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
xpost you're exactly who I thought of when I saw that! then I thought 'aw, Seligpresung is only at #18"
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Wednesday, 5 October 2016 03:12 (seven years ago) link
kids today just can't be bothered to listen to records a few dozen times before forming opinions on them. terrible.
― a confederacy of lampreys (rushomancy), Wednesday, 5 October 2016 11:50 (seven years ago) link
My fondness for the KLF's Chill Out may be down to the cassette being stuck in my car stereo for a couple of months.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Wednesday, 5 October 2016 13:42 (seven years ago) link
"bryter layter" is my favorite nick drake record because all my other nick drake records got stolen
― a confederacy of lampreys (rushomancy), Wednesday, 5 October 2016 13:49 (seven years ago) link
Made another ambient mix. caution, there are beats in the last 2 minutes of the mix. https://www.mixcloud.com/biznotic/ancient-heavenly-connection
― brotherlovesdub, Tuesday, 11 October 2016 16:56 (seven years ago) link
for me, Suzanne Ciani's Seven Waves is album of the season
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06nWn98x_ek
― rolling auto-loon (PappaWheelie V), Tuesday, 11 October 2016 17:43 (seven years ago) link
mmmm, prismacolor ambient
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 11 October 2016 17:50 (seven years ago) link
http://windsmeasurerecordings.net/catalog/wm18/
michael t. bullock and andrew lafkas ceremonies to breathe upon
― braunld (Lowell N. Behold'n), Tuesday, 11 October 2016 20:03 (seven years ago) link
currently loving the new Biosphere album, Departed Glories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLMDIG4sJes
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 11 October 2016 21:50 (seven years ago) link
Since winter is coming, I guess I could also share this mix I made a couple of years ago:
https://soundcloud.com/kukka-dj/winterchill
It starts with an electronic pop tune, but the rest of it is mostly ambient.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 12 October 2016 09:10 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11JITPeYAWs
really great
― kolakube (Ross), Tuesday, 2 January 2018 19:15 (six years ago) link
i'd like to check that out!
― surm, Monday, 5 March 2018 20:23 (six years ago) link
suzanne ciani wheeie posted upthread is doin the trick rn
― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Tuesday, 6 March 2018 00:09 (six years ago) link
also I'm listening to Seven Waves at the moment but this looks super interesting
https://open.spotify.com/album/5NeWznX1xhs9KzsNh5PZQT?si=1NH6pf0wSTefbjgZghhqAQ
― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Tuesday, 6 March 2018 00:10 (six years ago) link
that looks super cool
― surm, Friday, 30 March 2018 15:11 (six years ago) link
lots of stuff here i haven't heard: https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/03/17/contemporary-ambient-music-list
― brimstead, Tuesday, 24 April 2018 03:07 (six years ago) link
That Daru album I posted upthread is seriously good. Apparently he did the music for avatar the air bender
― after party for the apocalypse (Ross), Tuesday, 24 April 2018 03:13 (six years ago) link
Got rly into virgins by Tim hecker this winterThat is a album of feeeeeelz
― surm, Saturday, 26 January 2019 14:54 (five years ago) link
I'd completely forgotten about this thread, but last month I did a top 100 ambient albums list for another site, might as well share it here too:1. Shades of Orion – Shades of Orion 22. Meg Bowles – The Shimmering Land3. Éliane Radigue – Jetsun Mila4. Lucette Bourdin – Radiant Stars5. Vangelis – Soil Festivities6. Air Liquide – Nephology: the New Religion7. Constance Demby – Novus Magnificat: Through the Stargate8. Oliver Lieb – Inside Voices9. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Tides10. Biosphere – Patashnik11. Organic Cloud – Organic Cloud12. Wendy Carlos – Beauty in the Beast13. Alio Die – Deconsecrated and Pure14. Robert Rich – Somnium15. Datacide – Flowerhead16. Tangerine Dream – Zeit17. Sheila Chandra – ABoneCroneDrone18. Silence – Silence V19. Deep Space Network – Big Rooms20. Gas – Königsforst21. The Irresistible Force – Global Chillage22. Psychick Warriors ov Gaia – Record of Breaks23. Lucia Hwong – Secret Luminescence24. Meg Bowles – Evensong: Canticles for the Earth25. Alio Die & Sylvi Alli – Amidst the Circling Spires26. Max Richter – Sleep27. Lucette Bourdin – Timeless Shore28. Iotronica – Of Moons and Stars29. Mariolina Zitta – Concert for Bats, Voices and Natural Sounds30. Namlook – Namlook XXV: Permutations31. Music to Films – Music to Films32. Donato Dozzy – K33. Solar Quest – Orgship34. Lorenzo Montanà – Nihil35. Ambiant Otaku – Ambiant Otaku36. Omni Vu Deity – Uvunayatu37. Autumn of Communion – Autumn of Communion38. Higher Intelligence Agency / Biosphere – Polar Sequences39. 2350 Broadway – 2350 Broadway 240. Minilogue – Blomma41. Susumu Yokota – Sakura42. Ishq – And Awake43. Khan & Walker – Empire State Building44. Zalys – Wandering Through Space45. France Jobin – Intrication46. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani – Sunergy47. Baked Beans – Baked Beans48. Woob – Woob 119449. Thomas P. Heckmann – Ghosts50. Raw C / Pharmakustik – Anamorph Specimens51. Global Electronic Network – Rolleiflex / Weltron / Time Square52. Éliane Radigue – Trilogie de la mort53. Namlook / Montanà – Labyrinth54. 2350 Broadway – 2350 Broadway 455. Suzanne Ciani – Seven Waves56. Alquimia – "Coatlicue" Goddess of the Earth57. Vangelis – The City58. Global Communication – 76:1459. Otras – Otras60. 310 – Aug 5661. Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom – The Days of Mars62. Dominic Woosey – Straylight63. Biosphere – Departed Glories64. Alio Die & Mariolina Zitta – La Sala Dei Cristalli65. Tetsu Inoue – Inland66. Lucia Hwong – Goddess Awakening Vol. 167. Indiana Drones – Indiana Drones68. Atom Heart – Live at Sel i/s/c69. Deborah Martin – Eye of the Wizard70. Dr Atmo – Quiet Life71. Raica – Lucent Glances72. Jochem Paap – Vrs-Mbnt-Pcs 9598 II73. Constance Demby – Skies Above Skies74. DeepChord presents Echospace – Liumin75. A-Symmetry – I Am Life76. Single Cell Orchestra – Dead Vent 777. Biosphere – Substrata78. Material Object – Artefacts Digitaux II79. Laurie Spiegel – Unseen Worlds80. Banco De Gaia – Last Train to Lhasa81. Sheila Chandra – Quiet82. Move D – The Silent Orbiter83. Dreamfish – Dreamfish84. Freida Abtan – The Hands of the Dancer / The Temple of the Dreamer85. Monolake – Silence86. Cosmic Baby – Stunde Null87. Ishq – Seascapes88. Zalys – Sublime89. Robert Rich – Geometry90. Tomita – Kosmos91. Meg Bowles – Blue Cosmos92. Sad World – Sad World 393. Baked Beans – Bean Me Up, Scotty!94. William Orbit – Strange Cargo III95. Vladislav Delay – Anima96. Suzanne Doucet – Reflecting Light97. TBA / Natalie Beridze – Size And Tears: Alice in Wonderland98. Terre Thaemlitz – Lovebomb99. The Fires of Ork – The Fires of Ork 2100. Geoff Barrow / Ben Salisbury – Drokk: Music Inspired by Mega-City One
― Tuomas, Saturday, 26 January 2019 20:00 (five years ago) link