The Pop Corporation

A new album from Looking Suite is as welcome as throwing the windows open in the middle of gorgeous weather, and as we waddle out of Summer and into Autumn, we find ourselves pressing play on ‘Wide Range Dream State’ – the newest long player from our favourite ambient, post-noodle, neo-prog leaning guy.

Released on the brilliant Aural Canyon label from Texas, the album like previous outings is a salve of psychedelic, hypnotic guitars and dreamlike synths and clicking drum machines. While a lot of ambient music can err on the side of meandering and aimless, the thing that always underpins the music of Looking Suite is propulsion – sure, it’s tranquil and dreamy, but it moves you forward rather than simply melting into itself.

Reviewing music like this can feel like trying to kick water uphill, so for those of you who need something more literal to cling onto, throughout this album you’ll hear the echoes of Kosmichemusik, Chicago post like a field-recording sidearm of Tortoise, the beatless sections of Boards of Canada, as well as spacey ambient from the Mediterranean and the airy elegance of Japanese jazz and City Pop.

Previous albums have been superb, but this time around, there’s a maturity to proceedings while really show an artist that’s growing upwards and outwards. There’s a pair of tracks that are as good as anything you’ll hear all year – notably ‘Clouds In The Ward’ and ‘And Back At The Car’. The former stars beautiful, slowly cascading arpeggiators that bring to mind the more scenic moments of the Future Sound of London and old science TV shows, the latter a gleaming pebble in a brook, washed with Coastlines-y blips that will actively clear your brain of any mither.

Tracks like ‘Fifty Two Teeth’ bubbles away sweetly and warmly, slowly emerging from itself and completely melting you away, leaving you feeling like you’re three feet clear off the ground.

It’s really special stuff, honestly.

Elsewhere, ‘Single Unreason’ is one of the most impressively confident piece of ambient music we’ve heard in forever – a low ebb of bruised synth and road-movie guitar, understated but rich and melodious. Through each section of the album, you’ll get lifted and lowered, and the whole thing is cosmic in the best possible way, by which we mean, firmly connected to all that’s great about going touching some grass or gazing at those big ol’ galaxies while lying on your back.

Under the radar, ambient music made a real comeback as people looked to slow down and unplug from the chaotic nature of work, social media and keeping up with the Joneses – from Jon Hopkins to the reappraisal of Iasos, there’s been a real blooming of Nu Age music, if that’s what you want to call it – and Looking Suite is right up there with the best of them. Like the ’70s and ’80s boom in cassette releases of beautiful, almost baroque DIY electronics, this too will see a physical release on tape, which just feels right.

If you’re looking for a new ambient overlord to throw yourself into, congratulations, you just found him. ‘Wide Range Dream State’ is available to buy and listen to from September 20th and it can be pre-ordered from Aural Canyon right now.