march women of ambient- gentle voices, vol. 1 takeover 🌀
....and 5 years of women of ambient
How I got to here…
When I first started releasing music as marine eyes five years ago (happy 5 years idyll!!), people often mentioned to me that not many women were making ambient music. I always deeply knew that wasn’t true, so I put together a collection of songs by women ambient artists, past and present, and shared it. The response was beautiful and made it immediately clear this was something worth continuing.
Since then, almost every month, I’ve shared mixes and song selections highlighting women in the genre. I have never run out of new artists to feature. If anything, the challenge is how many I want to include. Ambient is not a male dominated space. It simply needs more attention given to the women and gender expansive artists who have been creating incredible work for decades.
Deepening my work with this passion, I curated a mental health benefit compilation through Past Inside the Present in 2022 featuring 23 women artists, Healing Together. And if you have been following me here for awhile, you know I’ve been sharing short interviews, mixes, and stories that shine a light on women and gender-expansive artists for the past several years.
And now, I am excited to share that cloud collecting is growing into a label. In honor of International Women’s Day, I’m releasing a new compilation, gentle voices vol. 1 together with Anita Tatlow, artist and co-founder of Hong Kong-based label, Echoes Blue. The project features 20 women artists from around the world. Each track pairs two artists together in collaboration, highlighting their unique strengths.
I created a photo piece specifically for each of the ten songs, and I love how the series turned out. I took my prisms into different natural locations (local parks, the mountains, beachside, in the rain) to create visual variation, then Anita and I paired each image with the emotion and tonal color of one of the tracks. My goal was to reflect the uniqueness of every song while still tying the pieces together, so that visually they feel like a seamless part of the same project.
I hope you love gentle voices as much as I do. I am floored by the openness in collaboration and the variation of songs with this collection. I have linked all of the artists so you can easily explore more of their catalogs. Let this be a little yet huge reminder to lift women artists up and remind them that their voices and music matters.
gentle voices, vol. 1
all the ways to listen:
Bandcamp / Amazon Music/ Apple Music/ Tidal / Spotify
the seed for ‘traces of tomorrow’ was planted by LÃom, who captured the first ideas in voice and synth textures. in the spirit of gentle voices, this collaboration was about deep listening and mutual trust.
written around the time of an eclipse - this song was all about surrendering to the pull of the universe and allowing things to flow.
Anita Tatlow (Hong Kong) + Jun Futamata (Japan)
a calming, ambient lullaby with deep ambient sound beds crafted from pads and manipulated vocals, underneath gentle piano melodies.
Aphir (Australia) + Drum & Lace (Italian, living in London)
inspired by nature and 'resin' as a matriarchal substance. resin is created by a tree to protect and heal the plant, and that role of bonding and healing is often the role of a matriarch.
**and, Drum & Lace has a new EP, Terra coming out on 3/13. exploring pulse, mythologies and the lands she grew up in Italy, Sofia continually expands and grows in her sound. Listening party is on 3/11, hope to see you there!
Asia Dojnikowska (Poland) + marine eyes (California)
features a soft piano melody built from a loop of Asia’s, before vocals were chopped and stacked together, and layers of multiple synths and vocals were processed through a series of my many guitar pedals.
**this was a dream to collaborate with Asia Dojnikowska. she has more music on the horizon. go dive into her previous project Glowworm too!
Alanna Crouch (London, UK) + Freya Arde (Germany)
Alanna writes that the piece was "I wanted the listener to feel a sense of growth and a slight warmth when listening to this piece, as I did while writing." With strings composed by multi-instrumentalist and composer Freya Arde, this song sees two emotional creative worlds come together, pulling on your heart strings.
frogi (California) + reanne (Phillippines & Hong Kong)
inspired by the cozy nostalgic feeling of taking the long way home or the 'scenic route', the track was created with a back and forth between the artists with a bed of synths, bass, and vocals, these two artists synced up instantly.
Aisha Vaughan (Wales) + Dream Crease (Argentinian, based in California)
born from a series of visceral ideas stemming from a shared love for flowing natural elements, this collaboration birthed a beautiful nature-infused ambient piece.
Birds of Passage (New Zealand) + Jolanda Moletta (Italy)
inspired by drinking morning coffee in their different landscapes alongside a soundtrack by Badalamenti, this piece was created across continents through countless layers of tones, whispers, and harmonies, weaving them together like threads of breath and resonance.
Karen Vogt (France) + inquiri (California)
created around a single vocal recording of Karen's signature wordless melodies, along with unique field recorded audio, the track focuses on the elements of beauty and softness while simultaneously retaining plenty of grit and intensity.
Big love to you for persisting and holding your vision. I'm so happy to be part of this release!! Thank you for elevating us all * <3 *
a joy to know all of this music and artists exists <3