something like a cloud of sound
September 26, 2016 1:14 PM   Subscribe

The 50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time [SL p4k]

"Ambient is a great meeting point: not so much at the center of everything, but floating just above, in a perfect geosynchronous orbit, within reach. At its best, it casts enough shade to dampen the extraneous while causing a shift in our perceptions, enough to take us out of time and place, to wherever we need to be."
posted by holmesian (89 comments total) 140 users marked this as a favorite
 
Squee!!!
posted by Celsius1414 at 1:24 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


Welp, time for me to get angry at Pitchfork again.
*checks watch*
Yup, 4:30pm.
posted by Theta States at 1:29 PM on September 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


Music for Airports at #1, natch
posted by leotrotsky at 1:29 PM on September 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


Aphex Twin Ambient Vol 2 at #2, ok but...

I don't want my ambient music to slowly and subtly unsettle me over the course of an hour.

Every time with this one.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:30 PM on September 26, 2016 [9 favorites]


I'm sick of these sort of lists but I'm a huge ambient music fan, so I feel compelled to comment. They've got the wrong Eno album in the #1 spot. "The Pearl" is the best ambient album ever.
posted by davebush at 1:30 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm not even going to bother dissecting the far too familiar trends of Pitchfork that could have allowed me to guess at over 80% of this list.
I'm just going to go listen to music instead.
posted by Theta States at 1:33 PM on September 26, 2016


Not a single FSOL / Amorphous Androgynous album?
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:34 PM on September 26, 2016 [6 favorites]


I don't care about the rankings; there's a lot here I haven't heard or heard of, so yay, thanks!
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:34 PM on September 26, 2016 [11 favorites]


I'm not even going to bother dissecting the far too familiar trends of Pitchfork that could have allowed me to guess at over 80% of this list.

For those of us for whom the obvious isn't, maybe share?
posted by leotrotsky at 1:36 PM on September 26, 2016 [8 favorites]


Eno's Music For Airports - True Story ...

Early 1990s sometime. Winter, Vancouver, BC. It's snowed recently but now there's a thaw on. Lots of melting going on. We drop acid one night and, once the electricity hits, decide a walk through the UBC Endowment Lands is in order. This is rainforest, acres and acres of it, lots of bike trails and the like. But at night, in the middle of winter, it's a good bet you've got it all to yourself.

We drag a ghetto blaster with us so we can have a soundtrack. Stuff like Can and Miles Davis and Tricky while we're walking, which makes for a suitably cool, otherworldly atmosphere, particularly with our flashlights cutting the mist that's settling in places. After a mile or so, we take a break to drink a little port, smoke cigars (all part of the ritual). But once we're not moving anymore, the music's wrong. Too active. So I grab Music For Airports, slap it in ...

Something happens.

It's entirely in synch with this deep, dark forest moment, snow melting from high branches, a steady and multi-faceted dripping all around. And then something else becomes apparent once we lie down, stair upward at the stars, glimpsed through treetops and shifting layers of mist, and beyond that wisps of high cloud -- we realize (remember) we're in the flight path of Vancouver International Airport. It's maybe 9pm so the skies are active indeed -- a steady coming and going of big jets and their trailing roars. Everything scored perfectly by the music in question.

Music for Airports indeed.
posted by philip-random at 1:38 PM on September 26, 2016 [35 favorites]


Pretty decent list, but I do want to share my favorite ambient record, the Japanese 1983 "fourth world" album, Through the Looking Glass by Midori Takada. It sounds like an otherworldly jungle, all recorders and gamelan.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:39 PM on September 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


Yo Brian Eno, I'm really happy for you, and I'ma let you finish, but uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
posted by Shepherd at 1:46 PM on September 26, 2016 [17 favorites]


I don't want my ambient music to slowly and subtly unsettle me over the course of an hour.

Boards of Canada does this to me. I have yet to make it all the way through any recording without having to turn it off before I start checking the closets and under furniture for unspecified scary but sad monsters.
posted by winna at 1:52 PM on September 26, 2016 [11 favorites]


Few albums can transport me like the KLF's Chill Out. Just thinking about it sets me off staring out the window, wishing the landscape was moving on the other side of it.
posted by vverse23 at 1:54 PM on September 26, 2016 [8 favorites]


stair upward at the stars,

stare
posted by philip-random at 1:55 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not even one FAX / Pete Namlook record?
posted by davebush at 1:57 PM on September 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


They've got The Orb, but it isn't "Blue Room". (shakes fist, ambiently.)
posted by Guy Smiley at 1:58 PM on September 26, 2016 [7 favorites]


Some more albums for your Tether Snapped And Now I'm Just Drifting Until My Spacesuit Batteries Run Out playlist:
Gavin Bryars - The Sinking of the Titanic
Biosphere - L'incoronazione di Poppea
posted by theodolite at 2:04 PM on September 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


Welp, time for me to get angry at Pitchfork again.

Ok sure it's a silly exercise but there are some really great albums on this list. Ehlers' Plays is fantastic.
posted by kenko at 2:06 PM on September 26, 2016



Few albums can transport me like the KLF's Chill Out. Just thinking about it sets me off staring out the window, wishing the landscape was moving on the other side of it.


Came by to pretty much say the same thing.
posted by splen at 2:07 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is good.
posted by Jimbob at 2:14 PM on September 26, 2016


This is an okay list, but calling it the fifty best is ridiculously overambitious
posted by Going To Maine at 2:19 PM on September 26, 2016


Not a single FSOL / Amorphous Androgynous album?

If you've not paid attention to them for a while their Enviroments series is very rewarding to check out - 4 in particular.
posted by Artw at 2:25 PM on September 26, 2016


METAFILTER: (shakes fist, ambiently.)
posted by philip-random at 2:25 PM on September 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


They've got the wrong Eno album in the #1 spot. "The Pearl" is the best ambient album ever.

It is good (not sure if I'd call it the best ambient album ever, though it is a worthy contender), but I feel the need to point out that it's by Harold Budd and Brian Eno.
posted by klausness at 2:29 PM on September 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


> I don't care about the rankings; there's a lot here I haven't heard or heard of, so yay, thanks!

Likewise. I don't care about the specifics of the rankings, as much as I care that a small group of people thought highly enough of these particular 50 albums to recommend them. Basically of the few on the list I am familiar with, I have mixed feelings about most of them, and yeah I would have added at least something by Bryars (that something being "The Sinking of the Titanic") but I wasn't one of the writers they polled. So instead I can be grateful that the slot it could've occupied has, instead, something I hadn't heard yet. Win!
posted by ardgedee at 2:31 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


I don't want my ambient music to slowly and subtly unsettle me over the course of an hour.

I've realized I have a pretty different view of this. The Lustmord/Rich album "Stalker" is my most frequent falling asleep music for years and would be high on my list. Aphex Twin and BOC are just great interesting music.
posted by bongo_x at 2:31 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not even one FAX / Pete Namlook record?

Yeah that whole thread seems to have been forgotten about. I still think it's a good list - I don't care about the rankings but the writing is good and has lots of jumping off points to other stuff.

If you like the Namlook etc. stuff the I Love Music have some threads you may like:

Opinions on FAX Records and Pete Namlook

and then we go:

1992, A Wonderful Year in Ambient Music: Poll and Discussion
1993, A Great Year in Ambient Music: Poll and Discussion
1994: The greatest year for Ambient music? Poll and discussion
1995, A Lovely Year for Ambient Music: Poll and Discussion

Unbelievably the ambient review site and 24 hour a day ambient streaming site Ambience for the Masses/Sleepbot Environmental Broadcast seems to be still going - it was a favourite of mine around 2000-2003 when I was in college, with serious untreated insomnia and a university high speed internet connection.
posted by kersplunk at 2:32 PM on September 26, 2016 [12 favorites]


Missing :zoviet*france: and Rapoon.
posted by klausness at 2:35 PM on September 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


I've been really enjoying Eluvium's newest album False Readings On.
posted by Gymnopedist at 2:37 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


The current incarnation of :zoviet*france: also do an interesting podcast of mostly ambient-ish (or at least non-beat-oriented) music.
posted by klausness at 2:42 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


it's missing (something incongruous) PAULSTRETCHED
posted by Sebmojo at 2:45 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


I feel the need to point out that it's by Harold Budd and Brian Eno

And Daniel Lanois if we're getting technical. In my mind, it's always been an Eno album.
posted by davebush at 2:58 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think a lot of Fax/Namlook is a bit more beat-driven than they're going for on their list. Which also would exclude most FSOL. The intro even says they're excluding a lot of ambient-house for that reason. But OTOH they do have Orbus Terrarrum so ??

Anyway: rather than getting all complainy, I'll just say here are some other things that are also great:
Global Communication - 76:14
Shuttle358 - Optimal.lp
Yagya - Will I Dream During the Process?
posted by aubilenon at 3:00 PM on September 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


I think if you find Boards of Canada too unsettling, you're probably not going to want to listen to The Caretaker with the lights out.

(Who, in his many guises, definitely qualifiers for my Homeopathic Music Award for stretching his ideas too thin and diluting them in too many releases, but taken occasionally can relieve stress and flatulence.)
posted by Devonian at 3:06 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


I heart this thread. I love ambient in headphones while deep into some programming work. Thanks.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:07 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Thumbs up for including Max Richter's Sleep (teaser with Richter talking about the 8 hour album over some of the music).

Thumbs down for no Danielle Baquet-Long aka Chubby Wolf (RIP).
posted by filthy light thief at 3:07 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


Oneohtrix Point Never makes sample mixtapes, not ambient albums. Throw Neutral Milk Hotel and Kanye West in there whydoncha. Fuck you (again) Pitchfork.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:09 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Alba Noto is the unsung musical genius of our age, and his exclusion from this list is criminal.
posted by koeselitz at 3:27 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oneohtrix Point Never makes sample mixtapes, not ambient albums. Throw Neutral Milk Hotel and Kanye West in there whydoncha. Fuck you (again) Pitchfork.

What do you mean by a “sample mixtape”? I can understand the argument that Lopatin’s music isn’t ambient, but I’ve never heard of this class of item. (If you’d said “Oneohtrix Point Never makes instrumental albums using synthesizers, not ambient albums.” I wouldn’t be asking this.)
posted by Going To Maine at 3:29 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is an okay list, but calling it the fifty best is ridiculously overambitious

Oh my sweet summer child who has obviously never worked in online content production.

Editor in Chief: We need 10 best pizzas in Chicago within a week and we have no budget for you to go anywhere or pay any other writers

Me: But then it's just going to be a list of some restaurants I happened to have pizza at sometimes...?

Editor in Chief: That doesn't matter, any listicle with "best" in the title does hella clicks
posted by melissam at 3:43 PM on September 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


One of the problems I have with ambient is that it shades imperceptibly into 'modern classical', which is why I had some difficulty in unearthing a recording I really liked and listened to a lot a few years ago but had forgotten the artist's name. But I found it (eventually by looking through bleep.com's ambient/mod.class/etc list for the album cover, which itself was not quite as I remembered it) - so, if you're not all completely adrift on your own personal sea of stars by now, clap ears on Richard Skelton, Landings.
posted by Devonian at 4:04 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


Thanks for this! My go-to ambient piece these days is Robert Rich's Somnium.

Also, this is a good place to re-recommend musicForProgramming;
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:06 PM on September 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


Holy smokes. I am listening to Music for Airports, click Metafilter, and...
posted by jeff-o-matic at 4:07 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm not even going to bother dissecting the far too familiar trends of Pitchfork that could have allowed me to guess at over 80% of this list.
I'm just going to go listen to music instead.


I'm always a little puzzled by comments like this. If they're so predictable and so annoying, why keep reading their articles? There's a local movie critic whose taste I don't respect at all, so I don't actually read his reviews (I just scan so anything he hates I can put on my "to check out" list).
posted by Lexica at 4:10 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


If they're so predictable and so annoying, why keep reading their articles?

I'm pretty hard in the P4k complainer camp, and I actually don't read their articles, but as a music fan I like to join discussions on MeFi and other corners of the internet where people have already accepted P4k as an arbiter of musical taste. So I'll begrudgingly RTFA, but in subsequent comments also try to get people woke to P4K's crippling hipster disease.

That said, this is not a bad list, and for once I wouldn't have predicted most of it- probably only half. I'm surprised that it leans so heavily into the academic and indie rock side of ambient, and away from electronica/EDM. No FAX, no Global Communications, Taylor Deupree, etc. Aside from the huge classics (Biosphere, SAW, Orb), they always veer toward the more dissonant and academic side of EDM like Mego/Hecker, with the one pleasant exception of GAS. I guess more of their readers are from an indie background so they're giving recommendations that readers will enjoy, but the genre as a whole leans a lot more EDM which you wouldn't know from this list.
posted by p3t3 at 4:34 PM on September 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is an okay list, but calling it the fifty best is ridiculously overambitious

Oh my sweet summer child who has obviously never worked in online content production.

Ok, no - I’m going to push back on this. Pitchfork now tags itself as “The Most Trusted Voice in Music”, and while this is about as overzealous as Kanye calling himself the next Michaelangelo, it’s also not totally unreasonable to say that it has had a critical effect on shaping the modern music landscape. It makes and breaks indie rock bands like matchsticks, and has done for years. It has an annual music festival that is generally thought of as the place to go to see new acts that are likely just about to break big (and which, in a bit of beautiful synergy) are also the bands that Pitchfork tends to give good reviews to.) It has a music journal for longform criticism. If you look at the breakdown of the music that they cover (and I have, because I’m that kind of fool) you’ll see that they still cover quite a diversity of content from both major and minor labels. The site has also moved with the time, going from the indie-rock snobishness of its early years to paying a lot more attention to hip-hop mixtapes and various other subgenres. I don’t know that you can say that it’s on the cutting edge, but I say that because I have no idea how to keep up with the cutting edge. It sure as hell does its darndest to do try and keep up. It is legitimately a source of modern critical authority, somewhere between its height of importance and its eventually being surpassed by something else.

More immediately relevant here: Pitchfork’s lists and guides are generally well-considered things that get a lot of planning, sometimes taking over the entire site for days on end - heck, they’ve got a dedicated section on the site. Lists usually get a news announcement in advance, and are sometimes broken up over a few days. Each album gets its hagiographic paragraph, and it feels like a somewhat-onanistic-but-omg-music delight.

The sight has been adding more small lists lately - “the eight best mixes of the month”-type-of-thing usually put together by one or two contributors, or (from earlier this month) “10 Pitchfork Staffers On The Music That Helps Them Get Shit Done”) But these are small, subjective things, intended to be forgettable. This one isn’t though. They are legitimately advertising it as the “50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time”, and it’ll go down with the rest of these. But it really just seems to have been tossed out there - as if, hey, we’be been running a bunch of articles on Terry Riley reissues so I guess we’d better go ahead and knock out a list of ambient discs. I mean, what the hell? I realize I sound kind of like an Area Man writing an op-ed in The Onion, but I really do hold it to a better standard.

I’m not even going to bother dissecting the far too familiar trends of Pitchfork that could have allowed me to guess at over 80% of this list.

I’m always a little puzzled by comments like this. If they're so predictable and so annoying, why keep reading their articles? There's a local movie critic whose taste I don't respect at all, so I don't actually read his reviews (I just scan so anything he hates I can put on my “to check out” list).

The most annoying thing about liking Pitchfork is knowing that they are engaging in a relentless rewriting of the site’s own history. Old reviews have been scrapped in favor of reappraisals, and their new trend of re-assessing classic albums on Sundays seems basically like a chance for them to update their opinions to better match the zeitgeist. Which is fine I suppose, except I much prefer Pitchfork as a moment-to-moment snapshot of what things seemed like at the time as opposed to an ongoing corrected record of how old music trends look like from this particular second.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:36 PM on September 26, 2016 [8 favorites]


I like this list and also Lustmord, Lorn, other Orb, Boards of Canada. Tangerine Dream are a little too over the top sometimes, but their album Zeit is fantastic in this category.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 4:37 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


It makes and breaks indie rock bands like matchsticks, and has done for years.

I think this used to be the case but is no longer true. I can't really think of any band whose success in the last few years can be solely attributed to a glowing Pitchfork review, in the vein of Tapes n Tapes, etc. And i think their decreased relevance has been good for them, in the sense that they can put out lists like this without getting too caught up in making sure it makes them look super cool.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 4:56 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


So who has the definitive list of 50 best ambient albums?
posted by gucci mane at 4:57 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Anyway: rather than getting all complainy, I'll just say here are some other things that are also great:
Global Communication - 76:14


Yup ditto this.
posted by juv3nal at 4:59 PM on September 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


I don't want my ambient music to slowly and subtly unsettle me over the course of an hour.

While it's true much of Selected Ambient Works 2 is unsettling, it also has the most calming track I've ever encountered in my life. If I could live in a song, it would be that one.
posted by honestcoyote at 5:17 PM on September 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


also the delay piano on cliffs is super good
posted by juv3nal at 6:16 PM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


I’ll put in a good word for RAUM’s Event of Your Leaving
posted by Going To Maine at 6:36 PM on September 26, 2016


Oneohtrix Point Never makes sample mixtapes, not ambient albums.

IMO this is an absurd claim, unless you want to put more weight than is bearable on "mixtape" v. "album". Whether something is reasonably classed as ambient music is not up to the intentions of the person making it.
posted by kenko at 7:27 PM on September 26, 2016


Thanks for posting! Still, as a longtime ambient fan (and occasionally frustrated reader of Pitchfork reviews), I'd have to agree that this list doesn't match Pitchfork's claim to be a music authority or trusted voice in music, at least in this genre. It's a big tent, but some of the choices seem deliberately to provoke an "Oh? Is that really ambient?" response. An entry like Robert Ashley's "Automatic Writing" feels like pushing it, and I enjoy his work a lot.

There are some notable absences, including any Fax label output. Some things I would have added to the list (no particular order):

Holy Dance - Tetsu Inoue
Oracle Night - Manual
Aegina Airlines - Dead Texan
Morphing Cloud - Electro Harmonix
Steam - Loscil
Heaven (aw cut) - Pete Namlook and Dr. Atmo
Somplace South of Here - A Small Good Thing
Password for Ethenogenic Experience - Allio Die
Ruins - Axiom Ambient (Bill Laswell remixes Tetsu Inoue)
Morning Spirit - 2350 Broadway 3
9 39 - Global Communication
Requiem for the Static King pt 2 - A Winged Victory for the Sullen
Thursday Afternoon - Brian Eno
Odonna - Woob
Wind in Black Trees - Gentleman Losers
Smocking Erde - :zoviet*france:
posted by Otherwise at 7:34 PM on September 26, 2016 [7 favorites]


Ravedeath, 1972 - Tim Hecker

My favorite forever.
posted by Doleful Creature at 7:41 PM on September 26, 2016 [6 favorites]


FACT’s list of the 20 best ambient albums.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:42 PM on September 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


What do you mean by a “sample mixtape”?

"Mixtapes" of "samples". I just mean a mish-mash with no real structure and those are the first two words that sprang to mind since I'm just barely invested enough in this whole state of affairs to a) register my displeasure in the first instance and then, now, b) follow up by saying I don't care about any of it, thereby exasperating people with my lowkey hypocrisy.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:10 PM on September 26, 2016


One of the MeFi music swaps turned me on to Aglaia, from Italy. Their Three Organic Experiences album has lots of replayability.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 10:21 PM on September 26, 2016


I know it's super-uncool, but I listen to ambient music through the medium of Spotify sleep playlists.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:32 PM on September 26, 2016


I am feeling bad because I didn't mention Move D & Pete Namlook XII Space & Time which of the twenty-six albums the two of them did in collaboration, it is my favorite. Also I feel compelled to correct / refine my previous assertion that Fax is beat-oriented. Groove-oriented would be a better description.
posted by aubilenon at 11:54 PM on September 26, 2016


Music for Airports at #1, natch

I knew they were going to put that first for defining the genre but it's not even close to his best in my opinion.

Anyway this is the sort of thing where you can tell that Pitchfork isn't quite enough into the genre to make a really impressive list but they do have plenty of good picks on there.
posted by atoxyl at 12:15 AM on September 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


All the clouds turn to words
All the words float in sequence
No one knows what they mean
Everyone just ignores them
posted by talking leaf at 12:56 AM on September 27, 2016


I'm kind of perturbed that there are only 6 on that list which I know about (and own) - yet it's definitely one of my preferred genres.
Not convinced that Orbvs Terrarvm would make it onto a list of my making, but then again, perhaps the issue is around how you define 'ambient' music and where the cross-over is into everyday electronica - is it allowed to pick up the beat occasionally, or have any vocals? The description in the article intro isn't very enlightening...

In any case, I'd have included FSOL (probably from one of the more recent 'Environments') albums as artw mentions above as well as some others mentioned above, along with some of the following - which I find work well to relax and chill out to - either to listen to specifically, or to have on in the background (which in my world is the definition of 'ambient'). It's tricky when an album is amazingly peaceful and relaxing and then blasts you with something loud/scary/upbeat - perhaps genres should only apply to specific songs rather than to the full album?

Boards of Canada - A Beautiful Place Out In The Country
Shpongle - Are You Shpongled?
Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
Trentemoller - The Last Resort
Chicane - Behind The Sun
Tangerine Dream - Phaedra
The Black Dog - Spanners
Hybrid - Wider Angle
Fluke - Risotto (track 3 onwards at least)
Orbital - In Sides
Urban Myth Club - Helium
Lone - Reality Testing
Susumu Yokota - Sakura
Marconi Union - Weightless

I'd probably better stop there, but there's plenty more which I could add to the list: Echaskech - Skechbook; Jon Hopkins - Contact Note, or Opalescent; Mike Oldfield - Songs of Distant Earth; Moby - Ambient; Mogwai - Les Revenants; Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place; Way Out West - Way Out West; Zero 7 - Simple Things

(How about a Metafilter subsite for Meta-lists? Select a category of 'things' and build a list; members submit lists and vote on others lists - generating one overarching community super-list)
posted by Chunder at 4:45 AM on September 27, 2016 [6 favorites]


Someone mentioned him already, but the lack of anything by Taylor Deupree or of any 12k artist seems like a massive oversight. So much good stuff on that record label.
posted by tehjoel at 5:15 AM on September 27, 2016


Deepchord are worth a listen. They have a lovely analogue feel and incorporate field recordings:

The Coldest Season
Liumin

Liumin is very evocative of summer in Tokyo.
posted by Luther_Blissett at 5:32 AM on September 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


they have guitar pedals now that can practically produce one of these albums by themselves
posted by thelonius at 6:14 AM on September 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


I feel the need to point out that it's by Harold Budd and Brian Eno
And Daniel Lanois if we're getting technical. In my mind, it's always been an Eno album.


Well, it says it's by Harold Budd and Brian Eno ("with Daniel Lanois"), and compositions are credited to Budd and Eno (with production by Lanois and Eno). To me, it's always sounded at least as much like a Harold Budd album as a Brian Eno album, and I wanted to give proper credit to Budd.
posted by klausness at 6:22 AM on September 27, 2016


Not sure if Natural Snow Buildings quite qualify as ambient (they're kind of a freak folk drone ambient), but they're worth a listen in any case.
posted by klausness at 7:08 AM on September 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


...and as long as I'm talking about drone music (which I guess is kind of ambient-adjacent), I'll also mention Troum.
posted by klausness at 7:10 AM on September 27, 2016


Objection! No way is Trentemoller ambient.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:14 AM on September 27, 2016


Or Orbital! I mean there are rules here. Just because it's music that you can put on in the backgtound, that surely doesn't make it ambient.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:17 AM on September 27, 2016


And here's some Harold Budd without Brian Eno. (Whole album here.)
posted by klausness at 8:02 AM on September 27, 2016


Another thing I listened to 16 years ago when i was getting into ambient was a DJ mix I picked up on hyperreal.org in crappy Real Audio format. There was no annotation of the tracks, just the name of the DJ (Tim Fothergill), but they were all great, and in time I learned what a lot of them were (Eno, Aphex Twin, Woob, etc.)

Two years ago I found the mix on an old external hard drive, and I was able to track down the guy who made it on Twitter. He posted a much higher quality version on Soundcloud and asked for my help in labelling the tunes. I wasn't much use except for Shazaming one or two, but he got nearly all of them. Those few unlabelled ones continue to bother me though. Just means I'll have to listen to every vaguely ambient album in existence until I find them...
posted by kersplunk at 8:33 AM on September 27, 2016


Someone mentioned him already, but the lack of anything by Taylor Deupree or of any 12k artist seems like a massive oversight. So much good stuff on that record label.

I stopped paying attention after a while but early on there was some fantastic stuff on 12k. My favorite I already mentioned (Shuttle538 - Optimal.lp), but the label's very first release, thesecretnumbertwelve, by Taylor Deupree himself (still under the Human Mesh Dance moniker) is also extremely good. I'm really glad these eventually became available for unlimited online consumption - they for sure deserve more exposure than the 500 copies of physical media they were initially limited to.
posted by aubilenon at 10:12 AM on September 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Some favourites of mine on here (Stars of the Lid, Gas, Bioshpere, Tim Hecker), and of course "Music for Airports" and "Ambient Vol II" are on here.

Notables missing for me:
Anything by Loscil. Ambient that gets better and deeper the more you listen to it.
Labradford (and the side project/ followup Pan American), especially the first half of Fixed:Content
posted by sauril at 10:29 AM on September 27, 2016 [5 favorites]


Not convinced that Orbvs Terrarvm would make it onto a list of my making, but then again, perhaps the issue is around how you define 'ambient' music and where the cross-over is into everyday electronica - is it allowed to pick up the beat occasionally, or have any vocals? The description in the article intro isn't very enlightening...

It seems like they had a hard time deciding whether to include downtempo with a beat or not. It's kinda too much to stuff into one list so it ends up looking like some classics are missing.
posted by atoxyl at 11:35 AM on September 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Man, this conversation really makes me miss hyperreal.org's Ambient mailing list.
posted by softlord at 7:21 PM on September 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


My confession; I listen to probably a third of the of the artists in this discussion, but I've never heard "Music For Airports".
posted by bongo_x at 7:58 PM on September 27, 2016


The list is useful for providing some new listening ideas and stirring discussion. Eno is heavily represented - as he should be. I disagree with Aphex Twin at #2. I second that it should have had Gavin Bryars/Titanic, Global Communication/76:14, some solo Harold Budd and Jeff Grienke's Cities In Fog.
posted by kreinsch at 8:46 PM on September 27, 2016


Also ILXOR has a "Top 100 Ambient Albums" thread that's been open and semi-active since 2004. #oldinternet.
posted by softlord at 9:18 PM on September 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Apple Music has the entire list. Thanks for posting this! Very happy!
posted by persona au gratin at 12:35 AM on September 28, 2016


Some ambient things that are very lovely:MLO, Talvin Singh and Rakesh Chaurasia, Labradford, Ralf Hildenbeutel, Laraaji.

You really have to include KLF - Chill Out, because it put the term 'ambient music' into the modern lexicon. File Under Ambient!

Here is a lovely ambient mix created this year by JG Wilkes; 'Plant Mix 1 is an hour or so of music for the plants. It is my way of talking to them, talking about them to you, entertaining them, celebrating them, warning them of potential danger as well as helping them to grow and stay healthy.'
posted by asok at 2:14 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


I stopped paying attention after a while but early on there was some fantastic stuff on 12k. My favorite I already mentioned (Shuttle538 - Optimal.lp), but the label's very first release, thesecretnumbertwelve, by Taylor Deupree himself (still under the Human Mesh Dance moniker) is also extremely good. I'm really glad these eventually became available for unlimited online consumption - they for sure deserve more exposure than the 500 copies of physical media they were initially limited to.

Yep, "thesecretnumbertwelve" still gets rotated into my active play list from time to time. An old friend of mine got me on the mailing list to pre-order one of those 500 copies "back in the day" as the kids say. It's still floating around in my collection somewhere, along with the other Human Mesh Dance albums. And Prototype 909. And SETI--I absolutely loved those 3 records he did with Savvas Ysatis.
posted by tehjoel at 6:12 AM on September 28, 2016


A friend of mine made this pretty fantastic album using lots of field recordings as the basis.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:46 AM on September 28, 2016 [3 favorites]


Orbvs Terrarvm - yeah, I kind of think of this as more dub (or dub-inspired, anyway). There is a pretty close link between ambient and genres like dub and post-rock.

The ambient tracks I get to listen to most often these days are the sloth and panda in Loopimal. At least my daughter's getting an appreciation of music beyond just Caspar Babypants!
posted by sincarne at 12:25 PM on September 28, 2016


The Stranger provides an additional 50 albums that actually addresses a lot of my missing items: more Budd, more Eno, Global Communication, Jeff Grienke.
posted by kreinsch at 11:01 PM on October 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


That definitely fills in some of the gaps. Now to forever expunge OPN from the Pitchfork list.
posted by Theta States at 6:59 AM on October 4, 2016


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