|
Users viewing this topic:
none
|
|
Login  | |
|
Ambient Music - 9/8/2008 1:53:10 AM
|
|
|
Zach2008
Posts: 6
Joined: 8/28/2008
Status: offline
|
Does anyone else like to listen to ambient music? (Now I don't mean classical, although I also like classical music I mean to discuss ambient type music.)And if so, can you recommend some? I personally enjoy electronic and piano type ambient music, but I will listen to any. Currently I am listening to the Mass Effect OST, and some of Brian Eno's beautiful work.
Thanks,
Zach
_____________________________
My honor is loyalty
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 9/26/2008 2:10:25 PM
|
|
|
MiloBloom
Posts: 4
Joined: 9/26/2008
Status: offline
|
Brian Eno's work is fantastic. Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Ambient 4: On Land, and Discreet Music are my favorites. You might want to check out the work of one of his collaborators, Harold Budd. I particulary like the album Budd did with the band The Cocteau Twins, called The Moon and the Melodies. His tracks sound like rain playing the piano in small pools of water. Although not strictly ambient, The Cocteau Twins album Victorialand has a gorgeous, hushed, etherial quality.
After Eno, I would highly recommend a band called Windy & Carl. I think they refer to their music as "intuitive", but it's very ambient, too. Look for their album Consciousness. I've listened to it nearly every night when I go to bed for the last several years. If you could translate pure, honeyed, sun-filled color into sound, you'd have this album.
Similar to Windy & Carl is a wonderful band called Landing. You can hear some of their work on their myspace page. A lot of their music sounds like listening to a flower slowly blooming in the dark. Circuit, Seasons and Oceanless are all great albums. They travel in circles with similar musicians like Yume Bitsu, and Surface of Eceyon, and White Rainbow, all great drone bands.
Slighty more esoteric, and slightly more straightforward (more bliss than ambient) is a band called The Harmony Rockets who released one album called Paralyzed Mind of the Archangel Void. It's a single, forty-minute improvised live track that kind of sounds like psychedelic ambient music from inside a diving bell. This was actually a side of the band Mercury Rev, if you're familiar with them (similar to the Flaming Lips).
Movietone's album The Sand and the Stars was recorded almost entirely on a beach, with all of the ambient wave sounds mixed in. It's sort of acoustic ambient music. In the same style, you might be able to track down an album called Vague Gropings in the Slip Stream by Palm Fabric Orchestra (a side project of Poi Dog Pondering).
Then there's Mum, an icelandic group whose album Finally We Are No One sounds like sleepy computers whispering and mumbling to each other on a train ride.
Again, pretty much all bliss instead of ambient, but you can't go wrong with My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.
For a good, spacey time, a guy named John Oswald took twenty years worth of live versions of the Grateful Dead's song "Dark Star", ran them through his computer, twisted them, folded them, stretched them, reversed them, and layered them into one long, two-hour track (spread across two CDs) that's just amazing. The album's called Grayfolded.
Back to ambient, I would recommend looking up the composers Terry Riley and Steve Reich. There's also an underground band called Bonecloud whose music sounds like shaped static.
Hope you enjoy some of those!
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 9/26/2008 5:48:50 PM
|
|
|
MiloBloom
Posts: 4
Joined: 9/26/2008
Status: offline
|
I think a lot of people have that idea (that, or think of it as "new age" music). I would say it's definately not either.
Muzak, from my experience, is schlocky interpretations of popular songs to render them as bland and upbeat as possible, whereas new age music is just wanky, pointless noodling with no particular thought behind it--much like all new age stuff.
Ambient (depending on which band you're listening, to) can take a number of forms. Brian Eno coined the term to refer to music he was creating that was built around minimal input from the composer. It grew and evolved based on repetitions and minor changes to an initial input. For several of his pieces, Eno created a sound loop that slowly recorded back over itself, adding layers and drifting in and out of phase. On others, like Discreet Music, he took a traditional piece of classical music (Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel) and had an orchestra deconstruct it by plying it according to guidelines rather than sheet music (e.g., the tempo of each instrument is determined by its pitch rather than by a standard measure). The whole idea was music that existed sort of like firniture in a room--a part of the setting, but not something you focused on. I rather like focusing on it, but you don't have to. I think Bach described music as a different form of counting, and a lot of ambient stuff is like listening to fractal math patterns. It's process music. Another composer I forgot to mention above is William Basinski, who put out a series of "Disintegration Loops" which were made when he found some really old analog recordings of his early experiements. The tapes were fragile, and while trying to digitally preserve them, they started to fall apart, so he just looped them back on themselves, and recorded the sound of their disintegration as they played.
Other bands go for a sound that has more to do with huge washes of sound. There's a similar "floaty" feeling to Eno's style, but in some cases, it can have a richer sound. They're not working from a theory or a system, they're just playing a gently evolving soundscape and trying to hit some type of emotional state. Landing and Windy & Carl practise this style. It has a little more in common with psychedelic music and a more organic feel.
Then there are bands that are not strictly ambient, but create a similar dreamy feeling (most of the bands in the last half of my post).
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 9/27/2008 6:14:32 PM
|
|
|
MusicianDad
Posts: 425
Joined: 3/29/2008
Status: offline
|
No offence, but even in my stoner days, I don't think I was ever stoned enough to buy into this stuff. It's like acid-elevator or snob-zack. 
_____________________________
Heartland Rocks!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EK9opsMo0jg
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 9/29/2008 3:42:08 PM
|
|
|
MiloBloom
Posts: 4
Joined: 9/26/2008
Status: offline
|
Ha! That could be! I've never been stoned, but I like the appelation "acid-elevator".
If you do ever want to dip your toes in the ambent water, you actually might like Brian Eno's work. He started out with Roxy Music, and put out two excellent solo rock albums--Here Come the Warm Jets, and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy--both of which presage bands like the Flaming Lips or Elf Power. Really catchy, left-field pop. Hooky, but adventurous. His album Another Green World is sort of an intermediary between his rock stuff and his later ambient works. Really dreamy and beautiful , but still recognizably songs as opposed to "compositions".
He also produced a ton of music for bands like The Talking Heads, U2, and even Paul Simon.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 9/29/2008 8:04:55 PM
|
|
|
MusicianDad
Posts: 425
Joined: 3/29/2008
Status: offline
|
Actually, this type of music is the opposite of the type of stuff I like. I really apreciate a killer riff and a great hook. The wall of sound thing gets pretty boring pretty quick (IMO).
_____________________________
Heartland Rocks!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EK9opsMo0jg
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 9/30/2008 6:57:59 PM
|
|
|
MiloBloom
Posts: 4
Joined: 9/26/2008
Status: offline
|
Well, I can't quibble with that! Those early Eno albums I mentioned had Robert Fripp (from King Crimson) all over them, but that may still be too much "art rock" for your tastes.
Ambient's only a small portion of what I listen to. I love a monster riff and a hook the size of an anchor, as well. Any favorites? I usually associate that sound with classic 70's rock (Led Zeppelin, et. al.), but there are a lot of bands around today working the same territory. If you love guitar fireworks, you might like a band called Built to Spill. They have a very Neil Young-esque sound, if all of his songs were "Cortez the Killer" or "Keep On Rockin' In the Free World".
I also recommend a (sadly defunct) band called Sleater Kinney. They grew out of the riot grrl scene, so their early stuff is pretty punk, but their last album, The Woods, was very influenced by classic rock.
Then there's Boris, a Japanese band that's sort of a cross between Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. They have a lot of sludge metal albums, but look for Pink or Rainbow, and prepared to be blown away by some of the heaviest riffs currently being recorded.
If you don't mind instrumental stuff, Explosions in the Sky, make some awesome, soaring, emotional, semi-post rock. They're kinda like Mogwai, or Godspeed You Black Emperor, but much, much prettier.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 9/30/2008 8:41:06 PM
|
|
|
MusicianDad
Posts: 425
Joined: 3/29/2008
Status: offline
|
Actually, I like prog-Rock. 21st Century Schizoid Man is my favorite King Crimson song. I like artsy stuff, I'm just not crazy about monotony.
_____________________________
Heartland Rocks!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EK9opsMo0jg
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 10/7/2008 10:51:33 PM
|
|
|
nealmorsefan
Posts: 340
Joined: 10/18/2007
Status: offline
|
The closest I ever came to listen to ambient music would have to be the early Starflyer 59 albums, but those clearly are not ambient...just moody. Some Fold Zandura stuff tip-toes close to the ambient line, I guess. I'm not even sure there is a Christian artist that puts out ambient music. There probably is, but he/she is clearly obscure. Would techno qualify as ambient? Might be a little too aggressive...
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 10/8/2008 1:29:57 AM
|
|
|
I_Walk_Alone
Posts: 164
Joined: 8/8/2008
Status: offline
|
There are really only 2 bands that I can think of that would come close to qualifying for ambient. Samael and Mortiis. Samael began as a black metal band but later turned around and became a very experimental rock/industrial band. Very good stuff, and their latest releases have a bit of an Eastern sound to it, (more asian sound). It is very relaxing after a hard day. I heard people compare their new stuff to Rammstein, but far superior in every way.
Mortiis also was a member of black metal band(though he hates black metal) and similar to Samael. Except that Mortis writes about Scandinavian folk tales and recenly has been writing about his personal demons. His influences were bands like Skinny Puppy,Nine Inch Nails, etc.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 10/9/2008 2:00:57 PM
|
|
|
miasma
Posts: 4112
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
Ambient's a little vague. In addition to offerings already listed (esp. GSYBE), you might want to search for psytrance/goa, for ambient techno.
Other genre-crossing artists that make me think "ambient:"
Electric Wizard
Aphex Twin
Coil
Black Tape for a Blue Girl
Muslim Gauze
Nurse with Wound
Miranda Sex Garden
Explosions in the Sky
Low
Electric Birdnoise
Hector Zazou
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Ambient Music - 10/9/2008 2:02:10 PM
|
|
|
miasma
Posts: 4112
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
Oh, and if you'd prefer to keep it Christian (good luck with that) Morella's Forest is mildly shoe-gazy and somewhat "ambient."
|
|
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
 Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts |
|
|
Forum Tools
Printable Version
