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

That Pete Namlook died too young and Tetsu Inoue has disappeared off the face of the earth is obviously sad as it is, but the unfortunate side effect to that is that the Inoue/Namlook albums and his solo material for FAX are in a limbo, where no one can reissue them because Inoue can't be found to give permission to that. (Some other FAX artists have had their rights revert back to them, so in the last 2 or 3 years people like Biosphere and Klaus Schulze have reissued stuff they made for the label.) World Receiver is a great album obviously, but I do rate Inoue's FAX output even higher, and I feel the current state of its legacy has made those albums unnecessarily obscure, so they probably can't reach listeners who might otherwise enjoy them a lot.

I gotta go to sleep early tonight, so that's it for now. I'll try to roll out more albums tomorrow than I did today.

that is super interesting! i'd not heard some of the Namlook/Inoue stuff, really love it.

sleeve, here's a cut from Endless Falls that I love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdAgPn-HYao

(he's from Vancouver, BC, btw)

Btw, I hadn't heard of Loscil before, but I have enjoyed the two albums we've seen so far a lot, definitely one of the several nice discoveries I've made through this poll.

The pace is really good, Tuomas... you could even go a bit slower to let conversation about each placing go on a bit.

And I'll def. check out the Doubling Riders stuff, sleeve!

The pace is really good, Tuomas... you could even go a bit slower to let conversation about each placing go on a bit.

Yeah, I agree, but unfortunately due to work I can mostly post the entries within a 2 or 3 hour time window in the evening, Finnish time. But my summer vacation starts next week, so I can do the top 20 or 30 on Monday/Tuesday in a more relaxed pace. (I'll be taking a break from this on Saturday and Sunday because there's the local Pride plus my birthday party.)

So many good things. I didn't vote for Oval but it's a brilliant album. I'm not aware of the Global Communication (only know 76:14) so will check that out. The Tetsuo is glorious.

Which of his Fax stuff do you recommend Thomas?

I love the roll out so far - the pace is great.

Anyway, my "8 hour long soundtrack to sleeping" album vote went to Robert Rich's Somnium, which I think is better, and more ambient too, obviously.

I consider 76:14 a classic ambient release in my old-school fashion but couldn't vote for it because it's just too energetic overall... I love Pentamerous Metamorphosis though, surprised it didn't place much higher to be honest.

Which of his Fax stuff do you recommend Thomas?

Yeah, Pentamerous Metamorphosis is fantastic. Beta Phase probably my fave xp

Would also recommend this Loscil track from Plume for those who haven't heard him before

Top finds for me so far are Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Meg Bowles.

Looking forward to many more

I love Pentamerous Metamorphosis. I put three GC albums in my ballot. PM was the lowest ranked.

I'm the #1 vote for Sleep. It's everything I want an ambient album to be from a philosophical and execution perspective, and melodically it's immediate and memorable (to me). Monumental release.

Also feel Loscil is overrated a bit, but it's amazing ambient music. I think my considerations for ambient music include spacial fit and atmospheric context in addition to emotional connection when focusing on it directly. As a record you might listen to with intent and focus, it's certainly less engaging than what should be expected on most ballot polls, but as an atmospheric and spacial filler for background sound, Plume is quite brilliant.

An example of an ambient record that both fits in the foreground and background ridiculously well, see SAW II and Mountains' Centralia, both of whom I hope to see later on in this poll.

SAW II is a lock in for top 10 surely?

(And probably higher)

Funny, since I think I have a more liberal sense of what counts as ambient than others here (based on earlier discussions) - but as much as I love Loscil I did not vote for any of his records in this poll. I've always thought of him as a more chilled-out electronica artist. Perhaps I'm forever colored by Triple Point, which was more of a minimal techno record.

mmm this Richard Skelton is hitting the spot, thanks everyone

also holy fuck @ "you are my everlovin/celestial power" now I get why ppl are so into Henry Flynt (I took a couple of false steps)

David Behrman is also heartrendingly, achingly beautiful, def a Discreet Music vibe but with a side of No Pussyfooting and a chaser of electro-bleeps

so grateful to discover all this stuff

55. Fennesz: Endless Summer (2001)
286 points, 5 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/Pu2jh6o.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skygudx8Rrs

this is inspired by a comment someone made in the autechre thread regarding a friend who liked to listen to autechre during sex. i got to thinking about experimental laptop/abstract idm stuff and i realized that some of that music is actually quite sexy. case in point, fennesz' endless summer. it has the mbv-esque endorphin slur that makes it incredibly well-suited for intimate listening. i would recommend it. so, *rfi* SEXY laptop/glitch/abstract/minimal techno. otherwise tell stories about abstract music that you like to listen to when you're getting it on (and be honest).

― fields of salmon, 18. huhtikuuta 2002 3:00

head goes "Live in Japan" but heart goes "Endless Summer". I hadn't heard it, only read about it, before I bought it. I found it in a record shop in Barcelona, we came back to the apartment from a pre Sonar event a little wasted and I put it on. Amazing stuff. Still think about it being one of the best music discoveries of my lifetime.

― mmmm, 5. toukokuuta 2012 0:23

and i don't think of the beach boys when the phrase "endless summer" is mentioned... i'm instead reminded of a CLASSIC soundtrack to the 1966 bruce brown film by THE SANDELLS. I'd argue that the Fennesz title track "endless summer" borrows fairly heavily from the 2-chord strum of the sandell's "theme from endless summer"...

please bear in mind that i would never attempt to judge the quality of fennesz's music based on the cover art or title eitha... reductionists! listen to the music!

― gygax!, 6. marraskuuta 2002 0:49

Black Sea >>>>> Endless Summer

Hope it places

The other Behrmann I absolutely love is Leapday Night. I can't think why I didn't nominate it. Fucking weird old cover!

https://img.discogs.com/mJ_8dtJceY6SOaVtLbXv_0ErNH0=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-978862-1471213618-3295.png.jpg

Wow, what the heck are those arrow things? 😀

No idea! I've always had a 'blind pilot plays inexplicable boardgame before leaping to his doom' vibe from it.

Interspecies Smalltalk is great (closer to Terry Riley than a lot of his stuff but no worse for it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDC5AoBa7uM

54. Thomas Köner: Permafrost (1993)
289 points, 7 votes.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a7BU_kI7xQ

my favorite three are 'teimo', 'permafrost' and 'aubrite' (his 2nd, 3rd & 4th records), rolling quarter-speed gongs rolling into occasional layered fields, they all sit side by side really well, and any of them are a good starting point. I've played those records at night quite consistently over the last 5 years...

― jl (Jon L), 4. elokuuta 2003 7:59 Bookmark

thomas koner is good, perhaps a little bit simplistic and 'awed' in that biosphere way? very strong sense of place and emotional heft, certainly not nearly as agonized or ambiguous as 'on land'

― no love deb weep (nakhchivan), 16. helmikuuta 2015 21:15

the 3 disc thomas koner reissue that came out this year is so sick. coming from more of an industrial/techno background than much of the stuff in this thread, but it's about as dark and heavy as music gets

― lao gan ma (r1o natsume), 20. syyskuuta 2010 14:54

I love Endless Summer so much. god damn. one of the greatest things ever. 55 seems awfully low though

I, too, prefer Black Sea.

53. Autechre: Garbage (1995)
294 points, 5 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/9bHwLRs.jpg

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

Easily my favorite EP and I'd argue the first unimpeachably awesome Ae release. Love the cavernous ambient they're doing here, quality is solid to all-time.

― Ou sont les cankles d'antan? (Leee), 1. marraskuuta 2010 5:53

Yeah, this is probably their best EP. Autechre really should have made an entire album like this, too bad they never did.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, 1. marraskuuta 2010 14:03

i think some of their most interesting spaces are on this one. not really sure how to describe what i mean. i just get a feeling that there's a sort of an environment in each track that inhabits a defined physical space. or something...

― everything you do is a meatloaf (another al3x), 1. marraskuuta 2010 20:21

Love Garbage, when I was putting my ballot together, its ambient vibe just hit me in the right spot: mournful and beautiful.

― cichleee suite (Leee), 29. syyskuuta 2014 4:47

when hurricane charlie/frances came through my town and we were without power for a few days i had a burned copy of garbage ep and a portable cd player, and now associate that track with intense humidity and candlelight

― clouds, 3. lokakuuta 2014 21:31

really enjoying this rollout. I decided against submitting a ballot on the basis I didn't know enough True and Pure ambient but looks like that was silly of me

hell yeah Permafrost

52. Iasos: Inter-Dimensional Music (1975)
294 points, 6 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/2UJ0IJO.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDD29hW5Pj4

I wonder if Iasos was an influence on the mid-90s atmospheric jungle scene. If you took an LTJ Bukem Drum 'n' Bass record, then took out all the drums, and the bass, you'd be left with an Iasos record.

― 3×5, 16. helmikuuta 2015 21:51

oh yeah, iasos is fantastic. youtube has a 1979 documentary he did where he's a total sausalito space-hippie talking about third eyes and multidimensionality and stuff.

― lime pickle (get bent), 2. joulukuuta 2013 6:08

Inter-Dimensional Music Through Iasos from 1975 is mostly flute-heavy drifty modal jazz, with a few 5 or 6 minute all electronic tracks that foreshadow real space music, but I just discovered the followup Angelic Music originally released on cassette in 1978, and I can understand his reputation now, this is distinct from most of the analog synth / space music of the 70's & looks forward to the good aspects of later New Age like Michael Stearns & Steve Roach. It follows on from side 2 of Vangelis' L'Apocalypse Des Animaux, but with two 30 minute long tracks that give you time to go a little deeper. This is exactly what I remember almost any given episode of Music From The Hearts of Space sounding like in the 80's -- back then I was on the fence about the whole genre but it's catching up to me now with a vengeance

― Milton Parker, 8. tammikuuta 2009 22:01

iasos is still around and lives in marin i guess. i think he does more video-art type stuff nowadays, but he still produces crazy stuff like this

a friend of mine booked him to play in sf but ended up backing out when he claimed it'd take 2 days of prep to properly set up the show

― a lagoon par la mer (psychgawsple), 30. maaliskuuta 2011 21:47

That is a spectacular album there!

love the flutes, the nimbus-y pads, the lovely chords, the track that’s just the sound of a jacuzzi or boiling water or whatever...

wish I had picked that up when the original LP was a dollar bin staple, but hey I got the expanded Numero CD so it's all good

51. Harold Budd: The White Arcades (1988)
307 points, 5 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/C5CrHLO.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F1SRZpbiDk

I am quite enjoying The White Arcades of late. Of the records I know, it seems his most synthed out. Which despite his lovely piano playing is not an altogether bad thing.

― Naive Teen Idol, Monday, July 18, 2011 6:42 PM

On Lovely Thunder (1986) and The White Arcades (1988) Budd goes it mostly alone and applies some of the production lessons he learned from Eno with great finesse. On some tracks he also subtly expands is sonic palette. The 20-minute "Gypsy Violin" features long, sad phases on said instrument, bedded gently on a luminous drone that slowly morphs, rises and falls. On "Child With A Lion" and "Totem Of The Red Sleeved Warrior" he also puts the piano aside for playful synth improvisations on the former and a deeply haunting ghost choir on the latter.

Mike Watson, Ambient Music Guide

50. Brian Eno: Music for Films (1978)
307 points, 6 votes.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu0PcfX0nIM

But the melancholy Sparrowfall (3x) from Music for Films can put me to tears - what a beaut!

― Roger in Mokum (Roger T), Sunday, March 7, 2004 6:06 PM

I love the "Music for Films" album. Quite short, composed, impressionist pieces. I especially like the fact that those films which are described in the booklet do not exist. That makes the whole project even more charming.

― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Saturday, August 25, 2018 3:47 PM

Frankly, the best is probably On Land, but at this moment Music For Films, if only b/c the CS-80 textures are sublime and otherworldly.

― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, January 6, 2008 8:11 AM

having said that music for films is fucking great, probably underrated? and the one i have the deepest emotional connection with

― umsworth (emsworth), Thursday, April 19, 2018 2:25 AM

Never heard this album before, to me it sounds mostly like a bunch of flimsy and thin vignettes. Not much to delve into.

harsh but fair, I like this but did not vote for it

sleeve, so glad you're enjoying the Skelton, Flynt, and Behrman!!

For the former, it really is worth looking into his other records...particularly A Broken Consort's "The Shape Leaves," which is a lot more intense and LOUD than "Landings."

It certainly isn't "Everlovin'/Celestial Power," but if you like the Flynt and haven't heard the "Back Porch Hillbilly Blues" records, they're sort of...I don't know how to describe them, really, but there are some parts that verge on "country minimalism" and some parts that are quite "country acid trip and not that CCR bullshit," more "free" so to speak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQEio9qEMCw

49. Jon Hassell / Brian Eno Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics (1980)
309 points, 5 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/YbYGFo8.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFig-OiIwDo

Of the Hassell records proper I know, Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics basically sets the table for the rest of the decade: African and Latin percussion (some electronic), richly-textured synthesizer pads and sometimes ambient sounds, with Hassell's trumpet modally surveying the landscape, itself electronically altered.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, August 12, 2004 2:10 AM

A lot of times (at least on Fourth World Vol.1, which is the one I know best), Hassell sounds like a very abstract image of "eastern"-soundingness. I hesitate to say anything like this since it's so obvious, but it does kind of interest me. I don't know enough to say, but it doesn't seem like he's actually consistently following any modes here, but there are all of these little gestures that evoke eastern, modal, microtonal music. The way one thing follows another, in the long run anyway, doesn't sound to me like anything you'd hear in, say, Indian (not that I know much about it) or Arabic music; but momentarily it does. Sort of an organic sampling effect. At least, I think that's what's going on. Also, at times his horn sounds more like what would be done with a voice than with an instrument. Without question, this music is good preparation for hearing non-western music (not that that is it's only value--I do like it as it is).

(He has studied Indian classical music though hasn't he?)

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Friday, August 13, 2004 4:04 AM

The first time I heard Hassell was at 3am, 1985, on the radio... the previous show had just ended, the next DJ put on 'Charm' without any intro. Imagine listening to that piece for the first time without knowing how long it was going to last, always seemingly winding down and imperceptibly fading out, but then out of nowhere spiraling right back at you full force. I just sat there staring at the speakers for half an hour.

DJ never back announced the piece, either, I didn't find it again for another year...

― (Jon L), Friday, August 13, 2004 5:34 AM

And "Fourth World means: get yourself a world vocabulary; use it with subtlety and a keen sense of surprise; follow pleasure; trust your intuition (after you're sure you know what that is)."

I want to speak in parentheses...

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Saturday, August 14, 2004 8:19 AM

Never heard this album before either, in fact I've never had much interest in Eno and other older stuff like that. It does sound much better than the previous entry, though maybe the rhythms and especially the trumpet playing are too attention-grabbing for this to count as ambient?

these ritualistic tribal drums are mostly what makes it so good though.

Is there a Spotify playlist for the top 100?

I don't have a Spotify account, but obviously anyone else is free to compile such a list.

48. Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972 (2011)
322 points, 5 votes, 1 first place vote.

https://i.imgur.com/vKCZ5zY.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NkZVWXK5jM

'Ravedeath, 1972' is scratching me right where I itch. It somehow feels Hecker set out to make this his quintessential record. All his previous albums sort of flow into this one, combining his different approaches to sound/noise and melody. It's a very dark and threatening album (which is how I like Tim Hecker best).

― La descente infernale (Le Bateau Ivre), Friday, February 18, 2011 3:38 PM

the samples sound like they're in a similar vein to the "decaying music" of william basinski and the new version of the sinking of the titanic (an artist and a longform piece that i love).

― Daniel, Esq., Friday, February 18, 2011 3:45 PM

I didn't know of Hecker until last year, and Ravedeath/Pianos are pretty much always on in my house at the moment. Lovely, lovely music. Am working backwards through his other albums now.

― Not only dermatologists hate her (James Morrison), Tuesday, January 3, 2012 1:28

It's almost cliche, but many times of fallen asleep listening to Tim Hecker. Which is funny - sort of - because I'm pretty sure the last review I read of Ravedeath described it as "drone you can't sleep through" or something of that sort. Fucking nonsense. I'd play this to a kindergarten class.

― brodieopolari.... oh fuck it (kelpolaris), Saturday, May 21, 2011 7:38 AM

xx. The Dead Texan: The Dead Texan (2004)
326 points, 6 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/D8TBik4.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zebxXliFtg

I have been listening to The Dead Texan album all day and have not been able to do any work at all because it makes me think of wistful moments and fallen down broken glass towers and so I've been sketching all day instead. I love an album that's good to draw to.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Thursday, February 10, 2005 3:01 AM

I saw Dead Texan on Tuesday, quite by accident, as they were supporting Final Fantasy. What incredible sounding music! I bought the CD/DVD afterwards, I was so impressed.

― Paranoid Spice (kate), Wednesday, October 26, 2005 10:45 AM

I know even less about the origins of this record, other than it is a side-project from Adam Wiltzie of Stars Of The Lid. Again I got this on a Kranky splurge. It has more of a classically ambient sound than the bulk of SOTL’s dronelike material, it’s very beautiful and restive, a little like Eno or Budd in places. Actually it’s probably a lot more like how Stars sound nowadays.

― disastrous sixth series (MaresNest), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:03

finally listened to the dead texan album - very simple 2 chord progressions with lovely deep bass floating in and out and understated melodies on top. definitely a keeper for me

― nonightsweats, Sunday, July 4, 2010 1:13 AM

Sorry, the placing for that is 47, obviously.

I’m surprised that 1194 placed so low, but I guess my ballot is refracted through a late 90s rave prism, which these results mostly aren’t so far.