<i>IMO Soil Festivities is Vangelis' best attempt to do "proper" ambient.</i>
not an official release, but what you want to hear is his soundtrack to "microneurosurgery with videotapes" also called the Tegos tapes. most of the online recordings edit out the narration but it still leaves you with about twelve hours of ambient vangelis. it's as fantastic as you might hope that would be.
here's a collection of them on soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/kitlightning/sets/tegosauron
try case 4, for example
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 01:22 (seven years ago) link
I don't even follow my own proclamation most of the time. Plastikman's Consumed album is full of beats but functionally, it works like an ambient album to me.
― brotherlovesdub, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 02:11 (seven years ago) link
If ambient music is defined as something you can chill to, nothing precludes it from having beats. There's plenty of albums by proper, recognized ambient artists that have unobtrusive, chilled down beats.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 06:00 (seven years ago) link
Obviously there are types of ambient house and ambient techno, where the latter genre is more important, and which have fairly banging 4/4 beats. That's one of the reasons I don't consider the From Within albums or Selected Ambient Works I to be proper ambient. But there are also distinguished types of ambient beats. There are even some tunes I'd consider to be ambient where percussion is the main element.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 07:18 (seven years ago) link
I think it should be beatless. But then: Gas.
― Sunn O))) Brother Where Art Thou? (Chinaski), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 07:20 (seven years ago) link
If beatlesness was an absolute requirement, a lot of acclaimed ambient albums would have to be disqualified: Microgravity, Patashnik, Organic Cloud, all albums by Air, Silence, Woob, Gas & The Irresistible Force, most Atom Heart, etc.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 07:42 (seven years ago) link
I'm fine with that - it'd make it 'neater' as a genre descriptor. As it is, it's kinda messy and vague. (It doesn't keep me awake at night. But still.)
― Sunn O))) Brother Where Art Thou? (Chinaski), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 11:42 (seven years ago) link
Drawing clear genre boundaries is impossible anywhere.
What's more interesting in discussing these lists (or at least, treating them as some sort of 'critical consensus') are the blind spots and shifts in focus - new age used to be one of those, it's now firmly back in the canon. 90's ambient (incl -house and -techno) is receding. But large swathes of the ambient landscape (ha!) still lay undiscovered - lots of soundtrack work (film and increasingly, video game), dark ambient (Lustmord, Cold Meat Industry, Thomas Köner etc), psybient (Shpongle, Ott, Ultimae Recs etc).
― Siegbran, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 11:59 (seven years ago) link
Even within this debate re beats or no beats, some of those 0PN records on their list seem pretty far removed from ambient.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 13:21 (seven years ago) link
Rifts made sense. Replica made no sense.
― I look forward to hearing from you shortly, (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 14:14 (seven years ago) link
yeah, the absence of ambient artists in this list from labels like Projekt/Hic Sunt Leones/Cold Meat Industry makes sense, as goth + world music is still terminally uncool. It's sad though, artists like Robert Rich and Alio Die have been putting out amazing work, often collaborating to great effect, for 20-30 years now. I'm surprised there's nothing by any Em:t artists... obviously Woob's 1194 but also magical releases like Lucid Dreams 0096:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuQj1txL2Bs
Scanner doesn't seem to get any love these days either.
I think we can all agree that one defining characteristic of ambient is Beatleslessness.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 16:39 (seven years ago) link
the easily cornball intersection of world music + new age/ambient is highly highly beloved of me
― I wish you could see my home. It's... it's so... exciting (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 16:42 (seven years ago) link
The Em:t albums seem to have sort of suffered the same fate as FAX: they're out of print and not so easy to acquire. I kinda feel lists like this are compiled by people who weren't listening to this stuff in the '90s, and these days the newcomers don't have an easy access to it, so it's dropped off the radar. Which is sad, because their catalogue include some of the best electronic music of all time.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 18:14 (seven years ago) link
here have a mix..
https://www.mixcloud.com/crystalsprings/evening-fog-mix/
― brimstead, Thursday, 29 September 2016 21:06 (seven years ago) link
dude made his own list:
http://www.self-titledmag.com/2016/09/30/100-best-ambient-albums/
― scott seward, Friday, 30 September 2016 18:25 (seven years ago) link
dude's list runs pretty close to my tastes but I don't know if that makes the list very useful for me wrt new discoveries.
― Siegbran, Friday, 30 September 2016 19:05 (seven years ago) link
nice list, weird that it's framed as a rebuttal when it deliberately excludes albums from the p4k list.. it's really just "another hundred great ambient albums" and obviously that's a totally good thing to post but the disconnect is odd, i'll go ahead and blame clickbait culture (sorry)
― brimstead, Friday, 30 September 2016 19:20 (seven years ago) link
also because his list features plenty of artists from the pitchfork list. kinda getting into narcissism of small differences territory.
― a basset hound (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Friday, 30 September 2016 19:34 (seven years ago) link
good for dude
― savvinesslessness (map), Friday, 30 September 2016 20:22 (seven years ago) link
Dude also made a pretty remarkable ambient album of his own (Daydreaming, 2007)
― doug watson, Friday, 30 September 2016 23:57 (seven years ago) link
duane pitre - organized pitches occurring in time
― braunld (Lowell N. Behold'n), Saturday, 1 October 2016 00:20 (seven years ago) link
The Beach Boys Pet SoundsThe Beatles The BeatlesBob Dylan Highway 61 RevisitedDavid Bowie Hunky DoryRadiohead The Bends
― Still D.U.C.K. (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 1 October 2016 01:17 (seven years ago) link
another mix
https://soundcloud.com/coppersprings/local-fertilizer-mix
― brimstead, Saturday, 1 October 2016 03:53 (seven years ago) link
No FAX (or Rather Interesting) on that guy's list either, what's wrong with people? Have Namlook/Inoue/Atom Heart/etc been completety scratched off the ambient canon?
― Tuomas, Monday, 3 October 2016 11:54 (seven years ago) link
Namlook's Air I appears (assuming that we're talking about the same list.) I think that'd be my choice of Fax titles as well if I could choose only one. Okay, maybe Ambiant Otaku. Damn.
― doug watson, Monday, 3 October 2016 13:52 (seven years ago) link
I think it's like Tuomas said, the FAX stuff being unavailable for an entire generation of listeners means it drops out of the canon for many... same goes for Woob, although 1194 was re-released a few years back.
Looks like Global Communication's Pentamerous Metemorphosis is also out-of-print, which is a shame because it is easily a top ten all-time ambient album.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 3 October 2016 15:25 (seven years ago) link
I think it's the other way round, i.e. people don't care much for that stuff so it becomes unavailable and then drops out of the canon. FAX label has no God-given right to be remembered, it has to earn it.
― heaven parker (anagram), Monday, 3 October 2016 15:35 (seven years ago) link
hahaha, yeah like that Laraaji album "earned" a spot on the Pitchfork list by being called Ambient 3 and being released on Editions EG.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 3 October 2016 17:46 (seven years ago) link
i mean it's p obvious that pfork peeps couldn't think of 100 ambient albumss, they threw fennesz and terry riley in there for some reason. who cares, though, right?
― brimstead, Monday, 3 October 2016 20:19 (seven years ago) link
well, I think ILX exists to sequester challops by binding it with our own best-of lists, we're cultural environmentalists aren't we?
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 3 October 2016 23:24 (seven years ago) link
i thinkmaybe we should FAX tuomas an anagram
― savvinesslessness (map), Monday, 3 October 2016 23:32 (seven years ago) link
I think with FAX it really is a case that the albums are so hard to find; especially after Namlooks death, when they disappeared from online stores and there wasn't any more Ambient World reissues (though that's gradually starting to change now that rights have been reverting back to his collaborators). Even in the '90s, some of those albums were like mythical objects, with everyone who managed to snatch a copy from those pressings of 500 or 1000 CDs praising them, while they remained impossible to acquire for the rest of us. I still remember how good it felt in the 2000s when Discogs.com and me having a proper job finally meant I could acquire some of those albums.
Of course there are duds among them, FAX released a new album once a week, but the quality of the best records is definitely high and their reputation is earned. So I really feel their low availability has caused them to drop from the canon... It's not a coincidence that the albums most likely to be included in this top 50 or top 100 lists are stuff like Air or Silence, which were reissued several times, while amazing records like Music to Films still remain obscure, because they only had that one 500 copy pressing.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 07:23 (seven years ago) link
It's not necessarily the availability, the FAX material just isn't that highly rated. If you take the Rate Your Music chart for 'big tent definition' ambient (ie including minimalism, new age and drone), the first FAX album only shows up at #174.
― Siegbran, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 11:24 (seven years ago) link
(and there's tons of stuff on those charts that's also out of print)
― Siegbran, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 11:26 (seven years ago) link
I don't understand how that list works...? Tetsu Inoue's Organic Cloud is at 202th spot, and has rating of 3.79, which is the same rating the album at 23rd spot has. It doesn't look like they are ordered by rating?
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 15:45 (seven years ago) link
Top ten for me. Some certainly stretch the criteria.
Upper Astral - Higher Self RendezvousMirror - Die SpiegelmanufakturSteve Roach - Structures From SilenceOnes/Hands - 1997-2005Climax Golden Twins - LovelyBernhard Günter – Un Peu De Neige SalieGraham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet - PhotographsOmit - QuadAndrew Chalk - Gold FallRobert Turman - Flux
― Yelploaf, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 15:47 (seven years ago) link
hahaha, that Rate Your Music "ambient" list also has... a lot of Loreena McKennitt albums on it.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 4 October 2016 16:19 (seven years ago) link
― Tuomas
no, it's not by straight rating- the number of ratings also has a large effect. the #23 album has over 2,000 ratings, whereas inoue's "organic cloud" has under 100. it doesn't make statistical sense to simply go by average rating in this case.
― a confederacy of lampreys (rushomancy), Tuesday, 4 October 2016 16:24 (seven years ago) link
Well that kind of rating system is obviously biased against albums with small and/or limited pressings, such as most of the FAX catalogue; they're never gonna have as many people voting for them.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 16:37 (seven years ago) link
you're misunderstanding how maths works but i think it's a system which works to reinforce a certain ahistoricist kind of canon-building
― don't even see how this was a duck (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 4 October 2016 16:41 (seven years ago) link
The weighting needs to give more weight to reviews by people who are familiar with all of the releases, not just the ones that are easy to find. That's more effort than a web site trying to rank all music via crowdsourcing is going to put in though, and it's also why the recommended ambient albums list from Hyperreal from 2001 (http://music.hyperreal.org/epsilon/info/2001_classic_ambient.html) is still a better list than what Rate Your Music generates today.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 4 October 2016 17:13 (seven years ago) link
That's a good list, yeah. Interesting that Tetsu Inoue is rated so high, but I can't argue that his first two FAX albums are proper ambient classics... Tho personally I rate the first two Shades of Orion (Namlook/Inoue) albums even higher.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 17:38 (seven years ago) link
― erry red flag (f. hazel)
That's what happens if you include new age. There's also those Silent Hill soundtracks which receive insanely high ratings (I assume mostly by nostalgic gamers who don't really listen to anything else?) and are not very ambient, there's a few run-of-the-mill droney mood pieces but mostly a shit ton of (very inept) alt rock with drum machines, which sounds like a demo from Garage Band presets.
― Siegbran, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 18:42 (seven years ago) link
I think the RYM system doesn't have a bias against albums with few votes (unless it's a few dozen), but it puts much less weight to a rating if it's the only thing the reviewer has rated or if he just rates everything 5 or 1, etc. It's a bit like IMDB ratings.
― Siegbran, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 18:44 (seven years ago) link
Can we argue some more about why a bunch of Finnish teenagers who think Madvillain is the best rap album of all time don't rate the Fax catalog
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 19:17 (seven years ago) link
ts: teenagers who think madvillain is the best rap album of all time vs. 40 year olds who think paul's boutique is the best rap album of all time
― a confederacy of lampreys (rushomancy), Tuesday, 4 October 2016 19:42 (seven years ago) link
wow, the #1 new age album is apparently Hosianna Mantra by Popol Vuh
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 4 October 2016 20:27 (seven years ago) link
well yeah
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, 4 October 2016 20:36 (seven years ago) link
Robert Turman - Flux
this album rules, btw
― brimstead, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 22:05 (seven years ago) link
lol RYM ratings... jeez... not an insignificant amount of people are just going through their slsk downloads, previewing a few tracks and then rating them..
― brimstead, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 22:09 (seven years ago) link