Your nominations for the ILX AMBIENT ALBUMS POLL (nominations close on Friday, May 31st)

ta for correcting the dreamfish mistake folks.

I haven’t missed a playlist for the nominations, have I?

If you start listening now you should get about halfway through by the time voting closes.

Tuomas at 9:34 17 May 19

Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians

Groovypanda, you nominated this, but there are several different recordings of this composition. Which one do you want to nominate?

Not sure. The original 1978 release I guess. Not bothered if it's left out if people don't think it's ambient as I possibly wouldn't vote for it anyway.

If you start listening now you should get about halfway through by the time voting closes.

I plan on sampling as many singles as possible.

I haven’t missed a playlist for the nominations, have I?

E2-E4 (Radio Edit) xp

Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
Spacemen 3 - Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
Gigi Masin - Wind
Gigi Masin - Talk to the Sea
Earth - Hex; or Printing in the Infernal Method
Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
Grouper - Ruins
Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
Ulver - Messe I.X–VI.X
Tim Hecker - Virgins
Ryuichi Sakamoto - async
Stephan Mathieu - A Static Place
The Seven Fields of Aphelion - Periphery

14/30^

good call on Dreamweapon!

Deathprod - Morals and Dogma

btw whiney sunroof! is cancelled now dontcha know

Slowdive - Pygmalion
Jute Gyte - Penetralia

16/30

ooh yes Deathprod

Stars of the Lid - Gravitational Pull vs The Desire For an Aquatic Life
Terre Thaemlitz - Soil
Wolfgang Voigt - Rückverzauberung 10 / Nationalpark

9/30

Shuttle358 - Chessa
Vladislav Delay - Anima
Rod Modell - Incense and Blacklight
Vladislav Delay - Anima
Future Sound of London - Lifeforms
Aidan Baker - The Sea Swells a Bit

Desiderii Marginis - That Which Is Tragic and Timeless
Desiderii Marginis - Hypnosis
Forrest Fang - Gongland
Forrest Fang - The Sleepwalker's Ocean
Harold Budd/Clive Wright - A Song for Lost Blossoms
Harold Budd/Clive Wright - Little Windows
Lucid Dreams/Celia Green - 0096
Lustmord - Dark Matter
v/a (Projekt Records) - The Promises of Silence

22/30

I love “Body sonic” off of incense and black light, really great mellow refractory dubby ambient techno. Rest of the album is nice too.

Great title too

I started listening to these plus a playlist of the Pitchfork thing. Ended up with the beginnings of a nominations list:

https://open.spotify.com/user/empeecee/playlist/4fPPFJHHNihMjlO9GVEs6F?si=hVKygUYXRJSuCafBZrfzlQ

Far from complete and still a bit of a mess. I'll resume tidying it up later. Certainly feel free to fiddle with it.

Are we, uh, definitely limited to 30? Only, all this lovely ambient techno is making me think the first Rhythm and Sound album really needs to be involved. And Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records. And the 'Plays' collection by Ekkehard Ehlers.

colleen - the golden morning breaks
virginia astley - from gardens where we feel secure
william basinski - melancholia
emeralds - what happened
emeralds - allegory of allergies
robert aa lowe / rose lazaar - eclipses
helios - eingya
grouper - the man who died in his boat

Hmm, I'm still not gonna disqualify anything, but just because some people have nominated dub techno shouldn't be an excuse to nom more dub techno. Most dub techno isn't ambient. If by the first Rhythm & Sound album you mean the one with Tikiman, it's a great record, but IMO it's not ambient by any measure. There are exceptions of course, for example I would say something like Liumin by DeepChord is both dub techno and ambient, but in general I would give a good consideration before nominating anything with a steady 4/4 kick beat.

And yeah, I know have Empire State Building on my list which also has a 4/4 beat throughout, so I'm not trying to say all techno or IDM or whatever doesn't fit here, I'm just hoping people understand that that not all "home listening electronic music" is ambient.

(xpost)

It's just a matter of time before someone noms Boards of Canada.

I think ambient-ness for me has something to do with difficulty of perceiving movement, lack of drama, also just a general diffusiveness and um.... driftiness... a sense of distance/absence/“not there”-ness, indirect, sonic blankets

Fennesz/Tim hecker include plenty of actual bursts of noise. and bald faced emotion. I like em both

Steve Reich/tony Conrad/Niblock stuff is so intense and lysergic it just doesn’t float or sit enough

I also hate sentimental gooey “ambient” that sounds like it could soundtrack a serious moment in a stupid movie/tv show. The ambient equiv of like Explosions In the Sky.

This mostly sounds right to me.

Last time I tried one of CBC Music's 'ambient' stations, it was p much all chill/loungey beats.

xp

just waiting for the moment that it'll cause maximum annoyance

Grouper isn't ambient either

Tim Hecker is very clearly a maker of ambient music as far as I'm concerned, despite the bursts of static and his more compositionally-oriented approach. Stars of the Lid also make use of climaxes and no one's disputing their inclusion in this poll. I'm on the fence when it comes to Fennesz, however, although his latest LP scans as ambient to these ears. And there's no question that Reich shouldn't even be considered. Or why not also nominate Morton Feldman, while we're at it? Or pieces from Ligeti's cloud period? Or Chopin's Nocturnes? etc.

I also hate sentimental gooey “ambient” that sounds like it could soundtrack a serious moment in a stupid movie/tv show. The ambient equiv of like Explosions In the Sky.

― brimstead, Saturday, May 18, 2019 12:57 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like Stars of the Lid?

The moment the ambient nominations thread turned violent

(Now is the time to nominate boards of Canada, btw)

Now, now. Their albums pre-Tired Sounds are less obviously guilty of such charges. (I like them all.)

2xp

Yeah, no, the minimalist composers seemed more 'wrong' to me than Tim Hecker/Fennesz; it was more that I liked brimstead's explanation of how ambient music works when it comes to drawing lines.

xps

Black Sea does sound like ambient music to me.

Definitely. I suppose Endless Summer is the one I'm most reluctant to call ambient.

H. Takahashi - Low Power
DeepChord - Immersions
Haruomi Hosono - Watering A Flower
M. Geddes Gengras - Hawaiki Tapes
Suso Saiz - Rainworks

Thing about Stars of the Lid soundtracking a movie... if it's an imax documentary about the mysteries of universe vs. if it's in a scene in a drama about a seemingly "happy" family- well you're going to get entirely different emotional results with the same exact piece of music.

Fennesz - Black Sea
6/30

(Agree that Endless Summer is more debatable. Feldman actually seems more 'ambient' to me than the minimalists, not that I'd nominate him.)

Oh sorry 5/30 for my list above

Agreed about Feldman, especially, say, The Viola in My Life.

xp

The moment the ambient nominations thread turned violent

Bill Laswell & Terre Thaemlitz — Web
(misattributed on spotify to Laswell & Tetsuo Inoue, but it's Thaemlitz)

1/30

The Rhythm and Sound first album call was based on a track from the Incense and Black Light record which sounded awfully like R&S - particularly the vast spaces of the first album (the compilation of the first EPs). I'm very much of the opinion it's not ambient either but if we're going down that route I'd hate to see it miss out!
Anyway, still happy to go with consensus.

Oh sorry 5/30 for my list above

"Low Power" had already been nominated, so you're at 4/30.

colleen - the golden morning breaks
virginia astley - from gardens where we feel secure
william basinski - melancholia
emeralds - what happened
emeralds - allegory of allergies
robert aa lowe / rose lazaar - eclipses
helios - eingya
grouper - the man who died in his boat

― meaulnes, Sunday, May 19, 2019 2:58

The Colleen album has already been nominated, so you've used 7/30 of your noms.

The Rhythm and Sound first album call was based on a track from the Incense and Black Light record which sounded awfully like R&S - particularly the vast spaces of the first album (the compilation of the first EPs).

Yeah, for better or worse DeepChord has made a career on imitating Ernestus and Oswald as well as Wolfgang Voigt... That's not necessarily a criticism though, some of the material he's released sounds incredible, no matter how deritative it is.

And sorry if I sounded needlessly critical above, I really do love that first Rhythm & Sound comp, it's what got me into dub techno to begin with back in 1998... But half of that album is dude singing reggae over dub beats, and like you said, that's not really ambient.

Gentlemen, you can't fight here, this is the chill-out room!

Tempted to write a screenplay just so I can get this line in.

Yeah I don’t like stars of the lid

Natural Snow Buildings, ambient or not?