Top 100 Ambient Albums

I wouldn't trust any ambient top list with no FAX label albums in it at all...

was going to be either you or me tuomas to say that ..

In general, this list seems to totally prefer the "cool", minimal side of ambient, and totally ignore to more hippieish side that has been just as important for 25+ years. So no Namlook, Tetsu Inoue, Mixmaster Morris, Constance Demby, PWOG, etc.

Plenty of older new age hippie stuff in there though, although not the 90s variety.

hahaha, that's a list made by people afraid to admit in public that they like Future Sound of London.

It is interesting to see that the critical revaluation of new age 'cheese' is in full swing - Pauline Oliveros, Iasos, Ashra, Suzanne Ciani, that stuff was critically off-limits for a long while. I mean, Yanni, Enigma or Enya aren't going to pop up on this kind of lists anytime soon, but the more respectable end of new age is definitely back in focus.

if Eluvium is on this list there's no credible reason the first two Enya albums wouldn't be, except Pitchfork finds her way too unbeardly

Two Stars of the Lid albums in the top 20 is a bit rich for me personally, but I mean these lists are what they are.

I thought Enya was hip again now, shows what I know.

FSOL's Lifeforms absolutely deserves to be on here somewhere.

Music for Airports is obviously important and what have you but for me On Land, Apollo and The Pearl are all superior records.

Ah well substitute Kitaro for Enya then.

I'm actually surprised at the PF love for Laraaji, I thought that was always considered as the dud one in the Eno series.

It's good, but the first half of it hardly seems to fit even the self-imposed rules that Pitchfork had for this list... it's pretty frantic for an ambient album.

Interesting enough list, albeit kind of arbitrary as to what fits and what doesn't. Biggest omission for me is no Labradford (unless I missed it).

Just listening to David Behrman for the first time in a while - On the Other Ocean and Leapday Night are both fabulous (and both a massive influence on Jim O'Rourke).

"but the more respectable end of new age is definitely back in focus."

where you been?

pauline has been a hipster icon for ages in the states. jon hassell on the other hand has not. that is a more recent development. ciani-love definitely came about during the first wave of hepcat reappraisals.

Replica is just the wrong choice for an OPN "ambient" album. the only straight up ambient thing he ever did was the Rifts collection and parts of R Plus Seven. Replica is a collage record.

It's a pretty good list. It's also very coherent for pitchfork, these are artists and albums they've been pushing for years, of course there's going to be missing stuff but it wouldn't make sense for P4K to give FSOL recognition, per example, when they rarely mention them or rate them high. Take it for what it is.

i do wonder if people who weren't listening the first time are listening to 90's-era stuff lik gas, orb, oval, klf? do they speak to the iBud crowd?

all the album links on the pitchfork list should have gone to this. and it should be #51 on the list:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peXoHKKA3d4

i do wonder if people who weren't listening the first time are listening to 90's-era stuff lik gas, orb, oval, klf? do they speak to the iBud crowd?

― scott seward, lunes 26 de septiembre de 2016 18:22 (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I dont think that most of the readers of p4k are actually that young anymore.

i like a lot of what's on here but it's undeniably on-trend wrt new age. like, erik satie should really be on a list that's actually interested in uncovering what ambient is, just as much as eno should be. i love laurie spiegel but i don't think she's ambient at all. eliane radigue 'fits' better i think. (don't mean to weigh token women artists here.) psycho-acoustic sound art type stuff feels connected to the ambient concept imo. maryanne amacher. robert ashley was a good call. in general there seems to be a fear of experimental classical / institutional sound art that isn't outsider-y enough. i love minimalism but solely focusing on it betrays a certain predictable pov.

tbr though 'ambient' may have made sense for eno in a specific context but it's a terrible category.

Yup, too broad, too subjective. Eno had a more specific definition

But when I make playlists I operate in a v subjective way with definitions

I mean even playback volume comes into play here

pretty broad list, a lot of stuff i dont think of as ambient. Its a little rude to characterize minimalists/pure drone artists as ambient, isnt it?

there's a LOT of stuff on there i wouldn't call ambient. but lots of good stuff so i don't care.

yeah i know it's pretty narcissism of small differences... but somehow the act of listing ambient albums puts the definition of ambient music under severe stress

anyway here's a list

jordan de la sierra - gymnosphere
dj olive - sleep
dj olive - buoy
heathered pearls - loyal
various - pop ambient 2002
steve hillage - rainbow dome musick
waki - music for lazy people
robert turman - flux
dream carpets - interior fountains
jack jutson - mother official
jack jutson - mother official volume 2
154 - strike
shuttle358 - understanding wildlife
adlib - adlib
eno - neroli
reinhard voigt - premiere world
ulwhednar - withatten 1982
vektroid - polytravellers
shuttle358 - frame
shuttle358 - chessa
dolphins into the future - canto arquipelago
k. leimur - closed system potentials
microstoria - init ding
cex - presumed dead
rob theakston - i am waiting for you to stop being mad at me

i mean

Pauline Oliveros/Stuart Dempster/Panaiotis - Deep Listening

i don't think this title is meant to be ironic!

Well I don't disagree with the p4k list but as long as we're enlisting missing albums:

Popol Vuh - In den Gärten Pharaos (1971)
Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht (1972)
Roedelius - Wenn der Südwind weht (1981)
Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure (1983)
Labradford - Prazision LP (1993)
Susumu Yokota - Sakura (1999)
Colleen - Everyone Alive Wants Answers (2003)
Akira Rabelais - Spellewauerynsherde (2004)
Belong - October Language (2006)
Kevin Drumm - Imperial Distortion (2008)
Áine O'Dwyer - Music for Church Cleaners (2012)

"sandstorm" encoded at 8kbps... is it ambient?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldFlcR31gYg

this is an interesting list for sure but yeah snubbing fsol, global communication, and fucking SEEFEEL of all acts is just kind of bonkers

04. Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air
07. Oval - 94diskont
08. Pauline Oliveros/Stuart Dempster/Panaiotis - Deep Listening
09. Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet
12. Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe
16. Terry Riley - Persian Surgery Dervishes
20. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
22. Fennesz - Endless Summer
23. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Playthroughs
25. Folke Rabe - What??
28. Pauline Oliveros - Accordion and Voice
31. Ashra - New Age Of Earth
32. La Monte YoungMarian Zazeela - The Tamburas Of Pandit Pran Nath (An Homage)
34. Charlemagne Palestine - Four Manifestations On Six Elements
37. Tim Hecker - Virgins

you can certainly use these as background music, or selectively attentive music, but i don't know, just doesn't seem correct.

who cares, right?

this is an interesting list for sure but yeah snubbing fsol, global communication, and fucking SEEFEEL of all acts is just kind of bonkers

― laraaji p. henson (Stevie D(eux))

Ah Seefeel forgot about them! Used to love them back in highschool.

persian surgery dervishes sounds really intense and ecstatic to me, for example, like let's all have a rave up with terry

this is THE Seefeel ambient jam, afaic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm4rtr03ZV8

but i don't know, just doesn't seem correct.

just doesn't seem right or wholesome to have them on an ambient list, i should say, unless you widen the tent to encompass more 'ambient is a feeling' stuff in jazz/classical/world etc

or like, eagles greatest hits

yeah. it makes sense as a process but feels really cynical as a category of music to me.

like a list of 300 'spiritual' albums would have been so much better + more coherent

So an interesting closing of the loop... Back in 2000 I was in college and just getting into ambient music vie extreme insomnia. hyperreal.org (which is still up - although it says "Copyright 1992-2004 Hyperreal" at the bottom of the page) was an electronic music/rave culture/drugs (via the connected Erowid) site and had DJ sets to download as 'instructional material'. I downloaded an ambient one in Real Audio (yep) format by a guy called Tim Fothergill and listened to it a lot - an awful lot. As I learned more about ambient music I started to recognise a lot of the tunes as Aphex Twin, Eno etc., but eventually I got a big CD and MP3 collection and forgot about this crappy Real Audio file.

Fast forward to two years ago and I found it by accident - I tracked Tim down on Twitter, and he posted up a much higher quality version on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/tim-fothergill/evolution

Some of the track ids of this 20 year old mix were lost to the mists of time, but we got nearly all of them (including using Shazam for a few). I still think it's a nice intro for a beginner, and personally for me it's very evocative of an era:

00:00 Brian Eno - Neroli
01:00 u-ziq - ?
03:40 Aphex Twin - 1-10 SAWII
05:00 Speedy J - Grogono
07:30 Aphex Twin - 1-5 SAWII
09:30 Slowdive - Albatross
10:50 Speedy J - Lanzarote
13:00 Aphex Twin - 1-3 SAWII
15:00 Neutron 9000 - She Trails Flowers
17:50 Dreamfish - Underwater
(20:00 The Orb - Sticky End)
(21:35 FSOL - Bird Wings)
(22:50 Woob - Creek)
25:00 Aphex Twin - 2-4 SAWII
27:00 Aphex Twin - 2-9 SAWII
28:30 Brian Eno - Tal Coat
32:30 The Orb - Valley
35:00 Brian Eno - Unfamiliar Wind (Leek Hills)
36:00 Aphex Twin - 2-6 SAWII
38:30 Woob - Depart
39:30 Dead Can Dance - Piece For Solo Flute
41:30 Woob - On Earth
44:00 Slowdive - Avalyn II
46:00 Aphex Twin - 1-12 SAWII
47:30 Cabaret Voltaire - Project 80
(49:00 FFWD - What Time Is Clock)
51:20 Woob - Strange Air
55.00 Wagon Christ - Aerhaart, From Within
57:00 ?
59:00 Wagon Christ - Glass World
61:00 Psychonavigation - Angel Tech
63:30 Slowdive - Losing Today
65:45 ?
67:00 Cabaret Voltaire - Exterminating Angel (Intro)
69:00 Woob - Odonna
71:30 The Orb - Back Side Of The Moon
73:00 FFWD - Meteor Storm
75:30 The Young Gods - Moon Revolutions
77:00 Slowdive - Golden Hair
78:00 ?
80:00 Woob - Emperor
82:00 Aphex Twin - 1-10 SAWII
84:00 Woob - Odonna
86:00 FFWD - Hempire
88:30 Harold Budd & Brian Eno - First Light
91:00 Aphex Twin - 2-12 SAWII
91:30 Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent)

If anybody has an idea what the remaining ones are then let me know!

I also used to read the reviews at Ambience for the Masses and listen to the associated 24/7 Sleepbot Environmental Broadcast stream which unbelievably seem to be going strong almost two decades later as well.

As for the Pitchfork list, I'm sure they'll have a top 50 New Age albums list next with all your missing favourites.

i like a lot of what's on here but it's undeniably on-trend wrt new age. like, erik satie should really be on a list that's actually interested in uncovering what ambient is, just as much as eno should be. i love laurie spiegel but i don't think she's ambient at all. eliane radigue 'fits' better i think. (don't mean to weigh token women artists here.) psycho-acoustic sound art type stuff feels connected to the ambient concept imo. maryanne amacher. robert ashley was a good call. in general there seems to be a fear of experimental classical / institutional sound art that isn't outsider-y enough. i love minimalism but solely focusing on it betrays a certain predictable pov.

― savvinesslessness (map), Monday, September 26, 2016 1:50 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah if they're gonna go broad with the definition there's quite a few 'non outsidery' notated compositions that'd fit right in. Rothko Chapel, Les Heures Persanes, Egdon Heath, Musica Callada, A Haunted Landscape...

So, cos I had nothing better to do, here's my corny top 50 ambient albums list to complement the "cool" one Pitcfork did:

2350 Broadway - 2350 Broadway 4
310 - Snorkelhouse
Air Liquide - Nephology: The New Religion
Alio Die - Deconsecrated and Pure
Alquimia - Coatlique: Goddess of the Earth
Autumn of Communion - Autumn of Communion
Baked Beans - Baked Beans
Biosphere - Patashnik
Constance Demby - Novus Magnificat: Through the Stargate
Constance Demby - Sacred Space Music
Cosmic Baby - Stunde Null
Datacide - Flowerhead
Deep Space Network - Big Rooms
Dots - Dots
Dreamfish - Dreamfish
Elodie Lauten - Inscapes from Exile
Exquisite Corpse - Inner Light
France Jobin - The Illusion of Infinitesimal
Freida Abtan ‎- The Hands of the Dancer / The Temple of the Dreamer
Gas - Königsforst
Global Communication - 76:14
Higher Intelligence Agency & Biosphere - Polar Sequences
The Irresistible Force - Global Chillage
Ishq - And Awake
Jochem Paap - Vrs-Mbnt-Pcs 9598 I
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Tides
Khan & Walker - Empire State Building
The McLean Mix - Rainforest Images
Meg Bowles - Blue Cosmos
Meg Bowles - The Shimmering Land
Minilogue - Blomma
Move D & Namlook - Raumland trilogy
Music to Films - Music to Films
Natasha Barrett - Trade Winds
Oliver Lieb - Constellation
Oliver Lieb - Inside Voices
Organic Cloud - Organic Cloud
Psychick Warriors ov Gaia - Ov Biospheres and Sacred Grooves
Raica - Lucent Glances
Robert Rich - Somnium
Shades of Orion - Shades Of Orion 2
Sheila Chandra - ABoneCroneDrone
Solar Quest - Orgship
Susumu Yokota - Sakura
Tangerine Dream - Zeit
Vangelis - Soil Festivities
Vladislave Delay - Anima
Woob - Woob 1194
Zalys - Sublime
Zenith - Zenith

Oh man soil festivities
What a strange recording

There's a lot of FAX in it, but IMO it's pretty inexcusable for any top 50 ambient list to completely ignore the most important ambient label (and the most prolific ambient producer) of the last 25 years, so I tried to balance that a bit.

(xpost)

IMO Soil Festivities is Vangelis' best attempt to do "proper" ambient. Albums like Beauborg or Invisible Connection are a bit too on-the-nose avant-garde for my tastes, and stuff like The City is a bit too cheesy, but on SF he gets it right.

fun list, Tuomas. Zeit would go on my list as well, epic gloomy space ambient.

i must check out that Minilogue album

Anima too but that's another borderline "waht is ambient" case. it's a little too lively and unstable (?) for proper zoning out. Entain is the most "ambient" of his albums, i think. just imo/ime.

i was too young for the late80s/early90s period when "ambient" also referred to ambient house/techno