Toronto ambient composer Brady Kendall, known to many as Alaskan Tapes, returns with Blank Slate / Open Space, a quietly arresting AA-side release that marks both a creative reset and a reclamation of artistic independence. Joined by Portland-based saxophonist Blu Miles and paired with an intimate short film by Kyle Rose, the project is a meditation on transition, vulnerability, and the beauty of starting again.
Over the past decade, Kendall has become a defining voice in modern ambient and neoclassical music, celebrated for his gentle yet emotionally resonant soundscapes. His work has amassed hundreds of millions of streams, touched global audiences, and earned support from BBC Radio 3, KEXP, and Apple Music. But while his catalogue has always embraced subtlety, Blank Slate / Open Space feels like a new kind of quiet, one born from artistic autonomy and personal upheaval.
What began as a remote collaboration became something more profound. Kendall originally sent Blu Miles early drafts for improvisation, only to rebuild the entire composition after hearing the saxophonist’s delicate, exploratory lines. Amid home renovations, environmental sounds slipped into the recordings, footsteps, shifting rooms, and the hum of life happening around the music.
Instead of removing them, Kendall leaned in. The result is a soundscape that breathes: textured, fragile, and vividly alive.
“Blank Slate,” in particular, mirrors the emotional terrain of letting go — of an old record deal, old expectations, old forms. “This was proof to myself that I didn’t need to conform,” Kendall notes. With Miles’ atmospheric sax work threading through the spaces between notes, the piece becomes a conversation between clarity and uncertainty, structure and dissolution.
“Open Space” extends that meditation, loosening even further into abstraction. Warm air, resonant tones, and soft improvisations expand into something both minimal and lush, a world that feels simultaneously intimate and endless.
Blank Slate / Open Space is Alaskan Tapes at his most open, most unguarded, and most human. In its restraint, it reveals depth; in its imperfections, it finds honesty. This is ambient music as emotional cartography, mapping the uncertain terrain between what was and what comes next.
