Ambientale

French collector Charles Bals earns his Euros as a creative director, but in underground music circles, he’s renowned for turning up the most baffling and un-genre-able of curios, as evinced on the beach-friendly Balearic comp Club Meduse and the loner ‘70s motel folk of America Dream Reserve. Now comes Ambientale, with Bals somehow finding heretofore unknown new age, kosmische, synth-jazz, and kankyō ongaku cuts. It’s laidback but also destabilizing, finding a sense of unease amid placid chimes and synth washes. There’s the lone sax and electronics of Adriano Maria Vitali’s “Velvet Blue Circles” and fin-de-siecle Japanese soundtrack sinewaves. Similarly unslottable is a turn from saxophonist-turned-electronic weirdo Gil Mellé, who somehow convinced the venerated Blue Note label to release an album of electrified ‘80s wooziness.