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

15. Steve Roach: Structures from Silence (1984)
584 points, 9 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/r22jFrG.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsIjyJvhR9A

80's high point = Structures From Silence which is sort of everything that was good about new age -- if the digital synth textures sometimes seem a little simple, they really can be calming. I hated this stuff as a teenager in the 80's compared to trickier darker industrial or classic ambient or the more detailed textures of the Eno records, but this record's aged well. after his earlier sequencer-based albums that did a good job mining the post-Tangerine Dream lots, this was the transitional one where he turned off all the rhythms and went for duration, the last track is 30 minutes and I often just leave that one looping

― Milton Parker, Wednesday, May 23, 2007 11:09 AM

I bought Structures From Silence today on iTunes -- I'm a huge sucker for endlessly shifting analog pads. Sounds to me based on the articles I've read the last few weeks that the guy is an Oberheim Xpander ninja of sorts -- this record would seem to be evidence of that.

― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, June 2, 2013 7:11 AM

absolutely the best music for driving around in southern california thinkin about your LIFE. for real. not bad for doing so in other states either but A+++ for doin this in california.

― Twink Will Ferrell (J0hn D.), Wednesday, March 31, 2010 4:08 AM

The opening “Reflections in Suspension” lives up to both its name and that of the album’s, slowly emerging from deep quiet only to again fade away, a pattern repeated on the other two original tracks. While this itself is a common enough pattern in the field, it’s the arrangement’s focus that calls attention here, pared down and extremely deliberate. It’s almost shocking to hear something so deceptively simple take shape, a soft, very slow lead melody of sorts in a steady loop while deeper layers of sound sometimes wash up like a just-on-the-horizon slow wave waiting to come in. Structure over silence indeed, but also suspension as tension, a surface beauty that suggests potentially dark as well as vast depths.

Ned Raggett, Wondering Sound

14. Harold Budd / Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois: The Pearl (1984)
597 points, 11 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/D3ifNdC.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-iZHrE1S8

The Plateaux Of Mirror (1980) / The Pearl (1984) - Credited to Budd & Eno. The quintessential Budd albums. "The Pearl" takes the "Plateaux" sound and places them within deep, shimmering Eno landscapes.

― Hideous Lump, Thursday, May 20, 2010 5:21 AM

I've been listening to a ton of The Pearl of late and trying to suck up everything I can about how Eno and Lanois did it.

― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, October 13, 2012 3:57 AM

The Pearl - Eno Budd came out in 1984. That's the album I've literally heard the most, as it was the "everybody go to sleep now" album when my kids were little. But I would often stay awake for the whole thing, hundreds of repetitions in - it's a unified composition, not just soothing sounds.

― Vic Perry, Saturday, July 14, 2012 8:12 PM

I'm vaguely anxious about something but I'm not sure exactly what. Also my back hurts -- the upper part, below the neck and between the shoulder blades.

Drinking tea; about to put on Harold Budd & Brian Eno's The Pearl.

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, April 10, 2004 9:32 AM

The next entry might be disappointingly low for some of you.

I love that Steve Roach album

The next three entries, actually.

:o

13. Global Communication: 76 14 (1994)
606 points, 9 votes, 1 first place vote.

https://i.imgur.com/vgZDyr4.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7-PD2oBvyY

Not to get all Kraftwerkian here, but 76:14 and the Chapterhouse remixes have soundtracked my last three bike rides. And it's not because of any silly ambient-elecrtronic-to-pump-you-up nonsense, but it's that I fucking love these albums but I have to listen to them all the way through start to finish. I cannot bail-out midway through. Almost like a classical piece I suppose.

― Elvis Telecom, Friday, January 24, 2014 11:38 AM

i must have slept to this album 7614 times by now.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, December 8, 2005 6:32 PM

can someone tell me about more moments in music like the moment 10:02 into 14:31, that might be the most sonorous moment i've heard in all my ambient listenings

― dyao know what i mean (acoleuthic), Saturday, December 19, 2009 3:31 AM

that track has healing properties for real

― jabba hands, Saturday, December 19, 2009 3:45 AM

76:14 used to be my going-to-bed-on-a-comedown music. Perfect apart from the ticking clock, which used to freak out my wife.

― Get wolves (DL), Thursday, July 26, 2012 4:01 PM

that album ended up pretty low on my ballot because as a whole it has too many beats, but "4:14" is one of my all time favs

side a of discreet music is my religion

ah, the soundtrack of computer graphics demos

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Monday, July 1, 2019 9:54 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You say this like it's a bad thing!

Would've thought 'The Pearl' was a lock for the top ten.

assumed both Structures from Silence AND the Pearl would be top ten!

12. The Orb: The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (1991)
613 points, 9 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/Nfy3Qcd.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwPZu4ECwnw

Spanish Castles In Space!

That is all this record needs. I could listen to it for 72 days.

And the rest... classic!

BTW, it took me 10 years or so to realize that the samples saying "Hello you're on the air" and "I've been waiting for music like this all my life" are taken from a Sex Pistols radio interview on the Some Product album

Which of course makes this even more classic. Disc 1 is maybe the best comedown record ever made.

― sleeve (sleeve), Monday, May 1, 2006 6:40 PM

Would still be CLASSIC even if it hadn't been totally imprinted on my head by so many nights of spiritual/psychic voyage in high school and college. One of the ultimate soundtracks to any extracirricular activites you may be up to. Also, sounds strangely undated to my ears, but again, I'm probably not the best judge of those things.

CLASSICK, CLASSIQUE, PURE CLASS

Also, amazingly after all these years I'm still not the slightest bit tired of Rickie Lee's mantras. "they ran on forever...."

― rentboy (rentboy), Monday, May 1, 2006 2:35 PM

My first exposure to this album ca. 1991 was actually the Peel Sessions. I have vivid memories of listening to this in my childhood bedroom that summer while trying to get to sleep – I was a bit struck by how crude the sampling sounded on "Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain" (probably aided by the bitonal addition of the "Lovin' You" sample) and completely smitten by the funky drummer on that mix of "Back Side of the Moon."

― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, December 30, 2016 7:04 AM

I remember almost to the day in 1991 when my girlfriend was telling me about this amazing music she had heard at a party, I had read about the album and I asked "did it sound like "Music For Airports" mixed with techno?" "YES!!!" she replied.

This still holds up so well...

― sleeve, Saturday, April 30, 2011 1:51 AM

Great timing, I pulled out this album last week. It's one of the few that I used to put on and stare at the ceiling and wonder what I should do with my life. I think it's probably time to listen to it some more.

― mike h. (mike h.), Monday, May 1, 2006 9:40 PM

Sleeve <3

like, Structures from Silence should be top three

haha thank you for the pull quotes, I was gonna weigh in on the source of those voice samples

For reasons I still can't quite fathom, I didn't trust Steve Roach for years*. I 'got' him via the Desert Collection stuff and everything else has fallen into place. Structures From Silence is magnificent.

*it might have been the mullet.

really weird to click on a thread I haven't been following to see something I said in 2006!

guess it is once again time to venture beyond the ultraworld

you should see Vangelis these days, he's majestic as fuck

guess it is once again time to venture beyond the ultraworld

it's so hard to leave ultraworld, is the problem

11. The KLF: Chill Out (1990)
614 points, 9 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/c7ffEk3.png?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTYaAy64hgQ

They were funny and subversive, they made a joyous cultureclash single with Tammy Wynette, a wonderful album in The White Room, and the best chillout album ever, Chill Out. Add the hilarious early sampling extravaganzas and the dumb gesture of burning £1m, and how can you not adore them?

― Martin Skidmore, Saturday, February 23, 2002 3:00 AM

From a certain perspective, sure, it could be monotonous/pretentious/boring/whatever... but personally, it's so much more. Blame my suburban Midwestern upbringing, but it so perfectly evokes those aimless, nocturnal, frost-covered 20MPH drives through rural subdivisions, all AM radio crosstalking, songs bubbling in and out of the mix. Whether it's a high-concept gag or a genuine evocation of such things, it hardly matters. It's a beautiful, timeless record.

― Myke. (Myke Weiskopf), Saturday, August 26, 2006 5:06 AM

Is it a good starting point? Well for post rave chill out music, Yes. So much which followed on uses the techniques on chill out, but as usual without the wit and wry inventiveness.

Is it a good starting point for the KLF? A qualified yes, as it's rather atypical of their work which tends to be rather more frenetic.

― Billy Dods, Thursday, March 7, 2002 3:00 AM

listening to this album is like having a staring contest with god
and winning
and driving off into the night

**

i'm not gonna front, though. i only heard this album for the first time, like, a week ago. my life has changed. my life is 1000x better.

― andi, Saturday, August 25, 2007 9:59 AM

it's great for driving late at night though... i've even listened to it while driving along the route it describes in the track listing! of course the album ends way before the trip does.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Saturday, October 22, 2005 8:47 AM

Kinda funny to see these three albums back-to-back, I assume a lot of people (myself included) expected them to be in the top 10. But as someone said upthread, this branch of ambient music hasn't been very fashionable for a while.

Anyway, that's all for today, will post the top 10 tomorrow. Feel free to speculate!

booooo

voted for both those last two. Chill Out is still sort of a perfect album to me so I rated it higher. Love Ultraworld too but there are some bits on that album that haven't exactly held up...that said, a surprising amount of it does. pretty impressive considering it's nearly 30 years old by now!!

The Pearl: TOO LOW.

I thought Playthroughs was a lock so what do I know.

On Land
No Pussyfooting
SOTL
Basinski
SAW II

and Music For Airports

and Pop

maybe the Eyvind Kang album?

No Pussyfooting already appeared, at the 44th spot.

I more or less expect SAWII to be top five but somehow it feels ~wrong~ for that album to be in a top five ambient all time thingy? (I love it but didn't vote for it, it's not an ambient album at all, for me)

didn't vote but i'm going to see Steve Roach play in August, he's doing the legacy album thing and playing Dreamtime Return.

One thing I've found interesting is how much Eno there is in the poll... Sure, he's the codifier of the entire genre, but would a top 100 funk albums poll have 20 James Brown records on the list? Possibly?

I'd love the Eyvind Kang record to be there. Feels too niche, like.

October Language?

Sounds like a dare. xp

Eno did so many great collabs with other important ambient dudes, so his footprint is probably bigger than it would be if he'd only worked on his own.

So did Namlook, and he's almost invisible in this poll.

LBI please explain SAWII not being ambient for you?? I won't argue, I'm just fascinated.

apollo gotta be top 10 as well

i think saw2 will be #1

agreed, I can see it being a rout

I'm counting three Enos in the top ten and two SoTL. At least one Biosphere. Basinski. SAWII. And at least one album that will surprise me, apparently.

Holding out for Enya Watermark.

Hoping for another Harold Budd, maybe ‘Lovely Thunder’, possibly a bit niche also Paul Horn’s ‘Inside the Great Pyramid’.

One thing I've found interesting is how much Eno there is in the poll... Sure, he's the codifier of the entire genre, but would a top 100 funk albums poll have 20 James Brown records on the list? Possibly?

― Tuomas, Monday, July 1, 2019 10:56 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Probably, yes? Though I assume Funkadelic/Parliament would rack up the votes, too.

There are so many branches growing out of the ambient stem. 'Lifeforms' to me feels more like 'psychedelic chillout' than ambient per se (and I did vote for it). Max Richter's 'Sleep' is pure neo-classical (w/ strong religious imagery). They owe to ambient for sure, but is it ambient on it's own? I don't know. But I do think they deserve to be here. Eno isn't the be all and end all, we might as well just have ranked Eno's ambient albums here. Fact is that a lot of stuff has grown out of what was initially a rather singular definition of ambient. Such is the beauty of a genre evolving imo.

So did Namlook, and he's almost invisible in this poll.

― Tuomas

He's the only artist I allowed multiple (3) releases of on my ballot, but alas...

A tad disappointed (but not really that surprised) by the almost complete absence of the darker side of ambient in these results, save for that one Deathprod album.

Stalker was in there too

LBI please explain SAWII not being ambient for you?? I won't argue, I'm just fascinated.

― but everybody calls me, (lukas), Monday, July 1, 2019 11:06 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I do really love SAWII, but it's always felt like "Aphex doing his best imitation of ambient music" to me, instead of being genuine ambient music? It feels very song-oriented; or rather, vignettes or templates of ambient music. Yet not the real thing. What I appreciate about it is his audacity to play with ambient music and get away with it, but it still feels like he's pulling my leg. On a more mundane yet equally important level: it sounds fucking great, but it will never cease to sound like a copy of ambient music to me, a replica. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever, and I play it more than half I voted for, but that's why I couldn't bring myself to vote for it.

I guess Namlook's lack of poll success is also because he released over 200 albums, with limited printings of 300/500/1000/2000 copies? Whereas Eno has less albums, and they've been easier to find?

LBI: thank you I feel exactly the same about Aphex-doing-ambient. Aphex as IDM I have a lot more time for.

SAW II is a hell of a lot more ambient that SAW, though