STOLACE
The STOLACE Relay Station

THE RELAY STATION

featuring ambient, neoclassical, and new age artists from around the world.

⨳⨳ TUNE IN LIVE: SUNDAYS 9am CST / 1500 GMT at youtube.com/stolace ⨳⨳
Note the time change for those observing the end of Daylight Saving Time!

What is The STOLACE | RELAY STATION

The Relay Station originated as an ambient music stream on Twitch featuring original and improvisational ambient and neoclassical music by STØLACE. Since its inception in March of 2021, STØLACE has been making original ambient music on a near weekly basis and has amassed an ambient music catalog exceeding 50 hours worth of music, much of which you can find at Bandcamp and on most music streaming services worldwide.

Like everything else under the sun, The Relay Station has underwent a great deal of change since the beginning — at first starting small by featuring the music of guest artists on stream, giving them a moment in the spotlight and a chance for their music to be heard by my followers on Twitch. As these changes emerged, so did a new vision for the program.

On November 6, 2022, The STOLACE RELAY STATION emerged with a dramatic shift in focus in programming, vision, and intent. The programming has evolved to become a one-hour radio program designed for radio syndication, with the vision and intent of showcasing ambient and neoclassical artists from around the world.

You can catch the live premiere of The STOLACE RELAY STATION videos right here on Sunday evenings at 8pm CST / 0100 UTC, or alternatively can tune in at youtube.com/stolace where you can join us in the live chat while the episode airs.

Because I'm brand new in the syndication world, I will add radio station and programming information as I get further along in the journey towards world domination with the relaxing ambient vibes of The STOLACE RELAY STATION.

One of the videos from the original Relay Station live ambient music stream from December 21, 2021. Find more videos from Season Two and Season One.

The evolution of The STOLACE | RELAY STATION

2021

March // The Relay Station is born in the form of a two-hour live stream with improvisational ambient music performed by STOLACE on Twitch.

May // The first ambient album was released from The Relay Station improv streams, compositions from the March sessions. The album was named "Relay Station // 2021 / Mars" and released on streaming platforms and on Bandcamp. For each month that followed in 2021, a new album was released containing improv ambient sessions from The Relay Station stream.

December // On a practical note, STOLACE changed music distributors and has partnered with Amuse to release the remainder of the Relay Station albums and re-release all of the original ambient albums released through the previous distributor.

2022

January // After the completion of the 2021 album series, the three-volume set "Into the Nebula" was released, drawing its inspiration from deep space and the creative reaches of the human imagination.

March // Following the debut of "Into the Nebula", Stolace released a follow-up three volume set entitled "Dark Matter", a musical exploration of the spaces in between.

April // With just weeks after the "Dark Matter" set was released, a special three volume set celebrating NASA's return to the moon debuted on streaming services: ARTEMIS — named after the code name for the famed NASA project.

May // Two special releases dropped this month: "Relay Station // Sixty-Two", a sixty-two minute seamless neoclassical composition created live on Twitch, and the EP "Relay Station // Gravity" a 15-minute composition that experiments with the illusion of pitch. This time also marked the final stretch of ambient improv albums that were created on the Twitch live stream.

June // The launch of the monthly numeric album series began with "Relay Station I", with a new album launching every month until the release of "Relay Station IX". Each of the Relay Station numeric albums were either improvisational pieces or structured ambient compositions for The Relay Station live stream series on Twitch.

September // Following up to the album "Sixty-Two", Stolace released a sixty-three minute piano composition that tells a musical story of two souls through a sixty-three minute, uninterrupted sonic exploration of the dynamics of human relationships and emotions.

October // The Halloween episode of 2022 on Twitch marked the very last live stream for The Relay Station, and its transition to become a radio program up for radio syndication and broadcasted on YouTube for general consumption. The Relay Station became The STOLACE | RELAY STATION with slight change in the brand and the overall presentation of the program.

November // The STOLACE | RELAY STATION makes its debut on YouTube and plans and preparations begin for converting this 60-minute video stream to become a viable radio program up for syndication.

2023

January // In the interest of evolving as a program and continuing to refine the program, the video format had undergone a few modifications featuring drone footage and departing from the earth orbit footage. Additional behind-the-scenes changes had also taken shape to further refine the presentation of the program and other organizational details. The STOLACE | RELAY STATION also became available on The Public Radio Exchange (PRX).

February // The last of the Relay Station numeric album series dropped on Bandcamp and streaming services: "Relay Station IX".

March // A special album dropped on Bandcamp and streaming services: "Rise of the Insect Lord" — an experimental radio drama set with music from the Relay Station ambient album series as the backdrop. There were ten songs that bore the moniker "Rise of the Insect Lord", a series of compositions that had a story to tell, and that story coming to fruition in the dramatic presentation of "Rise of the Insect Lord". This album originally made its debut on the final episode of The Relay Station stream on its Halloween 2022 episode.

Later that month, Stolace released the EP "Whispers in the Wind, Echos of Solitude", a three-song exploration of the Una Corda, a special instrument created for Nils Frahm.

April // This point in time signified a change in how and where music is shared. Instead of being locked away behind a paywall at Patreon or on the Discord server, music by Stolace is now distributed via mailing list, where supporters can easily download new music as it comes available.

May // The EP "Voyager" dropped, a three-song exploration of NASA's Voyager program. Additionally, Stolace announced the debut of the Ambient Discourses podcast, a long-form, conversational companion to The STOLACE | RELAY STATION. The podcast features long-form interviews with musicians and composers to get to know them better, get a deeper dive into their creative process, an exploration of their latest works, and other conversational topics that come up along the way.

Other changes on the program: the STOLACE | RELAY STATION is now freely available for radio stations with no strings attached, all episodes are available FREE on the PRX platform as well as email distribution to radio stations, and feature segments on The STOLACE | RELAY STATION now feature audio from most of our featured artists talking about their music or their latest album.

June // The companion podcast Ambient Discourses drops on Spotify, Stitcher, and YouTube — the very first episode featuring the artist City of Dawn. Added to this great news, more subtle changes come to The STOLACE | RELAY STATION, including a brand new, shorter introduction to get you to the music faster, easier to read graphics in the video episodes, and captioning to improve the program's accessibility to a wider audience. We also acquired our first radio station syndication in South Africa. World domination starts one station at a time.

June also marked the launch of the new 64-minute seamless psychedelic ambient album, "ATMOS".

September // Season three wrapped up with a definite boost in viewership from the start of the season. Departing from the original intent, I took a month off from programming to make further improvements and enhancements for the start of season four.

October // The full-length video visualization for the album "ATMOS" dropped on YouTube on October 1st and has been received with glowing reviews. ATMOS is a sixty-four minute ambient album accompanied by AI-driven visuals and further enhanced by personal touches and layers of additional effects and treatments to create an immersive shamanic experience through the layers of Earth's atmosphere.

November // Season four screams right out of the starting block with a brand new logo, brand new website, improved graphics and audio, and more attention to streamlining the behind-the-scenes production of the program and all that goes with it. Some of the notable changes also include but aren't limited to:

  • The Relay Station is no longer distributed on PRX, a new layout for the program videos,
  • improvements and changes to the audio used throughout the show,
  • more consistent audio in the advertisements,
  • adding in a featured album segment (in lieu of what used to be the second featured artist segment),
  • a new opening theme and new tasteful psychedelic visuals,
  • the "space transmission voice" in the program is being retired in favor of a lush, clean sounding vocal, and
  • monthly supporters are now acknowledged and thanked in the closing credits screen with supporter names (first name, last initial, or their "handle") on display

See? Lots of improvements and changes for November 2023!

December // The last of the pre-produced shows aired on Christmas Eve, episode 4.8. The format will be changing in 2024 to accommodate challenging schedule demands.

2024

January // The Relay Station re-launched as a live stream music program on January 7th, now featuring over two hours of ambient and neoclassical music, broadcasted live on the Stolace YouTube channel.