GRAMMY®-nominated band The Choir’s Latest Album ‘Translucent’

"GRAMMY®-nominated band The Choir’s Latest Album ‘Translucent’"

“(Translucent) by Nashville-based alt-rockers The Choir is replete with beautiful droning sounds that float into space. Find whoever’s making a new Blade Runner project and offer the Vangelis-y “Plastic Swords” for the film’s opening crawl.”

– The Big Takeover

Translucent is GRAMMY®-nominated band The Choir’s new ambient instrumental album, a shimmering tapestry of sound that captures the essence of mood and serenity. The material by Nashville-based The Choir is replete with beautiful hypnotic sounds that float into space. Across 10 atmospheric tracks, the band weaves effect-laden guitars, evocative saxophone, Lyricon and win synthesizers along with electronic rhythms, bells and percussion into a true legacy project – a career triumph for the band. For fans of Sigur Rós, Hammock, Explosions In The Sky, Brian Eno and therapeutic music for meditation, mindfulness and calm.

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For over four decades, The Choir, originally from LA and now based in Nashville, has been a cornerstone of the indie, post-rock and ambient music scenes, crafting songs that blend atmospheric soundscapes and lyrics that emote a profound sense of longing and beauty. With a distinctive style marked by Derri Daugherty’s ethereal guitar work and hauntingly emotive voice, Steve Hindalong’s reflective lyrics, drums and percussion, and Dan Michaels’ evocative saxophone, Lyricon, and wind synthesizer playing, The Choir has cultivated a sound that is as innovative as it is timeless. Their music transcends genres, resonating deeply with fans who have remained fiercely loyal through the years.

Emerging in the 80s, The Choir quickly gained a reputation for their lush sounds, contemplative songwriting and captivating live shows. Throughout the 90s and 2000s, The Choir continued to evolve, releasing critically acclaimed albums like ‘Free Flying Soul’ and ‘Flap Your Wings’, a Grammy-nominated album celebrated for its soulful beauty and melodic richness.

In recent years, The Choir has embraced a DIY ethos, connecting directly with their audience through platforms like Patreon and crowdfunding. This approach has allowed the band to release new music consistently, including standout albums like ‘Bloodshot’ (2018) and ‘Deep Cuts’ (2021). In 2025, The Choir unveiled ‘Translucent’, an instrumental ambient album blending Daugherty’s shimmering guitars, Hindalong’s chimes and percussion, and Michaels’ atmospheric wind instrumentation. Many fans have hailed it as a moody and serene masterpiece, reflecting the band’s ability to innovate while staying grounded in their signature sound.

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Orchestra Indigo Releases Album ‘Hearing Visions’

"Orchestra Indigo Releases Album ‘Hearing Visions’"

Hearing Visions is a deeply emotive and sonically transcendent journey crafted by Orchestra Indigo. Inspired by the artist’s mother, who experienced vivid aural hallucinations in the decade preceding her dementia diagnosis, this album explores the mysterious interplay between memory, imagination, and sound. Her “visions” of orchestras, Christmas carols, and fleeting melodies—sounds she often joyfully embraced—became a profound source of inspiration for this evocative release.

Blurring the lines between the real and the imagined, Hearing Visions invites listeners into a world where music acts as a bridge to the subconscious, a way to connect to beauty and solace even amidst life’s most challenging transitions. Lush orchestral layers, ethereal melodies, and an undercurrent of heartfelt nostalgia come together to create a soundscape that is as meditative as it is emotionally stirring.

Through its blend of serene harmonies and evocative instrumentation, Hearing Visions reflects not only the wonder of its inspiration but also celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the healing power of music. Orchestra Indigo has created a work that resonates deeply with anyone who has found solace in sound and seeks to honor the invisible threads that connect us through memory and love.

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The fascinating story behind the emergence of new age artist Orchestra Indigo and its beautifully melodic and deeply inspiring debut album Farewell to Memories, has its roots in the lockdown early in the pandemic, when musicians around the world, with their regular gigs suddenly stripped away, were trying to figure out their next creative steps.

Having released his fifth blues rock oriented album Night Songs in February 2020, multi-talented singer/songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist Rick Randlett had every intention of hitting the road in support of the project. That had been his m.o. for years, playing up to 125 regional club and festival dates in and around his adopted home state of Florida for nearly a decade and a half after launching his solo career in 1999 with All Alone. Three of his releases reached the Top Ten on the Roots Music Report charts, and he collaborated on the album Hauntings with fellow blues singer Cassie Keenum in 2017.

Turning his anxiety over the sudden work stoppage into a fresh stream of creativity, he began exploring ambient, new age style compositions on a home studio setup that includes a Mac Book Pro, Studio One for DAW, Roland Juno synthesizer and a Modal Cobalt 8 synthesizer. His first idea was to create short instrumental pieces for music libraries, but besides learning about the fierce competition in that field, he realized there were too many restrictive rules. Rick embraced the freedom of composing longer pieces combining piano melodies with an array of dynamic colors he created using synthesized strings. Extensively researching the new age genre, he realized not only that these pieces he was composing were a perfect fit, but also that the audience for instrumental music was much more expansive than that in the blues world that was his home for so long. In creating his albums, he chose the artist branding name Orchestra Indigo because, after considering various word combinations, he thought it sounded unique and a little mysterious – and he didn’t want to confuse fans of his work in either genre by using his given name on the new age material.

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