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

i used to work in a very special sector of retail, and the music was perhaps one of the only redeeming qualities of the job, alongside the copious free stuff. (i worked for a notoriously pricey luxury skincare brand from Australia in their brick and mortar stores in SF).

i played SotL endlessly, and we also listened to lots of Hammock, Andrew Chalk, and the soundtrack to The Proposition. all of this was on a work iPod at some point.

later, when i was able to choose from "stations," i often played the "postpunk" station and could be found slathering face cream on rich folks while rocking out to Kitchens of Distinction lol

good work/music crossover there

would this be a skincare brand people tell fables about

Vitamin Aesops?

xposts yes, that company.

chill out stores

Discovering so many great new records thanks to this thread. You guys knocked it out of the park again.

https://imgur.com/w3eE03K

This thread continues to reveal riches. My latest find is Pentamerous Metamorphosis which, with the garden full of late, golden light, is just about perfect right now.

I've been slowly working my way through the top 100 and so far my number one discovery is Apollo which I would have had in the top three of my ballot if I'd heard it befor voting. I picked up the reissue on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing as well, so that was nice.

It comes with a bonus disc of new material from Brian and Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois which is well worth checking out. This was a pleasant surprise as I've not been too impressed with Eno's work from this century (not that I've heard much of it).

Ending (An Ascent) from Apollo would surely be in the top three if we did an ambient tracks poll

Er I guess it's "An Ending (Ascent)"

I bought that David Behrman CD, so good

I Am The Center is the best new discovery for me - so far!

The weird thing is a went on a long meditation retreat at the beginning of the year and swear to god the view was exactly like the cover - same configuration of peaks, bathed in moonlight etc.

Please take me to your meditation retreat. I will literally say nothing!

i've made several great discoveries through this but one i just can't get my head round is the Constance Demby. Apart from a sublime 5 minute section on side 2 it is just so bombastic, as if John Williams went New Age. i just don't get it at all. What am i missing?

all the Hearts of Space stuff seemed indefensibly patently false to me as a teenager. then I turned 30. around 2003, those digitally sampled violins & oboes & choral pads became hilarious instead of offensive, then charming, and then 10 years later vaporwave further fused the strengths and weaknesses into one weird mess once all those sounds showed up in software, and now... I just don't know any more but laughing's more fun than crying

(Novus Magnificat would not be first stop for me but I give it props for being inescapable, the opening of side 1 got used as a bed on 80's episodes of Over The Edge all the time)

the eponymous Hearts of Space track sums up the tightrope of good & bad taste -- the first half is so ridiculously great, you feel almost incredulous it doesn't get namechecked in the avant / modular synth field more often, and then... the horn solo starts and you understand exactly why. in the same way that Wolf Eyes was named after a Paul Winter record, the only appropriate sequel to this poll will launch from the '500 most extreme noise albums of all time' thread so we can see which albums are nominated to both

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L9_6EXei5A

posted on his dedicated thread, but saw Charlemagne Palestine perform an aural ritual for Tony Conrad a week or so ago, and it was sublime.

I will give the Constance Demby another 20 or 30 years then and report back.

Oddly, despite waiting for the horn solo on the Kevin Brahenyh to fill me with disgust I quite enjoyed it. I don't think i would have even just a few years ago.

slippery slope!

got to that Meg Bowles record that made the list. full on Hearts of Space renaissance! still sounds modern though.

even though both Windham Hill and Hearts of Space were frequently typed as stereotypical 'New Age' labels, they were basically diametrically opposed sounds - former being cleanly recorded acoustic chamber folk, and latter being the US response to 70's EU synth / kosmiche / space music. almost diametrically opposed - I can think of only one artist who was on both labels

now that the blanket 'New Age' term has stopped being as much of a perjorative, I'm seeing it's usually the HoS side of the aesthetic that's getting reclaimed

if anyone is interested in a recent iteration of a more Windham Hill style of ambient, I highly rec this record by Kayla Cohen, who records under the name Itasca. her more recent efforts include vocals and are also quite good, but this one is definitely for the Alex de Grassi fans. https://itasca.bandcamp.com/album/anns-tradition-2015

^^ I saw her play with Sarah Louise and Marisa Anderson, great show

cool! i missed her the last time she came here, sadly.

I just discovered Watermusic II by William Basinski through youtube autoplay and am loving it. Quite a lot better than Disintegration Loops for me.

Also Structures From Silence is absolutely amazing

check out The River as well, I love that one

a LOT of his stuff is better than Disintegration Loops!

i love disintegration loops, but i don't even think it should be directly compared to anything else he's done. as far as i know, that's the only "experimental" thing he's made (in the Nyman sense, of the outcome/results being uncertain) since it was based off a unique process, whereas everything else he's done is composed, right?

I think so, yes, good point

if you haven't ever heard the albums he did under the F.P And The Doubling Riders name, I love them very much

So it turns out Spittle Records (don't know them) released a six-CD box set of all the Doubling Riders stuff just this year, which I got! So far it sounds pretty great... only listened to Doublings and Silences Vol. 1 so far.

oh that's super cool! I might have to get that for the rarities disc.

My favorite basinski is probably el Camino real

^^ Mine too, but most of his records beside TDL are great imo. 'The Garden of Brokenness' is another great one, just like Melancholia and, indeed, The River.

my copy of the newly reissued Still Way by Satoshi Ashikawa arrived in the mail today!

although it was my #1 in this poll, i must admit that was a bit of a strategic vote (which didn't work).but still, it would have been in my (real) top 15. but that was based on a well-intentioned but scratchy youtube full album stream that i've been relying on for years. played through laptop speakers, or listened to on headphones.

listening to a clean copy of it, playing on my speakers at a moderate volume, with the sounds of the AC coming off and on and airplanes overhead, i must now recognize that it is in fact a top FIVE ambient album..of ALL TIME. it is a contemporary of releases by Hiroshi Yoshimura (who designed this cover) and Midori Takada (who plays vibraphone on this album, albeit "without expression" per ashikawa's request for the instrumental performances in the recordings), but where those albums succeed in part by being transportive, Still Way is more transformative (and that rhymes!). what i'm trying to say is that this 1982 album is minimal and repetitive but takes a completely different path than the celebrated minimalist composers. it's not just the sound palette, which is always lovely, with muted vibes, sustained harp string tones and intertwining flutes. maybe it's the way that extended passages loop for so long that they become distinct objects in themselves, only to slowly morph into a malleable form, almost always with the same instrument playing a variation on the melody, only it's hard to pinpoint when exactly anything changed. in the liner notes, from 1982, Ashikawa mentions being inspired by the sounds of a shaminsen in the neighborhood being gradually overtaken by rain, and then the shaminsen gradually reemerging as the rain dissipated. that's what this album is like. there you go - that's what i mean about this album. Ashikawa's liner notes manage to provide a better description of his music in a simple two-sentence story than all of my ravings.

my goal is to get someone who knows how to explain this better than me to write about it. this album deserves to be the Kind of Blue of ambient music

that sounds awesome

Will check that out. I just heard Soliloquy for Lilith by Nurse With Wound recently and am surprised it didn't feature in this

Bohren And The Club Of Gore are amazing by the way. Another awesome discovery from this thread so thanks to whomever nominated them

I voted for NWW! Also highly recommended: Salt Marie Celeste

i swear this is the poll and topic that just keeps on giving. you guys are amazing.

#153 Steve Roach - Quiet Music: The Original 3-Hour Collection, 2 votes, #1 votes, 141 points

how is this not top 10?????????????????

Do I have to listen to all three hours before I'm considered qualified to answer that question?

No cap but people really sat through many hours of bad music back in the days before electronic media didn't they. No wonder Stravinsky sparked a riot, those audiences were on short fuses!