Beqa Ungiadze – ს​ა​დ​გ​უ​რ​ი [Station]

As the seemingly endless supply of half-arsed lockdown-core synth-and-field-recording albums starts to grate (not pointing any fingers here, I made one myself), it’s nice to be reminded of the boundless nature of ambient music when it’s made by someone with the talent of Beqa Ungiadze. In ს​ა​დ​გ​უ​რ​ი [Station], the Georgian producer has created something that feels free, open and generous; the perfect antidote to the Ableton bros who have spent the past two years deconstructing their comedowns and talking vaguely about ‘liminality’ or something.

Like some of the best ambient work of recent years, Station has a thick, almost translucent quality, allowing its listener to participate in its composition and recomposition in real time. New dimensions in tracks like ‘Time’ and ‘The Desert Full of Disgrace’ are revealed not only by repeated listens, but by the differing emotional states of their audience; they’re more ecosystem than static artefact. It’s introspective and occasionally melancholic, but never overbearing or self-serious; this is a record that feels as much about exploration and curiosity as predetermined profundity, the burbling synth loops and bumpy reflections of reverb subtly mapping out an entire landscape of richly-textured possibility. The longer one spends with it, the more generative and vital it seems to become.