Brian Eno was wrong when he declared that ambient music “must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” In reality, there’s little in music that’s as powerful as ambient; its effects on the mood of any given space take hold immediately upon pressing play. The genre’s most astute artists understand how easily listeners succumb to such stimuli, and they utilize ambient’s discreet demeanor to build constantly unignorable atmospheres. The past 30 years have seen that play out in various forms: stuttering glitches, caustic noise, cinematic grandiosity. More unexpectedly gratifying are those who opt for gentler modes, doubling down on quietude to subvert expectations. Ulla (fka Ulla Straus) is one of contemporary ambient’s best practitioners of this style. Her songs are inviting in their softness, providing meditative sound worlds, but they also provoke endless curiosity through subtle fluctuations. Her pieces feel alive.
With Limitless Frame, Ulla builds on the emotional, sensitive canvases of 2020’s Tumbling Towards a Wall and inside means inside me. Partway through the latter, someone asks, “How do we fall in love with ourselves?” This notion of self-love also animates this album, which is accompanied by a poem: “Being somewhere, while being somewhere else/A place I look for in other places/A moment on repeat/I made this music as a way to hug myself.” Ulla’s intention on Limitless Frame, it seems, is to create music that transports you to instant and enveloping comfort. Opener “Aware of Something” captures that well. It’s a dubby ambient piece, but instead of the bleary afterparty comedowns of Echospace or mu tate, Ulla’s track feels like a heartfelt embrace. When its gliding bassline appears, it’s like someone running their hand across your back during a long, deep hug: a tender reminder of another’s warmth.
Ulla’s greatest feat with Limitless Frame is making the vaporous feel intimate. On “Look or Look Away,” reverberating guitar melodies flutter and twirl. Fingers slide along the fretboard, creating a rhythm that cradles the listener. “Somewhere Else” is compositionally similar but even sparser, and it drifts at a slower tempo, too. Here, there’s beauty found within every crevice; moments without the gauzy sounds of guitar are as cozy and evocative as those with them. Ulla goes to a further extreme with “Both Feelings,” a spectral and lonely song that’s little more than processed field recordings and piano. Much like “Clearly the Memory”—which marries Ulla’s guitar with emotive microsound electronics akin to soft tissue—it’s wistful and nostalgic, like nights spent searching for contentment in long-held memories.
The two longest tracks on Limitless Frame, however, allow for luxuriating in the here and now. “Something Inside My Body” features a gossamer layer of wind, piano chords, and what might be someone in a bathtub, while “Far Away” is defined by restrained yet exuberant saxophone playing. Despite their differences, these spacious tracks emanate serenity, and like all of Ulla’s best works, they seem like they’re doing nothing but simply existing. This effect recalls that special feeling of being so close to someone that their mere presence is enough to provide solace. Ulla’s brand of ambient music elegantly embodies that sense of calm, so much so that its nourishment can be taken for granted. But when Limitless Frame ends, its absence—like that of a loved one—is suddenly, even painfully noticeable. And that’s not something you can really ignore.
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