Ambient Recommendations

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

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

― Evan, Tuesday, December 20, 2022 10:41 AM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

aside from just loving this, i think Dream Dolphin is maybe the best name for an ambient act ever

One might guess vaporwave from a name like that also

Absolutely gorgeous vocal-loop ambient rarity:

https://demouniverse.com/2016/09/30/eyelight-trigger-1994/

missed this, gorgeous hour-long clarinet/effects from Waclaw Zimpel

https://waclawzimpel.bandcamp.com/album/ebbing-in-the-tide-3

"Provincial electro, vernacular kosmiche, economy of small scale."

https://cosmicecono.bandcamp.com/album/cosmic-econo-2-2

"Tower Of Meaninglessness" is hitting the spot

A lovely album of tender Basinskiesque orchestral serialism from 2001. Deutsch has worked with Tetsu Inoue and tony Conrad amongst others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxNqwyKD5Ac

love Deutsch, thx

That Cosmic Econo record is great

Just listened right to that Zimpel track right through. Thanks for the recommendation, sleeve - just what the day required, in honesty.

https://marsenjules.bandcamp.com/album/lazy-sunday-funerals-remastered

Easily one of my favorite ambient records, does something to me that nothing else does. Just a gorgeous drifting stasis.

Curious if anyone can recommend other wind instrument-heavy ambient.

I actually can’t remember what that album sounds like… but re:wind instruments les halles is all about mellow echoing pan pipes and stuff

https://halles.bandcamp.com/

damn Eight Fantasies by Les Halles is surprisingly close!

whoa les halles is just an instant YES

The trombone is one of the great ambient instruments, maybe the greatest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tvMp4XDICU

And there's some great Ambient Tuba in Tom Heasly's work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMHDFOw1yU

oh check this out: https://craigkupka.bandcamp.com/track/trombones-of-lithia

And there's some great Ambient Tuba in Tom Heasly's work.

On the Sensations of Tone is phenomenal.

Also highly recommended: Vikings of the Sunrise, by Stephen Scott (bowed piano ensemble).

i have been listening to stephen scott quite a bit recently, too. New Music for Bowed Piano is the one i have, so i listen to it the most

I've recommended this in so many threads by now but hell, this Ron Miles album is magnificent. It's just Miles' trumpet recorded in the massive water tank at Rangeley in Colorado.

https://tanksounds.bandcamp.com/album/bardo-tank

i can also vouch for Les Halles, they've been on my EOY lists a few times

I saw Ron live years ago, when I was still living in Denver. Witness was in my rotation for years. Thanks for the heads up on this one.

The new recordings of a string quartet playing Beethoven in the tank sound pretty incredible.

https://roundsound.tanksounds.org/album/slow-beethoven

There was a cluster of albums in the early 2010s that were all broadly ambient and all seemed to explore a similar aesthetic: rough, metallic drones and squalls, full of dread and buried spite. Some were on the Subtext label but also thinking of things like Ben Frost. Listening to Roly Porter's *Aftertime* just now and damn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcqE9QdUHlc

I'm way behind on listening to newer things on Subtext but I'll co-sign their early/mid 2010s output

Seeing Emptyset live was excellent, and there's an album by Paul Jebanasam -- Continuum -- that I got really into before also seeing him live

The last time I saw Roly Porter was at a festival opening for Sunn O)))!

I'm way behind on Subtext too tbf. Love Paul Jebanasam! Rites, the one before Continuum (I think) is magnificent.