Ambient music is a dime a dozen but rare are those albums that offer pure, subdued sonic bliss from start to finish. Kompakt’s Pop Ambient series used to be more reliable in that sense, and while the move to incorporate broader, more challenging sounds has been welcome (and necessary) it’s come at the cost of carefree unquestioning listenability. Even Ulf Lohmann’s Because Before, a benchmark pop ambient release and among my favourite recordings, required starting at track 3, but Ex Confusion’s gorgeous Embrace lives up to its title, offering nothing but comfort and solace through each of it’s nine tracks.
The project of Atsuhito Omori, Ex Confusion creates loose billowing clouds from guitar and piano, but the sources are completely obliterated in the service of the compositions. ‘If There is Love’ offers the only diversion, foregrounding a repeated piano motif, but it too is made wooly, doused in cushioned marshmallow effects. The rest is all serene drifting anonymous clouds, pitched between Lohmann, Eno and Stars of the Lid, perfect sleep, relaxation or meditation music. Its also welcomely blank and emotionless, divorced from all too present new age kitsch or glum miserablism.
Joshua Meggitt
