The set of releases in this poll are pretty much all of my favorites from Namlook that were released in 5.1 (haven't heard them all in surround yet though). While the entire Labyrinth series is amazing, the definite pick for me in this poll was
2350 Broadway IV. The 2350 Broadway releases were collaborations between Pete Namlook and ambient legend Tetsu Inoue.
A bit of backstory if y'all are interested:
Tetsu Inoue gained some notoriety in the early 90s with classic releases on Pete's label such as Ambient Otaku and Organic Cloud (two of my favorite albums of all time!). If you're into ambient and you haven't heard those releases you're really missing out! Also during this period he had been doing many notable collaborations with Pete Namlook such as the releases 2350 Broadway I-III and Shades of Orion. Anyways, later in the 90s and in the early 2000's he moved to a more glitchy experimental sound. While I find them somewhat interesting, the general consensus on these releases is that they aren't as good or really the same as his early ambient classics. During this period he also slowed down his output considerably, and became a bit more mysterious, eventually leaving years between releases before going on somewhat of a hiatus for 3 or so years in 2002.
In 2005 Tetsu came back with the album Yolo, which brought back his classic ambient sound that he was known and loved for while infusing some of his more glitchy interesting tendencies from his later works. And 2 years later he reunited with Pete Namlook to release the album 2350 Broadway IV. This continued the sounds found on Yolo, however leaning even more into ambient than glitch while also bringing in some of Namlook's interesting drone experiments in his later period. Just a couple months after the release of 2350 Broadway IV, Tetsu released the album Inland which was his last album before completely disappearing. Seriously, nobody knows where he is or what happened to him after this point. All of his collaborators when asked have completely lost connections with him, and while people have searched, at this moment he is considered missing.
With all of that backstory out of the way, what does this have to do with this poll and the release 2350 Broadway IV? Well, for me it's not only a beautiful abstract album, but also an important one in the catalogue of one of ambient's best artists. In his last two releases before disappearing (
2350 Broadway IV and
Inland) there's something very special about the sound of them to me. While it's maybe more clear on
Inland, I feel like you can hear a bit of tension in both of these releases, like he had been planning to go all along. While I can hear it in most of his releases, these two in particular I feel like I can hear a lot of emotion put into them. It also just sounds like an artist who's truly perfected his craft. Especially on
Inland, theres a distinct "active-ness" to the music. There's always some interesting texture or change happening in the music, creating an interesting sense of movement. While between both
2350 Broadway IV and
Inland I certainly prefer the music of
Inland,
2350 Broadway IV is still a beautiful late era Tetsu Inoue release and a unique one in his discography. Oh and also, it has a wonderful enveloping surround mix that makes me wish that all of his previous releases were done in 5.1.
While I know this is a surround sound related post and the main thing I should be talking about is surround releases, I would say if you're interested I would check out some of his ambient classics before listening to 2350 Broadway IV. While I do quite enjoy it, I think it's one of his more abstract ambient releases. I didn't really grasp it at first until I listened to some of his other works. If you're looking to delve into these releases, I'd say listen to
Ambiant Otaku for the best of his 90s stuff and
Inland for the best of his later era stuff, and
then check out
2350 Broadway IV.
