Ambient Recommendations

ohhhhhhhhh ok shit sorry KM

I gotta say i’m not really into the mallet ambient stuff or clean cleansing ambient or overly healing crystal ambient. And I admit I did roll my eyes when I saw the dude from grizzly bear put an album out on music for memory. what does this dude think about proflific post-vaporwave ambient eg Dream Catalogue and adjacent? I don’t think I want to know!

this dude: Samuel tweet guy. Ok done posting.

seconding the good tip on that Blank Gloss -- recall hearing + liking that track on Pop Ambient and completely spaced on them afterwards

xp yeah i've never read the sam dude or the toneglow substack, either! they seem angry and disappointed at the state of ambience though.

i think sometimes it's dangerous to get too deep into things. i'd rather be the little wooden thing rolling against the lip of a tibetan singing bowl

Cherry picking ambient albums that have a "gimmick" whether authentic in their attention or indeed for marketing purposes, doesn't really address all of the not so "stagnant" examples out there. Surely if there is a surge in popularity there will be an influx of good AND "bad"...

Omg weird did my hands type "attention" when I meant "intention"? I meant intention*

not sorry for posting that tweet, i think it's funny and dumb and interesting all at once, and the resulting conversation (that i saw) on Twitter was actually pretty evenly split between people who thought it was ridiculous and people who, basically agree

what i wanna know is ... Julianna Barwick a narcissist? wha?

also, my "not sorry" was going along w/ the jokes, though now it seems all indignant because other stuff has posted before

i guess i don't know if i'm sorry or not

it's better to hover on the edge of sorry, between the subliminal and the liminal states of perception of wrongality

*wrongitude

I will say that I don't really understand the Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith praise. I wouldn't call her a ghoul, though— the music just seems ratioed to hell. It's also strange that McLemore cites Speaker Music as a critical take without referencing how it's a critical take, and how people like KMRU (among others) are doing quite a bit to dispel the notion that ambient music is colonial, or white, music. Deforrest Brown, like all people, has an agenda, and that's to promote his own vision of what music should be— sonic weaponry. (Really, his latest EP is great, but it has more in common with the wilder side of Jamal Moss and the drum-programming of Theo Parrish than anything else. https://speakermusic.bandcamp.com/album/soul-making-theodicy-2)

There's definitely a lot of bad ambient out there, but that's fine, because there's a lot of bad music out there, period.

jks all around of course <3

i am working my way through these recommendations, as always. i drifted off to the new Blank Gloss last night and quite enjoyed that! and now i'm listening to the Circular Sequence release. bongo do you know how many tapes there were before it sold out?

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, September 8, 2021 9:44 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

seemed like a small run, I think it was like 100 or 150, but I didn't buy the tape for some reason

tbf it is interesting to see this weak vitrol making the 15 min splash that it is (I have heard about this irl from ambient people as of this afternoon), but I guess the ambient world is so scene-y that a lot of people tend to be openly uncritical (of course being extremely critical in private), plus there aren't any music criticism places anymore that aren't straight PR. My own reaction is that yeah it's kind of funny, but who cares

Thanks brimstead for reminding me of that great Richard von der Schulenburg album, one of my earliest Bandcamp purchases if I'm remembering right, so nice I'm gonna link it twice
https://v-i-s.bandcamp.com/album/wanderung-durch-wald-und-flur

(Also, listening now to that Nikolaienko on Faitische that brimstead likewise rec'd--had already cursorily wishlisted it at some point recently and kept it moving, but damn this is nice too, reminding me a bit of Bellows' amazing creepy/sleepy tape loop alb Undercurrents on Black Truffle from last year)

https://nikolaienko-faitiche.bandcamp.com/album/rings
https://blacktruffle.bandcamp.com/album/undercurrent

Just saw new Pendant was announced:
https://westmineral.bandcamp.com/album/to-all-sides-they-will-stretch-out-their-hands-ouest091

...and had to get that Nikolaienko after a couple spins, another one that totally slipped past me. V nice.

This piano/cello collab with lots of field recording vibes is hitting the spot for me.

https://nataliabeylis.bandcamp.com/album/whose-woods-these-are

Hoping new Pendant gets a physical release

Vinyl version (w/ digital) is at Boomkat now: https://boomkat.com/products/to-all-sides-they-will-stretch-out-their-hands

I would think Forced Exposure would have some as well, but not listed yet.

Excellent, thank you! I love MMKYS and I'm stoked for this

that Whose Woods These Are by Eimear Reidy & Natalia Beylis is v nice thanks

glad you dig! i'm a real sucker for cello-forward ambient. my album of the year is Anne Bourne's wave

i also listened to that yesterday and dug, table! i'll check out Anne Bourne later today. i always save your up your reccos for my painting time. really just any recco on this thread

FUCK!

i'm going to start punishing myself for typos. the carrot approach did not work. we're just using the stick now

Back when I wrote about music (late 00s/early 10s) I was all over the ambient/drone scene. Now, I'm back to being bewildered by the possibilities and this thread (and the other ambient threads) are my only real way into the scene (whatever that means).

When I can stop listening to the new Low record, I'll check these out.

Here's the Anne Bourne. It is *exquisite*

https://annebourne.bandcamp.com/album/wave

She was an acolyte/friend of Oliveros, friends with Dempster, etc. Her bio is great:

Anne Bourne is a Toronto-based cellist and composer whose main efforts are geared toward the improvisational/20th century classical world. Although her early musical education was focused on the piano, the cello became her primary performance instrument. In addition to cello and 20th century piano studies, she also studied both South Indian and Ghanaian drumming, as well as free music, in the '80s. In 1994, she began ongoing studies with Pauline Oliveros, eventually leading to certification in the three-year Deep Listening Program. This program uses various methods to focus on attentively listening to and interacting with, not only music and musicians, but all sounds of the environment as a whole.

Active in the Toronto arts community, Bourne has conducted workshops and composed for various film and dance projects, and has also performed and collaborated with leading improvisers like Joe McPhee, Tom Cora, Hans Reichel, and Susie Ibarra. Performing with Pauline Oliveros, Tony Conrad, and David Grubbs, the premiere performance of Oliveros' "Primordial Lift" was recorded for release on the Table of the Elements label. Another concert, an improvised show with Fred Frith and John Oswald, was also recorded for eventual release.

Bourne's versatility as a cellist, keyboardist, and vocalist has also led to work with many of Canada's popular artists. She has performed and toured numerous times with both Jane Siberry and Loreena McKennitt. In addition to recording with both Siberry and McKennitt, she has appeared on albums by Sloan, Hayden, 13 Engines, the Devlins, Holly Cole, and Meryn Cadell.

Woah, that's quite the CV. I'm on it.

Actually, while I think of it, this fella has a new album and he's always interesting: https://robertcurgenven.bandcamp.com/

Not ambient as *such*. More soundscapes, I guess. I once put on a gig featuring him in a little venue and it was the most extraordinary pure sound experience I've ever had. Sound as landscape.

she has appeared on albums by Sloan, Hayden, 13 Engines, the Devlins, Holly Cole, and Meryn Cadell.

very off-topic but i had completely forgotten about Hayden until that. for some reason i got one of his cds as one of my very first in my collection and listened to it so much for a while

I loved Skyscraper National Park.

DL'd that Anne Bourne, only $4 CAD, thanks! I almost put on the "cistern" Deep Listening CD earlier today

Yes. Let's all try to get it into ILM albums of the year. I just let it play on a loop some days, tbh!

THE END YEAR POLL IS RIGGED

weirdly this Anne Bourne is reminding me more La Monte Young's "7th Dream of the Step-down Transformer" or whatever it's called, that long piece with the 8 horns

and yeah that Stuart Dempster LP "In The Great Abbey Of Clement VI" for sure

yikes maybe I actually don’t like ambient music… my partner refers to the music I listen to as “music for a super villain’s secret underwater bunker”

speaking of underwater bunkers, I am listening to this one now, a classic for me that I hadn't listened to in a year or so...certainly brushes with "dark ambient" but it's actually quite lovely and without many of the black metal affinities that other dark ambient has..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHfoCBw4lXs

sleeve, yeah, the patterns are there but the sound on the Bourne is much richer to me, as much as I adore that LaMonte Young recording

The Anne Bourne is lovely, thanks for the recommendation. I love these big, quavering (not-quite) drones. It reminds me of Richard Skelton in places.

Cool ambient jazz album

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nala-sinephro-space-18/

Recorded when she was just 22, Space 1.8 is the London-based musician’s debut album, though it sounds like the work of a far more experienced composer. On a suite of pieces that range from just over a minute in length to nearly 18 minutes, she weaves a loose fusion of jazz balladry, beat music, and the sort of beatless, synthesizer-centric whorls for which there’s no better word than “ambient.” Alice Coltrane’s spiritual jazz is an obvious touchstone; so is the otherworldly sound-shaping of Jon Hassell’s processed horn. Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders’ recent Promises is a tempting point of comparison, given the way Space 1.8 lays out soft, spongy electronics as the backdrop for emotive saxophone solos. Reed players Nubya Garcia, James Mollison, of the Ezra Collective, and Ahnansé—a saxophonist who has collaborated with a host of musicians including Garcia, Emma-Jean Thackray, and broken-beat icon IG Culture—all deliver standout performances. But Sinephro and her collaborators sound less concerned with precedent than possibility. Not so much interlocking as complementary, the album’s eight tracks—titled “Space 1” through “Space 8”—collectively map out a novel, singular terrain.

Indeed. I have a cool friend who recco’d that to me recently and have been LOVING it. Covers a lot of range, too. The last track in particular (17 minutes) is a red alert ambient recommendation for this thread, I think, but a lot of the previous tracks get into that territory too. Also some more kinetic, non ambient music that isn’t so ambient. Wonderful album.

I want to play in her band

I was surprised to find that it was sold out on every single conceivable marketplace that stocked it only 10 days ago. No word of limited pressing quantities mentioned anywhere. Wonder if it'll restock?

Downloading now, excited to listen.

Some of the ambient stuff on it reminds me of Ulla. I love the dynamics and interplay between its softer and louder moments.

It was weird because it was like that only hours after that review ran (sometimes BNM gives things a bump in sales), but I'm not sure where else there is buzz, because it was thoroughly cleaned out of all retailers selling online. Is there hype being generated somewhere else? I'm not as on top of things as I'd like to be.

xp to self

Like I came here and searched her name before KM posted and there was nothing, for instance. People must be talking or the first pressing was really low quantity.