deeper into the self, deeper into the world.

Production Unit Xero has stayed true to that form. The second volume in their Ambient Diaries series stays true to form to what we’ve come to expect from PUX. Great ambient music is all around us these days – you just have to swim outside your safe habitat. Explore the kelp forests and deep-sea canyons not too far away from the watersheds you frequent. PUX has been operating out there for years, sending back signals from the quieter zones – the more magical parts of the sonic world. All you have to do is travel a little – and let yourself get caught in the wake.

Each track is barebones and elemental. Almost all the tracks have a title with the gear used to lift the veil even further, reminding you that these boxes of wires and voltage still carry real magic when handled by someone who knows how to use them. The album moves in soft tones and liquid drops, every sound placed with unnerving precision. Nothing spills over its boundary. Every melody arrives whole, fully formed, then steps back just before satisfaction sets in. That slight withholding – that ache to hear it again – is the engine that keeps ambient music alive. Would absolutely recommend this album

Check out the review of Ambient Diaries Vol. 1