mid 90s ambient techno

bruno

bruno

est malade
sorry, not a very exciting thread title.

anyway, after the original blueprints came a more introspective, darker version of the sound that could be almost new-ageish at times (not a good thing). but there are a couple of gems.

i'm thinking of tournesol's kokotsu, the apollo II compilation, a lot of scandinavian things like aural expansion, mono junk, etc. an obsession with infinity in nature (aurora borealis, the sea, space), very quickly eclipsed by the infinity of the city courtesy of basic channel, summoning the ghosts of detroit. on second thought, mono junk seems to straddle these two visions quite nicely.

the piece that does it for me is tournesol's orange planet, off the kokotsu album. what else (preferably obscure!) do you recommend tracking down?
 
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droid

Guest
Anything on GPR - possibly mid-period Rising High?

More ambient than techno I admit...
 
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stelfox

Beast of Burden
The very first ep and double album on Sapho, the Rising High offshoot label, both called "unique" by influx are pretty great as i seem to remember. haven't listened to them for years, mind. transformations by transform on rising high is a pretty amazing bit of early, ambientish trancy techno, too. heard michael mayer play this at fabric a couple of years back alongside a pile of new kompakt stuff and it fitted incredibly well.
 
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henry s

Street Fighting Man
there was a band called Node, who released a great CD of Tangerine Dream-like trance, back in '95 or so...as I recall, the band featured Flood and Ed Buller (who was the "hot" producer of the day, directing Pulp and, er, Suede) and there was much to-do about their use of only vintage synthesizers (which was still a fairly novel concept at the time)...haven't listened to this one in ages, I'll have to reacquaint myself with it...(it was on the Deviant label, not sure what else they released)...
 
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marke

Tumbling Dice
for those that like to lie down and be washed over by classic 1994 ambient techno - it has to be the gloriously addictive FAX record labels output of this era.

all doom laden synths, tangerine dream styled melodies (Dreamfish 1+2), and a lot of freakiness.

tis rare that i find the compulsion to actually listen to it these days as i need to have a little more urgency in my music, but for when the ears need to be soothed then you just cant go wrong with some 2530 Broadway by Tetsu Inoue, or stuff like Orange by Atomheart.

strangely, SVC records have just released a fine internet only release by Grinning Ape that is a direct offshoot from the whole Artificial Intelligence sound that Warp were so good at.

mp3s available from the SVC website : here

m.e/ireallylovemusic
 
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droid

Guest
Good call - I always forget Namlook and his ilk - though FAX was a pretty good label...

Is it just me, or is there a fine line between classic and dud in this genre?
 
bruno

bruno

est malade
yes, and a lot of classics turned out not to be, in the end. but seeing that my standards have gone down i might like them now, who knows.
 
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mms

sometimes
the terrace stuff /evoluute kinda stuff was good ambient techno, nexus 21 and that ..
people also forget the first locust lp on apollo which was good. reflective records - jonas sharp stuff was good too..
the best fax thing i think was 'air' very good very deep and stylishly made , a hell of alot of hs stuff was pure hippy gash with no point except to distract tripping monkeys..
 
bruno

bruno

est malade
yes, the locust lp, nice. i've wanted to hear the autocreation lp for the locust/seefeel connection, supposedly it was decent. i have the aurobindo lp and it's nothing to write home about, but autocreation had an amazing track on some compilation, i wonder if the album was as good?
 
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francesco

Minerva Estassi
Rising High was an interesting label, but released too much inconsistent stuff also and maybe because of this went bankrupt.
But they released that "definitive namlook collection" that was great (at the time, i have lost my copy so can't confirm) and the Irresistible Force first album and "space is the place" on that fist good "Chill out or die" comp. I think those are classics.... wait, are in a ambient-house nostalgia-revival yet? See the remastered reissue of Global Communication 74:12 (with a second cd with the in my opinion immense GC house tracks the way e the groove).
 
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henry s

Street Fighting Man
I recently re-played (for the first time in many, many years) several ambient techno things from this period, and just could not find that "vibe" that made them seem so special in the first place...stuff like:

Men In White Coats (I forget the album name; it had "Old Man River's Cryin'" and "Monday Morning Dread" on it)
Drum Club, Drums Are Dangerous
Reload, A Collection Of Short Stories
Bandulu, Anti-matters

am I being harsh?...they seemed really weak...and I loved them back then, I really did...
 
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mms

sometimes
francesco said:
Rising High was an interesting label, but released too much inconsistent stuff also and maybe because of this went bankrupt.
But they released that "definitive namlook collection" that was great (at the time, i have lost my copy so can't confirm) and the Irresistible Force first album and "space is the place" on that fist good "Chill out or die" comp. I think those are classics.... wait, are in a ambient-house nostalgia-revival yet? See the remastered reissue of Global Communication 74:12 (with a second cd with the in my opinion immense GC house tracks the way e the groove).
Click to expand...

well the notorious r and s records are back - derrick may is promising new material since his contract with them ran out..
global communications best stuff imo was on their own label, also the link stuff.
i reckon the border community lot, nathan fake etc are kinda ambient house.
rising high also did loads of hardcore and stuff like phat lab nightmre by wagon christ, i think caspar pound was a notorious caner and quite disorganised so that contributed to their fall.
 
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henry s

Street Fighting Man
or Skylab's #1, for that matter...

a couple of other forgotten "ambient" releases from the mid-90's:

Sufi, Life's Rising
Sharkboy, Matinee
 
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henry s

Street Fighting Man
oh, also the Anthony Manning stuff on Irdial, particularly Islets In Pink Polypropylene...

stuff to avoid from this era: all that ethno-techno stuff (Loop Guru, Banco de Gaia, Transglobal Underground, Zion Train)...does not hold up well at all, IMO...also avoid Ozric Tentacles, at all costs...(Eat Static, on the other hand, is OK)...

and yet another forgotten "ambient" gem, then I'll shut up: Witch, by Leslie Winer (aka the "c in a circle" symbol)...
 
M

mms

sometimes
matt b said:
aka altern8.


try higher intelligence agency's first lp.
Click to expand...

correct - they were a few other people as well.
kirk degiorgio did a few guduns too..
the first stuff by 0 on sahko aka mika vanio might do the trick too and is now avaliable again, its wonderful nocturnal ambience.
 
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marke

Tumbling Dice
i wouldn't call that leslie weiner album ambient .. more like dark trip-hop.

whatever happened to her .. she was all over the place at one time (bomb the bass appearances etc)

have to say i too have been having a 90's ambi-techno groove going on in recent times.

on a far more pop style there was Sunsonic who featured juno reactors Ben Watkins in their ranks. the remixes (Youth, 808 State etc) were of the time ambi-techno-pop perfection. but apart from a few Juno Reactor fans, no-one has any idea of them .. such a shame.

never rated that Sufi album meself, whereas Skylab #1 did weird things to me when i hammered that one ..
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
and surely Ozric Tenticles stems much more from psych/prog-rock traditions, even if sometimes they have meddled with electronics. used to love their stuff back then actually... same time ofcourse as all the stuff mentioned on this thread. not a bad idea: clean, streamlined psych instead of the messy noisey kind which is prevalent with the AMT's of the world these days...
 
bruno

bruno

est malade
mms said:
the first stuff by 0 on sahko aka mika vanio might do the trick too and is now avaliable again, its wonderful nocturnal ambience.
Click to expand...
true the ø stuff is beautiful, very nocturnal. it's what i like the most from that time. but it's on a league of its own, i never really associated it with 'ambient techno'.

by the way one that hasn't seen a reissue (and probably never will) is the ø pi recordings 12'', that one is stunning.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
bruno said:
true the ø stuff is beautiful, very nocturnal. it's what i like the most from that time. but it's on a league of its own, i never really associated it with 'ambient techno'.
Click to expand...

absolutely agree... that is some of the most devastatingly gorgeous music I have ever heard. the Tulkinta reissue which combines the first 2 Sahko 12's is just amazing.

different, but Senking's Silencer EP is on this level.

any others come to mind in relation to this type of thing?
 
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