why is ambient so popular now

luka

Well-known member
Ending up in a position in which a lot of music is experienced as a contaminant, pollutant, germ, disease.
 

luka

Well-known member
Trying to hold on to a hard won position of spiritual and ethical purity and needing to keep at bay all evil influence which threatens this rocky perch. I don't mean that in a mocking way. I can relate to it. I know the impulse. I'm not sure it's bad, although it's treacherous ground.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's why I prefer not to drink.

I would class ambient music alongside clean eating in this respect. I think it's the exact same impulse.
 

luka

Well-known member
Music that assiduously avoids exciting the passions. Like not eating garlic and onion.
 

droid

Well-known member
A false premise I think. Ambient is perfectly capable of exciting the emotions and unsettling the perch.
 

luka

Well-known member
I assumed you'd say that and I agree it could be emotional. I can imagine crying for instance. Tapping into the deep reservoir of sadness. But is that the same thing as exciting the passions?
 

luka

Well-known member
I'm not framing this as a good/bad right/wrong.

But tapping into the deep reservoir of sadness. Allowing ourselves to feel fragile, vulnerable, delicate, sensitive, afraid.

These things are seen as healing. Can be healing in fact, if thats the medicine that's required.

But I'm Talking about something else.
 

droid

Well-known member
I assumed you'd say that and I agree it could be emotional. I can imagine crying for instance. Tapping into the deep reservoir of sadness. But is that the same thing as exciting the passions?

Sadness, contentment, yearning, despair, euphoria, joy.

Depends what you mean by passion.
 

Simon silverdollarcircle

Well-known member
This is a boring answer to Luka's question but I think it really depends on what kind of ambient we're talking about. Like the classically pretty and peaceful ambient stuff like Hiroshi yoshimura. Or the whole dark ambient thing which I think is filling the void that metal etc once met for lots of people - transcendence magic and ritual through waves of sound. Or the piles and piles of beatless stuff that gets labeled "experimental" on band camp that has more to do with noise in a way ie. fucking off the idea of song and structure as a bourgeois affectation (or something like that)

I think all of those three "ambient" musics are really trying to do very different things
 

luka

Well-known member
This is a boring answer to Luka's question but I think it really depends on what kind of ambient we're talking about. Like the classically pretty and peaceful ambient stuff like Hiroshi yoshimura. Or the whole dark ambient thing which I think is filling the void that metal etc once met for lots of people - transcendence magic and ritual through waves of sound. Or the piles and piles of beatless stuff that gets labeled "experimental" on band camp that has more to do with noise in a way ie. fucking off the idea of song and structure as a bourgeois affectation (or something like that)

I think all of those three "ambient" musics are really trying to do very different things

Yes, but none of them are really feeding into the mucky id are they? Or the strutting ego. The problematic side of self. The proud rutting thing.
 

luka

Well-known member
Which might be a good thing. In small doses. Just to reiterate I'm not trying to attack the legitimacy of the music. I listen to it and I'm aware that I'm talking to probably the two most famous and respected ambient DJs in the western world.
 

droid

Well-known member
lol, I think maybe it would be more fruitful to interrogate the ambient mode of listening.
 

Simon silverdollarcircle

Well-known member
Yes, but none of them are really feeding into the mucky id are they? Or the strutting ego. The problematic side of self. The proud rutting thing.

Yeah true but could the same be said of post rock, or idm, or dub, or whatever?

But I agree that's theres something about ambient being a fundamentally oppositional music. That it makes sense to define it and how we listen to it by contrasting it against something else. Chill out rooms as an escape from the frenzy of the rave. Morning after music following a heavy night etc etc.
 

luka

Well-known member
It was droid that placed this idea in my head. It's stuck in there very firmly. You won't be able to dislodge it.
 
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