Juno Nominated Ambient  Artist Alaskan Tapes Shares New Album; Listen Now

Today, Juno and Prism Prize-nominated ambient artist Alaskan Tapes shares his 8th album, Something Ephemeral. The Toronto-based composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist a.k.a. Brady Kendall is known for bringing a human element to the forefront of his delicate alchemy of ambient soundscape architecture and live instrumentation by allowing natural noises and flourishes to accent carefully curated production.  “I was conscious about my use of organic noise, which adds humanness to it,” he affirms about the new album. “It almost sounds like you’re listening to somebody playing piano just downstairs in your house. Nothing in my music is perfect—which is how I like it to be. That makes everything more human.”

While recording, he also focused on “simplicity,” finding beauty in brevity challenging his prior recording techniques with newfound curiosity and scientific methodology. “The title literally means ‘something short-lived’,” he notes. “It works on a few levels. I wanted to focus on making shorter tracks, or at least shorter phrases in tracks that repeat throughout. The approach was straightforward. For example, one track I composed by recording a short sample of sine notes into one of my synthesizers and allowing it to play at random, and at random intervals. This method of composing was introduced to me during the last record, and almost every track has a “generative” aspect to it.” Something Ephemeral also finds Kendall collaborating for the first time in years on one of his albums, showcased by singles “When The Earth Yelled Back At Me” with the Japanese modern classic artist Moshimoss and “Wait” with Philadelphia-based experimental ambient creator Andrew Tasselmyer.

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https://alaskantapes.ffm.to/somethingephemeral_album

Growing up, Brady played the drums in metal bands before he discovered the drum & bass scene. He started to create and post liquid drum & bass tracks online before becoming more focused on what he calls “drawn-out minimal sounds.” Out of these style tracks, the project was born. Starting in early 2016 with the debut EP Beyond the Streets and then a full-length, We All Speak in Poems, later that same year, Alaskan Tapes began releasing a steady stream of music that gradually ebbed and flowed into new sonic territory and served as a natural progression of Kendall’s tastes and sound experiments which even includes a popular podcast titled the same as his debut full length. With eight LPs in eight years, plus a myriad of film scores, soundtrack compositions, and syncs, Brady has allowed his work to progress organically and build upon its foundations, gaining hundreds of millions of streams and fans along the way, including tastemakers like CBC Afterdark, KEXP Pacific Notions, Magnetic, Nowness, and Exclaim!. He has also become known for his cinematic music videos, which have received numerous nominations and awards at film and music festivals, were picked several times by Vimeo for the coveted Staff Pick selection, and his video for “Of Woods and Seas” was nominated in the Top 10 this year for the 2024 Prism Prize.