Ambient

[Fretless Eric]

Having just bought an ambient CD (see “Tadpoles…” thread) on the basis of trying out something different, I am left wondering how big a market is this in the scheme of things, i.e. who actually buys this out of choice and not mistake?

As far as I’m concerned this is certainly a case of “I can do that”, not that I have the desire to...

Am I missing something or is this really the “kings new clothes”?

Cheers,

 

[Kit Taylor]

Very easy to do, just string some unobtrusive doodles together, but very hard to do well. There's bucketfuls of crap on the market.

Susumu Yokota's The Boy and the Tree is the greatest ambient album I've heard. It's much more structured and symphonic, not to mention executed with far more skill and taste, than most of the rest of the stuff I've heard.

If you only buy one ambient album...

 

[space cadet]

Originally posted by Kit Taylor

If you only buy one ambient album...

...make it Pauline Oliveros, Depmpster and Panaiotis – Deep Listening
Which was recorded in and underground water cistern and features accordion, trumpet and home-made digeridoo. A beautiful, organic and totally ambient cd which your life will be poorer without.
If you insist on electronic ambient music you could do worse than Gas' self-titled album on Mille Plateaux or Deathprod's Morals and Dogma on Rune Grammofon.

 

[Fretless Eric]

...what made you buy this stuff?

I can see the attraction for producing it in the first place but what makes people seek out this product?

[I do like Eno by the way].

 

[Kit Taylor]

I enjoy cool, spacious, widescreen music that breathes freely.

 

[Fretless Eric]

Kit,
Thanks for answering but I think maybe you could be in a small minority now - as evidenced by the lack of interest in the thread.

Space Cadet,
Thanks also for the recomendations.

I don't have much ambient, I always MEANT to buy some Eno [music for airports, I think] but I do have Phaedra by Tangerine Dream.

I always thought there was some potential for some musicianship in the mix and I guess I ought to do the Eno thing first, I think he could be the touchstone [deep respect].

 

[Kit Taylor]

Make sure you have My Life in the Bush of Ghosts if you own any Eno. It has lots of percussion and art-funk rhythm guitar, so is perhaps not truly "ambient," but it should satisfy your musician lust.

Appollo, the eponymous soundtrack to a documentary about the moon missions he did with Daniel Lanois, is suitably eery, beautiful and majestic. It's also quite melodic, and pops up frequently on trailers and TV serials. It's two albums in one, depending on whether you play it quietly or super loud.

 

[timH]

I quite often listen to radioioambient when I'm working on the Mac at home - I have thought about getting an album but never got round to it - for me it's just background stuff really

 

[SteveC]

Originally posted by space cadet
...make it Pauline Oliveros, Depmpster and Panaiotis – Deep Listening
Which was recorded in and underground water cistern and features accordion, trumpet and home-made digeridoo. A beautiful, organic and totally ambient cd which your life will be poorer without.
If you insist on electronic ambient music you could do worse than Gas' self-titled album on Mille Plateaux or Deathprod's Morals and Dogma on Rune Grammofon.

Yes, the Deep Listening is a good one, and Biosphere and Deathprod do some good stuff together. For instance, "Nordheim Transformed" shows how experimental ambient/drift/isolationism (call it what you will) can blend into modern classical (Arne Nordheim is a "composer of classical music" so that makes it OK then. Lucky there - for a moment, a whole genre was in danger of being dismissed as worthless).