ACL 2012: The Top 20 Albums of the Year

Thousands of releases, hundreds of reviews, and it all comes down to this: the Top Twenty instrumental and experimental releases of 2012.  This isn’t just the one percent; it’s a small percent of a percent, the cream of the crop.

ACL 2012: Top Ten Ambient

A Closer Listen receives more submissions in the Ambient field than in any other, which means that our ambient artists must try even harder to stand out.  This seems ironic, since the nature of ambient music has been not to stand out.

ACL 2012: The Year’s Best Album Covers

These are times of widespread disconnect, and music is one of the most genuine ways for a person all alone to feel understood. We’re seeing DIY backlashes against this loss of connection everywhere (Just look into the boom on homesteading

36 ~ Lithea

For Dennis Huddleston making music as 36 seems to be coming to an end with Lithea, the final part of what is a triptych album series that began with the a la Lifeforms-era Future Sound of London Hypersona, an album where ambient seems to be