Ethan Rose

Portland, Ore.'s Ethan Rose takes ambient music far beyond the worn sofas of chill-out cliches. Like his contemporaries Fennesz, Morgan Packard and Ezekiel Honig, Rose turns to acoustic instruments to give his compositions a powerful sense of depth; cliche as it may sound, there's something undeniably organic about his lilting tones and heat-wave shimmer. On Oaks, Rose turns to the famous organ from Portland's Oaks Park roller rink, spinning its heaving harmonics into wisps like gossamer, or cotton candy. In Rose's world, it's always sunrise.