Students of Decay has been in operation for a full decade now, and there's a solid chance you're unaware. Even closing in on 100 releases, the label's stable contains names unfamiliar to most heads, let alone the layman. Last year Kyle Bobby Dunn's 2hr opus ...& the Infinite Sadness (shouts to all the zeroes out there) probably made the single biggest ‘splash’, but it's all relative.

As opposed to a label like, say Editions Mego, there’s been no accidental stumbling onto the zeitgeist along the journey – and if anything, Decay is all the richer for it. Around a teaching career and family life in first California, then Ohio, Cobb has been diligently putting out whatever he finds especial resonance with; field recordings, acoustic noodling, thick drone, all sorts. There's no attempt to sprint toward any ambient goldrush or change policy to make good on trends. It's a labour of love.

And so it proves here: a clutch of 2016 material that is subtle, graceful and surprisingly stirring. It's half the length of Air Texture’s equally beautiful Upfront entry from late Fall last year – entirely purposeful, as Cobb feels these "tend to fare better erring on the side of concision, or at least thats generally my governing principle when I make them" – and so demands to be replayed and reinvestigated as soon as it draws to a close. Not something that can be said about all ambient mixes.

To me, by turns it evokes Fax +49-69/450464, The Sinking Of The Titanic and even Sigur Ros’ bowed swells on M. Sage's closer. But it'll probably sound different to your ears. And that's the beauty of the thing.