Ambient suggestions

dHarry said:

"ambinet"! I'd love to think that wasn't a typo but a neologism for ambient net mixes!

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Yes.. er... Glad someone picked up on that!

Droid, is there any genre of which you don't have exhaustive knowledge? That looks like quite a mix to which anyone should feel privileged to fall asleep

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Im pretty Catholic in my tastes really... Dissensus is full of threads about properly obscure music that I know virtually nothing about... and the blogs of most Dissensians regularly make me cringe at my own musical ignorance!

"neu 75"

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You fall asleep to this? Half of it maybe, the other half is rocking, driving, dancing or even fighting music but surely not for sleeping.

dreamfish - dreamfish
bladerunner o.s.t - vangelis

qwerty south said:

dreamfish - dreamfish
bladerunner o.s.t - vangelis

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Thats the first mention of Pete Namlook Ive seen here. His label 'FAX' is probably worth checking out as well.

Any post rave ambient suggestions have to include Rising High and 'Chill Out or Die' Volumes 1-4 (varying in quality from the sublime to the ridiculous). General production Recordings' and their technified take on Electronica and ambient also provided the goods back in 'the day' ...

As no-ones mentioned him yet, ill throw in Thomas Koner - master of cold minimal ambience.

OldRottenhat said:

given the album depicted in your avatar, arcaNa, I'm amazed you didn't mention Future Days by Can which has to rival the Eno albums as a progenitor of ambient, and from there you might delve further into krauty climes, such as Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel, Cluster....

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ah, hehe- guess it was just that i wouldn't naturally include Can in any "ambient" context-
their work is a bit too upbeat and motorik to fall asleep too...

but yeah, Future Days is one of their mellowest and most spacious/atmospheric efforts-
and Czukay's use of shortwave radio static as a background texture in the first track, gives association to oceans, water, waves...

(although the stuff in between the opening and closing tracks are more straight-forward, bluesy numbers...)

i wonder whether the development of 20th century german electronic music had any influence on the Krautrock musicians (didn't Florian of Kraftwerk study under Stockhausen?)

(IMO "the german school" of electronic music was much more important and influential than the french one,
because the french school focused much more on the (proto-)sampling of real sound,
whereas the german school wanted to create totally new sounds from scratch,
also Stockhausen showed a (implicit or coincidental) Sun Ra-ish influence when he said (something like,) "i want to make music from Saturn"...!)

IdleRich said:

You fall asleep to this? Half of it maybe, the other half is rocking, driving, dancing or even fighting music but surely not for sleeping.

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Well I sleep through all the rah-rah, and you must be pretty fucken sensitive and twee and affected to consider it *fighting* music, I mean it's not fucken Skrewdriver or Pantera or the Pistols, ya know?

arcaNa said:

i wonder whether the development of 20th century german electronic music had any influence on the Krautrock musicians (didn't Florian of Kraftwerk study under Stockhausen?)

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well, certainly on Can - I think both Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay were classically trained and I'm pretty sure Schmidt studied under Stockhausen - and probably Faust too, at some level.

Well I sleep through all the rah-rah, and you must be pretty fucken sensitive and twee and affected to consider it *fighting* music, I mean it's not fucken Skrewdriver or Pantera or the Pistols, ya know?

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Cheers for that. But I try not to fight too much you're right. Still I think that the heavy ones are pretty like the Pistols, that's where Lydon nicked his vocal style from isn't it?

arcaNa said:

(didn't Florian of Kraftwerk study under Stockhausen?)

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Some of Can yes, Kraftwerk no.

That Global Communication album mentioned seems like one of the closest fits to what the original poster listed. It's got a sorta redundant cover of Tangerine Dream's 'Love On A Real Train'. It's a beautiful track, but you really have to sift through their shit, IMO.

I guess I enjoy a lot of ambient stuff, but not sure what to suggest that's not way more droney and austere...

If you've got ok internet access, some free options could be http://www.lomov.de or http://www.monohm.com .. if you don't like what you download, no harm done, right?

Popol Vuh thirded. Aguirre, Nosferatu and IDGP all great for sleeping I find, as are plenty of their other LPs I'm sure.

Cluster - II, Zuckerzeit, Sowiesoso, the ones with Eno. Harmonia - Deluxe.

Future Days also classic for crashing out especially when tired and emotional. It's just so beautiful that you can kind of dream through the more upbeat bits. Kraftwerk 2 might fit the bill too. Neu! 75? Yes, but play side 2 first!

Is there a pattern forming there? Krautrock is so dreamtastic.

Perhaps slightly oddly I find Boredoms - VCN and Acid Mothers Temple's Absolutely Freak Out albums good for sleeping and blocking out noise. They're both really full-on but something about the information overload can make my brain shut down.

With 90s/00s ambient electronica you've got to be very picky. Not much stands up these days to my ears. Some swear by Biosphere's Substrata but I ain't heard it. Microgravity is great though, just a bit lively.

Other recommendations:

Christopher Tree - At The Cathedral of St. John The Divine
Fantastic solo percussion / wind meditations recorded in a big church on a crappy tape recorder.

Taj Mahal Travellers - August 1974
Sheer bliss and because it's so chaotic yet spacious can kind of interact with the surrounding soundscape to make it less disturbing.

Kawabata Makoto - O Si Amos A Sighire A Essere Duas Umbras?
Solo guitar stuff, one acoustic track, one electric loops and drones. Incredibly sensitive stuff. Total peace.

Alice Coltrane with Pharoah Sanders - Journey In Satchidananda

Holger Czukay and Rolf Dammers - Cannaxis 5

Mouse on Mars - Instrumentals

And how about Ultramarine's Every Man and Woman is a Star for those party spaces? Also still quite fond of Legion Of Green Men's Spacial Specific LP.

Noel Emits said:

Perhaps slightly oddly I find Boredoms - VCN and Acid Mothers Temple's Absolutely Freak Out albums good for sleeping and blocking out noise. They're both really full-on but something about the information overload can make my brain shut down.

Kawabata Makoto - O Si Amos A Sighire A Essere Duas Umbras?
Solo guitar stuff, one acoustic track, one electric loops and drones. Incredibly sensitive stuff. Total peace.

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Our 19 month old daughter will pass out instantly upon contact with either Makoto's "O Si Amos..." or Acid Mother's "Pink Lady Lemonade" (the hour long version from the "Do Whatever You Want..." set).

We do have to slink in and turn down the short noise section half an hour into the "Pink Lady...", though.

Noel Emits said:

Perhaps slightly oddly I find Boredoms - VCN and Acid Mothers Temple's Absolutely Freak Out albums good for sleeping and blocking out noise. They're both really full-on but something about the information overload can make my brain shut down.

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I see where you're coming from with that. Death metal actually does the trick for me in terms of information overload.

christ. we were stretching the definition of ambient beyond bursting point with Can... but Mouse on Mars? Acid Mother? Black Metal???

Ambient now officially refers to anything and everything under the sun.

good job guys.

Hehheh. Wasn't really saying they were ambient as such - more music to go sleep to as per the request.

But then, AMT's recordings are generally swathed in large amounts of reverb - and work really well at low volumes in an ambient way. And that MoM Instrumentals LP is pretty damn soporific.

lull
the new chris bissonette on kranky
coil's time machines
90% of dead voices on air's output

Nurse With Wound - Soliloquy For Lililth (recently reissued too)

maybe not a relaxing ambience....

Theres a bit of 90s electronic ambience going on here. Rising High, GPR, Warp and Rephlex featured...

Hi Everyone!

No-one has mentioned E.A.R.? Dronetastic homemade synth ambient from Sonic Boom. More info here:

http://www.sonic-boom.info/home.php


For all you Eno lovers -

Free Brian Eno / Jah Wobble semi-collaborative soundtrack here:

http://www.bigomagazine.com/archive/ARrarities/ARbeglitter.html

It's some far eastern music magazine that periodically gives away unreleased mp3s. Get em while they're hot!

surprised no-one has brought up the sylvian classic gone to earth - esp the recently restored to full glory cd version

the warp compilation artificial intelligence

virgin did 3-4 really excellent compilations called something like a brief history of ambient that mixed eno with babba maal, very early verve, tangerine dream and many others - really rather beautiful

others not mentioned who are not 'ambient' but quite clearly do the job originally asked for - arvo part (something like alina), some xenakis and the whole minimal/sacred gang