ILX AMBIENT ALBUMS POLL: the voting thread. Voting ends on Sunday, June 23rd.

^^my thoughts exactly

I searched 'Kyle Bobby Dunn' on ilx today and saw your glowing rec in the noms thread! :) It is so so beautiful.

This Aeolian String Ensemble record is great indeed!

If there's one record I feel needs to be heard it is this one - it's Thorn Hoedh, in 1993, doing with slow, melancholic orchestral music (I hear Wagners Parzival overture, Bruckner and I'm pretty sure Mahler) what The Caretaker twenty years later would repeat with old ragtime 78s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGHkxqey6RE

^^ see, these are the recommendations I desire from this thread. Thanks!

There is no way I can digest all the albums I didn't already know, and I easily had 50 that I definitely did know and love. (And for what it's worth, I'm in the camp that thinks it's okay to have broader definition of ambient.)

Anyway, sorry to all the other albums. That said I'm excited to see what makes it into the final results and will be chasing down everything that's new to me.

Dang, I missed the nomination period for this, but checking the list, it seems like nearly every significant and minor album I'd vote for is on the list! Nicely done, everyone. Going to be hard to put together 50, but definitely will have no problem with 25-30.

stanning for my all-time favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S3owK3pN64

(the first 22 minutes are a bit drummy but also necessary)

I have that Woob album and the 1995 one too, but I've never really warmed up to them. To me they feel like a collection of popular early 90s ambient tropes with nothing unique or original about them.

1194 might get my #1 vote

however the main point i wanna make is that everybody who ignores this album is fucking up

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

doh i forgot to nom any susanne brokesch durrrrrr

I nominated Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Black Earth and it's not in the Pastebin

Oh, I must've missed that. I'm sorry. I edited the Google sheet to include it, and here's a new Pastebin link with it:

https://pastebin.com/N3CgEGMV

I'll ask the mods to change the Pastebin link in the opening post.

Btw, I've only received one ballot so far, hope there'll be many more. :)

Still listening!

yeah I have two weeks! I haven't even thought about it yet

My top ten will be easy enough, but the next twenty will require some listening!

Btw, I've only received one ballot so far, hope there'll be many more. :)

― Tuomas, Thursday, June 6, 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol maybe I’ll exert more influence over this poll than I’d thought. Stars of the Lid ftw.

I fully expect my fridge to win through the power of write-in votes, ILM don't let me down.

Recently I’ve read about how both la monte young and Richard D James we’re heavily inspired by being beat the hum of electricity, particularly near electrical towers. Fridge buzz is classic ambient imo

After starting to piece together a list, a couple glaring omissions from my past attempts at building my own personal ambient top 10 or top 20:

Hammock - Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow
Voice of Eye - Vespers

Both artists had other works nominated, but these two are pretty seminal for them, respectively. Surprised about the Hammock omission in particular... Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow is not only one of their best, but easily the most "ambient" of all their releases. I've not yet heard Voice of Eye's Transmigration, so perhaps that can potentially place on the lower end of things.

In any case, for those who haven't yet heard it, check out They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7gi9H6xQKjHG4KlPn9bYsS?si=T1T9dt2KS9iGUC8mYpQ1YQ

Voice Of Eye is a great example of one I need to spend more time with, I really liked their "early" 2LP that came on VOD, but haven't re-listened to it in years

Recently I’ve read about how both la monte young and Richard D James we’re heavily inspired by being beat the hum of electricity, particularly near electrical towers. Fridge buzz is classic ambient imo

One of those "Trance-Europe Express" compilations from the early nineties, which came with a large booklet of interviews and other articles, had a tongue-in-cheek guide to various electronic music genres. IIRC all the other genres had longer texts to explain them, but ambient defined with just one sentence: "Could be your refrigerator." :)

My finds so far have been Dreamweapon and Hymnvs. Both brilliant.

There's a bunch I'd stan for, not least the Laraaji/Blues Control album.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3jB7kp8LU-I

Laraaji's laugh at the end of that track...

my first pass through (not even counting the vast amount I don't know) gave me 127 albums on a longlist...

Laraaji used to do laughter workshops!

I think an ILM poster may have gone to one?

https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prod.retreat.guru/images/178490/slide/5.jpg

Bump! Three ballots in so far.

Ambient voters just kinda drift toward the finish line

I would so go to that Laraaji workshop/camp thing.

I have my ballot pretty much done, I just feel bad because there must be several albums in the nom list that I would vote for but don’t have time to preview :-(

I mean preview all the noms to see which ones I would want to hear in full

Spent the day listening to Jon Hopkins' Late Night Tales, would have nominated it if I'd known about it last week!

Ambient voters just kinda drift toward the finish line

otm, i'm letting my list grow organically and unobtrusively

I have my ballot pretty much done, I just feel bad because there must be several albums in the nom list that I would vote for but don’t have time to preview :-(

I'm 100% going to vote but just letting everything float about before leaving it right until the last second.

Grateful Dead is ambient right?

if you're far enough away from them, yes

is grayfolded ambient? Never heard it myself

Voted!

I went through the nominations doc at the weekend and my initial shortlist came to 47 albums - there are loads of things on there I've never heard so I'm going to explore it a bit more before voting (will try to give anything mentioned in this thread a go too).

Looking forward to checking out some of the lower placing albums as imagine all the ones finishing higher will be the more well known albums.

Are you accepting mixed ballots Tuomas or is that too much hassle?

Sure, you can do a mixed ballot, just mark it clearly where the weighted part ends and the unweighted starts. And remember that the maximum number of points you can allot is 2550, so the sum of the weighted and unweighted parts can't be more than that.

Bump.

i'm also going through things on the list. will take a good while, really, but since i'm looking for work/underemployed/mostly writing at the moment, it's a perfect time to be listening all day.

After starting to piece together a list, a couple glaring omissions from my past attempts at building my own personal ambient top 10 or top 20:

Hammock - Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow
Voice of Eye - Vespers

Both artists had other works nominated, but these two are pretty seminal for them, respectively. Surprised about the Hammock omission in particular... Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow is not only one of their best, but easily the most "ambient" of all their releases. I've not yet heard Voice of Eye's Transmigration, so perhaps that can potentially place on the lower end of things.

― octobeard, Thursday, 6 June 2019 23:04 (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm a huge fan of Hammock although more for their post-rock/shoegaze than for their ambient, but I particularly like Mysterium and I should've nominated that, it's entirely without drums. They really go all-in with the melodrama (those song titles alone...) and I suppose that can be a turn off for some, but I still think it works.

Voice Of Eye are fantastic and I could've nominated Vespers just as well as Transmigration.

really like this Minor Shadows record by 1 Mile North. Thanks to whoever nominated it.

Oh, also: can there be a downloadable Google doc made of the nomination list? I ask only because I really want this list in perpetuity, as I know there's no way I can listen to everything I haven't heard before votes are due.

Voted (feebly and inadequately).

Sending my ballot tonight

I'm down to 50 finally, just thinking abt placement

Today is the last day to vote... I won't close the poll until I wake up tomorrow morning, which should be aroung 6AM GMT, so you still have 13 hours to vote.

Also, when you send your ballot, remember to mention in the message whether it's weighted or unweighted. I've answered all emails with ballots I've received so far, so if you've sent one but haven't gotten an answer from me, let me know in this thread.

I sent an unweighted ballot yesterday and didn't get a confirmation. Mine is a little skimpy at fifteen albums. I had some criteria in mind for deciding what was ambient and what wasn't, but thinking about my ballot I didn't really apply them consistently — broadly I was thinking of an emphasis on space and/or texture over melody and rhythm, but even under those broad guidelines (which don't really equate to "functional as background music") some tuneful things snuck in.

What is this other genre that some of you think these other artists ought to fall into, if not ambient? Too spaced out and atmospheric to be electronic, too melodic to be avant-grade. If I were to vote these albums into any poll, it would be this one.

^^^I don’t mean that to sound antagonistic, just sharing my logic for why I chose some artists that others here seem to be struggling with whether to include or not.

yeah, i have no idea. for example, tangerine dream. i really like both Phaedra and Zeit. somehow, i decided that Phaedra was not ambient enough (the pink floyd 'on the run' section about 5 minutes into the title track, in particular), but Zeit would qualify. but what is Phaedra? it's...electronic music? in a very different way, i also couldn't figure out whether morton feldman's Piano & String quartet is top of the line ambient, or not ambient

anyways, i will try to keep this in mind when we're all complaining about Tired Sounds of Starts of Lid placing high (which is one of my all time favorites, and which i didn't vote for because i don't think of it as an ambient album even though much of it is ambient and i've zoned out to a million times)

STARTS OF THE LID

A lid startler if ever there was one.

Same but Phaedra: yes, Zeit: no :) It's so arbitrary, and I like that.

Shame 'Music for the Rothko Chapel' wasn't nominated. I'd hit that as ambient. Piano & String too classically classical for me?

Same but Phaedra: yes, Zeit: no :) It's so arbitrary, and I like that.

Heh, it's the other way around for me.

Zoning out, music escorting you to a personal and highly particular ambient zone = ambient, to me. So I voted for Tired Sounds.

I sent an unweighted ballot yesterday and didn't get a confirmation.

Hmm, I wonder what's up with that... Did you send it to the address below?

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

Try to resend it to that address and report in this thread when you've done it, let's see if it gets through.

i forgot to nom that jon gibson two solo pianos w/ bonus tracks disc AND suzanne brokesch NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Shame 'Music for the Rothko Chapel' wasn't nominated. I'd hit that as ambient. Piano & String too classically classical for me?

yeah, i'd definitely vote for Rothko if it was there! my fav morton feldman (that i've heard - still exploring!), and yes, definitely more 'ambient'

I'm with "Zeit: ambient", "Phaedra: not" camp, and voted accordingly. To me Phaedra has a bit too much sense of direction to count as ambient, whereas Zeit feels like floating in space. But I do understand the case for Phaedra being ambient too, and probably some other albums I voted have even more direction than that, it's not clear-cut.

Zeit is definitely ambient to me. Phaedra is too propulsive. And Stars of the Lid has to be ambient, dunnit? Not sure where else I'd place it. Emobient, maybe.

The only albums I sort of regret nominating and voting for are the two Growing albums. In both cases the first tracks are epic drones, and that’s what I think of when I think of them. But subsequent tracks really aren’t remotely ambient. Oh well. If I’m the only one who voted for them in the end you can strike them.

^^ I've had that, where in memory or in 'feeling' records are ambient to me, but when listening w/ this poll in mind I think: wait, no, actually...

Yeah, that happened to me too, I had to scrap a couple of albums from my ballot cos I remembered them as being ambient based on how they begin, but upon listening to them I realised they got way too progressive later on.

that was my reaction to listening to 76:14 again, i was surprised how beat-heavy a lot of it was

Ah thanks, Tuomas; I did manage to mess up your email. Ballot re-sent! Got your confirmation.

What is this other genre that some of you think these other artists ought to fall into, if not ambient? Too spaced out and atmospheric to be electronic, too melodic to be avant-grade. If I were to vote these albums into any poll, it would be this one.

A basic problem I have is that the albums I like best on the noms list don't necessarily seem purely ambient (i.e., I love Phaedra and voted for it but the arguments against it above make sense to me... but I don't love Zeit, so I didn't vote for it).

Actually, Chinaski's solution to this problem was probably better than mine. Still, I'll be pleased if anyone else votes for Tierbeobachtungen.

I’ve always thought of Biosphere’s Patashnik as ambient but there’s surprisingly little material without beats on it.

Patashnik definitely is some kind of a ambient/techno hybrid, as was Microgravity before it. To me, Substrata is the first true ambient album by Biosphere. For a guy who's known as ambient musician first and foremost, Geir Jenssen certainly has done a lot of music based on beats and rhythms. He even released an EP a couple of years ago, The Petrified Forest, which is an obvious throwback to that Patashnik sound. It's a great record, but again, it doesn't sound sound ambient enough for me to have nominated it.

Voted

Departed Glories is the one for Biosphere

voted!

voted!

Departed Glories is the one for Biosphere

You don’t have to choose just one though! 50 votes, plenty of space.

I’m also surprised at how many people feel this way about DG. Doesn’t reach the heights (or depths) of Substrata or Cirque for me, but maybe I need to open my ears.

(also had many instances as noted upthread of "shit, I should have nominated ambient album x)

^^ same here.

Voted!

voted with a split ballot, it turns out I can in fact pick only 25 ambient albums that are truly close to my heart

the only new one I included was one of the Voice Of Eye noms, I love that double LP of early stuff that VOD put out but had never checked out the later stuff.

I'd like to attempt a Spotify playlist of all the noms, but can't guarantee anything

There is a Spotify playlist

oh I missed that! thanks.

damn I coulda been shuffling all this time

for reference cuz I don't think it was linked in this thread:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4fPPFJHHNihMjlO9GVEs6F?si=hVKygUYXRJSuCafBZrfzlQ

The voting is now closed, thanks to everyone! I'll start the results rollout later today or tomorrow.

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

top 3 albums I slightly regret including on my ballot:

Belong - October Language (soothing noize ≠ ambient!)
Slowdive - Pygmalion (too pop! parts of it have a backbeat and proper hummable melodies!)
Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (too much chug-a-chug-a sequencer action!)

my ballot started out super purist, but then I got the notion of voting for 50 albums by 50 different artists, so I ended up padding it out with some stuff that wasn't a perfect fit, oops

anyways, here's some great cosmic horror ambient that idk if anyone else voted for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE9RPDgCn2w

(Tholen - Sternklang)

Results rolling out here: The mind revealing itself to itself: the TOP 100 AMBIENT ALBUMS as voted by ILX