The mind revealing itself to itself: the TOP 100 AMBIENT ALBUMS as voted by ILX

70. Popol Vuh: In den Gärten Pharaos (1971)
247 points, 5 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/N1bMJIj.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vhht487PwQ

In den Gärten des Pharaos (1971)
Better than "Affenstunde". The title track has more of Fricke's wayward Moog noodling (Moogling anyone?) but with more (ahem) musical elements added. Finishes with a long section played on a Fender Rhodes that is actually quite jazzy (in an ECM sorta way). The other track, "Vuh", is the first evidence to date of Popol Vuh as THE ultimate Goth band - a looooooooooong drone piece on a mighty swelling church organ overlaid with cacophonous percussion and mewling moogs. Good stuff! 7/10

― Dadaismus, Thursday, March 20, 2003 3:54 PM

ahh, man, i'm floatin in the pharao's garten.

― LOUT of ICHOR (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:48 AM

I've only had PV on mp3 or CD and these records definitely sound great. I'm also enjoying the ritual of flipping them over and realizing the genius of the sequencing (which really is not the same on CD/mp3). Surprise hit (cymbal crash) has been Einsjager & Siebenjager, but Pharaos sounds way way way more amazing than I remember it (I don't listen to that one as much). They're all obvs great albums.

― sweat pea (La Lechera), Friday, October 18, 2013 9:55 PM

My favorite Popol Vuh is "In Den Garten Pharaos", which is transcendental without being overly new age and also a bit noisy and challenging on side B (reminds me a bit of Vibracathedral Orchestra!)

― Rombald, Wednesday, December 14, 2005 1:47 AM

Seconded!

Never heard of this before. xp

I voted for Vuh but really need to re-listen to that one, I'm less familiar with it than most of their other albums

Oohh controversy?

Cut this from my ballot last minute, fantastic album obv. "transcendental without being overly new age" nails it for me.

Never heard Popol Vuh before, can't imagine calling this ambient myself, but this is a laissez-faire poll and all.

Next: more proper new age coming up!

Deathprod, hooray! Rarely has staring into a black hole of despair been so enjoyable.

69. Constance Demby: Novus Magnificat - Through the Stargate (1986)
250 points, 4 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/VQw6Tfb.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GzIxlPS1r0

I like Thru the Stargate best, hoky title and everything. It's like a caffeinated Hosianna Mantra.

― simon diamond, Friday, July 22, 2005 11:07 PM

The space-sequencer-Bach that opens side two of Novus Magnificat: Through The Stargate is burned into my mind forever from hearing it in a Berkeley crystal shop in the late eighties; I only found out it was her when I started working through the Hearts of Space catalog again five years ago or so and it was hilarious and wonderful to find it again.

― Milton Parker, Thursday, July 3, 2014 4:15 AM

I was in what weould best be described as a dour mood this morning and decied to listen to this CD for the first time in my car. I live in a city that has the 5th worst traffic in America. Gridlock and its spirit crushing frustration are a way of life here and it shows in the populace. I often try to listen to ambient or classical music to calm my demeanor when driving. While some of the production is dated, specifically some of the swirling arppegiator effects, this is a piece of music that is truly worth the praise. I was aware of the album when it first appeared in the 80's as I began my exploration of electronic/space music but for some reason never purchased it. I'm glad now that I happened to come across it the other day in a CD store and picked it up on a whim. It's a cliche but this music, I think, was ahead of its time. Denby's classical training shows, but beyond that, this music is composed to stir an emotional/spiritual response in the listener. I can say that it succeeded with me this morning. As I neared the office I saw two large flocks of geese flying over the highway just as I was thinking to myself that this music inspires the urge to fly. It was a neat experience. Thank you Constance for composing an inspired piece of music. Even if you could help give one person some solace for a day wouldn't it be worth it? Certainly this is the contribution she has made to others who have discovered this music. I look forward to exploring some of the other works by this artist but for right now I can't wait for the ride home!

Anonymous, Amazon customer review

I remember someone mentioning Constance Demby on ILX 10 or so years ago, and I got interested, as I was just discovering new age music was much more than corny crystal and hippie mood stuff. I soon became a big fan, so thanks for whoever it was who recommended her! I do think that after the '80s her music gets more schmaltzy and closer to the new age stereotype I had in my head, but the seventies and eighties albums are still awe-inspiring, especially Novus Magnificat and Sacred Space Music.

So it's been nice to see how the recent hipster interest in new age has made a whole new crowd discover Demby, she deserves that.

her track on the "I Am The Center" comp is fantastic as well

I don't have that comp, but I think the track is from her first album, Skies Above Skies? That's a dope record too.

I became aware of Demby through that same comp. it’s a standout even among many other excellent tracks on it

I like this Demby record a lot, but it's full-on maximalist neoclassical-on-synths in my ears though.

Agreed with you, Siegbran.

they used to play Demby at my old place of work sometimes. it was glorious.

68. Robert Rich & B. Lustmord: Stalker (1995)
253 points, 4 votes, 1 first place vote.

https://i.imgur.com/7dv2lPd.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo6mQiyjqC8

The Rich/Lustmord 'Stalker' album is dark and creepy and great

― FCussen (Burger), Thursday, July 10, 2003 5:54

I'm a sucker for Stalker as well. But she and Lustmord are getting at very different states in their music. Demby's all through-composed symphonic religious light, Lustmord is mostly dark textural isolationist industrial drone.

― Milton Parker, Thursday, July 3, 2014 4:15 AM

'stalker' was the first i heard and it's one of those, 'oh shit this is perfect' albums for me

― The Prices are .......... VERY AFFORDABLE!!! (omar little), Wednesday, March 18, 2009 9:38 PM

66. (tie) Stuart Dempster: Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel (1995)
264 points, 4 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/P7PRYuQ.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tvMp4XDICU

& one last recommendation if you like 'Deep Listening': seek out Stuart Dempster's 'Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel', where he returns to the water cistern with 9 other trombone students following his lead, mirroring his notes. From the 'Deep Listening' record you can pretty much imagine what this one sounds like.

― (Jon L), Sunday, June 27, 2004 3:43 AM

wow thanks for reminding me about stuart dempster. i really dig 'underground overlays', and i agree that calling him 'new age' is a stretch.

i saw him talk with ramon sender, morton subotnick, and don buchla (inventor of the buchla box- he even brought it along!), among others, when the book about the san francisco tape music center came out a few months back. i guess dempster played trumpet tones in the broadway tunnel as a part of sender, ken dewey, and anthony martin's "city scale" piece/installation in 1963. i guess the piece required audience members to be shuttled around town to experience things like said tunnel, a woman in a storefront window singing debussy, a 'book returning' ceremony at city lights, light projections on to the side of a wells fargo, and a lot more as depicted in the super abstract score in the book

― all-seeing eye of horus (psychgawsple), Friday, January 9, 2009 9:26 AM

stuart dempster is great for the deep cistern listening

― terry lennox. (gareth), Friday, February 24, 2006 4:41 PM

five star ambient record, ten trombones recorded in two million-gallon underground water reservoir with 45 seconds of natural reverb.

― milton parker (Jon L), Friday, April 15, 2005 9:17 AM

great that Demby and Lustmord ended up next to each other in the poll

TS: Constance Demby vs. Lustmord

66. (tie) Earth: Earth 2 - Special Low Frequency Version (1993)
264 points, 4 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/hsKhlFz.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOUbZJbkHNw

It's 2. I mean Hex sounds great on first listen and I sure the other post-hiatus stuff is worthwhile, but 2 is just an incredible listen.

― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Friday, July 17, 2009 11:24 PM

I remember hearing Earth 2 when it came out and but I decided against buying it because it didn't sit well with the short-attention span I had at the time.

Just picked up a used copy on a whim and damn, it's pretty awesome. "Like Gold and Faceted" has got to be their ultimate song, I can't imagine that they surpassed this half-hour-long epic drone. Should I bother with any of their other records?

― Joseph Pot (STINKOR™), Monday, August 16, 2004 4:59 AM

i ended up voting for Earth 2 -- even though some of the later stuff is more pleasant to listen to, Earth 2 is so monumental and amazing ... Dunno, it'd be like voting against the Grand Canyon or something.

― tylerw, Wednesday, July 29, 2009 2:13 AM

"Earth 2" comes next. And it's even better (if only 'cuz it's longer). Totally fucking gorgeous, smeary, ecstatic drug drone. Absolutely natural and essential. Like if you gave a pineal gland a guitar, this is the record that gland would make. If, you know, it had hands or something... Yeah, sure, you could accurately describe it as the grunge version of some miserable new-age "cosmic tones" bullshit, but it transcends any labels you stick on it. The sound of the universe breathing. My favorite record of '93, and a top-ten contender ever since.

― fuckfuckingfuckedfucker (fuckfuckingfuckedfucker), Thursday, June 29, 2006 3:25 PM

great that Demby and Lustmord ended up next to each other in the poll

TS: Constance Demby vs. Lustmord

― Milton Parker, Tuesday, June 25, 2019 10:20 PM

Yes, and I got to quote the same post by you from that thread with both albums. :)

Stalker way, way, way too low.

I listened to 10 minutes of "Earth 2" while searching for the image and quotes, and, er, is the whole album just 73 minutes of heavy metal guitar riffing? Can't say this is my thing at all.

Pretty much, yeah. I enjoy drone metal but I don't really get Earth.

Anyway, that was the last entry for today, I'll continue the countdown tomorrow.

thank you Tuomas!

some of the better later records also recorded in the Port Townsend Deep Listening cistern

https://www.discogs.com/Doublends-Vert-Cistern/master/359070
https://www.amazon.com/Harmonic-Voice-Seattle-Voices/dp/B001PZ46EA
https://www.discogs.com/Open-Graves-Somewhere-Beyond-or-Behind/release/13072661

https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/cistern-chapel/

^^ cool this article also mentions the Tank in Colorado, want to visit that place sometime

Thanks for posting that article, it was interesting read... That cistern sounds like an awesome place.

hopefully another album recorded in that cistern is gonna appear later...

65. Gigi Masin: Talk to the Sea (2014)
264 points, 6 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/RFWun9a.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAHjMWEb9y8

listened to most of these while driving around tuscany last week, confirming that nu-balearic is the greatest driving music.

gigi masin's vocal stuff scratches a wonderful david sylvian itch

― max, 2. kesäkuuta 2014 0:15

I'm tight with the Juno Plus list of best reissues. Also agreeing with their comment re Gigi Masin's Talk To The Sea

wasn’t just the best reissue project of the year – it was better than most albums of new music released in 2014

― doug watson, 3. joulukuuta 2014 18:17

Huh, I skimmed this Gigi Masin album earlier in the year, but I'm only just now discovering there are some vocals. Makes it better imo.

― Johnny Fever, 27. tammikuuta 2015 20:51

talk to the sea is a retrospective compilation and mr. masin has been working since the 80s (including a collab with charles hayward [this heat] which my bf pointed out as a huge charles hayward fan). as someone who listens to a lot of ambient-ish music i thought this was pretty special and a cut above, with more varied instrumentation including like the best-sounding digital synthesis ever and great cale-esque vox on some tracks. the vibes are kind of perfect for 2014 era balearic. i'm sort of over stars of the lid and certain guitar treatments, personally.

― languagelessness (mattresslessness), 27. tammikuuta 2015 20:57

64. David Sylvian / Holger Czukay: Flux + Mutability (1989)
265 points, 5 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/4rS3fB3.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_E-lg2M5gQ

the second one, 'flux and mutability', made more sense on vinyl, two seperate pieces, one a mellow saunter, the other a sound wall made of sylvian's fripp-cribbed "I am sad now" guitar tones, is good.

― (Jon L), 23. toukokuuta 2004 0:33

Flux + Mutability is my favorite of the Sylvian ambient albums, if only for the second track. I don't think it would sound out of place on Eno's Apollo, and imo it bests a lot of the material on that album.

― I like tv random anything (corey), 30. heinäkuuta 2010 7:45

Today, Grönland Records are proud to announce the reissue of one of ambient music's hidden gems, by two unique musicians whose paths originally crossed in the early-eighties while working on Sylvian’s debut solo album, 'Brilliant Trees'. In 1986, David Sylvian - of British Art-Pop band Japan - and Holger Czukay - founding member and bassist in legendary German Kosmiche band Can - were ostensibly reconvening for Sylvian to record a vocal for Czukay's forthcoming album 'Rome Remains Rome’. But on arriving at Czukay's studio - a former cinema in Köln - Sylvian began playing freeform, improvising on readily available instruments located in the studio itself. No sooner had Sylvian, on whatever instrument he’d been applying himself, start to structurally define/refine the performance than Czukay would stop the recording he’d surreptitiously been making. Czukay had attempted to capture the process of creation without a musician's inclination for refinement. This process, drawn out over two nights, gave birth to the duo's first, full-fledged, collaboration, 'Plight and Premonition'.

Having been out of print for some time, the parallels between the original release 30 years ago and now are quite stark; at the time of recording the Cold War was lifting - but still very real - after a bitter winter. The names "Plight & Premonition" and "Flux & Mutability" themselves hint at an instability. In Sylvian's words, the sessions seemed to touch on something: “A form of music that seemed to have been created while we were absent by instruments abandoned to the earth and the woods, sounded by the coarse winter elements.”

(text by the man, Sylvian, himself, via fb)

― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), 25. huhtikuuta 2018 21:27

gigi masin can do no wrong. nice one-two there

63. Boris: Flood (2000)
267 points, 4 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/z8Szs1k.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZDstZ1-EAI

It's a shame you guys didn't get Boris doing a 40 min of Flood like we got in Glasgow last year. That was mindblowing.

― Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, July 2, 2008 2:54 AM

Flood is monumental...a lot to digest (hence the Boringus tag) but the patience is definitely rewarded.

― demons a. real (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, August 12, 2010 5:13

In spite of all the hype, Boris seems like the real obvious answer here - esp on the dreamy, epic stuff like Flood.

― Bob Standard, Saturday, September 8, 2007 1:36 AM

Yes, from what I have read they were an Earth tribute band but quickly evolved into sth... uh... original.

Oh yeah? I always figured their name was a ref. to the Melvins track.

Feedbacker is indeed awesome. Have you heard Flood? Similar strcture but with less harshness.

― original bgm, Friday, February 11, 2005 4:53 PM

Probably the only album to place both in this poll and the ILX all-time metal albums poll?

Love Flux + Mutability, I didn't know they'd re-released it on CD with Plight and Premonition added! That is a must-buy.

62. Loscil: Plume (2006)
268 points, 3 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/3NqG7Xl.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxIlV2iOCyc

i only have Plume and i love it, i have no idea why i haven't gotten hold of more. it reminds me of other acts but he nails the sound just right.

― footballer of the future (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, October 16, 2013 1:50

Plume was my entry point and always my favorite. Listened to some Loscil this morning and read a few old Pitchfork reviews. I guess Plume isn't generally thought of as a high point, but whatever.

― beard papa, Wednesday, June 12, 2019 8:07 PM

Adding variation to loscil's loop-based work is the inclusion of real-time instruments alongside layers of computer generated pulse. By adding vibes, Ebow guitar and Rhodes piano to his pieces, loscil augments his mechanically intricate rhythmic cycles with an interesting spontaneity. Interleaving patterns comprised of odd clicks and bumps each spin at different ratios synchronized to a master clock. The virtual wheels and gears of loscil's motif engine crank out a heady-gentle machine music.

[/url=https://www.starsend.org/Plume.html]Chuck van Syl, Star's End[/url]

Another perhaps controversial album coming up next...

man I just don't get Loscil, I guess I need to try again

bottom-of-the-barrel generic Kranky act to my ears

yeah I'm kinda mad too

Can't quite recall what Loscil sounds like, although it certainly wasn't unpleasant…

some bvdub comin' up next I guess

Huh! Didn't think Boris would make it, but I'm pretty out of the ILM loop nowadays.

so far pretty much all the results are a long way from anything I would call ambient, but hey, lots of new stuff to check out

61. Oval: 94diskont. (1995)
273 points, 5 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/n8A1WTG.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn8mxzDYdbE

Autechre were heroes to most
But they never meant shit to me you see

OVAL LUV 4-EVAH!!

(mothafuck Autechre and John Wayne)

― Keiko, Tuesday, May 21, 2002 3:00 AM

'Diskont' is still my fave - was there anything that sounded like Oval before Oval?

I think they're one of the greatest 'groups' of the last 20 years.

― Andrew L, Wednesday, May 22, 2002 3:00 AM

'94 diskont' and 'Systemisch' are the two I've played most. Beautiful shifting melodies adrift amidst all that digital debris.

― stevo, Wednesday, May 22, 2002 3:00 AM

voted for 94diskont cos i've listened to that and 'systemisch' a lot lately and they're both great, they're ever so vaguely related in my mind to the later mozart piano concertos in their formal invention and ~usually~ good natured but unsaccharine temperament

― nakhchivan, Friday, May 7, 2010 10:11 PM

i like the "is this really ambient tho" stuff placing in the lower reaches of the poll. Puts a finer point on it as we get to the top, I'm assuming

the Sylvian/Czukay album is great

lol Boris?

60. Alio Die: Aura seminalis (2008)
280 points, 4 votes, 1 first place vote.

https://i.imgur.com/fUgCzHJ.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBBVt0opjtE

i had never heard of Alio Die and am totally smitten with Aura Seminalis, whoever nominated it I kiss you.

― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, June 14, 2019 11:19 PM

I played F. Hazel's rec, Alio Die's 'Aura Seminalis' tonight. Blissful. So good. (reminded me of Polish neo-classical/ambient dude Jacaszek, check him out).

― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, June 18, 2019 12:44 AM

The ancient melodies and styles of early music, it turns out, lend themselves particularly well to ambient, and Alio Die clearly knows exactly what to do with them, combining ambient electronic textures with field recordings and early music samples in beautifully textured looped pieces. The effect on the listener is very interesting. I’ve got a lot of early music in my collection, and as I noted in my previous post, one of the pleasures of this kind of music is being transported back in one’s imagination several hundred years to a very different, more natural world. Since a lot of early music is liturgical, that means visions of monastic courtyards and gardens, which is about as tranquil a vision as one can have. Combined and looped with ethereal ambient sound art, that effect is only enhanced to a hypnotically soporific level. And there are hardly any ambient musicians who can spirit me off to my spacy happy place like Alio Die does on these recordings.

Make Your Own Taste

That was not the Alio Die album I voted for, but it's still gorgeous, and I'm glad he made it to the top 100. Dude has put out something like a hundred albums, and every one of them that I've heard has been at least good if not great.

all I have is a 7" EP on the Drone label, excited to check these out and I had no idea there was so much

i gave diskont94 a bunch of points. i wouldn't call most of the oval i've heard "ambient", but to me diskont is very very ambient. the track could be 10x as long and it would have a similar effect

59. Ryuichi Sakamoto: Async (2017)
280 points, 6 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/AZvC2L3.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xhmVueRtLs

Got the new one, and currently on a second listen.

In short, it's fab. Yes, it's ambient/glitch (which may disappoint a few upthread) but with a much less austere tonal palette than the collaboration records (where he was basically adding piano ornaments to other people's dronescapes, not that there's anything wrong with that). It's low key but colourful - lurrrrvely Prophet 5 chords on Zure, for example. And the odd melodic flourish that'll make you well up a bit in places too.

Will see how it plays out over subsequent listens, but I'm loving it so far. What with the Revenant soundtrack being his best OST in years, his post-illness return to work on such stellar form is an inspiring thing to behold.

― bamboohouses, Monday, April 3, 2017 8:24 PM

i really like the combination of introspective, lyrical piano pieces with sound art tracks on async.

― Alex in Spree-Athen (alex in mainhattan), Monday, May 8, 2017 1:15 PM

while aysnc just breezed by like a cool autumn day on the first few listens, I've recently returned to it and found it to be a stunner. I thought his previous solo album Out of Noise was kind of boring but I really like the "14 flavors of ambient" thing going on here, not to mention how the title/theme "async" manifests itself in several ways. I wish it was a bit more melodic but only because the actual melodies on here are absolutely gorgeous. I like the plinky plonky stuff. Reminds me a bit of The Ship by Eno, not in any thematic way but rather how the openness and sense of space lets you hear the compositions in a number of ways.

― frogbs, Tuesday, May 8, 2018 6:01 PM