Wellen Formen - F.S. Blumm (2026)
I’m not sure where I heard about this one. When I come across gorgeous and clever instrumental music like this in my inbox, it’s usually because I read about it on the excellent A Closer Listen site. But I can’t find a mention of this on there (though they’ve been writing about Blumm’s releases for years, I find; just not this one)
However it got to my inbox, I’m super happy it did. This is a wonderful find.
This is something between modern chamber music, melodic ambient, and downtempo. It doesn’t deal in beats, but rather in atmosphere.
These are extremely calm and purposeful pieces, full of space and whimsy and subtlety. Every time you’d expect a particular voice to show up, it seems that Blumm has other plans and throws a different texture at you instead.
Blumm plays around a dozen instruments on the record himself, and features other musicians contributing at least a dozen more.
I see that I’ve favorited other tracks from Blumm, but they’re all from his 2021 oddball dub collab with Nils Frahm, 2x1=4. I’ll have to make a point to listen to more of his non-collaborative work.
RIYL
While this is quite original and distinctive, I do listen to a lot of this sort of music. I’m reminded particularly of Todd Sickafoose’s Tiny Resistors and its gentle interplay between musicians.
Pino Palladino and Blake Mills have so far released two records of thoughtful and deliberate instrumental music, That Wasn’t A Dream and Notes With Attachments, that might also fit the bill.
A little more classically oriented but in the same vein is Jim Copperthwaite’s Ballroom Ghosts
