Top 100 Ambient Albums

Well, if I picked up Entroducing or Virgin Suicides expecting "ambient" music, I'd be pretty dissapointed. And I'm really into that "boring" shit right now, so I thought some informed person could apply that filter to this list. (2much2ask).

I'm not really fond of "ambient" as a catch-all term to encompass anything with low-to-no-BPMs which uses drifty soundscapey bits. So little of it paints a compelling portrait of 'place' or sonic geography in the way that, say, On Land did. My favorite so-called "ambient" music is more environmental - actual recordings of ambience or incidental sound, almost documentary in scope and intention. So, while I'd nominate something like Disinformation's R&D as an outstanding ambient work, it'd also likely give most ambient fans a dentist's-drill headache.

274. Monos: Nightfall Sunshine

chris meloche - recurring dreams of the urban

at the moment. i never really liked fax much as a label, but this is quite nice

finally heard the Environments record I posted the Head Heritage link to upthread. It's unbelievable, just hundreds of human voices singing one note. 1976, so predates Prima Materia, David Hykes & the Harmonic Choir, Michael Vetter's Overtone Choir, etc.

all the Environments records need a complete CD reissue

275. Environments 7 - Intonation / Summer Cornfield

http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/527
http://nonmusic.discogs.com/release/892588

that is so cool, I have 4 or 5 of those but have never even seen that one.

276. Aloof Proof - Piano Text (just reissued on CD and pretty great)
277. Wind Harp - Songs From The Hill
278. Lou Reed - Hudson River Wind Meditations
279. Michael Stearns - Planetary Unfolding

280. Earth - Pentastar
281. Bohren and Der Club Der Gore - Midnight Earth
282. Tangerine Dream - Phaedra
283. Tones on Tail - Pop

284. Oren Ambarchi - Grapes from the estate
285. Phil Niblock - G2 44 +/X 2
286. Rafael Toral - Sound Mind Sound Body

287. Waki - Music for Lazy People

This is a great list but can anyone recommnend something from 2008?

wyld wyzrdz - mzg wvz

free download here
http://www.magicgoatmusic.com/digitalmagic.html

289. Mark Wastell - Come Crimson Rays

every night for the last three weeks

290 & 291

Lawrence English's last two albums (both from 08) Kiri No Oto and Studies for Stradbroke are both really awesome. SFS is mostly field recordings.

..from Stradbroke Island.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/reviews/2008/pop-ambient-2008.jpeg

I agree that the Pop Ambient comps are still a consistent source of decent tunes, but the recent ones seem more formulaic. The 2006 version was the most outstanding to me.

Not necessarily from 2008, but some more recent finds:

• Information - Biomekano (a bit on the glitchy side)
• Oren Ambarchi - In The Pendulum's Embrace
• Loscil - Plume

I'm amazed that the Astralwerks Excursions in Ambience Vol. 3 comp got some love on here...a definite classic, but one I'd assumed was lost to obscurity. I'd be interested in seeing a similar list with a more limited scope. The extent of this one is a little overwhelming.

Check out The Caretaker's Persistent Repetition of Phrases for your hauntology ambient hunger.

no fleischmann?

XXPOST Ambarchi's 7 inch on Touch from this year is fantastic as well. Lots of organ.

This is a great list but can anyone recommnend something from 2008?

― Ned Trifle II, Monday, September 22, 2008 8:43 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

297. Karma Moffett - Golden Bowls Of Compassion

The Beatless Collection with Tokyo Black Star, Deadmau5, Joris Voorn, Gui Boratto, Hiroshi Watanabe etc is fantastic.

can anyone recommnend something from 2008?

Stretching the definition of "ambient," but...

298. Carlos Giffoni - Adult Life
299. Tim Hecker and Aidan Baker - Fantasma Parastasie
300. Patti Smith and Kevin Shields - The Coral Sea

http://www.trackitdown.net/genre/electronica/track/545575.html

that's the Beatless Collection I mentioned above. highly recommended.

now that's a lot of ambient

how do we get the incense stores to buy these and play these instead of Enigma's "The Sadnads Part 1"

from 2008, machinefabriek - dauw is essential. also recently got lawrence english - kiri no oto, beautiful drones

just discovered Oneohtrix Point Never, totally awesome hangover soothing analog tone washes, let's go for 400

301 - Oneohtrix Point Never - "A Pact Between Strangers"

"Ruined Lives" is terrific too but it's < 20 minutes so won't count as an album

that beatless comp looks fun

"Lawrence English's last two albums (both from 08) Kiri No Oto and Studies for Stradbroke are both really awesome."

just got a disc in the mail by lawrence english and francisco lopez called hb that is really cool. on baskaru. lotsa mutated environmental field recordings.

been passing out nightly to a couple of robin guthrie and harold budd collaborations

you gotta play those back to back, skipping the final tracks from both of them, for the real bliss out.

302. http://soundcloud.com/shamantis/j-biebz-u-smile-800-slower

I just saw that on someone's Facebook! I haven't listened yet, though.

WHOA, this is really, really awesome! What was done to it to make it not sound choppy/fragmented?

its this paulstretch programme

sounds like Belong

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hypermammut/files/

it's open source - i'm tripping out to ambient 'Tik Tok' right now

http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/

Please note that this is suitable only for extreme time stretching (e.g. if have a melody of 3 minutes and you want to listen it in 3 hours).

ha, someone's already updated the wikipedia page for '9 Beet Stretch': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_Beet_Stretch

the real landmark timestretching ambient piece is Carl Stone's 'Shing Kee' from 1986, which expands 4 seconds of Schubert to 16 minutes from the album 'Mom's'. it's got some uptempo things on it that kept me from posting it to this list earlier, but I used to program tracks 1-4-5 to sleep to, so...

303. Carl Stone - Mom's

love the new album by bacteria earth.

http://middlesearecords.wordpress.com/

Hey Milton, I never did thank you for that recommendation in feb '09 - which is still on my late night listening playlist, so thanks!

How the fuck is DJ Shadow - Endtroducing ambient? By that reasoning, any DJ set with a minute long beatless break is ambient too.

just ran across this today. very good and actually ambient.

http://www.archive.org/details/JOAT006

xxx-post: OK the paulstretcb utility is really awesome, but why the fuck can't you save it as an .mp3?? you really do have to save it to .wav? anybody know how to convert these things? i tried converting it to an mp3 using vlc media player and it failed miserably. harumph!

you can do it w/ itunes

180. Brian Eno - Thursday Fucking Afternoon

Haven't heard this one -- is it rare??