“The Ceiling Reposes” by Lia Kohl

An exceptional, experimental ambient music collage.

Hello! 😊👋

Welcome to a new edition of the Daily Music Picks newsletter!

Today’s music pick is an avant-garde, ambient treasure that turns a sonic collage into an emotional journey.

Genre: Ambient, Experimental

Label: American Dreams

Release Date: March 10, 2023

Vibe: 😌

The best ambient music recontextualizes the innocuous or mundane sonic details of everyday life and refashions them into something transportive — not necessarily to a place we remember, but somewhere that bears a striking resemblance to the familiar. Musician and sound artist Lia Kohl hits and then transcends this creative sweet spot with The Ceiling Reposes, an amalgamation of archival audio clips, found sound, and her own instrumentation to build an experimental collage that’s never anything short of arresting.

The secret sauce is in how the tiniest of details add captivating texture at every turn, even if they’re only audible for a split-second or two. Consider a track like “sit on the floor and wait for storms,” which starts with urgent, dissonant synth and string chords before layering radio weather reports in all their vintage, crackling glory over top. It’s the kind of cinematic construction that puts you in the exact space referred to in its title: a quiet bedroom, window open, radio on, in the middle of a daydream as dark clouds gather overhead.

It’s the kind of listening experience that gets better each time, as your ears search every crack and crevice for other snapshots of reliability.

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