Perfect for early risers and late settlers — a seamless soundscape of atmospheres, nature, humans, spirits and spaces intertwined through hypnotic sounds, transcendental rhythms and oneiric oscillations…
is...
A well balanced cocktail, a perfectly brewed tea, a serene mountain view, a moment of pure satori…
This month I have the great pleasure of welcoming
who have prepared a beautifully thoughtful mix of inspirations for Sonic Tapestries — alongside an exclusive interview sharing insights into the Flow State universe ✨“We chose music that exemplifies this idea of "an atmosphere of profundity," across ambient, contemporary classical, film, electronic, minimalism, techno, and whatever you call Bill Orcutt…”
A refuge for curious listeners —
conjures daily morning recommendations that deep dive in all directions across the spectrums of instrumental, ambient and experimental electronic music. This being a character-friendly abbreviation for what is, in reality, a seemingly infinite pool of radiant, well-researched and expertly curated music selections.
No algorithmic discovery — just humans making recommendations to other humans.
Music for deep rumination, staring at the ceiling, drifting into another form of consciousness…
I had the pleasure of communicating with MC — founder of Flow State — to find out more about the inspirations behind the project.
“The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow.”
— Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
What inspired the creation of Flow State?
I play music all the time, but when I'm reading or writing or even just thinking, music with lyrics breaks my concentration. I wasn't aware of a service that provided reliably vocal-free music and respected the art form. There were things like focus playlists, but they increasingly featured music that seemed factory-farmed. I wanted an early morning email that recommended good instrumental music and told me something about the artist.
Around this time (2018), there was a new platform emerging called Substack. I thought their emphasis on direct email distribution and easy monetization was smart. So I decided to try out my weekday music newsletter idea using Substack. I put a couple dozen friends on the list and started sending emails.
A couple months in, Lifehacker wrote up Flow State, which drove the first big wave of new subscribers. When that happened, I figured I should keep going because I didn't want to let those people down. It's grown through word of mouth ever since.
Why ambient centered?
It would be fun to do a statistical breakdown of the genres featured in Flow State. Maybe I can work on that with
. A plurality of the recs have been ambient music, but there's also been plenty of classical, jazz, electronic, techno, etc.In any case, here are a few reasons why ambient music appeals to me…
First, as Eno put it, ambient music is "as ignorable as it is interesting." Good ambient music accommodates passive and active attention: it permits the listener to focus on something else and welcomes them back when they choose to listen actively. This feature of ambient music suits our 21st century attention span. If I put on White Arcades by Harold Budd while reading a book, I can focus on a couple pages, put the book down to enjoy some languid Budd notes, and then pick up the book where I left off. Ambient music stays out of the way with a standing offer of a pleasant rest stop for the mind.
Second, ambient compositions are often repetitive or static over long periods of time. This acts as a kind of subliminal aid to keep going on the task at hand. I've found this helps with focus. It also helps with running. I run long distance, and my running playlists tend to feature long, repetitive music. Example artists are Oren Ambarchi, Sunn O))), and Philip Glass. On this note, check out the book Run the Song by Ben Ratliff.
Third, ambient music, like abstract visual art, invites participation. Ambient music is a subtle stimulus that leaves space for whole ideas. It's like how taking a shower can induce some of your best thoughts: there's just enough action to engage your brain but not enough to interfere with ideation. I recently read an interesting passage related to this in A Very Short Introduction to Jung:
“Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so, in matters where one knows nothing, imagination will rush in to fill the void. Confronted by a field of ignorance, we project into it our own psychic activity and fill it up with meaning. Psychological projection tests make use of this propensity by inviting subjects to report what they see in ink blots or ambiguous figures. Leonardo da Vinci advocated a similar technique for inspiring landscapes by staring at wet patches on a wall. Jung was the first to recognize such practices as a useful means for studying otherwise inaccessible contents of the psyche: they enable us to become aware of new meanings arising from the unconscious by seeing them mirrored in outer reality; and this provides the key to one of the most valuable functions of art therapy.”
What does a day in the Flow State world look like? How do you find the time to listen attentively to all the music that you receive?
The workday begins when I carry a pint of cold brew and a 32oz mason jar of ice water into the office. I open my laptop, scan my backlog of albums, and choose one to put on. Then I get to work according to my Workflowy. When one album ends, I reopen the backlog, and put on another.
I evaluate albums as I putter about on my computer, the setting in which many – probably most — Flow State readers tune in. Sometimes I put on a record and pay more active attention to it. I did that with the new Purelink LP, for example. But most of the time I'm playing candidate records over the course of the day as I work.
I'm mainly listening (or half-listening) for:
The basic elements of the record: instruments, effects, compositional techniques, etc.
The atmosphere it creates: best case, an atmosphere of profundity, a concept that this mix for Sonic Tapestries is designed to illustrate
Influences: as I listen, musical associations occur to me, and I note those to look up later.
Vocals: I try to avoid albums with even a small amount of vocals because we (and many Flow State readers, apparently) find them distracting.
When I find myself enjoying a record along these dimensions, I file it to be recommended in the future. My current list of "next recommendations" is about a thousand items long. Fascinating new albums come out every week, at an accelerating rate. They're coming out faster than I can recommend them. I've accepted the fact that my next-up list will only grow. I've tried to account for this by making my "Under Consideration" playlist one of the playlists available to paying subscribers.
Either before or after dinner I write Flow State while listening to the featured record(s). I always write the email the night before, usually just a few hours before it goes out.
The release that you put out on Flow State — how did this come about and do you find it challenging as a digital only label releasing music in the current music climate?
In 2020, my friend — whose artist name is Corntuth — found himself stuck at home unable to record with his band. He had a 1983 Yamaha DX7 and recorded a bunch of improvised pieces on it. They were really cool, Yoshimura-like pieces that I loved. I offered to distribute the resulting record via Flow State. Thus with Corntuth's Music To Work To — Flow State Records was born.
The thing is, Flow State Records is pretty much just a "label" for music that I was involved in producing and promoting. I don't finance or take a cut of anything. I just help the artist with the record – to the degree they want help – and then offer to promote it. It's pretty low key.
The one exception to digital release was Corntuth's second LP, The Desert Is Paper Thin. For that, we crowdfunded a vinyl release via Bandcamp. That was fun and rewarding, although Bandcamp has since discontinued that program. In general I'm pretty conservative about costs, so it's tough to say whether I'll pursue physical releases in the future. Later this year we're releasing a (fantastic) new album from Davi Music. The label Aural Canyon will be handling its cassette release.
Any Flow State DJ sets on the horizon?
Not yet but if you're reading this and you need someone to show up and play soothing profound music for a couple hours, the email address is bookings@flowstate.fm. In the words of Travis Bickle, "Anytime, anywhere."
Which artists/albums have greatly inspired you most on your path?
Brian Eno - Thursday Afternoon
The first time I listened to this track, I put it on in my dorm room, lay on my bed, and looked up out of my open window at cumulus clouds drifting across an azure sky. The string synth came in and it appeared to me like the clouds were making that sound, as if their propulsive mechanism produced this angelic chord as sonic exhaust. I listened to the whole one-hour piece superimposing Eno's sounds onto the transit of clouds.
Years later, I read that a similar experience inspired Eno to make ambient music in the first place. In 1975, he was stuck in bed at home convalescing after being hit by a taxi. A visitor on their way out put on a record of 17th century harp music. It was raining hard outside, and a window was open. The record began to play, but the volume of the turntable had accidentally been left low. "I couldn't get up and change it," Eno wrote in A Year With Swollen Appendices, "so I just lay there waiting for my next visitor to come and sort it out, and gradually I was seduced by this listening experience. I realized that this was what I wanted music to be – a place, a feeling, an all-around tint to my sonic environment."
Do you have aspirations to grow Flow State into other creative realms?
I tend to follow inspiration rather than aspiration. Whenever I've done something new with Flow State, it's because I had an idea for something that I thought would be cool and pulled the thread. That's what happened with the label, with the weekly mix, with artist interviews, with Ambient Country, and with clothing.
That said, there are two things that I think would be cool but haven't had the opportunity to do yet:
I love movies and film scores. I would love to try my hand at music supervision for film or TV.
I would love to do a clothing collab. I suck at design, but Flow State has a reasonably OK brand. It would be fun to work on clothing with someone who's actually a good designer. Side note: Sound Mass created the clothing I wish I had created.
- MC
Date of Broadcast : Sunday 15th June via ROVR
NEXT EPISODE - Sunday 13th July 2025
— Sonic Tapestries x Flow State Playlist —
Harold Budd — The Kiss (The White Arcades) — All Saints Records
William Basinski — Melancholia III (Melancholia) — Temporary Residence Ltd
— Atlas (Atlas) — Awe
Stars Of The Lid — Articulate Silences, Pt.1 (and their Refinement of the Decline) — kranky
Devendra Banhart & Noah Georgeson — A Cat (Refuge) — Dead Oceans
Shida Shahabi — Remain (Living Circle) — FatCat Records
Susumu Yokota — Saku (Sakura) — Lo Recordings
Green-House — Sansevieria (Six Songs for Invisible Gardens) — LEAVING RECORDS
Boards of Canada — Open The Light (Music Has The Right To Children) — Warp Records
Thomas Newman — Any Other Name (American Beauty OST) — DreamWorks
Yusef Lateef — First Gymnopedie (Psychicemotus) — Impulse! Records
Anthony Naples — Drifter (Take Me With You) — Good Morning Tapes
Piero Piccioni — Endless Love (Colpo Rovente OST) — Blind Faith Records
Kali Malone — Fifth Worship II (The Sacrificial Code) — Ideologic Organ
Ari Balouzian — A Prince (Some Kind of Heaven) — Appraiser
Suzanne Ciani — The Third Wave - Love In The Waves (Seven Waves)
Isao Tomita — Suite Bergamasque: Clair de Lune, No. 3 (Tomita’s Greatest Hits)
Arushi Jain — Infinite Delight (Delight) — LEAVING RECORDS
Sven Libaek — Thatcherie (Inner Space OST) — Votary Records
Lone — The Birds Don’t Fly This High (Emerald Fantasy Tracks) — MagicWire
Max Cooper — Repetition (Yearning for the Infinite) — Mesh
Avalon Emerson — One More Fluorescent Rush (Whities 013) — AD 93
Philip Glass — The Grid (Koyaanisqatsi OST) — Orange Mountain Music
Bill Orcutt — Old Hamlet (How To Rescue Things) — Palilalia
If you would like to contribute your sounds or propose a feature for a future edition of Sonic Tapestries :
please write me here with links/codes/mp3’s —
Your kind support helps me to grow my audience and continue on my creative path.
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For a limited time only, you can upgrade to a paid subscription — which includes entry into the Album of the Month vinyl prize draw, an exclusive monthly audio goodie bag and one-on-one listening sessions by following the link below :
This month’s album of the month :
Thank you for being here with me.
Mat
🌻
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