Prestige Format Picks 🍁 21 October 2025

90s techno, lofi hip hop beats, raga minimalism, and 24/7 ambience

Author

Ryan Ruppe
October 21, 2025 • Read this in about: 5 minutes

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I’m waiting for the weather to turn cooler

at least cool mornings are nice

It's Orbital Friday

— Ryan Ruppe (@ryanruppe.bsky.social)2025-10-17T16:14:24.096Z

Orbital - Orbital 2 (The Brown Album)

I suppose I’ve been listening to a lot of music from “the late 1900s” (as my kids say) lately. I declared last Friday to be “Orbital Friday” and listened to a good portion of their discography. I think this one was my favorite. It’s got a lot of the same 90s electronic feel as Deep Forest, honestly, but this one feels much more synth-focused, with relatively few samples (besides some awesomely cliché scifi samples).

A slab of perfectly chill lo-fi hip hop beats, all created on Teenage Engineering devices and recorded direct to tape. Chock full of head-nodders and that might inspire you to pick up a Pocket Operator. Check out the TE-blessed sample back from Aeoner if you’re inspired to make some beats.

A buddy has been listening to a new streaming channel (see below) and a section of this popped up. We’re both huge fans of various permutations of Terry Riley’s legendary 1964 minimal composition In C, so we always send different versions to each other. This one is really top-notch and taps into some of the inspiration of the piece with some unique instrumentation and incredible musicianship. Might not be for everyone, but the way they bring it home really gets me in the feels.

Ambient-country group Suss have been curating some much-copied playlists on streaming services, and they (and their label) have decided to do the streaming thing on their own rather than rely on Spotify. Check out: Across the Horizon 24/7.

Thanks for listening!

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