Canadian ambient composer Alaskan Tapes and Portland-based artist Blu Miles have unveiled the beautiful collaborative seven-track album, Blank Slate, Open Space – a deeply intimate and transportive body of work that quietly dissolves the boundaries between distance and connection.
Led by the serene and immersive single ‘In-Cloud’ featuring Ann Annie, the release arrives as a subtle yet powerful statement in contemporary ambient composition comparable to the lieks of Ólafur Arnolds.
What began as a simple exchange of piano and saxophone ideas gradually evolved into something far more expansive. Created across more than 4,000 kilometres, the album took shape through a fluid back-and-forth process, with stems shared remotely between the two artists before Blu Miles eventually travelled from Portland to Toronto to complete the project in person. The result feels remarkably seamless; listeners are left unable to distinguish which moments were crafted apart and which emerged side by side. Instead, what lingers is a profound sense of closeness, presence, and shared creative intuition.
At the emotional centre of the project is ‘In-Cloud’ – a drifting, meditative composition that gently broadens the album’s sonic palette. Built from an initial set of piano stems, the track slowly unfolded through layered contributions from all three musicians, weaving together piano, saxophone, guitar, and clarinet into something both organic and quietly transformative. Guitar textures stretch into hazy atmospheric swells, while woodwinds pulse and dissolve like distant waves, creating a piece that feels simultaneously intimate and expansive. The production moves with a living quality, breathing and reshaping itself in real time, balancing analogue warmth with subtle digital manipulation.
Across its twenty-minute runtime, Blank Slate, Open Space unfolds like a collection of fleeting memories or postcards from a shared creative space. There is a quiet honesty embedded in every arrangement, as though the listener has been invited directly into the room to witness the music as it forms. From the delicate reinterpretation of ‘Oversky’, originally composed by Luke Howard and Nadje Noordhuis, to the cinematic emotional swell of ‘Rosewood’, the album glides effortlessly between stillness and subtle expansion without ever disturbing its carefully sustained atmosphere.
The project itself reflects a philosophy rooted in openness, instinct, and release, abandoning rigid structure in favour of emotional presence and natural evolution. Rather than demanding attention, the music creates space for reflection, encouraging listeners to slow down and simply exist within its carefully sculpted environments. As the outside world fades into silence, the interplay between keys, reeds, and ambient textures becomes a place of calm introspection.
Both artists arrive at the collaboration with significant momentum behind them. Between support from BBC Radio 3 and CBC Afterdark, placements on Apple Music’s Lowkey and Power Nap playlists, more than 60 million Spotify streams, and praise from publications including EARMILK and Exclaim, Alaskan Tapes and Blu Miles have already established themselves as distinctive voices within the modern ambient landscape. Together, however, they have created something that feels uniquely timeless – weightless yet emotionally grounded, delicate yet deeply human.
Listen below:
