Forty Minutes Of Richard Norris And Friends

Richard Norris has a prodigious work rate, a seemingly endless source of musical creativity and productivity. This year alone he has continued his monthly deep listening Music For Healing series (a pair of twenty minute ambient pieces released on the 1st of the month, themed for 2026 around patterns), release a double album of remixes, a solo album inspired by Super 8 home movie footage, an album with Lol Hammond as Moon Dust, an ambient album with Mark Barrott (Nocturnes Vol. 1) and a track released on Martin Luther King Day in January called The Corn Is Coming. There are still two and a half months of 2026 to go- there could be much more to come. 

This is a forty minute mix, a selection of tracks from some of those releases, that starts out ambient and picks up the pace into dub and Balearic areas. If you aren't already a member, his monthly subscription means that most of this music drops into your digital world throughout the year and often comes through your letterbox as well in physical formats. You can find all of this and more at Richard's Bandcamp. 

Forty Minutes Of Richard Norris in 2026

• Richard Norris: River's Song
• Richard Norris: Nocturne No. 6
• Moon Dust: Scarlet Traces
• Moon Dust: Wide Open Space
• Katy J Pearson: Willow's Song (Richard Norris Ritual Mix)
• Gulp: Wildflower (Richard Norris Remix)
• Hollow Hand: Before Tomorrow (Richard Norris Avalon Remix)
• Warpaint: Disco// Very (Richard Norris Remix)

River's Song  came out as a single back in May ahead of the 8mm album, a wobbly and affecting piece of hauntology, inspired by 8mm cine camera films and home movie footage from the pre- digital era. River's Song sounds exactly like watching a flickering film of kids playing in the summer sun, the film clicking as it whirrs round and the past flashing by. Nocturne No. 6 is also from 8mm, a piano piece that uses a different piece of film to spark the music. 8mm is here. 

Moon Dust is Richard and Lol Hammond (Spiral Tribe, The Drum Club). Their album Memories, Dreams, Reflections comes from a similar place as 8mm, thirteen largely piano- led tracks that fall somewhere between ambient, neo- classical and soundtracks. Scarlet Traces is a slow mo, melodic synths and keys track. Wide Open Space is gentle drones, sci fi/ cosmische ambient. You can find Moon Dust's album here. 

Richard's remix work is legendary and cherry picking to compile the highlights onto one album must have been a headache. The remixes on Re- Make: Re- Model go back over a decade with twelve on the vinyl edition and nineteen on CD and download. Narrowing it down to just four remixes for this mix was a problem in itself. The ones I didn't include but easily could have take in Mark Peters and Dot Allison, Pale Blue Eyes, Jagwar Ma, Joe Goddard, Saint Etienne, A Mountain Of One and Andy Bell and there are plenty more as well as those. Re- Make: Remodel is here. 

Richard's dubbed out remix of Katy J Pearson's version of Willow's Song is originally from 2023, a remix of a cover of Paul Giovanni's song from The Wicker Man film, a celebration of the summer solstice, disappearing policemen and pagan goings on. There's a bit of a collision as that track segues into the next one, all my fault I'm afraid.

Gulp are Super Furry Animals Guto Pryce and Lindsey Leven whose album Beneath Strawberry Moons came out last year with Richard's remix on a 12" of Wildflower. Psychedelic folk transported into Balearic- psyche. 

Hollow Hand are from Brighton, a three piece that also play as Caitlin Rose's house band. 60s pop/ indie folk and country rock. Richard re- models them in shimmering  dubby/ folky/ electronic style.

Warpaint's Disco// Very came out in 2014, a track from their self titled 2014 album. Richard's remix is a seven minute floor shaker- I played it at The Golden Lion earlier this year and it hit the late Saturday afternoon/ early evening spot very nicely.

2025 Mix For NYE

An hour long mix for New Year's Eve  featuring solely music released in 2025, ambient and largely instrumental although some voices creep in to the Keith Tenniswood remix of Deeply Armed's The Healing and Mogwai's God Gets You Back. 

I was going to do a second mix to go with it, a more uptempo, more vocals based hour long mix but time and circumstances conspired against me. It'll follow at the weekend hopefully. In the meantime this one gives some low key shimmer and emotion to the last day of the year. 

NYE Hour Long 2025 Ambient/ Instrumental Mix

• Death In Vegas: Lightning Bolt (Live at EartH, 2025)
• Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider: The Story Of Your Life
• SUSS and Six Missing: Old Mission
• Robin Guthrie: Her Name Is Dulcinea
• Deeply Armed: The Healing (Keith Tenniswood Remix)
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsy
• Mogwai: God Gets You Back
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Sewell And The Gong: Communion Phase
• Kieran Hebden and William Tyler: Secret City
• Daniel Avery: Neon Pulse
• Moon Dust: The Glow (Slowed + Reverb)

The Death In Vegas track Lightning Bolt dates from 2011 and the Trans- Love Energies album but this version was recorded live when DIV played at EartH in Dalston this year, fragile, drifting ambience.

Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider released A Companion For Spaces Between Dreams, Luke's pedal steel ambient- Americana crossed with Jamie's modular synths and tapes effects. Psychedelic inner voyage music. 

SUSS are also from the ambient- Americana/ cosmic country scene, a trio from New York. This song with Six Missing's electric guitar came out in November. 

Robin Guthrie occasionally tidies up his unreleased files/ shelves and releases music onto Bandcamp, tracks that didn't make albums released in the past- orphan tracks. Her Name Is Dulcinea is one of those, from 2012, that saw the light of day in November this year. Ambient shoegaze/ dream pop for which the word 'ethereal' seems a cliche but also very apt. 

Belfast's Deeply Armed released a 12" called The Healing in the spring complete with remixes by Death In Vegas, Andrew Innes with Brendan Lynch and lone swordsman Keith Tenniswood. The original is ghostly, shamanic psyche/ kraut. Keith strips it down with a primitive drum machine and heartbeat pulse. Low key beauty. 

Klangkollektor's Balearic/ dub instrumentals have been present in two releases in 2025- Dubtapes Volume 2 and The Stockport Tapes (recorded live at Bruk). Isle Of Stonsey adds pedal steel or Hawaiian guitar to the soundscape, a very chilled out, beatific excursion.

Mogwai's The Bad Fire opened with God Gets You Back, stellar guitar picking and FX that builds, going supernova in the second half when the synths, drums and vocals join in. 

Andy Bell's Pinball Wanderer album came out in February and has been played round here every month since. The title track marries late 60s acid folk guitar and cosmische rhythms with Andy's spacious, warm production. 

Sewell And The Gong's Patron Saint of Elsewhere has been one of my favourite records of 2025 and this track, Communion Phase, is as good as any from it- psychedelic, motorik and folky with an optimistic feel.   

Kieran Hebden and William Tyler's 41 Longfield Street Late 80s splices Kieran's laptop beats and productions with William's acoustic and electric guitars to make one of the most affecting albums of 2025- hypnotic, engaging, with an eye on the past (and on Kieran's Dad's record collection in the late 80s, alt- country and Nashville) but avoiding dewy- eyed nostalgia to create something entirely their own. 

Daniel Avery's Tremor album was a departure from his ambient techno of recent years and a swerve into channeling his early 90s industrial rock influences. He toured the album with a full band, guitarist, bassist and drummer kicking up a right old noise alongside his synths and machines. On the album's opener, Neon Pulse, he lulls us into a sense of ambient security, two minutes of gorgeous floaty sci fi synth ambience.

Moon Dust is yet another Richard Norris project this time with Lol Hammond from The Drum Club. Piano and FX, a slowed down and reverb laden way to drift out of this hour's worth of music. 

Wildflower Glow

Richard Norris has a work ethic second to none, continually creating and producing new music. His latest venture- Moon Dust - is a project with Lol Hammond (of The Drum Club and Slab) and their sole release so far is a three track EP, a trio of versions of a track called The Glow. On the main version Lol plays piano and Richard produces, applying filters, sounds and layers of ambience. It's very much part of Richard's exploration of Deep Listening and ambient sounds, a furrow he's been ploughing for several years now. The two further versions are self explanatory and add more ambience and beauty to something already rather lovely- the Ambient Mix adds a warm drone as a backdrop and halves the piano while the Slowed + Reverb Mix drops an octave or two, slows it right down and adds acres of spacey reverb. Find The Glow at Bandcamp. 

Gulp are a Welsh two piece, Guto Pryce (a Super Furry Animal) and Lindsey Leven. Richard has remixed their single Wildflower, the duo's psychedelic folk pop repurposed as an Ibizan sundown moment, Balearic beats and bouncy bass, lovely piano chords, horns and Lindsay's vocal re- imagined as classic Balearica, everything coming together like peak A Man Called Adam. The EP with original, remix, instrumental and a Ben Chatwin mix is here. 

Back in 2018 Richard remixed Gulp's Morning Velvet Sky, a throbbing electronic disco folk extravaganza. The dub is a supercharged, percussive, repetitive delight. 

Morning Velvet Sky (Richard Norris Dub)