Prestige Format Picks ☁ 21 January 2026

oops, all ambient! two masterpieces and two gentle eps

Author

Ryan Ruppe
January 22, 2026 • Read this in about: 4 minutes

say something fun!

now undercut it

A flat-out gorgeous album from a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. It blurs the lines between classical and ambient, between synthesized and symphonic.

James McAlister and Yuuki Matthews, both guys who have played a ton of music in a bunch of bands, have teamed up to make the softest, gentlest, most relaxing tracks. The name of their group, “Offerings of Peace” is exactly perfect in this situation.

Speaking of guys who were in other bands, I stumbled upon this project from Robert Gutschow, who was in a synthpop band I quite liked called House of Wires. This is some perfectly noisy ambient and I really dig it.

Instagram Reel

Found this one from the above-linked video with Helado Negro, and his review was everything I needed to hear. This is, in a way, a counterpoint to the first album in this post. Both combine acoustic and electronic instruments and are wildly complex. Absolutely fantastic.

I’ve ended up with a whole bunch of great 90s techno from the thrift store recently, so expect some 90s deep house and acid jazz posts. I also ended up with three Jon Spencer Blues Explosion cds, and recently did a deep dive into the music that members of the band Ester Drang have made (besides Offerings of Peace above).

I’m slowly working on an Album of the Year 2025 post too.

Posts will be intermittent going forward because life is like that sometimes.

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