March: 18 albums you need to hear this month

Ripperton 'Sight Seeing' (ESP Institute)

Ripperton is best known for his wintry deep house, but here he offers up an album of gorgeous ambient. Inspired by gazing out of aeroplane windows on his travels, he describes the album as a collection of postcards to himself, and there’s real beauty across its 15 tracks: they’re bright, harmonic affairs that cleanse you as much as a breath of fresh Alpine air, and twinkle like freshly fallen snow. Sometimes, deeply buried rhythmic suggestions gently nudge tracks along, such as on ‘Puente De Los Enamorados’, while the likes of ‘Automatic’ suspend you in a heavenly place of mellow chords and echoing melody; there’s also a joyous innocence to the lullaby-like ‘Gradation 65’, which adds poignancy to the LP. Kristan J Caryl

8/10