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

Nice.

:D

LOL

I feel like such an amateur ambient cop after LBI’s rejection of SAWII

― brimstead, Tuesday, July 2, 2019 7:05 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

We're all amateur cops in the greater realm that is ambient.

I'm the blade runner of ambient

Tbf Oxygène and Équinoxe deserve to be on this list as much if not more than [redacted].

hahaha, and by 2 points it takes the #1 spot

That Silent Hill 2 soundtrack is excellent btw, but the pieces are all these short vignettes that manage to instantly set a certain mood. Not at all the kind of long-form meditative ambient that people tend to look for in album-length music.

We're all amateur cops in the greater realm that is ambient.

in this realm, the police show up and their sirens just make really deep
"wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom" noises that gradually become embedded in the surrounding environment

Armed with Buddha Machines instead of tasers.

ambient cops never do anything, they just park under a freeway and listen to radio dispatches at low volume

hey I'm on my break, cut me some slack

ambient police: never on the beat

They were on my tail once but then it started raining and they blended into their environment and I got away

xp Excellent

I can't tell if this is a joke or not.

that means it's a perfect ambient joke

ambient police: "FREEZE! and stay frozen. now everyone, just breathe and listen for a while."

I can’t tell if it’s music or not

ambient house police at the beatless ambient crime scene are like when the sheriff's department shows up to a police crime scene and things are awkward

So which ambient album best spells 'fuck tha ambient police'?

look folks Jean Michel Jarre has contributed more to the field of electronic music than Aphex Twin ever could so your "LOLs" are inappropriate here

^^ the ambient copper is right

the LOL is that SAWII didn't even place, I dig JMJ

you have the right to remain silent, but I don't need to tell you that

Part of the reason I liked Afx when I first heard his stuff is because I was weaned on J-M Jarre so: frogbs otm.

if you cannot afford album cover art featuring star fields, cities at night, or color gradients, one will be provided for you by youtube uploaders

SAWII more like SWATII amirite?

I'm sorry, folks, it seems I've made a miscalculation. :( "Waiting for Cousteau" is not actually #1 in the poll, in fact it didn't receive any votes at all. I'll post the correct result in a jiffy.

shocked that Soliloquy for Lilith didn't place

I went back on forth on that one but I think I ended up voting for it

1. Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994)
1745 points, 22 votes, 4 first place votes.

https://i.imgur.com/O6joZGg.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S8gf4S-1iI

This album.. Listening again for the first time in years and it's still fantastic. I'm definitely hearing things in this I never noticed back when.

― Fox Mulder, FYI (dog latin), Wednesday, November 15, 2017 12:32 PM

I have never found this record creepy. is wonder creepy? this record is too architectural to be creepy. it's like Shadow of the Colossus, or that Borges story where the guy finds the city of the immortals. it's the feeling of wandering around mysterious ruins, washed out by too-bright sunlight, knowing that there is no other human being within a hundred miles or a thousand years. there is a word for that feeling, but creepy is not that word.

― bernard snowy, Monday, July 16, 2007 6:23 AM

SAW II is gorgeous, terrifying, and mysterious. I automatically lose a glimmer of respect for someone when they dis' this record -- assholish I know, but I can't help it. It's not so much losing respect as it is just wondering if our brains all have the same parts and regions and stuff, because I cannot imagine not being moved by this album. The microtonality? the robot big-band hip-sashaying ambient boogie? yes, it's all there, and there's a lot more there, a whole world of light and shade, plush organic squish and hard gleaming inhuman shine, a record that plays the listener, scritching at the cerebral cortex, knotting neural pathways, whispering to our deepest fears -- aural, tactile fears we can never quite fully apprehend.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Wednesday, April 7, 2004 3:44 AM

This album works better when you sequence the songs in alphabetical order, from "Blue Calx" to "Z Twig." Gets less ambient and more out-there, and then "Z Twig" is the sound of waking up to a bright sunshiney morning.

― Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, November 15, 2017 4:24 PM

I hadn't realised that Apex had written linear notes for a few of the tracks on this site. About track 22 -

"Someone I used to know, you know who you are, worked as a cleaner in a police station and kindly pinched me a police interview tape. It was with a woman who murdered her husband, it's the background audio in this track."

― I am using your worlds, Wednesday, May 30, 2018 4:17 PM

also, as much as I love that Sabbath vol 4 won the metal poll, im fine with the pioneer not winning this one. SAW II is incredible. even today it continues to both freak me out and lull me to sleep.

I'm fine with this too.

Thanks to everyone for participating, it's been a fun poll, and I've discovered more great music than in any other ILX poll I can remember. Ambient 4eva!

Here's a link to the full results of the poll. I'm not one to do statistics etc., but feel free to do whatever you want with the score table:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OjnQmPnToMB_bK7cEHmlNx27IZRPX15jhjOUe23EZbM/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks, Tuomas!

would anybody mind posting the top 100 as text in a single post for my / our future reference ?

yes, thank you so much for putting this on. im going to sleep well for years thanks to this poll

yes thanks, I've already discovered like half a dozen great things I didn't know before

(tears up ambient tickets, opens the jails)

also thanks Tuomas !! -- i wasn't really here in any meaningful sense (didn't vote either) but i'm looking forward to returning here for recommendations etc.

Having made all the right choices, I'm on board with the ambient prison complex.

Thanks so much for a job wonderfully done Tuomas!

Indeed, thanks Tuomas!!

Thank you!

(hands out donut holes)

"Waiting for Cousteau" is not actually #1 in the poll, in fact it didn't receive any votes at all. I'll post the correct result in a jiffy.

I really feel like I failed here if even I didn't vote for it

Yeah, SAW II ranking notwithstanding, this list is nearly publication-quality, good work

106. FM3 - The Buddha Machine

Let's see if this works:

Artist	Album	Votes	#1 votes	Points
Aphex Twin	Selected Ambient Works Volume II	22	4	1745
Brian Eno	Ambient 4: On Land	18		1193
Brian Eno	Ambient 1: Music for Airports	18	1	1119
Stars of the Lid	The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid	12	1	795
Gas	Pop	13	1	771
Biosphere	Substrata	11		734
Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois & Roger Eno 	Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks	12		711
William Basinski	The Disintegration Loops	11		688
Laraaji	Ambient 3: Day of Radiance	11		642
Stars of the Lid	Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline	10	1	625
KLF, The	Chill Out	9		614
Orb, The	The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld	9		613
Global Communication	76:14	9	1	606
Harold Budd / Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois 	The Pearl	11		597
Steve Roach	Structures from Silence	9		584
Tangerine Dream	Phaedra	10		580
Brian Eno	Discreet Music	10		577
Manuel Göttsching	E2–E4	8		532
Pauline Oliveros / Stuart Dempster / Panaiotis	Deep Listening	8		515
Gas	Königsforst	7		486
Arthur Russell	World of Echo	7		459
Laurie Spiegel	The Expanding Universe	9		456
Oneohtrix Point Never	Rifts	8		445
Harold Budd / Brian Eno	Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror	6		424
Brian Eno	Thursday Afternoon	7		421
Hiroshi Yoshimura	Music for Nine Post Cards	6		410
Future Sound Of London, The	Lifeforms	8		406
Gas	Zauberberg	7		401
Autechre	NTS Session 4	6		398
Bohren & Der Club of Gore	Black Earth	8		395
David Hykes & The Harmonic Choir	Hearing Solar Winds	5		386
Various Artists	I Am the Center: Private Issue New Age Music in America, 1950–1990	8		382
Fripp & Eno	Evening Star 	8		380
Éliane Radigue	Trilogie de la mort	6		378
Caretaker, The	An Empty Bliss Beyond This World	7		373
Tangerine Dream	Zeit	7		367
Tim Hecker	Harmony in Ultraviolet	8		364
Susumu Yokota	Sakura	6		362
Harmonia & Eno '76	Tracks and Traces 	6		360
Vangelis	L'apocalypse des animaux	7		360
Miles Davis	In a Silent Way	5		343
Windy & Carl	Antarctica (The Bliss Out, Vol. 2)	8		341
Eluvium	Talk Amongst the Trees	6		340
Fripp & Eno	(No Pussyfooting)	8		337
Slowdive	Pygmalion	5		332
Winged Victory for the Sullen, A	Atomos	6		327
Dead Texan, The	The Dead Texan	6		326
Tim Hecker	Ravedeath, 1972	5	1	322
Jon Hassell / Brian Eno	Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics	5		309
Brian Eno	Music for Films	6		307
Harold Budd	The White Arcades	5		307
Autechre	Garbage	5		294
Iasos	Inter-Dimensional Music	6		294
Thomas Köner	Permafrost	7		289
Fennesz	Endless Summer	5		286
Chapterhouse / Global Communication	Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis 	6		285
Tetsu Inoue	World Receiver	6		285
Max Richter	Sleep	4	1	283
Alio Die	Aura seminalis	4	1	280
Ryuichi Sakamoto	Async	6		280
Oval	94diskont.	5		273
Loscil	Plume	3		268
Boris	Flood	4		267
David Sylvian / Holger Czukay	Flux + Mutability	5		265
Earth	Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version	4		264
Gigi Masin	Talk to the Sea	6		264
Stuart Dempster	Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel	4		264
Robert Rich & Lustmørd	Stalker	4	1	253
Constance Demby	Novus Magnificat: Through the Stargate	4		250
Popol Vuh	In den Gärten Pharaos 	5		247
n/a	Symphonies of the Planets 1: NASA Voyager Recordings	4	1	242
Deathprod	Morals and Dogma	4		236
Terekke	Improvisational Loops	4		236
Raymond Scott	Soothing Sounds for Baby Volume 1: 1 to 6 Months	4		234
Charlemagne Palestine	Strumming Music	3		233
Spacemen 3	Dreamweapon	4		231
Ian William Craig	A Turn of Breath	5		230
Vladislav Delay	Multila	5		230
Biosphere	Cirque	4		224
David Behrman	On the Other Ocean	4		223
Syntonic Research Inc.	Environments 2: Tintinnabulation (Special Low Frequency Version)	4		219
Woob	Woob 1194	4		219
Henry Flynt	You Are My Everlovin / Celestial Power	4		218
Justin Bieber	U Smile (800% Slower)	3		217
Windy & Carl	Depths 	4		217
Loscil	Endless Falls	3		216
Keith Fullerton Whitman	Playthroughs	4		215
Oneohtrix Point Never	Replica	3		212
Steve Roach	The Magnificent Void	4		207
Tod Dockstader	Aerial #1	4		207
Richard Skelton	Landings	4		205
Labradford	Fixed::Context	4		204
2814	新しい日の誕生	4		202
Meg Bowles	The Shimmering Land	3	1	202
Ekkehard Ehlers	Plays	4		201
Hiroshi Yoshimura	Green	3		201
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith	Tides	5		201
Hatchback	Zeus & Apollo	3		198
DeepChord presents Echospace	Liumin / Liumin Reduced	3		197

And here's my (weighted) ballot, I bolded the albums that didn't make it to the top 100:

1. Meg Bowles - The Shimmering Land
2. Shades of Orion - Shades of Orion 2
3. Lucette Bourdin - Radiant Stars
4. Éliane Radigue - Trilogie de la mort
5. Sheila Chandra - ABoneCroneDrone
6. Robert Rich - Somnium
7. Lucia Hwong - Secret Luminescence
8. Alio Die & Mariolina Zitta - La sala dei cristalli
9. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Tides
10. Geinoh Yamashirogum - 輪廻交響楽 Ecophony Rinne
11. Constance Demby - Novus Magnificat: Through the Stargate
12. Organic Cloud - Organic Cloud
13. Tetsu Inoue - World Receiver
14. Hildur Guðnadóttir - Saman
15. Baked Beans - Baked Beans
16. Lucette Bourdin - Nordic Waves, Vol. 2: Spring
17. DeepChord presents Echospace - Liumin / Liumin Reduced
18. Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe
19. Zalys - Sublime
20. Biosphere - Substrata
21. Éliane Radigue - Jetsun Mila
22. Natasha Barrett - Trade Winds
23. Move D / Namlook - XII: Space & Time
24. Iotronica - Of Moons and Stars
25. 2350 Broadway - 2350 Broadway 4
26. Alio Die & Sylvi Alli - Amidst the Circling Spires
27. Datacide - Flowerhead
28. France Jobin - Intrication
29. Gas - Königsforst
30. Syntonic Research Inc. - Environments 2: Tintinnabulation (Special Low Frequency Version)
31. Oliver Lieb - Inside Voices
32. Dreamfish - Dreamfish
33. Meg Bowles - Blue Cosmos
34. Biosphere - Departed Glories
35. Francisco López - La selva
36. Deborah Martin - Eye of the Wizard
37. Vangelis - Soil Festivities
38. Khan & Walker - Empire State Building
39. Ulla Straus - Big Room
40. Ishq - Orchid
41. Tetsu Inoue / Jonah Sharp - Instant Replay
42. Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Motion Sickness of Time Travel
43. Lorenzo Montanà - Phase IX
44. Lucia Hwong - Goddess Vol. 2: Celestial Realms
45. Silence - Silence V
46. Omni Vu Deity - Uvunayatu
47. Suzanne Ciani - Seven Waves
48. Minilogue - Blomma
49. Tangerine Dream - Zeit
50. Solar Quest - Orgship

Tuomas I'm so glad you dig that Datacide album! I love it.