Best of 2013 - Instrumental version

It is strange that for someone who runs an ambient mix blog, I've been listening to less and less ambient music over the last two years. I still love ambient but I no longer feel the need to accumulate huge amounts of it. Maybe because I have so much already that it all starts to blend together and I don't feel I need another 70 minute drone album.

This year's "Best of" list is mostly ambient but contains some other instrumental albums as well. Some of my favorite albums of the year in any genre were albums from artists like Esmerine, Arve Henriksen, Moritz von Oswald & Nils Petter Molvaer and Jon Hopkins. There are other odd non-ambient albums, like Paris DJs Soundsystem & Calibro 35, which just stuck with me for some reason & got a lot of play this year.

Of course there was some straight forward ambient which was in heavy rotation all year. Albums like The Seaman and The Tattered Sail - Light Folds, Nobuto Suda - Transitoriness, infinite_coil - transmit, and Spheruleus - The Possibility Of Loss really hit the spot for a beautiful ambient listening experience.

I listened to a lot of ambient dub this year. Only three actually made it to the list - Coppice Halifax, Deepchord and Optical Frameworks but there were many more dub recordings in this year's regular rotation. A few other favs not on the list include

Lars Leonhard - Stella Nova Adam Michalak - Returning To Essence Vytis - Deepchord Avenue
VA - Mountain-Stream
Nikosf. - Silence Speaks When The Words End
krill.minima - Sekundenschlaf
Miktek - elsewhere
Blamstrain - Sunday Dub

Two great albums from 2013 both combine electronics with trumpet. Moritz von Oswald & Nils Petter Molvaer - 1/1 and Saffronkeira + Mario Massa - Cause and Effect are wonderful collaborations that gave a jolt to end of the year releases.

Here's my list of 2013 favs. What are some of your favorites from 2013?

Best of 2013:

target="_blank">The Seaman and The Tattered Sail - Light Folds

infinite_coil - transmit

Arve Henriksen - Places Of Worship

Esmerine - Dalmak

Moritz von Oswald & Nils Petter Molvaer - 1/1

Optical Frameworks - Little Piece Of Perseverance

Justin Walter - lullabies and nightmares

Jon Hopkins - Immunity

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

Marsen Jules Trio - Présence Acousmatique

Saffronkeira + Mario Massa - Cause and Effect

The Green Kingdom - Dustloops - Memory Fragments