Ambient music is not hard to come by, our ears are persistently inundated with new releases that tap into the ethereal, the otherworldly and the transcendent. It marks a dramatic shift from the early days when we had to make do with a handful of Obscure label recordings and the odd Basinski record to being in a place where it can be a wearying challenge to find the ambient record to suit our cosmic needs. But, for now, look no further, as New Dawns, the latest release from longstanding Israeli multi-disciplinary artist and musician Ran Slavin, is one that should absolutely be sitting at the top of the pile.

Slavin is no stranger to the music world having been in the game now for over forty years, but he started his career deeply rooted in punk and post-punk. In fact, his oldest recording, released in 2012 by Israel’s Heart and Crossbone, is a set of rehearsals from the early 80s as part of punk band Cholera. After that Slavin ended up in one of his more well-known ventures - post-punk band Shalosh-Hait, who were central to the small, but powerful musical underground of 90s Jerusalem. Since then, the musician has worked across the board delving deep into the world of electronica and sound composition courtesy of his relationship with experimental Portuguese label, Cronica who released his last outing, 2017’s Digital Junkies in Strange Times. Music aside, Slavin is also an accomplished visual artist and filmmaker as he looks to create a multimedia immersive and mind-bending experience.

But where Slavin really excels is in exploring sound. Deconstructing and examining the intersections between different aspects of ambient music - be it glitch, drone, dubstep, sweeping electronic instrumentation; all are part of his genre-defying ambient world. And this is very much the approach that Slavin has adopted for his 18^th long-playing record, New Dawns, which succeeds in pushing the ambient music into the experimental while retaining a thoroughly cosmic listening experience.

Peppered throughout is what we may term ‘classic’ ambient music - sweeping, unhurriedly-delivered transcendent electronica that lifts the listener into the heavens; in fact that is exactly the way in which this record opens. But the shift comes soon. ‘dawn 2’ (all tracks are numerically labelled ‘dawn’) features house-driven beats that persist at a brisk tempo, but upon which sits a slow instrumental and eastern-inflection. The influence of world sounds is similarly present on ‘dawn 6’ where the sitar features heavily and on ‘dawn 8’.  Gamelan? kora? guitar? -  it’s difficult to tell, but it’s nevertheless innovatively combined with a looping synth line that gives this particular track intensity. The same sounds are brought together with dubstep beats on ‘dawn 12’ while ‘dawn 14’ continues to employ the glitch and the broken beats below a somewhat abrasive three-note loop, soothing ethnic musicality in the background.

But to be honest, my descriptions just scratch the surface, as Slavin magnificently weaves and wanes from one sonic encounter to another. There is an explorative synth, strings, ambient percussion, slide guitar - a positive avalanche of sound. A superb listen.