Toronto based ambient composer Brady Kendall is celebrating his independence with a deeply textured new AA side release, “Blank Slate” and “Open Space,” a quietly stirring collaboration with Portland saxophonist Blu Miles. Together, the two tracks form a meditative diptych, lush, spacious, and achingly human, that marks a powerful new chapter in Kendall’s ongoing journey through sound and self. Over the past decade, Kendall, who records as Alaskan Tapes, has quietly become one of the most respected voices in modern ambient and neoclassical music, amassing hundreds of millions of streams and earning recognition from platforms like BBC Radio 3, KEXP, and Apple Music. His music is patient, textured, and cinematic, focusing on emotional truth rendered through powerful restraint.
The new release captures that balance perfectly. What began as a remote collaboration, with Kendall sending early demos to Miles for improvisation, evolved into something wholly new. Kendall explains: “I had originally sent Blu completely different tracks and had him play multiple lines. When I received his recordings, I scrapped my parts entirely and rewrote everything from the ground up. Thankfully, we were doing house renovations at the time, so natural movement and noise bled into the recordings. It made everything feel alive.” Kendall states that “‘Blank Slate’ was written as proof to myself that I didn’t need to conform to current structures in this type of music. Now, out of a recent record deal, I could do what I wanted — and this is what I came up with. With Blu’s help, we created something lush, noisy, and minimal. It sounds like how I felt about the situation.” The accompanying short film, Blank Slate, Open Space, directed by Kyle Rose, is a beautiful meditation on endings and beginnings.