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

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!