Aron Magner, the versatile keyboardist best known for his work with The Disco Biscuits, has shared a new solo collection of meditative music, The Ambient Mode. The new EP marks the second official release under the Aron Magner solo banner following the “Octomesh”, a sprawling electronic piece written and recorded while in lockdown during 2020 and released in late January of 2021.
As Magner reflects about the ethereal EP, “During stand-still life of quarantine last Spring, I turned to creating ambient music to simply self-soothe and soon realized the therapeutic effects were also resonating with my family as the music carried throughout the house. At the time, I wasn’t sure on a theoretical level why it was happening, but as I started creating this music on my own, I took a deeper dive into it’s background and origins.”
Magner’s scholarly approach to atmospheric music led him back to the music of the forefather of the genre, Brian Eno. As Magner explains, “Brian Eno, whom I’ve always admired, coined the term ‘Ambient Music’ in 1978 in the liner notes of Music for Airports, where he discussed how ambient music is intended to enhance environments by using acoustic and atmospheric soundscapes while being able to accommodate many levels of listening attention; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting, and intended to induce calm and a space to think.”
“The ambient tones were pacifying to play, and the process became my breath,” Magner continues. “I was reminded of my musical encounters with Mickey Hart and his obsession with the power of The Drone.”
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The Magner household’s lockdown-prompted fascination with the tenets of ambient music also informed the album’s title. As Aron explains, “My wife, who also began to explore the effects of ambient music, discovered a paper that discusses encountering the ambient mode of being, where ‘a listener becomes immersed in the raw materials of sonic environments (soundscapes) and nomadically shifts awareness across the terrains of these environments- simultaneously experiencing being in a liminal space and grounded in the here-and-now.’ This really resonated with what we were experiencing and became the namesake for the EP. Much love and respect to my wife who encouraged me to release these tracks and share this mode of tranquility.”
Stream The Ambient Mode by Aron Magner on the platform of your choice here. You can also listen via Spotify below.
Aron Magner – The Ambient Mode – Full EP