Nils Frahm & Ólafur Arnalds|Alessandro Cortini

There's a movement happening; an ethereal, beatless movement and the analogue synth is the vehicle.

There are a whole bunch of artists I could spotlight – Anenon, Laura Spiegel, Vermont, to name but a few – but I selected these two projects because they seem to me to be tippy-toeing right along the cutting edge of this field.

Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds are classically trained musicians who have been releasing sublime neo-classical albums on the Erased Tapes record label for the past several years. But the two of them have been collaborating on these minimalist, analogue synth-based pieces over the last few years, exploring these ambient landscapes and basically re-inventing trance music. They just released this double album Collaborative Works (again on the Erased Tapes label), combining older pieces like the evocative and transcendent Stare with new improvisations, my favorite of which is Wide Open along with a few more classical sounding piano pieces. The second part of the album is entitled 'Trance Frendz' and consists of seven pieces recorded live in an apartment in Berlin.

The album generates deep delirium in the listener; sprawling, glitchy elegance.

And then there is Mister Alessandro Cortini.

Based in Los Angeles, this Italian modular-synth composer – a former member of Nine Inch Nails – has created an album of similar aching, distorted trance-like pieces. Despite the gritty feel of the album – Risveglio – it is a sublime listen and keeps drawing us back over and over to bathe in its ambience. You can feel the alternative rock influence here despite the nature of the instrumentation - the washed out synths; the lack of drums and guitar and vocals. You couldn't describe the album as ambient, it's far too insistent and does not aim for soothing, but I am a loss for what other genre to file it under.

Ethereal? Esoteric? And beatless for sure, because although there are chugging grooves apparent here, they are threaded beneath the surface via side-chained compressions and arpegiators.

I cannot recommend these albums enough if you are looking to thicken up the atmosphere in your living room. The compositions on both albums are sparse, but in that Zen-like way where less is way more.

These gentlemen are riding the crest of this wave. I expect to b hearing a whole lot more tranced-out Moog renaissance. All hail the analogue synth.

You can check out a few of the tracks here.

Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds - Four

Alessandro Cortini - La Sveglia (Drum Version)