Ambient Recommendations

Moving beyond the 'duh, Eno' factor -- Lull and Thomas Koner are both very good if not exactly merry.

WELL. Hm...weird as it may sound, you could almost call His Name is Alive's second album ambient. Then again, there's always Vangelis.

Ah, bless you, Dan, of course. Mi Media Naranja also does the business, as does a fair amount of Stars of the Lid.

Aix Em Klemm, p'rhaps? (Is this a collaboration between someone from Labradford and someone from Stars of the Lid or did I dream that?) Less drone-y/more interesting than SOTL.

I'll also second Melissa's recommendation for Tangerine Dream's Phaedra.

• Gavin Bryars "The Sinking of the Titanic" (granted, it's quite Enoistic)
• Hochenkeit "omu4h 4aholab/400 Boys" (though it's more on the dreamy eastern sounding krautrock tip)

I could go into a whole realm of spacey, weird ambience a la Hash Jar Tempo, Bugskull, and more.. but I'm reluctant in fear of effigies of me stamped "ROCKIST" being burned.

Tom, try: Ultramarine's Every Man & Woman Is A Star, if you haven't already. Also obviously: The Beloved's "The Sun Rising".

For blissful undulating ambience, there's Global Communication's 76 14 and Dettinger's Intershop. I'm currently listening to Miss Dinky's Melodias Venenosas which is quite charming rippling-but-dinky ambient synth pieces, but I'm not quite sure if I'd recommend it unreservedly yet.

As for the spacy wacky samples... that's trickier. Arguably this tendency in Orb and KLF is more a nod towards the contemporary Acid House/DJ Records boom rather than something that is inherent to much ambient. So I could see, say, early 808 State fitting the bill, but they were only ambient in fits and bursts ("Sunrise" is great though).

a cop out only in that it's easier than making some positive. but come on tom, you gotta agree dance tends to get good when it goes a little dark. not all the time, but...

I do think certainly in the field of 'ambience' you find 'darkness' getting a little overdone - this is surely down to the subconscious need to differentiate it from new age heh.

Maybe. The thing that always struck me in regards Eno's On Land is how dark it sounds, whereas I was expecting something more light/happy since these were supposed to be memories of childhood places. It probably is, as Jess says, harder to make something positive (just can come up with some of these Boards of Canada minatures like 'Olson' as an example, arguably some tracks on SAW 85- 92).

Maybe "Bola- Soup"?

David Toop's Screen Ceremonies is good for when you want to feel like you're watching a sadistic ritual involving monkeys in the rainforest.

Also like Lamonte Young's Well-Tuned Piano and Morton Feldman's For Samuel Beckett lately, they're kind of ambient...

Miles Davis, He Loved Him Madly.

I always thought Systemische was Oval's best album. 94 Diskont is almost all one track, and it's kind of boring after a while.

Just the very words Chill Out bring on flashbacks...

Especially annoying as this guy's stuff is super hard to find, even by the standards of private issue ambient/new age. 250 tape copies released in 1988 etc...

https://www.discogs.com/artist/11923661-Douglas-Em

non-US ilxors plz feel free to ilxmail me there

This is lovely. Thread delivering in spades!

We have a new show up now:

https://www.mixcloud.com/DublinDigitalRadio/no-place-like-drone-301122-rolodex-of-relaxation/

1. Low - The Son, The Sun - Double Negative - Sub Pop (2018)
2. The Last Ambient Hero - Dream I - All A Dream - Not On Label (06/22)
3. Joachim Spieth - Terrain 3 - Terrain - Affin Ltd (10/22)
4. Andrew Chalk - At Sunset - The End Times - Icr Distribution (10/22)
5. Natalia Beylis & Eimear Reidy - A Shelter Of Junipers - Whose Woods These Are - Not On Label (2021)
6. Lawrence English - Pre-Approach: Citizen - Approach - Room 40 (09/22)
7. Alaskan Tapes - An Image - All We Can't See​ / ​an Image (Alaskan Tapes) (2021)
8. Steve Oliver & Craig Tattersall - Turntable, Speaker, Microphone, Tape Loop System & Piano - Music For Screens, Turntables And Contacts - The Humble Bee (06/22)
9. Tewksbury - Banda Mountain - Brutes - Hush Hush Records (07/22)
10. Peter Wright - Player Piano - Further Reports From The Interior - Distant Bombs (2021)
11. Rubbish Music - Trash And Treasure - Upcycling - Flaming Pines (10/22)
12. Rafael Toral - Long Meeting - Music For Film - Not On Label (05/22)
13. David Tollefson - Pattern Of Islands - Near And Far - Hypnos (1999)
14. Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer - Held - Februarys - Dauw (09/22)
15. Binary Phaze - Velvet Dawn - Velvet & Glass - Rohs! Records (06/22)
16. Kuma - Ecclesiastic Geology - You Cannot Cheat The Muse - See Blue Audio (11/22)
17. Myles O'reilly - The Sun Always Shines On Arbutus Place - [Indistinct Chatter] An Ode To Soft 18. Landings - Not On Label (11/22)
18. Zakè & Ossa - Drifting - Syntheticopia - Zakè Drone Recordings (09/22)
19. Xerex - Dracula IX - Xerex Meets Dracula - No Part Of It (07/22)
20. Biosphere - Forum - Insomnia - Biophon (1997)
21. Fortresses - Near - Near - Dragon’s Eye (11/22)
22. Quiet Clapping - Weather - Adversary - Space Surgeries (05/22)
23. Cosmo - Desmond (From Here To There) - Molting - Not On Label (10/22)
24. Conducive - Salle De Projection - Hidden Canals - Veinte 33 Records (09/22)
25. Jürgen Müller - Beyond The Tide - Science Of The Sea - Digitalis (2011)
26. Arovane & Taylor Deupree - Somne_tide - Skal_ghost - 12k (11/22)
27. Jeff Pearce - Passage To Home - Daylight Slowly - Hypnos (1998)
28. Imaginary Softwoods - Innerglow Portal/Aqua Drawer Lamp - Extra Bronze Lamp - Mineral Disk (2020)
29. Steve Roden - Stars Of Ice - Stars Of Ice - Room40 (02/22)

Bandcamp links:

https://www.buymusic.club/list/noplace_drone-no-place-like-drone-301122-rolodex-of-relaxation

Sofie Birch + Johan Carøe "Repair Techniques"

:O

Some shenanigans going on with those sines of exquisite pleasure tapes. Should've trusted my instincts. https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/981667?page=1

that is fucking nuts

so bizarre to pass that excellent music off as something fake

very strange!

what is it with ambient & people doing weird magical realism schticks? kinda love it though.

Something nice from the neverending 90s trove.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Xycu82fLs

think my favourite ambient thing this year is romance’s “once upon a time”

xp atom heart! that is a cool weird album.

absolutely killer reissue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RMs7UK_HFc
Stryke - Introspection (1994)

https://rediscoveryrecords.bandcamp.com/album/stryke-introspection-parts-1-3-1994-2022

there are a few more gems in that label's back-catalogue btw (the APL album for starters!), but i really like the Ambient 7 one (you may or may not already know chika asamoto from some of her 80s city pop boogie sax bangers, but this stuff is radically different)

awesome thanks so much

This is quite lovely

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

Does anyone have any recent-ish Woob to recommend? I really liked "Light & Levitation" from 2015.

:O had no idea they were still around

this new Joseph Allred on Feeding Tube isn't strictly ambient but it is instrumental and very pleasant

https://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/album/what-strange-flowers-in-the-shade

behold! https://woob.bandcamp.com/

whoa:

https://www.musicfrommemory.com/release/7587/dream-dolphin/gaia-selected-ambient-downtempo-works-1996-2003

Nice ambien record from club producer Color Plus:
https://colorplus.bandcamp.com/album/true

('ambien' was a typo but it's apt so I'm leaving it)

Finally getting around to this beautiful album:

https://beaunoise.bandcamp.com/album/indifference-will-devour-you

Beau Sorenson - Indifference Will Devour You

I became much less interested in ambient this year— I felt like the records that everyone was talking about were mediocre, with notable exceptions. Not sure what that’s about, just posting here as it is something I noticed re my own listening habits. The Wolf record was much more dull than I was expecting, Felicia Atkinson included the annoying “female whispering incomprehensibly” throughout, the TR Jordan struck me as treacly.

I do wonder whether some of this newfound negativity toward the genre has to do with a change in my work— I am simply not at a computer all day any longer— or a change happening within the genre. Last year, an ambient record was my favorite of the year, and some other ambient records were pretty high up. This year, Romance is the only ambient record that is in my top 20.

no, I agree there is a lot of crappy “ambient” and I hate it, I have been too lazy to just make my own.

I know this is all snobby and stuff but this quote from pop matters ‘ ambient list seems very much “not-getting-it”

You know a terrible ambient record when you hear one: generic, unengaging, and outstaying its welcome. At times, Brian Eno equated ambient music to wallpaper (in a non-derogatory way), but a lousy ambient album honestly sounds like the aural equivalent of watching paint dry. You know what this sounds like if you’re even a casual fan of the genre.

1966!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtZThhz94lA

wild and wonderful

I have a feeling I read about this somewhere on here but damn this Javier Segura track is HUGE. It's notionally ambient, sort of reminds me of Organum, the spacier end of Blanck Mass, Natural Snow Buildings. That kind of thing. (I almost shouted NO! when the drums come in around the 3.30 mark, but they're backgrounded enough for it not to matter.)

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

oh hey I have that record! the Spanish 80s comp. will relisten, thanks

yeah that's overwhelming

Yeah was on this excellent compilation from a couple of years ago:

https://www.discogs.com/master/2014474-Various-La-Ola-Interior-Spanish-Ambient-Acid-Exoticism-1983-1990

Detroit escalator

thank u Bandcamp updates:

https://andrewosterhoudt.bandcamp.com/album/out-together

I randomly looked up the drummer from The Cranberries to see if he had done anything, and it turns out he's making ambient/drone records: https://flawlermusic.bandcamp.com/album/all-hope-is-never-lost

This is nice, from a late 80s/early 90s Canadian New age label with about a dozen releases mainly from this one artist: Genesonics.

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

Im also ashamed to say that despite a penchant for Australian ambient, I only recently discovered the work of Alan Lamb. This is an amazing work recorded using derelict telegraph wires. Kind of a blend of contact field recordings, long string drones and disintegrating wind harp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnlNbb8eric

That Alan Lamb album rules. His album with Sarah Hopkins - Sky Song - is nice too.

An aside, but has anyone read Mark Prendergast's *Ambient Century* book? It's a big old tome and I'm kinda stuck with his style and not sure whether to continue.

My friend bought that in high school and we both thought it was pretty bad

ambient century I mean. I recall a lot of factual errors and yeah just an annoying style. Plus I think I had just read ocean of sound which is like a masterpiece

Ocean Of Sound is so great

re: ambient century

i came to it as a greenhorn looking to learn something and most of it was lost on me. i never finished it. (this was well over a decade ago though; perhaps a revisit is in order)

I got Ambient Century when I was, maybe, 16? And it was quite a useful intro to a range of artists and made a bunch of connections that I didn't previously know about.

Looking back on it now, there's some baffling omissions (the whole west coast scene e.g. Steve Roach) and some absolutely toe-curling turns of phrase (there's one about Reich's Electric Counterpoint being "so good it was later sampled by The Orb" which is burned on my memory). But it's not a bad nuts and bolts list of ambient records if you've got to start somewhere.

Ocean of Sound is of course incredible, but also not necessarily the most accessible entry point.

Yeah, it's not the worst. Useful as an introduction and for reference but loads of weird absences. It reminds me a bit of Bass Culture by Lloyd Bradley.

The Amazon reviews for Ocean of Sound are hilariously mixed. Interesting how he traces ambient music back to Debussy, which makes a lot of sense.

and the 1889 Paris Expo where Westerners first heard gamelan, yeah it makes total sense to me as well

*Ocean of Sound* is a straight up masterpiece (as is *Haunted Weather*). I think I might give *Ambient Century* a miss. Don't mind the primer aspect but I think I'm after something closer to Toop's approach.

Speaking of oceans... Some recently discovered oceanic deep space ambience garlanded with tiny glistening sparkles of dub techno. Really lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-CjAZZO4A

lovely, thanks