Ambient Meditations Vol 20 – Bent

Our complete podcast series is available on these fine platforms and on Soundcloud – below at the end of the post is our complete Ambient Meditation Series:

Ambient Meditations Vol 20 – Bent

Episode 20 features the legendary UK downtempo duo Bent. If you are an old school chillout fan, then you will be excited to know that Simon Mills and Nail Tolliday (Bent) are dropping a brilliant new album titled Up In The Air on November 13 on the Godlike and Electric imprint. Filled with lush and beautiful sounds reminiscent of their earlier work, Bent is indeed back in a big way, and this album couldn't have been timed better, as we all need a little more chillout in our lives. The lads have also put together a two-part chillout mix, with each of them taking a 30-minute slot, which features some of their solo works, remixes, and other gems.

Ambient Meditations Vol 20 Track List:

Part One: Nail Tolliday

Neil Tolliday – Wednesday

The Committee – The New Host

Neil Tolliday – You And The Situation

Smoke – Artmx2

Neil Tolliday – We Are So Small

Neil Tolliday – One Man Is Born

Part Two: Simon Mills

Shervin Baloorian – Fire (Simon Mills Magic Musicbox Mix)

Simon Mills – Snugglebumpkins

Napoleon – Game & Watch

Simon Mills – Coco

Napoleon – Fairy Bluebell

Simon Mills – Dots On A Blanket

Best Of Bent (Spotify Playlist)

Influential UK electronic act Bent makes their heralded return with new album 'Up In The Air' Bent's first album of brand new original music in nearly 15 years

Released November 13 on Godlike and Electric

A few things the world needs right now: to chill, to relax with a glass of wine next to a warm fireplace, to decompress from all madness, some humor. The world needs Bent more than ever.

Bent – aka Nail Tolliday and Simon Mills – have answered the call, emerging from a lengthy hiatus to deliver a new album that proves they've not missed a beat, er, sample, that is. Bent's formula is still ever-present: an intricate, all-encompassing sound and sampledelic genius with an ethos of taking obscure recorded gems and extracting exceptional sounds.

The eight tracks which comprise 'Up In The Air' were crafted remotely by Nail (four tracks were created in his Sherwood, UK Studio), and Simon (four tracks were created in his rural Ireland Studio) during the quarantine. Joint together, this latest masterpiece from Bent transports us to a world that's far removed from current realities. It's cinematic, cathartic, and vintage with a sprinkle of Bent's cheeky personality laced over the top.

Nail Tolliday and Simon Mills conceptualized Bent in Nottingham in 1997 after becoming disillusioned with the state of dance music at the time. 1999 saw the band release its debut album 'Programmed For Love', to critical acclaim, receiving a groundbreaking response and praise from the likes of NME, DJ, Jockey Slut, and Mixmag, among others. Since then, the Bent machine created three further albums, 'Everlasting Blink' (2002), 'Ariel's' (2004), and 'Intercept' (2006), all selling copies in the hundreds of thousands. Collectively, these albums spawned legendary singles including 'Always,' 'I Love My Man,' 'Swollen,' 'Magic Love' and 'To Be Loved,' while on the remix front, Bent made a name of themselves for standout reworkings of tracks from Faithless ('Reasons'), Morcheeba ('World Looking In'), Matthew Jay ('Please Don't Send Me Away'), Hall and Oates ('I Can't Go for That') and even Dolly Parton ('Early Morning Breeze').

Bent is not just important to the development of UK electronica, but to contemporary music altogether.