The Ambient Music Thread

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Are you a fan of ambient music? I know I am. I have many different favourite artists, aphex twin, shpongle, future sound of london, carbon based lifeforms, and entheogenic. What are your favourite artists and aspects of the genre?

For those who don't know what ambient is, here are some songs you may want to listen to.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MqbIagmLa0[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nevnq7MvVTI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVpWQcLZzIY[/youtube]

I love lifeforms by FSOL, its a classic album

Speaking of Aphex Twin, I just today came across the album Surfing on Sine Waves by Polygon Window (a pseudonym for Richard James/Aphex Twin). Here's the song Portreath Harbour:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaeN1T475C8[/youtube]

I live about twenty seconds walk away from Portreath harbour. There's lots of rotting seaweed in there, so it often stinks when the tide's out. Another song on there, Redruth School, is named after the secondary school I went to.

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Some favourites...

Jon Hassell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49cNca-kk5E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-Zd0E4nXw4

Brian Eno:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-MG_qG5DRc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzTCY17XWdk

La Monte Young:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfZzz58VUaw (that's an excerpt from a piece that's an hour long)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7tmxHhcH0w (that's an excerpt from a piece that's five hours long)

Morton Feldman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ajLYpj_uQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxSt_w2ODaQ

Bill Laswell, surely the master of ambient/dub:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu_AXTcxOKI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgsttLMzb84

Laswell did a very cool album of ambient/dub remixes of Bob Marley tracks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LS8EGwpMtg

.

Another big FSOL fan here as well. 'Cascade' is one my favourite tracks of all time, and I love 'Papua New Guinea' as well.

Another one of my favourites is 'Boards of Canada'. They've regularly put out some really good ambient stuff.

Steve Roach. I don't really have a favourite. His records are consistently similar in a way, yet all different.

Is that the first one on Lifeforms? I always liked that tune a lot. Very unique.



I like BoC, particularly the first two LPs

Global Communications. Spent a lot of time listening to their LP. Check out this gorgeous beast of a tune...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edzmk2sC2B8&feature=related[/youtube]

[quote="KyushuFez"]Another big FSOL fan here as well. 'Cascade' is one my favourite tracks of all time, and I love 'Papua New Guinea' as well.

Another one of my favourites is 'Boards of Canada'. They've regularly put out some really good ambient stuff.[/quote

BoC are an all time favourite, although I consider them more IDM/Chillout than ambient. I love "Music Has The Right To Children"
Its a groundbreaking album. I also have "Geogaddi" but I tend not to listen to it as much, because its VERY dark sounding and it kind of creeps me out after a while.

36
Andrei Machado
Antenne
Antonymes
Apoptose
Asura
Balmorhea
Ben Woods
Blackfilm
Bluetech
Boards of Canada
Bohren & Der Club of Gore
Brian Eno
Bvdub
Carbon Based Lifeforms
The Caretaker
CODA
Dale Cooper Quartet and the Dictaphones
Deaf Center
Evan Bartholomew
Field Rotation
Fieldhead
Final Light
Gas
The Gentleman Losers
Grouper
Hammock
Hecq
Heinali
Herion
Hummingbird
Integral
Irezumi
Jacaszek
Johann Johannsson
Land
Leyland Kirby
Kattoo
M. Ostermeier
Max Richter
The Moving Dawn Orchestra
Murralin Lane
Nebulo
Nest
Notch
Of Porcelain
Olafur Arnalds
Olan Mill
Ott
Pablo Bolivar
Parks
Pleq
Rudi Arapahoe
Seekae
Shpongle
Subheim
Supersilent
Svarte Greiner
Tape
Thomas Koner
Trentemoller
Tres Speculum
Vaznis
Vladislav Delay

To name but a few artists that tickle my fancy that the ambient label can be applied to in some form or another. I'm sure I've forgotten plenty, but this list should do for now...

Wow, thats an awesome list. I haven't heard of half of those artists. Which ones do you reccomend?

(I already know about BoC, Shpongle, Bluetech, CBL, and Brian Eno)

I forgot about these guys. Yeah, they're brilliant. Absolutely essential for anyone who's interested in free improv.

I still haven't heard 10 or 11. I must get hold of those.

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Depends entirely on your preference for 'Ambient'. Even Bartholomew is Bluetech also, and has 3 great albums. Two of them more dark-ambient and one leaning towards modern classical style ambient.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVRAIyBRbsA[/youtube]

Asura I think would be up your alley for Shpongle/Bluetech/CBL type sound. The same with Ott, on the same label as Shpongle.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0CyFg-HSiE[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L4pyS6pq1I[/youtube]

Andrei Machado and Ben Woods are great piano based ambient music very simple but very very good.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KrlIMBrgjk[/youtube]

36's Hypersona is probably the best ambient album of all time (IMO of course), and best of all his music (mp3 form) is entirely free 3 months or so after release. http://3six.net/album/hypersona has the album in question, everything else except Reunion/Deluge is up for grabs for free too.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRzyDtkxvJo[/youtube]

Olan Mill's Pine,Nest's Retold and Hummingbird's Our Fearful Symmetry are reknowned for being essential ambient listening albums all released in 2010, they're absolutely incredible.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-N45mRGa2c[/youtube]

Apoptose is my personal favourite dark ambient project, I'm sure there's a lot of them out there, but I haven't explored it all that much further. Nordland and Bannwald are my two favourite albums there.
[youtube][/youtube]

Hecq, Of Porcelain, Blackfilm and Nebulo all produce glitch/IDM based ambient music, but your own discretion should be used for use of 'ambient'.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=111gfAs_d7A[/youtube]

Jacaszek, Johann Johannsson, Field Rotation, M. Ostermeier and Olafur Arnalds are all incredible modern classical ambient artists, Jacaszek's Treny is my personal favourite and unbelievably beautiful.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Klov97p_0[/youtube]

Bohren & Der Club of Gore and Dale Cooper Quartet and the Dictaphones are 'doomjazz' artists, which I've kind of lumped with ambient based on the speed of their music, but again is entirely subjective.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovsgsqf6JKo[/youtube]

As you are what you is hit on, Supersilent is free improv style experimental avantgarde music. ish. Once again, might and might not fit under ambient.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crkqw-AEgoM[/youtube]

That should give you a start, but really I listed all those artists each based on their own merits, in my books they're all incredible.

I only listened to the first two tracks on this thread.........

I know the Ambient genre is a pretty broad area, but I prefer the darker aspects of it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koj-Cnxf-hc&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s75AUsadLLI&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuDcUA3vibk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjeOxoKjHzg[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwa-hRxvWDQ&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30lt14WQ1w0[/youtube]