The Alien Eye: 2025 Ambient Jazz and Spiritual Jazz Favorites (improvisation turned inward)
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
― Albert Einstein
This mix lingers at the intriguing intersection between jazz and ambient music, where improvisation turns inward. Critic Philip Sherburne once described ambient jazz as an "attempt to combine the expressive language of jazz with the atmospheric quality of ambient music,” and that dynamic animates much of what’s here. These tracks invite a kind of listening shaped by wonder and estrangement.
This is third in a series of 10 mixes of 2025 favorites. The selections reflect a personal, exploratory approach to discovery and curation, with artists and tracks that tend to fall outside typical “best of” lists.
The show is timestamped and the tracklist is in a comment.
Cover is excerpt from a 1966 sci-fi magazine illustration by Virgil Finlay.
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Comments
The Sherburne quote has sent me down a wormhole. I can't find who coined the term ambient jazz, examples existed before Eno came up with his rather restricting (or minimalising?) definition of ambient music, and listening to the sounds here, and other works by Ben Bertrand, Angel Bat Dawid and others, I'd always thought of it as atmospheric rather than ambient. Whatever genre - the sounds here are fantastic, cheers!!
You probably found it, but I found the Sherburne quote in this useful 2021 piece: https://pitchfork.com/features/article/ambient-jazz-pharoah-sanders-floating-points-nala-sinephro/
As far as I can tell from googling, "atmospheric jazz" is synonymous with "ambient jazz," but I'd be curious to hear if you think otherwise (neither has a Wikipedia page!). If you look back at my show titles you'll see I'm a big fan of the descriptor "atmospheric," although for this genre I find "ambient jazz" more evocative (and appealing to listeners).
Ben Bertrand sounds pretty squarely like ambient jazz to me. I consider Angel Bat Dawid to be spiritual jazz -- another slippery but useful genre designation! Wikipedia says spiritual jazz is "hard to characterize musically but draws from free, avant-garde and modal jazz and thematically focuses on transcendence and spirituality."
I have a mix of "experimental ambient and avant garde favorites" I'll share in a few weeks, and the difference between a few of the songs on there and the stuff on here is mostly just that the stuff here is more mellow...
Genre is fun to discuss and also often subjective, arbitrary, and idiosyncratic! But that's ok with me, since it's just a directional signpost, and I do think "ambient jazz" captures something distinct, which is my touchstone for these mixes. Thanks for your engagement with the topic!
@Vodem Yes, I found the article and found it interesting reading:) I know his work from The Wire magazine, which a quick look at the latest issue reveals he no longer contributes to, and The Quietus. I'm also a big user of 'atmospheric' as a descriptor, but would also use it to describe works by Monk, Mingus and others which wouldn't be described as ambient jazz! Angel Bat Dawid's work is definitely more spiritual than ambient. Discussions on the topic are always enjoyable, and it's also fun to read how many artists reject the genres associated with their work; I was wondering how many would beg to differ when their music is described as ambient jazz. But when it comes down to it, it's the quality of the sounds that matters, and these were all terrific. I'm looking forward to your next 7 mixes, including the experimental ambient and avant-garde favourites - perhaps we might share a favourite album in this category. Hopefully, I can broadcast and upload one or both of my focuses on sounds from last year before you finish your ten (3-0 as I write, though)!
Cheers, S.
@theshinybeast Agree with all of that. It would indeed be interesting to know how artists react to my genre categorizations -- hopefully they would be happy for the recognition however they are characterized!
@Vodem I'm sure they would be!:)
@Vodem That Floating Points Sanders collaboration is boring though unfortunately
Wow Mr Dj what an amazing mix, absolutely loving it 💯💯💯
Awesome! Thanks for the listen and comment!
Greetings, Vodem! You were highly recommended by Greg (the Neptune Selector himself) and, of course, it was well deserved! Brilliant work here! Nothing but great sounds all around as I listened in awe!
Happy weekend cheers! -Alan
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Honored that Greg sent you my way and that you found it worthwhile! Thanks for listening and for your kind comment! You also have a great weekend.
Tracklist:
1. Cochemea “Transmisión del Soñar”
2. The Cosmic Tones Research Trio “Sankofa”
3. Cole Pulice “Fragments of a Slipstream Dream”
4. Jairus Sharif “Mawu”
5. Bitchin Bajas “Skylarking”
6. Will Epstein & Dave Harrington “Crisp Pines”
7. Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, Sam Wilkes “Fields”
8. Walt McClements “Cloud Prints”
9. Elori Saxl “It Happened Once”
10. Blendreed “Sillages”
11. Ben Bertrand “GW 150721”
12. Stein Urheim “Kjenn gravitasjonen”
13. Lia Kohl & Zander Raymond “Woven things rest”
14. Angel Bat Dawid & Naima Nefertari “Heru: The Oasis”
15. James Yorkston “Opening, or Scott”
16. U.e. “Lavender (NF)”
17. Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek “Breath, Held”
18. Tom Skinner “Kaleidoscopic Visions”
19. TWÏNS “Reflections (Peace & Unity)”
TWÏNS “Reflections (Peace & Unity)” is so good.
A truly outstanding mix, Vodem. Some favourites of mine as well this year are Pulice, Bajas, Sharif and McClements. Will definitely check out more by Blendreed, Bertrand, Dawid, U.e. and Shiroishi. There is something majestic when you combine reeds with ambience. Timeless.
"Reeds with ambience" - you're so right. Really appreciate the listen and the comment!
Nice one. Did you have a listen to Floating Points' "LateNightTales" contibution yet?
No I haven't but I will now! It's a great concept for a series.
@Vodem I love the concept. And that contribution of Floating Points is such a killer.
We're doing the Alien Eye for the second time today ... now it's a perfect background to dinner
Congrats for this original set, this has been a good surprise for me….happy weekend!!👌
Wonderful. Thanks for listening and commenting!
Beautiful music, beautiful selected! Love it! Tnx!
I’m so glad to hear! Thanks so much!
What a beautiful set of sounds, Vodem. Right at that exciting crossroads where more organic, instrumental elements meet abstraction and those more purely ambient escapes. This mix is gonna stay on heavy rotation for a long time, I can tell.
Excellent! I'm so glad the mix resonated with you. You definitely nailed the aural space it occupies for me. Last year was the first year I found enough material for a mix dedicated to ambient jazz favorites (https://www.mixcloud.com/Vodem/signs-of-life-2024-ambient-jazz-favorites/favorites/), and I was pleased to find plenty this year as well. I definitely think it is a genre that has come into its own.