Listen to the ambient pedal steel of Barry Walker’s Diaspora Urkontienent

Ambient pedal steel isn’t necessarily a genre that is going to light up the charts, but I’ve found over the last year a few records that fit nicely into the description and have become staples of my personal rotation. The latest is the haunting and beautiful Diaspora Urkontienent by Barry Walker, which is out now by some combination of Driftless Recordings and Light in the Attic. It is a 10-song journey that wouldn’t sound out of place in a yoga center, but offers enough flourishes and intricacies to easily sidestep the “muzak” slander and warrant a deeper dive. You can listen to a couple of songs from the record in this post to give you a sweeping variety of the album. All of the tracks come from the same general vantage point of sparse and chill, but they range from the lush, almost pop-leaning “Jack Hills” at the top of the post to the tense, minimalist ambient of “Late Heavy Bombardment,” which is below.

If you’re looking for a mega chill, give the whole album a listen.