The Sonic Soup of Loscil: A Field Guide for the Sonically Curious

If ambient music were a forest, then Loscil would be the cryptid quietly sipping artisanal tea under a moss-covered fern, occasionally releasing sound waves that make your spine feel like it’s melting—pleasantly. Born Scott Morgan (but definitely more powerful when called Loscil), this Canadian composer has made a career of sneaking into your brain, laying down a futon of reverb, and whispering, “Shhh, just vibe.”

Now, most musicians say they’re inspired by life, love, or the emotional intricacies of human existence. Loscil? He once made an entire album inspired by shipping containers. Yes, containers. Those big, rusty steel boxes that scream “logistics” more than “lyrical.” And somehow, it’s beautiful. You listen to “Monument Builders” or “Plume” and suddenly you’re not in your apartment eating cold pasta—you’re floating in a fog-drenched Vancouver harbor at midnight, wondering if the foghorn is in love with the lighthouse.

His music isn’t just ambient; it’s glacially ambient. If Brian Eno created music for airports, Loscil makes music for the parts of your brain you only access when you’re brushing your teeth and disassociating. He doesn’t play songs so much as gently unspool them, like a ribbon in zero gravity. Listening to Loscil is like being hugged by a cloud who has read a lot of philosophy.

Let’s talk about his album names. They sound like IKEA furniture designed by poets. “Submers”, “Sea Island”, “Equivalents”. You’re never entirely sure if you’re about to hear a song or buy a minimalist lamp. Either way, you will be soothed.

But here’s the real secret: Loscil is ambient music with a sense of humor—not laugh-out-loud, stand-up-comedy humor, but the kind where you find yourself giggling because the track named “Chinook” genuinely sounds like a snowstorm sighing. There’s a track called “Ahull”, and if that’s not a sound you can picture a ghost ship slowly doing a yoga stretch to, I don’t know what is.

Loscil’s superpower is making nothing sound like everything. A single tone loops and you swear it’s the sonic equivalent of your third-grade memories. A tiny click repeats and suddenly you’re emotionally invested in a digital cricket. He could probably mic a toaster and make it sound like the existential ache of Saturn’s moons.

In a world full of bangers, drops, and algorithmically-enhanced chaos, Loscil is out here like, “What if we just simmered?” And we do. Oh, how we simmer. We become one with the drones, the delays, the echoes of seismic feelings and hydroacoustic whalesongs.

So next time you need to study, nap, cry, or astral project to a place where time has no meaning and gravity is optional—Loscil is your guy.

Just don’t ask him to DJ your birthday party. Unless your idea of fun is watching everyone slowly levitate.