Are you wearing loose, comfortable clothes? Diary clear for the next hour or so? Then get ready to turn off your mind, relax and float downstream…

At the start of November, Michael Cottone from Michigan, aka The Green Kingdom, released this lovely set of warm, eco-ambient laptop prettiness. Described by one blogger as ‘the equivalent of a Monet painting’, it has a distinctly pastoral vibe. It would work well as a soundtrack to a nature documentary, accompanying time-lapse photography of plants growing, the sun rising etc.

The album could be seen as hymn to the glory of nature or God’s creation, depending on your spiritual persuasion: Cottone thanks ‘The Creator’ on the sleevenotes… but then he is American!

Opener ‘Into the Magic Night’ quickly establishes a mood and keeps us in it throughout.
The melodies’ circular nature and lack of forward momentum traps you in an endless Zen present. Things are always in the process of becoming, but it’s the moment, not the end result, which is important. Rustic, folky elements (woodwind and acoustic guitar) make sure the electronic side (glitches, drones, loops) never seems offputting or inhuman.

While hardly overproduced, this isn’t minimal – there’s plenty of stuff going on here, and the warmth and use of space will appeal to fans of Brian Eno. There’s not the cold, abstract vibe you get off some ambience; and it also avoids kitsch and blandness, two further traps of the ambient world.

Twig and Twine invites you in, rather than burbling away neutrally and uninvolvingly. But it’s quite pristine: there’s not the whiff of the spliff you find with the likes of comedown kings The Orb - though, if you’re that way inclined, no doubt it would serve as a pretty effective smoking soundtrack.

Ultimately, this is audio therapy, taking the listener out of their daily worries into a more peaceful, meditative, trance-like state. Analogue bubblebath, as one of Aphex Twin’s old ambient pseudonyms would have it. And you have to surrender to it, to get the full benefit.

There’s a time and place for all types of music. Few non-New Agey types would want to listen to this sort of thing all the time. But every now and then, especially early in the morning or late at night, when the pull of everyday world is at its weakest and it’s time to think/reflect/drift, then it’s just the ticket. Go on, give in and feel those brainwaves slow down. Mmm…

Ben Wood