Ambient music
Encyclopedia
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral
characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.
gave rise to two significant art movements that encouraged experimentation with various musical (and non musical) forms, while rejecting more conventional, tradition-bound styles of expression. These art movements were called Futurism
and Dadaism. Aside from being known for their painters and writers, these movements also attracted experimental and 'anti-music' musicians such as Francesco Balilla Pratella
of the pre-war Futurism movement and Kurt Schwitters
and Erwin Schulhoff
of the post-war Dadaist movement. The latter movement played an influential role in the musical development of Erik Satie
.
As an early 20th century French composer, Erik Satie
used such Dadaist-inspired explorations to create an early form of ambient / background music that he labeled "furniture music
" (Musique d'ameublement). This he described as being the sort of music that could be played during a dinner to create a background atmosphere for that activity, rather than serving as the focus of attention. From this greater historical perspective, Satie is the link between these early Art movements and the work of Brian Eno
, who as an art school trained musician, had an appreciation of both the music and art worlds.
Douglas Leedy
's Entropical Paradise, released as a three LP set by Seraphim in 1971, consisting of six, side-long, compositions of "environmental music", in which single modular synthesizer settings were allowed to play out without further intervention.
Brian Eno
is generally credited with coining the term "Ambient Music" in the mid-1970s to refer to music that, as he stated, can be either "actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener", and that exists on the "cusp between melody and texture". Eno, who describes himself as a "non-musician", termed his experiments in sound as "treatments" rather than as traditional performances. Eno used the word "ambient" to describe music that creates an atmosphere that puts the listener into a different state of mind; having chosen the word based on the Latin term "ambire", "to surround".
The album notes accompanying Eno's 1978 release Ambient 1: Music for Airports include a manifesto describing the philosophy behind his ambient music: "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."
Eno has acknowledged the influence of Erik Satie
and John Cage
. In particular, Eno was aware of Cage's use of chance
such as throwing the I Ching
to directly affect the creation of a musical composition. Eno then utilised a similar method of weaving randomness
into his compositional structures. This approach was manifested in Eno's creation of Oblique Strategies
, where he used a set of specially designed cards to create various sound dilemmas that in turn, were resolved by exploring various open ended paths, until a resolution to the musical composition revealed itself. Eno also acknowledged influences of the drone music
of La Monte Young
(of whom he said, "La Monte Young is the daddy of us all") and of the mood music
of Miles Davis
and Teo Macero
, especially their 1974 epic piece, "He Loved Him Madly", about which Eno wrote, "that piece seemed to have the 'spacious' quality that I was after...it became a touchstone to which I returned frequently."
Beyond the major influence of Brian Eno, other musicians and bands added to the growing nucleus of music that evolved around the development of "Ambient Music". While not an exhaustive list, one cannot ignore the parallel influences of Wendy Carlos
, who produced the original music piece called "Timesteps" which was then used as the filmscore to Clockwork Orange
, as well as her later work Sonic Seasonings
. Other significant artists such as Mike Oldfield
, Jean Michel Jarre
and Vangelis
have all added to or directly influenced the evolution of ambient music. Adding to these individual artists, works by groups such as Pink Floyd
, through their albums Ummagumma
, Meddle
and Obscured by Clouds
. Other groups including Yes
with their album Tales from Topographic Oceans
, the Hafler Trio, Tangerine Dream
, Popol Vuh
, Can
, and Kraftwerk
have all added distinctive aspects to the growing and diversified genre of ambient music.
, Aphex Twin
, Seefeel
, the Irresistible Force, Geir Jenssen's Biosphere
, and the Higher Intelligence Agency
were being referred to by the popular music press as ambient house
, ambient techno, IDM
or simply "ambient" according to the liner notes of Brian Eno
's Ambient 1: Music for Airports:
So-called 'Chillout' began as a term deriving from British ecstasy culture which was originally applied in relaxed downtempo 'chillout rooms' outside of the main dance floor where ambient, dub and downtempo beats were played to ease the tripping
mind.
The London scene artists, such as Aphex Twin (specifically: Selected Ambient Works Volume II
, 1994), Global Communication
(76:14
, 1994), FSOL The Future Sound of London
(Lifeforms
, ISDN
), The Black Dog
(Temple of Transparent Balls, 1993), Autechre
(Incunabula
, 1993, Amber), Boards of Canada
, and The KLF
's seminal Chill Out
, 1990, all took a part in popularising and diversifying ambient music where it was used as a calming respite from the intensity of the hardcore and techno
popular at that time.
Later in the period much experimental electronica
(particularly sound artists such as Pole
, Mika Vainio, Ryoji Ikeda
, Christian Fennesz
, Aphex Twin (drukQs
, 2001) and Autechre
expanded the themes of 'ambient' along the lines of earlier 1970s ambient music & dub but with increasingly abstracted sample-based textures and digital electronics that ultimately began to converge with minimalist
compositions and music concrete.
Digital era musicians and sound artists
, including Brian Eno are notable in their attempts to create 'sonic sculptures
' which interact with the physical architecture of the listening space using advanced electronic installations.
Literally 'ambient' field recordings are a specialism of the Touch Music
label. Forerunner of this species in Poland is Brunette Models
(since 1995). The electroacoustic
influence can be heard in the contemporary work of Polish artist Jacaszek
(since 2008).
Glitch
music is a major subset of this work produced by (mainly German) labels such Mille Plateaux
(Clicks & Cuts Series
, 2000).
Some dubstep
producers, notably Burial
and Kites (Bristol ambient dubstep) have nostalgically referenced the sonic 'post-rave' ambience of the nineties era.
s. Vangelis
wrote the scores for the British film Chariots of Fire
, and for Ridley Scott
's 1982 film Blade Runner
, as well as many other score albums. David Lynch
's 1984 film Dune
, for example, forgoes the epic
sci-fi adventure style theme music popularized by Star Wars
in favor of a more atmospheric music score by Toto
and Brian Eno
. Throughout the 1980s Tangerine Dream
composed scores for more than twenty films, most notably the soundtracks for Flashpoint
and Heartbreakers, both released in 1984, and Legend
, directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1985.
Electronic musician Paddy Kingsland
is noted for the music style he brought to several serials of the television series Doctor Who
which had until then relied mostly on stock music cues or minimal music for much of its history. The video game trilogy Fallout and its spinoffs use ambient music that sometimes contains gentle rumblings to portray the bleakness of the post-apocalyptic world which the games are set in. Relic Entertainment
's 1999 game Homeworld
uses such music to highlight the vast emptiness of the areas of deep space the Mothership often finds itself in. Another game series that uses ambient music is the Oddworld
games, notably Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
. That music was composed by Michael Bross. The games featured in Valve's Half-Life series, including spinoffs such as Portal, feature ambient music soundtracks by composers Kelly Bailey and Mike Morasky.
The EA Game Mirror's Edge
also used ambient music, composed and produced by Magnus Birgersson under his guise Solar Fields
, to give a futuristic feel or puzzling atmosphere to sections of the game. The Sci-Fi horror game Doom 3
uses an ambient soundtrack made by former drummer Chris Vrenna of the band Nine Inch Nails
, instead of having a song, mainly a MIDI file, looped through the entire map.
, electric, and acoustic musical instruments. Aside from the usual electronic music influences, organic ambient tends to incorporate influences from world music
, especially drone
instruments and hand percussion
. Organic ambient is intended to be more harmonious with nature
than with the disco
. Some of the artists in this sub-genre include Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana
, O Yuki Conjugate
, Voice of Eye
, Vir Unis
, James Johnson
, Loren Nerell
, Atomic Skunk, Tuu
and Robert Scott Thompson
.
Some works by ambient pioneers such as Brian Eno
, Laraaji
or Popol Vuh
who use a combination of traditional instruments (such as piano or hammered dulcimer or hand percussion, though usually processed through tape loops or other devices) and electronic instruments, would be considered New Age / organic ambient music in this sense. In the 1970s and 1980s, Klaus Schulze
often recorded string ensembles and performances by solo cellists
to go along with his extended Moog synthesizer
workouts.
, Mira Calix
's insect music and Chris Watson
's Weather Report. Some overlap occurs between organic ambient and nature-inspired New Age. One of the first albums in the genre, Wendy Carlos
' Sonic Seasonings
, combines sampled and synthesized nature sounds with ambient melodies and drones for a particularly relaxing effect. Transformation by Suzanne Doucet
and Christian Buehner and the album Second Nature by Bill Laswell
, Tetsu Inoue
, and Atom Heart are ambient album that use processed nature sounds, with reverb and echo to create a hypnotic environment.
's Ghosts on Magnetic Tape
and Vajrayana, Lull's Cold Summer, Controlled Bleeding
's The Poisoner, and the Robert Rich
/Lustmord
collaboration album Stalker
. Related styles include ambient industrial and isolationist ambient.
featuring ambient music elements and atmospheres. Tracks in the ambient house genre typically feature four-on-the-floor beats, synth pads, and vocal samples integrated in an atmospheric style. Ambient house tracks generally lack a diatonic
center and feature much atonality
along with synthesized chords. Illbient
is another form of ambient house music.
; the term industrial being used in the original experimental sense, rather than in the sense of industrial metal
or EBM
. A "typical" ambient industrial work (if there is such a thing) might consist of evolving dissonant harmonies of metallic drones and resonances, extreme low frequency rumbles and machine noises, perhaps supplemented by gong
s, percussive rhythms, bullroarers
, distorted voices or anything else the artist might care to sample (often processed to the point where the original sample is no longer recognizable). Entire works may be based on radio telescope
recordings, the babbling of newborn babies, or sounds recorded through contact microphones on telegraph wires.
Among the many artists who work in this area are Coil
, CTI
, Lustmord
, Nine Inch Nails
, Susumu Yokota
, Hafler Trio
, Nocturnal Emissions
, Zoviet France
, Scorn
, PGR, Thomas Köner
, Heimkveld Kunst
, Controlled Bleeding
, and Deutsch Nepal
. However many of these artists are very eclectic in their output, with much of it falling outside of ambient industrial per se.
Space music ranges from simple to complex sonic textures sometimes lacking conventional melodic, rhythmic, or vocal components,
generally evoking a sense of "continuum of spatial imagery and emotion",
beneficial introspection, deep listening
and sensations of floating, cruising or flying.
Space music is used by individuals for both background enhancement and foreground listening, often with headphones, to stimulate relaxation, contemplation, inspiration and generally peaceful expansive moods and soundscape
s. Space music is also a component of many film soundtrack
s and is commonly used in planetarium
s, as a relaxation aid
and for meditation
.
Hearts of Space
is a well-known radio show and affiliated record label, specializing in space music since 1984, having released over 150 albums devoted to the music style. Notable artists who have brought elements of ambient music to space music include Michael Stearns
, Constance Demby
, Jean Ven Robert Hal
, Enigma
, Jean Michel Jarre
, Carbon Based Lifeforms
, Robert Rich
, Steve Roach, Numina, Dweller at the Threshold
, Paul Ellis, Deepspace, Telomere, Max Corbacho, Jonn Serrie
, Klaus Schulze
, Tangerine Dream
(as well as the group's founder Edgar Froese
), and Vangelis
.
and the Ambient 4: Isolationism compilation from Virgin
, this began as more or less a synonym for ambient industrial, but also inclusive of certain post-metal streams of ambient, such as Final
, Lull, Main
, or post-techno artists such as Autechre
and Aphex Twin
. It may be less appropriate to call isolationist ambient a genre than using it to describe the style or "feel" of particular works by an artist working in an ambient mode. This is because many artists better known for other styles of work can occasionally create pieces that "sound" isolationist. (For example, Labradford
, Seefeel
, Kyle Bobby Dunn
, Techno Animal, Voice of Eye
, KK Null
, etc.) There are many labels releasing work that could be termed isolationist ambient, among these are Malignant Records, Cold Spring
, Manifold Records
, Soleilmoon
, and The Sombient label with the "drones" compilation series. Some of the artists known for this style of ambient music include Lull, Final, Bass Communion
, Deutsch Nepal
, Inanna
, Negru Voda
, Thomas Köner
, Robert Fripp
, Steven Wilson
, and Chuck Hammer
(Guitarchitecture
).
Of late there has been an influx of progressive metal
artists who have clear ambient influences. Bands such as Cult of Luna
, Isis
, Devil Sold His Soul
, Porcupine Tree
, and Between the Screams have pioneered the genre and are largely credited with popularizing the sound. These bands are largely known as post-metal
.
, who used the same phrase in his music project Divination, where he collaborates with different musicians on each album (though sometimes the same ones are on more than one of the albums such as Tetsu Inoue
and others). Laswell also presented ambient dub and ambient house
music on albums by his collaboration project Axiom Dub, featuring recording artists The Orb
, Jah Wobble
, Jaki Liebezeit
, Scorn
and DJ Spooky
.
Ambient dub involves the genre melding of dub styles made famous by King Tubby
and other Jamaican sound artists with DJ inspired ambient electronica, complete with all the inherent drop-outs, echo, equalization and psychedelic electronic effects. As writer and performer David Toop
explains in an early Beyond Records newsletter, "Dub music is like a long echo delay, looping through time...turning the rational order of musical sequences into an ocean of sensation."
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.
History
The roots of ambient music go back to the early 20th century. In particular, the period just before and after the first world warWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
gave rise to two significant art movements that encouraged experimentation with various musical (and non musical) forms, while rejecting more conventional, tradition-bound styles of expression. These art movements were called Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
and Dadaism. Aside from being known for their painters and writers, these movements also attracted experimental and 'anti-music' musicians such as Francesco Balilla Pratella
Francesco Balilla Pratella
Franceso Balilla Pratella was an Italian composer and musicologist.-Life and work:Pratella studied at the Pesaro Conservatory where he was a pupil of Pietro Mascagni....
of the pre-war Futurism movement and Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...
and Erwin Schulhoff
Erwin Schulhoff
Erwin Schulhoff was a Czech composer and pianist.-Life:Born in Prague of Jewish-German origin, Schulhoff was one of the brightest figures in a generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany...
of the post-war Dadaist movement. The latter movement played an influential role in the musical development of Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
.
As an early 20th century French composer, Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
used such Dadaist-inspired explorations to create an early form of ambient / background music that he labeled "furniture music
Furniture music
Furniture music, or in French musique d’ameublement , is background music originally played by live performers...
" (Musique d'ameublement). This he described as being the sort of music that could be played during a dinner to create a background atmosphere for that activity, rather than serving as the focus of attention. From this greater historical perspective, Satie is the link between these early Art movements and the work of Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, who as an art school trained musician, had an appreciation of both the music and art worlds.
Douglas Leedy
Douglas Leedy
Douglas Leedy is an American composer, performer and music scholar.-Biography:Born in Portland, Oregon, Leedy studied with Karl Kohn at Pomona College and at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was in a composition seminar with membership including La Monte Young and Terry Riley...
's Entropical Paradise, released as a three LP set by Seraphim in 1971, consisting of six, side-long, compositions of "environmental music", in which single modular synthesizer settings were allowed to play out without further intervention.
Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
is generally credited with coining the term "Ambient Music" in the mid-1970s to refer to music that, as he stated, can be either "actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener", and that exists on the "cusp between melody and texture". Eno, who describes himself as a "non-musician", termed his experiments in sound as "treatments" rather than as traditional performances. Eno used the word "ambient" to describe music that creates an atmosphere that puts the listener into a different state of mind; having chosen the word based on the Latin term "ambire", "to surround".
The album notes accompanying Eno's 1978 release Ambient 1: Music for Airports include a manifesto describing the philosophy behind his ambient music: "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."
Eno has acknowledged the influence of Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
and John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
. In particular, Eno was aware of Cage's use of chance
Randomness
Randomness has somewhat differing meanings as used in various fields. It also has common meanings which are connected to the notion of predictability of events....
such as throwing the I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
to directly affect the creation of a musical composition. Eno then utilised a similar method of weaving randomness
Randomness
Randomness has somewhat differing meanings as used in various fields. It also has common meanings which are connected to the notion of predictability of events....
into his compositional structures. This approach was manifested in Eno's creation of Oblique Strategies
Oblique Strategies
Oblique Strategies is a set of published cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt first published in 1975, and is now in its fifth, open ended, edition...
, where he used a set of specially designed cards to create various sound dilemmas that in turn, were resolved by exploring various open ended paths, until a resolution to the musical composition revealed itself. Eno also acknowledged influences of the drone music
Drone music
Drone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...
of La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
(of whom he said, "La Monte Young is the daddy of us all") and of the mood music
Mood music
Mood music may refer to:* Beautiful music* Easy listening* Exotica* Light music* Joe Budden's set of 4 mixtapes, 1 remix mixtape, 1 album, and 1 mixtape awaiting release....
of Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
and Teo Macero
Teo Macero
Teo Macero , born Attilio Joseph Macero, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and record producer...
, especially their 1974 epic piece, "He Loved Him Madly", about which Eno wrote, "that piece seemed to have the 'spacious' quality that I was after...it became a touchstone to which I returned frequently."
Beyond the major influence of Brian Eno, other musicians and bands added to the growing nucleus of music that evolved around the development of "Ambient Music". While not an exhaustive list, one cannot ignore the parallel influences of Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A...
, who produced the original music piece called "Timesteps" which was then used as the filmscore to Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange (film)
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It was written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick...
, as well as her later work Sonic Seasonings
Sonic Seasonings
Sonic Seasonings is the third album by synthesizer pioneer Wendy Carlos. It was released in 1972. Each side of the double LP was a single piece which was a musing on each of the seasons. The compositions combined music with field recordings, such as rushing wind , birdsong , and insect noises...
. Other significant artists such as Mike Oldfield
Mike Oldfield
Michael Gordon Oldfield is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age, and more recently, dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature...
, Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...
and Vangelis
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
have all added to or directly influenced the evolution of ambient music. Adding to these individual artists, works by groups such as Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, through their albums Ummagumma
Ummagumma
Ummagumma is a double album by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released in 1969 by Harvest and EMI in the United Kingdom and Harvest and Capitol in the United States...
, Meddle
Meddle
Meddle is the sixth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. It was released in October 1971.The album was recorded at a series of locations around London, including Abbey Road Studios...
and Obscured by Clouds
Obscured by Clouds
-Singles:*"Free Four"/"Stay" *"Free Four"/"The Gold It's in the..." -Personnel:Pink Floyd*David Gilmour – guitars, vocals, pedal steel guitar, VCS3*Nick Mason – drums, percussion...
. Other groups including Yes
Yes (band)
Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...
with their album Tales from Topographic Oceans
Tales from Topographic Oceans
-2003 CD re-issue:A remastered edition was released in 2003, which restored a two-minute ambient section at the beginning of the album's first song. This section was deleted at the last minute before the album was originally pressed...
, the Hafler Trio, Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
, Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh (German band)
Popol Vuh was a German electronic avantgarde band, in the mainstream-media so called Krautrock, founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler...
, Can
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
, and Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
have all added distinctive aspects to the growing and diversified genre of ambient music.
1990s: Developments
By the early 1990s artists such as The OrbThe Orb
Throughout 1989, the Orb, along with Martin Glover, developed the musical genre of ambient house through the use of a diverse array of samples and recordings. The culmination of its musical work came toward the end of the year when the group recorded a session for John Peel on BBC Radio 1...
, Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin
Richard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
, Seefeel
Seefeel
Seefeel are a British electronic/post-rock band formed in the early 1990s. They are currently signed to Warp Records.-Biography:Seefeel formed during 1992 in London, England; with Mark Clifford on guitar, Mark Van Hoen on bass, Justin Fletcher on drums and Sarah Peacock on vocals and guitar. During...
, the Irresistible Force, Geir Jenssen's Biosphere
Biosphere (musician)
Biosphere is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen , a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalogue of ambient electronic music. He is well known for his "ambient techno" and "arctic ambient" styles, his use of music loops, and peculiar samples from sci-fi sources. His track "Novelty...
, and the Higher Intelligence Agency
Higher Intelligence Agency
Higher Intelligence Agency, often also referred to by its acronym HIA, is the main electronic music project of Birmingham UK based Bobby Bird....
were being referred to by the popular music press as ambient house
Ambient house
Ambient house, a music genre that first emerged in the late 1980s, is a sub-genre of house music, combining elements of acid house and ambient music...
, ambient techno, IDM
Intelligent dance music
Intelligent dance music is a term that describes an electronic music genre that emerged in the early 1990s. The genre is influenced by a wide range of musical styles particularly electronic dance music such as Detroit Techno...
or simply "ambient" according to the liner notes of Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
's Ambient 1: Music for Airports:
So-called 'Chillout' began as a term deriving from British ecstasy culture which was originally applied in relaxed downtempo 'chillout rooms' outside of the main dance floor where ambient, dub and downtempo beats were played to ease the tripping
Psychedelic experience
The term "psychedelic experience" is vague – characterized by polyvalence or ambiguity due to its nature – however in modern psychopharmacological science as well as philosophical, psychological, neurological, spiritual-religious and most other ideological discourses it is understood as an altered...
mind.
The London scene artists, such as Aphex Twin (specifically: Selected Ambient Works Volume II
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
-Formatting notes:The cassette version of the album featured six songs on each side, barring side three, which contained seven . The vinyl version featured four songs on each side, excluding side four, which contained five ....
, 1994), Global Communication
Global Communication
Global Communication is an electronic music act, composed of Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard. Their debut LP, 76:14 is one of the most acclaimed albums from the ambient music genre and from 1990s electronic music in general....
(76:14
76:14
76:14 is an ambient music album by Global Communication, released in 1994. Originally released on Dedicated, the album has been re-issued a number of times, most recently in 2005 in an expanded and remastered version....
, 1994), FSOL The Future Sound of London
The Future Sound of London
The Future Sound of London is a prolific British electronic music band composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. The duo are often credited with pushing the boundaries of electronic music experimentation and of pioneering a new era of dance music...
(Lifeforms
Lifeforms
Lifeforms is a 1994 double album by experimental electronica group The Future Sound of London. With time, it has become their best-known album and is considered to be an important and influential classic of avante garde electronic music.-The album:...
, ISDN
ISDN (album)
ISDN is a music album by experimental electronica artists The Future Sound of London which was released in two different versions in 1994 and 1995...
), The Black Dog
Black Dog Productions
The Black Dog was founded by Ken Downie along with Ed Handley and Andy Turner. Widely regarded as legends, the group are pioneers who, along with acts like Autechre, Aphex Twin, µ-ziq and LFO, came to define the techno movement known as intelligent dance music in the early 1990s.-Early career:In...
(Temple of Transparent Balls, 1993), Autechre
Autechre
Autechre are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both natives of Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums...
(Incunabula
Incunabula (album)
Incunabula is the debut album by electronic music group Autechre. It was released in 1993 and is the seventh album in the Artificial Intelligence series. The album's title has also been typeset as , as all Artificial Intelligence releases were...
, 1993, Amber), Boards of Canada
Boards of Canada
Boards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
, and The KLF
The KLF
The KLF were one of the seminal bands of the British acid house movement during the late 1980s and early 1990s....
's seminal Chill Out
Chill out
Chill out may mean:*Chill out music, a laid-back style of music*Chill Out, an album by KLF*Chill Out *Chill Out, an album by John Lee Hooker...
, 1990, all took a part in popularising and diversifying ambient music where it was used as a calming respite from the intensity of the hardcore and techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
popular at that time.
Later in the period much experimental electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
(particularly sound artists such as Pole
Pole (musician)
Pole is the artistic name of Stefan Betke, a German electronic music artist commonly associated with the glitch genre as well as dubtronica.-History:Pole took his name from a Waldorf 4-Pole filter which he accidentally dropped and broke in 1996...
, Mika Vainio, Ryoji Ikeda
Ryoji Ikeda
Ryoji Ikeda is a Japanese sound artist who lives and works in Paris. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine tones and noise, often using frequencies at the edges of the range of human hearing...
, Christian Fennesz
Christian Fennesz
Christian Fennesz is an Austrian guitarist active in electronic music, often credited on albums simply as Fennesz....
, Aphex Twin (drukQs
Drukqs
Drukqs is a 2001 double album by electronic musician Richard D. James, released under his most frequently used pseudonym, Aphex Twin...
, 2001) and Autechre
Autechre
Autechre are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both natives of Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums...
expanded the themes of 'ambient' along the lines of earlier 1970s ambient music & dub but with increasingly abstracted sample-based textures and digital electronics that ultimately began to converge with minimalist
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
compositions and music concrete.
Digital era musicians and sound artists
Sound art
Sound art is a diverse group of art practices that considers wide notions of sound, listening and hearing as its predominant focus. There are often distinct relationships forged between the visual and aural domains of art and perception by sound artists....
, including Brian Eno are notable in their attempts to create 'sonic sculptures
Sound installation
Sound installation is an intermedia and time based art form. It is an expansion of an art installation in the sense that it includes the sound element and therefore the time element...
' which interact with the physical architecture of the listening space using advanced electronic installations.
Literally 'ambient' field recordings are a specialism of the Touch Music
Touch Music
Touch is a British audio-visual organisation, operating the Touch label. It is the main arm of the London-based multimedia publishing company Touch, established in 1982...
label. Forerunner of this species in Poland is Brunette Models
Brunette Models
Brunette Models is a Polish-Cypriot musical project for experimental electronic music and sound sculpture, in the style of ambient music, atmospheric and deep listening music, and is a pioneer of this kind of music in Poland.-Piotr Krzyżanowski:...
(since 1995). The electroacoustic
Electroacoustic music
Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...
influence can be heard in the contemporary work of Polish artist Jacaszek
Jacaszek
Michał Jacaszek is a Polish electroacoustic musician, often credited on albums simply as Jacaszek.-Discography:Studio Albums* Lo Fi Stories* Lem Konzept* Sequel* Kompleta* Treny...
(since 2008).
Glitch
Glitch (music)
Glitch is a term used to describe a genre of electronic music that emerged in the mid to late 1990s. The glitch aesthetic is characterized by a deliberate use of glitch based sonic artifacts that would normally be viewed as unwanted disturbances reducing the overall sound quality and are thus...
music is a major subset of this work produced by (mainly German) labels such Mille Plateaux
Mille Plateaux
Mille Plateaux is an influential electronica record label founded 1993 by Achim Szepanski in Frankfurt, Germany. It is known for mostly releasing minimal techno, glitch music and other experimental electronic music.-History:...
(Clicks & Cuts Series
Clicks & Cuts Series
Clicks & Cuts Series is a compilation series from the German music label Mille Plateaux. It features various experimental electronic artists to give an example of the sound and variety of the glitch music movement of the early 2000's...
, 2000).
Some dubstep
Dubstep
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in south London, England. Its overall sound has been described as "tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals"....
producers, notably Burial
Burial
Burial is the act of placing a person or object into the ground. This is accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing an object in it, and covering it over.-History:...
and Kites (Bristol ambient dubstep) have nostalgically referenced the sonic 'post-rave' ambience of the nineties era.
Soundtracks
Ambient music has been used in many motion pictures, television shows and video games, and is notable for contributing to their atmosphere, or soundscapeSoundscape
A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology...
s. Vangelis
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
wrote the scores for the British film Chariots of Fire
Chariots of Fire
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British film. It tells the fact-based story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice....
, and for Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
's 1982 film Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
, as well as many other score albums. David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
's 1984 film Dune
Dune (film)
Dune is a 1984 science fiction film written and directed by David Lynch, based on the 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name. The film stars Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, and includes an ensemble of well-known American and European actors in supporting roles. It was filmed at the Churubusco...
, for example, forgoes the epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
sci-fi adventure style theme music popularized by Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
in favor of a more atmospheric music score by Toto
Toto (band)
Toto is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1977. The group currently consists of Joseph Williams , David Paich , Steve Porcaro , Steve Lukather , Mike Porcaro , and Simon Phillips . Toto is known for a musical style that combines elements of pop, rock, soul, funk, progressive rock, hard...
and Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
. Throughout the 1980s Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
composed scores for more than twenty films, most notably the soundtracks for Flashpoint
Flashpoint (film)
Flashpoint is a film starring Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams. Rip Torn, Jean Smart, Kurtwood Smith, and Tess Harper also co-star. The movie was directed by William Tannen and based on a novel by George La Fountaine...
and Heartbreakers, both released in 1984, and Legend
Legend (film)
Legend is a 1985 fantasy film released by Universal Pictures, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, and Tim Curry. Though not a very notable success when first released, it received a single Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup, and since its initial release, has developed...
, directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1985.
Electronic musician Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland is a composer of electronic music best known for his incidental music for science fiction series on BBC radio and television whilst working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Educated at Eggars Grammar School, Alton, in Hampshire, he joined the BBC as a tape editor before moving on to...
is noted for the music style he brought to several serials of the television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
which had until then relied mostly on stock music cues or minimal music for much of its history. The video game trilogy Fallout and its spinoffs use ambient music that sometimes contains gentle rumblings to portray the bleakness of the post-apocalyptic world which the games are set in. Relic Entertainment
Relic Entertainment
Relic Entertainment is a Canadian game development company that specializes in 3D real-time strategy games and has released a number of unique PC games. Relic specializes in creative, visually appealing, and combat intense RTS games.-History:...
's 1999 game Homeworld
Homeworld
Homeworld is a real-time strategy computer game released on September 28, 1999, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment. It was the first fully three-dimensional RTS. In 2003, Relic released the source code for Homeworld...
uses such music to highlight the vast emptiness of the areas of deep space the Mothership often finds itself in. Another game series that uses ambient music is the Oddworld
Oddworld
Oddworld is a comprehensive fictional universe presented in video game form, created by game developers Oddworld Inhabitants under the direction of Lorne Lanning. Throughout games set in the Oddworld universe, Oddworld's peaceful nature is in danger of being consumed by the industrial ambition of...
games, notably Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath is an action-adventure game developed by Oddworld Inhabitants and published by Electronic Arts for the Microsoft Xbox. Music for the game was written by composer Michael Bross. It was released on January 25, 2005. A version for the PlayStation 2 was planned, but...
. That music was composed by Michael Bross. The games featured in Valve's Half-Life series, including spinoffs such as Portal, feature ambient music soundtracks by composers Kelly Bailey and Mike Morasky.
The EA Game Mirror's Edge
Mirror's Edge
Mirror's Edge is a single-player first person action-adventure video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts. The game was announced on July 10, 2007, and was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November 2008. A Microsoft Windows version was released...
also used ambient music, composed and produced by Magnus Birgersson under his guise Solar Fields
Solar Fields
Solar Fields is the stage name of Swedish electronic music artist Magnus Birgersson. He has released nine albums, and has also scored all interactive in-game music for the Electronic Arts game Mirror's Edge.- History :...
, to give a futuristic feel or puzzling atmosphere to sections of the game. The Sci-Fi horror game Doom 3
Doom 3
Doom 3 is a science fiction horror video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. An example of the first-person shooter genre, Doom 3 was first released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004. The game was later adapted for Linux, as well as being ported by Aspyr Media for Mac...
uses an ambient soundtrack made by former drummer Chris Vrenna of the band Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
, instead of having a song, mainly a MIDI file, looped through the entire map.
Organic ambient music
Organic ambient music is characterised by integration of electronicElectronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, electric, and acoustic musical instruments. Aside from the usual electronic music influences, organic ambient tends to incorporate influences from world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, especially drone
Drone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
instruments and hand percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
. Organic ambient is intended to be more harmonious with nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
than with the disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
. Some of the artists in this sub-genre include Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana
Vidna Obmana
Vidna Obmana is a pseudonym used by Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries. The name Vidna Obmana, a phrase in Serbian, literally translates to "optical illusion" and was chosen by Serries because he felt it accurately described the music...
, O Yuki Conjugate
O Yuki Conjugate
O Yuki Conjugate is an organic ambient musical group, formed in Nottingham in 1982, now sometimes based in London. Their music has variously been categorized as darkwave, industrial, ambient and tribal-ambient. Members of the group vary, but include C. Elliot, R. Horberry, T. Horberry, A. Hulme,...
, Voice of Eye
Voice of eye
Voice of Eye is a Taos, New Mexico based experimental ambient music duo whose members are Bonnie McNaim and Jim Wilson. Formed in 1991 in Houston, Texas, their sound is one that blends electronic soundscapes, drones, and world music, particularly with Middle Eastern overtones, and tends to evoke an...
, Vir Unis
Vir Unis
Vir Unis is an American ambient-music composer and performer. He is the co-founder of the AtmoWorks label with James Johnson.-Discography:-External links:...
, James Johnson
James Johnson
-Artists, authors, and musicians:*James B. Johnson , author of science fiction novels*James Johnson , English artist*James Johnson , late 18th-century Scottish musicologist*James P...
, Loren Nerell
Loren Nerell
Loren Nerell is a composer and performer of ambient American music and Balinese gamelan.As a composer, Loren has written music for film, theater, dance, and interactive multi-media...
, Atomic Skunk, Tuu
Tuu music group
Tuu was an ambient group from the late 1980s to 1999.Led by Martin Franklin, the band emerged from the post acid house chill out scene of early 1990s in the UK, blending electronica and the emerging sampling technology with traditional and invented global instrumentation.-Personnel:* Martin...
and Robert Scott Thompson
Robert Scott Thompson
Robert Scott Thompson is a composer of ambient, instrumental and electroacoustic music. He earned the B.Mus. degree from the University of Oregon and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at San Diego. His primary teachers include Bernard Rands, Roger Reynolds, Joji Yuasa and...
.
Some works by ambient pioneers such as Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, Laraaji
Laraaji
Laraaji is an American musician. Born Edward Larry Gordon in Philadelphia, he studied violin, piano, trombone and voice in his early years in New Jersey. He attended Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, D.C. on a scholarship to study composition and piano...
or Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh (German band)
Popol Vuh was a German electronic avantgarde band, in the mainstream-media so called Krautrock, founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler...
who use a combination of traditional instruments (such as piano or hammered dulcimer or hand percussion, though usually processed through tape loops or other devices) and electronic instruments, would be considered New Age / organic ambient music in this sense. In the 1970s and 1980s, Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 60 albums released across five decades.-1970s:In...
often recorded string ensembles and performances by solo cellists
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
to go along with his extended Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
workouts.
Nature-inspired ambient music
The music is composed from samples and recordings of naturally occurring sounds. Sometimes these samples can be treated to make them more instrument-like. The samples may be arranged in repetitive ways to form a conventional musical structure or may be random and unfocused. Sometimes the sound is mixed with urban or "found" sounds. Examples include much of Biosphere's SubstrataSubstrata (album)
Substrata is an ambient music album by Biosphere, released in 1997 by All Saints Records. It is considered to be a classic ambient album, consistently in the top 5 in surveys on the Hyperreal ambient mailing list....
, Mira Calix
Mira Calix
Mira Calix, real name Chantal Passamonte, is an artist signed to Warp Records, specialising in mixing her intimate vocals with jittering beats and experimental electronic textures...
's insect music and Chris Watson
Chris Watson (musician)
Christopher Richard Watson is a Sheffield-born musician and sound recordist specialising in natural history. He was a founding member of the musical group Cabaret Voltaire, and Watson's work as a wildlife sound recordist has covered television documentaries and experimental musical collaborations.-...
's Weather Report. Some overlap occurs between organic ambient and nature-inspired New Age. One of the first albums in the genre, Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A...
' Sonic Seasonings
Sonic Seasonings
Sonic Seasonings is the third album by synthesizer pioneer Wendy Carlos. It was released in 1972. Each side of the double LP was a single piece which was a musing on each of the seasons. The compositions combined music with field recordings, such as rushing wind , birdsong , and insect noises...
, combines sampled and synthesized nature sounds with ambient melodies and drones for a particularly relaxing effect. Transformation by Suzanne Doucet
Suzanne Doucet
Suzanne Doucet is an award winning German composer and producer. She lives and works in the USA since 1983.-Biography:...
and Christian Buehner and the album Second Nature by Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
, Tetsu Inoue
Tetsu Inoue
Tetsu Inoue is a producer of electronic music. His style could be described as ambient with a heavy minimalist influence. He has lived in Japan, San Francisco, and New York, and has collaborated with musicians such as Pete Namlook, Bill Laswell, Andrew Deutsch, Jonah Sharp, and Taylor Deupree.His...
, and Atom Heart are ambient album that use processed nature sounds, with reverb and echo to create a hypnotic environment.
Dark ambient
Dark ambient is a general term for any kind of ambient music with a "dark" or dissonant feel, but often involves extensive use of digital reverb to create vast sonic spaces for frightening, bottom-heavy sounds such as deep drones, gloomy male chorus, echoing thunder, and distant artillery. It has an eerie feel; the term "isolationist ambient" could be used interchangeably with it according to the listener or artists perspective. Some artists and releases that epitomize the style could include Bass CommunionBass Communion
Bass Communion is a side project of Steven Wilson, best known for his lead role in the rock band Porcupine Tree. Records released under the name "Bass Communion" are in an ambient or electronic vein - lengthy drone-heavy compositions...
's Ghosts on Magnetic Tape
Ghosts on Magnetic Tape
Ghosts on Magnetic Tape is the name of the fourth studio album released by British musician, songwriter, and producer Steven Wilson under the pseudonym Bass Communion. It was created primarily from processing 78rpm records and piano sources...
and Vajrayana, Lull's Cold Summer, Controlled Bleeding
Controlled Bleeding
Controlled Bleeding is a prolific experimental music group based in Massapequa, New York. The group was founded by Paul Lemos, the group's only consistent member...
's The Poisoner, and the Robert Rich
Robert Rich (musician)
Robert Rich is an ambient musician and composer based in California, United States. With a discography spanning over 30 years, he is widely regarded as a figure whose sound has greatly influenced today's ambient, New Age, and even IDM music.-Early life:At an early age he thought he disliked music...
/Lustmord
Lustmord
Brian Williams is a British electronic musician often credited for creating the dark ambient genre with albums recorded under the name Lustmord.- History :Williams started recording as Lustmord in 1980 before joining SPK in 1982...
collaboration album Stalker
Stalker (album)
Stalker is a collaborative album by ambient musicians Robert Rich and B.Lustmord . It was inspired by the 1979 film of the same name by Andrei Tarkovsky....
. Related styles include ambient industrial and isolationist ambient.
Ambient house
Ambient house is a musical category founded in the late 1980s that is used to describe acid houseAcid house
Acid house is a sub-genre of house music that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's core electronic squelch sounds were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with...
featuring ambient music elements and atmospheres. Tracks in the ambient house genre typically feature four-on-the-floor beats, synth pads, and vocal samples integrated in an atmospheric style. Ambient house tracks generally lack a diatonic
Diatonic scale
In music theory, a diatonic scale is a seven note, octave-repeating musical scale comprising five whole steps and two half steps for each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps...
center and feature much atonality
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
along with synthesized chords. Illbient
Illbient
Illbient is a term allegedly coined by DJ Olive to describe the iconoclastic music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in 1994...
is another form of ambient house music.
Ambient industrial
Ambient industrial is a hybrid genre of ambient and industrial musicIndustrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
; the term industrial being used in the original experimental sense, rather than in the sense of industrial metal
Industrial metal
Industrial metal is a musical genre that draws from industrial music and many different types of heavy metal, using repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Founding industrial metal acts include Ministry, Godflesh, and KMFDM.Industrial metal's...
or EBM
Electronic body music
Electronic body music or industrial dance is a music genre that combines elements of industrial music and electronic dance music...
. A "typical" ambient industrial work (if there is such a thing) might consist of evolving dissonant harmonies of metallic drones and resonances, extreme low frequency rumbles and machine noises, perhaps supplemented by gong
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
s, percussive rhythms, bullroarers
Bullroarer (music)
The bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun, is an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used for communicating over greatly-extended distances. It dates to the Paleolithic period, being found in Ukraine dating from 17,000 BC...
, distorted voices or anything else the artist might care to sample (often processed to the point where the original sample is no longer recognizable). Entire works may be based on radio telescope
Radio telescope
A radio telescope is a form of directional radio antenna used in radio astronomy. The same types of antennas are also used in tracking and collecting data from satellites and space probes...
recordings, the babbling of newborn babies, or sounds recorded through contact microphones on telegraph wires.
Among the many artists who work in this area are Coil
Coil (band)
Coil were an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy". The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be...
, CTI
CTI
CTI may stand for:*Corner Travel Index*DePaul University School of Computer Science, Telecommunications and Information Systems at DePaul University*CTI Consultants...
, Lustmord
Lustmord
Brian Williams is a British electronic musician often credited for creating the dark ambient genre with albums recorded under the name Lustmord.- History :Williams started recording as Lustmord in 1980 before joining SPK in 1982...
, Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
, Susumu Yokota
Susumu Yokota
Susumu Yokota is a prolific Japanese composer.Yokota is well known in the English-speaking independent music scene for his albums of experimental ambient music...
, Hafler Trio
Hafler Trio
The Hafler Trio is a conceptual and sound art collaborative between Andrew M. McKenzie, the only permanent member, and guest musicians. The project has seen the release of numerous albums and CDs in experimental musical styles ranging from electronica, cut-up, ambient, environmental soundscape,...
, Nocturnal Emissions
Nocturnal Emissions
Nocturnal Emissions is a sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrète, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music....
, Zoviet France
Zoviet France
Zoviet France is a prolific music group from Newcastle upon Tyne in north east England. While often dissonant and made of industrial textures, their music also falls into the ambient music category...
, Scorn
Scorn (band)
Scorn was an English electronic music project. The group was formed in the early 1990s as a side project of former Napalm Death members Mick Harris and Nic Bullen...
, PGR, Thomas Köner
Thomas Köner
Thomas Köner is a multimedia artist whose main interest lies in combining visual and auditory experiences. He's been noted for his use of low frequencies...
, Heimkveld Kunst
Heimkveld Kunst
Heimkveld Kunst is an Ambient music band, founded in the late of 2005 by C.-04- Group development :At the beginning, Heimkveld Kunst starts Dark Ambient and Experimental music, influenced by Black Metal, Dark Ambient and Symphonic Metal bands. Born in 2005, it's only in 2006 that first songs are...
, Controlled Bleeding
Controlled Bleeding
Controlled Bleeding is a prolific experimental music group based in Massapequa, New York. The group was founded by Paul Lemos, the group's only consistent member...
, and Deutsch Nepal
Deutsch Nepal
Deutsch Nepal is the solo industrial/dark ambient project of Swede Lina Der Baby Doll General .- Works :Under the name Deutsch Nepal, Lina has issued eight studio albums and a 7" as well as contributing to various compilations including a split CD with In Slaughter Nativesand another with The Moon...
. However many of these artists are very eclectic in their output, with much of it falling outside of ambient industrial per se.
Space music
Space music, also spelled spacemusic, includes music from the ambient genre as well as a broad range of other genres with certain characteristics in common to create the experience of contemplative spaciousness.Space music ranges from simple to complex sonic textures sometimes lacking conventional melodic, rhythmic, or vocal components,
generally evoking a sense of "continuum of spatial imagery and emotion",
beneficial introspection, deep listening
and sensations of floating, cruising or flying.
Space music is used by individuals for both background enhancement and foreground listening, often with headphones, to stimulate relaxation, contemplation, inspiration and generally peaceful expansive moods and soundscape
Soundscape
A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology...
s. Space music is also a component of many film soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
s and is commonly used in planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
s, as a relaxation aid
Relaxation technique
A relaxation technique is any method, process, procedure, or activity that helps a person to relax; to attain a state of increased calmness; or otherwise reduce levels of anxiety, stress or anger...
and for meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
.
Hearts of Space
Hearts of Space
Hearts of Space is a United States weekly syndicated public radio show featuring music of a contemplative nature drawn largely from the ambient, New Age and electronic genres, while also including classical, world, Celtic, experimental, and other music selections...
is a well-known radio show and affiliated record label, specializing in space music since 1984, having released over 150 albums devoted to the music style. Notable artists who have brought elements of ambient music to space music include Michael Stearns
Michael Stearns
Michael Stearns is a United States musician and composer of ambient music. He is also known as a film composer, sound designer and soundtrack producer for large format films, theatrical films, documentaries, commercials, and themed attractions....
, Constance Demby
Constance Demby
Constance Mary Demby is an American multi-instrument musician and composer. Demby is identified with the New Age movement , while some of her output is also classified as ambient or space music. She is also a singer, instrument designer, painter, sculptor, and multi-media producer...
, Jean Ven Robert Hal
Jean Ven Robert Hal
Jean Ven Robert Hal, stage name for Roberto D'Agostino Vendola born 11 May 1970 is an Italian musician, composer of Electronic Music, Kosmische Musik, Space music, Progressive, Ambient, Jazz, Synth pop and Orchestral music.-Biography:...
, Enigma
Enigma (musical project)
Enigma is an electronic musical project founded in Germany by Michael Cretu, David Fairstein and Frank Peterson in 1990. The Romanian-born Cretu conceived the Enigma project while working in Germany, but has based his recording studio A.R.T. Studios in Ibiza, Spain, since the early 1990s until May...
, Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...
, Carbon Based Lifeforms
Carbon Based Lifeforms
Carbon Based Lifeforms is a psychedelic ambient music group made up of Johannes Hedberg and Daniel Segerstad , in Gothenburg, Sweden...
, Robert Rich
Robert Rich (musician)
Robert Rich is an ambient musician and composer based in California, United States. With a discography spanning over 30 years, he is widely regarded as a figure whose sound has greatly influenced today's ambient, New Age, and even IDM music.-Early life:At an early age he thought he disliked music...
, Steve Roach, Numina, Dweller at the Threshold
Dweller at the Threshold
Dweller at the Threshold was an electronic music band based in Portland, Oregon, USA from 1993 to 2005. The band lineup changed through the years but primarily consisted of Paul Ellis and Dave Fulton. Ellis left the band sometime after the third CD, Ouroborus, was released. 2004 saw the release of...
, Paul Ellis, Deepspace, Telomere, Max Corbacho, Jonn Serrie
Jonn Serrie
Jonn Serrie is a composer of space music, a genre of ambient electronic music, and New Age music. He has recorded at least eighteen albums and worked on various projects for Lucasfilm, IMAX Corporation, NASA, the United States Navy, Hayden Planetarium, Expo Seville, and CNN.-Musical career:Serrie...
, Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 60 albums released across five decades.-1970s:In...
, Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
(as well as the group's founder Edgar Froese
Edgar Froese
Edgar Wilmar Froese is a German artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group, Tangerine Dream. Although his solo and group recordings prior to 2003 name him as "Edgar Froese", his solo albums from 2003 onward bear the artist name "Edgar W. Froese".Froese...
), and Vangelis
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
.
Isolationist ambient music
Isolationist ambient music, also known as isolationism, can be differentiated from other forms of ambient music in its use of repetition, dissonance, microtonality, and unresolved harmonies to create a sense of unresolved unease and desolation. The term was popularized in the mid-1990s by the British magazine The WireThe Wire (magazine)
The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray. The magazine initially concentrated on contemporary jazz and improvised music, but branched out in the early 1990s to various types of experimental music...
and the Ambient 4: Isolationism compilation from Virgin
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...
, this began as more or less a synonym for ambient industrial, but also inclusive of certain post-metal streams of ambient, such as Final
Final (band)
Final is a project of Justin Broadrick, creator of the band Godflesh, which he started when he was just 13 years old. Unlike Godflesh, Final is primarily electronic in nature, taking on a space-like, dark ambient sound....
, Lull, Main
Main (band)
Main were a British ambient band formed in 1991 by guitarists Robert Hampson and Scott Dowson, the former members of Loop. They combined ambient sound with layers of electric guitars and dark, foreboding emotional overtones. In 2006 Hampson announced that Main had been effectively disbanded in...
, or post-techno artists such as Autechre
Autechre
Autechre are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both natives of Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums...
and Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin
Richard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
. It may be less appropriate to call isolationist ambient a genre than using it to describe the style or "feel" of particular works by an artist working in an ambient mode. This is because many artists better known for other styles of work can occasionally create pieces that "sound" isolationist. (For example, Labradford
Labradford
Labradford is a U.S. post-rock musical group from Richmond, Virginia, founded in 1991. They have released six full albums from 1993 to 2001. Though not officially disbanded, its members have since been active with separate projects.-Biography:...
, Seefeel
Seefeel
Seefeel are a British electronic/post-rock band formed in the early 1990s. They are currently signed to Warp Records.-Biography:Seefeel formed during 1992 in London, England; with Mark Clifford on guitar, Mark Van Hoen on bass, Justin Fletcher on drums and Sarah Peacock on vocals and guitar. During...
, Kyle Bobby Dunn
Kyle Bobby Dunn
Kyle Bobby Dunn is a composer, arranger, and live performer of modern and neo-classical based drone music. He has performed in live and exclusive outdoor settings, including Banff National Park, since 2000 and has released music on various international recording labels.His work has been described...
, Techno Animal, Voice of Eye
Voice of eye
Voice of Eye is a Taos, New Mexico based experimental ambient music duo whose members are Bonnie McNaim and Jim Wilson. Formed in 1991 in Houston, Texas, their sound is one that blends electronic soundscapes, drones, and world music, particularly with Middle Eastern overtones, and tends to evoke an...
, KK Null
KK Null
KK Null is a Japanese experimental multi-instrumentalist. He began as a guitarist, but soon added composer, singer, electronic musician and drummer to his list of talents, and also studied with the Butoh workshop....
, etc.) There are many labels releasing work that could be termed isolationist ambient, among these are Malignant Records, Cold Spring
Cold Spring (label)
Cold Spring is an independent record label based in Northamptonshire, England, specialising in "all forms of extreme media, but particularly: black/dark Ambient, Neo-classical/Neo-folk, Orchestral, Power Electronics/Noise, Japanese Noise, Minimal, Death Industrial, Dark Soundtracks, Experimental,...
, Manifold Records
Manifold Records
Manifold Records is a US-based record label and mailorder store specializing in experimental, ambient and other hard-to-define audio materials. Begun in 1993 by writer and zine-publisher Vince Harrigan, the label has released works by Gravitar, Final , Mick Harris, Lull, Steve Roach, Jeph Jerman,...
, Soleilmoon
Soleilmoon
Soleilmoon Recordings is an American record label that began in 1987 as a cassette label, operating from the back of a record shop called the Ooze in Portland, Oregon, USA. The first releases were by Smegma, Muslimgauze, Coil, and Nocturnal Emissions. Compact discs releases soon followed in...
, and The Sombient label with the "drones" compilation series. Some of the artists known for this style of ambient music include Lull, Final, Bass Communion
Bass Communion
Bass Communion is a side project of Steven Wilson, best known for his lead role in the rock band Porcupine Tree. Records released under the name "Bass Communion" are in an ambient or electronic vein - lengthy drone-heavy compositions...
, Deutsch Nepal
Deutsch Nepal
Deutsch Nepal is the solo industrial/dark ambient project of Swede Lina Der Baby Doll General .- Works :Under the name Deutsch Nepal, Lina has issued eight studio albums and a 7" as well as contributing to various compilations including a split CD with In Slaughter Nativesand another with The Moon...
, Inanna
Inanna
Inanna, also spelled Inana is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare....
, Negru Voda
Negru Voda
Negru Vodă is a town in Constanţa County, Dobruja, south-eastern Romania.The name is probably derived from the legendary Radu Negru , founder and ruler of Wallachia.It has an area of .-Villages:...
, Thomas Köner
Thomas Köner
Thomas Köner is a multimedia artist whose main interest lies in combining visual and auditory experiences. He's been noted for his use of low frequencies...
, Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
, Steven Wilson
Steven Wilson
Steven John Wilson is an English musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
, and Chuck Hammer
Chuck Hammer
Chuck Hammer is an American guitarist and Emmy nominated digital film composer, known for seminal guitar-synth with Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Guitarchitecture....
(Guitarchitecture
Guitarchitecture
Guitarchitecture: is a term developed by Chuck Hammer in 1977, describing an approach to soundtrack composition, employing discrete textured guitar layers....
).
Of late there has been an influx of progressive metal
Progressive metal
Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal originating in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1980s...
artists who have clear ambient influences. Bands such as Cult of Luna
Cult of Luna
Cult of Luna is a Swedish post-metal band from Umeå. They formed from the remnants of a Umeå hardcore punk band called Eclipse in 1998. They slowly garnered critical appreciation and underground popularity with early releases Cult of Luna and The Beyond ; however, it is 2004's Salvation that can...
, Isis
Isis (band)
Isis was a Los Angeles, California-based post-metal band, founded in Boston, Massachusetts, with a career spanning from 1997 to 2010...
, Devil Sold His Soul
Devil Sold His Soul
Devil Sold His Soul are an ambient influenced progressive metal/post-hardcore band from the South of England signed to Century Media. Three of the band joined from Mahumodo, thought to be a pioneer of the British hardcore scene...
, Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band formed by Steven Wilson in 1987 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Their music is difficult to categorise, being associated with both psychedelic rock and progressive rock, yet having been influenced by trance, krautrock and ambient due to Steven...
, and Between the Screams have pioneered the genre and are largely credited with popularizing the sound. These bands are largely known as post-metal
Post-metal
Post-metal is a music genre, a mixture between the genres of post-rock and heavy metal.Hydra Head Records owner and Isis frontman Aaron Turner originally termed the genre "thinking man's metal", demonstrating that his band was trying to move away from common metal conventions...
.
Ambient dub
Ambient dub is a phrase first coined by the now defunct Beyond Records from early 1990s in Birmingham, England. Their defining series of albums Ambient Dub 1, 2, through to 4 inspired many, including sound engineer and producer Bill LaswellBill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
, who used the same phrase in his music project Divination, where he collaborates with different musicians on each album (though sometimes the same ones are on more than one of the albums such as Tetsu Inoue
Tetsu Inoue
Tetsu Inoue is a producer of electronic music. His style could be described as ambient with a heavy minimalist influence. He has lived in Japan, San Francisco, and New York, and has collaborated with musicians such as Pete Namlook, Bill Laswell, Andrew Deutsch, Jonah Sharp, and Taylor Deupree.His...
and others). Laswell also presented ambient dub and ambient house
Ambient house
Ambient house, a music genre that first emerged in the late 1980s, is a sub-genre of house music, combining elements of acid house and ambient music...
music on albums by his collaboration project Axiom Dub, featuring recording artists The Orb
The Orb
Throughout 1989, the Orb, along with Martin Glover, developed the musical genre of ambient house through the use of a diverse array of samples and recordings. The culmination of its musical work came toward the end of the year when the group recorded a session for John Peel on BBC Radio 1...
, Jah Wobble
Jah Wobble
Jah Wobble is an English bass guitarist, singer, poet and composer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but left the band after two albums...
, Jaki Liebezeit
Jaki Liebezeit
Jaki Liebezeit is a drummer probably best known as a founding member of Can who has been called "one of the few drummers to convincingly meld the funky and the cerebral"....
, Scorn
Scorn
Scorn is a feeling of contempt or disdain for something or somebody; to despise.Scorn may also refer to:Music* Scorn * Scorn of the Women, an album by Weddings Parties Anything* Scorn Defeat, an album by Sigh...
and DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
.
Ambient dub involves the genre melding of dub styles made famous by King Tubby
King Tubby
King Tubby was a Jamaican electronics and sound engineer, known primarily for his influence on the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s...
and other Jamaican sound artists with DJ inspired ambient electronica, complete with all the inherent drop-outs, echo, equalization and psychedelic electronic effects. As writer and performer David Toop
David Toop
David Toop is an English musician and author, and as of 2001 was visiting Research Fellow in the Media School at London College of Communication. He was notably a member of The Flying Lizards. He was a prominent contributor to the British magazine The Face. He is a regular contributor to The Wire,...
explains in an early Beyond Records newsletter, "Dub music is like a long echo delay, looping through time...turning the rational order of musical sequences into an ocean of sensation."
Notable films incorporating ambient music or sound design
- Forbidden PlanetForbidden PlanetForbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox, with a screenplay by Cyril Hume. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis. The characters and its setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and its plot contains certain...
- 2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey (film)2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
(especially the The Blue DanubeThe Blue DanubeThe Blue Danube is the common English title of An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 , a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866...
) - Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork Orange (film)A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It was written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick...
(especially Beethoven's Ninth SymphonySymphony No. 9 (Beethoven)The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
) - Mulholland DriveMulholland Drive (film)Mulholland Drive is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch, starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, and Laura Harring. The surrealist film was highly acclaimed by many critics and earned Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival...
- Blade RunnerBlade RunnerBlade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
- Donnie DarkoDonnie DarkoDonnie Darko is a 2001 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Jena Malone, and Mary McDonnell...
- Mister LonelyMister LonelyMister Lonely is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Harmony Korine, and co-written with his brother Avi Korine.-Plot:A young American man living in Paris scratches out a living as a Michael Jackson look-alike, dancing on the streets, public parks, tourist spots and trade shows. During a show in...
- TrafficTraffic (2000 film)Traffic is a 2000 American crime drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Stephen Gaghan. It explores the illegal drug trade from a number of perspectives: a user, an enforcer, a politician and a trafficker. Their stories are edited together throughout the film, although some of the...
- The PrestigeThe Prestige (film)The Prestige is a 2006 mystery thriller film written, directed and co-produced by Christopher Nolan, with a screenplay adapted from Christopher Priest's 1995 novel of the same name. The story follows Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, rival stage magicians in London at the end of the 19th century...
- Silent HillSilent Hill (film)Silent Hill is a 2006 horror film directed by Christophe Gans and written by Roger Avary. The story is an adaptation of the Silent Hill series of survival horror video games created by Konami. The film, particularly its emotional, religious and aesthetic content as well as its creature design,...
- SunshineSunshine (2007 film)Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass...
- The Lovely BonesThe Lovely Bones (film)The Lovely Bones is a 2009 American drama film directed by Peter Jackson. It is a film adaptation of the award-winning and best-selling 2002 novel of the same name by Alice Sebold. The film stars Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon, alongside Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie's parents Jack and...
- SolarisSolaris (2002 film)Solaris is a 2002 science fiction film and psychological drama directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone...
- CrashCrash (2004 film)Crash is a 2004 American drama film co-written, produced, and directed by Paul Haggis. The film is about racial and social tensions in Los Angeles, California. A self-described "passion piece" for Haggis, Crash was inspired by a real life incident in which his Porsche was carjacked outside a video...
- The Social NetworkThe Social NetworkThe Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...
Notable ambient-music shows on radio and via satellite
- EchoesEchoes (radio program)Echoes is a daily two-hour music radio program hosted by John Diliberto featuring a soundscape of ambient, space, electronica, and New Age music. The program features in-depth artist interviews and intimate "living room" performances. Interview subjects have included Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel,...
, is a daily two-hour music radio program hosted by John Diliberto featuring a soundscape of ambient, spacemusic, electronica, new acoustic and new music directions – founded in 1989 and syndicated on 130 radio stations in the USA. - Hearts of SpaceHearts of SpaceHearts of Space is a United States weekly syndicated public radio show featuring music of a contemplative nature drawn largely from the ambient, New Age and electronic genres, while also including classical, world, Celtic, experimental, and other music selections...
, a program hosted by Stephen Hill and broadcast on NPRNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
in the US since 1973. - Musical StarstreamsMusical StarstreamsMusical Starstreams is a terrestrial and internet radio program that first aired in the San Francisco bay area in December 1981...
, a US-based commercial radio station and internet program produced, programmed and hosted by Forest since 1981. - Star's EndStar's EndStar's End is a weekly, five-hour-long New Age music radio show broadcast by 88.5 WXPN, the University of Pennsylvania's radio station, in Philadelphia. It is the second longest-running show of its type in the world, after Hearts of Space.-History:...
a radio show on 88.5 WXPNWXPNWXPN is a non-commercial, public radio station operated by the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia that broadcasts a music radio format called adult album alternative , along with many other format shows supported all with an indie slant...
, in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. Founded in 1976, it is the second longest-running ambient music radio show in the world. - Ultima Thule Ambient MusicUltima Thule Ambient MusicUltima Thule Ambient Music is a long-running, specialist ambient music radio show which has been broadcast on Australian community radio since 1989. The show has been described as one of the leading alternative music programmes on Australian radio. It is also available as a webcast and as a podcast...
, a weekly 90-minute show broadcast since 1989 on community radio across Australia.
See also
- Background musicBackground musicAlthough background music was by the end of the 20th century generally identified with Muzak or elevator music, there are several stages in the development of this concept.-Antecedents:...
- Black ambient
- Drone musicDrone musicDrone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...
- Easy listeningEasy listeningEasy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
- New Age musicNew Age musicNew Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
- GlitchGlitch (music)Glitch is a term used to describe a genre of electronic music that emerged in the mid to late 1990s. The glitch aesthetic is characterized by a deliberate use of glitch based sonic artifacts that would normally be viewed as unwanted disturbances reducing the overall sound quality and are thus...
- Incidental musicIncidental musicIncidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
- Intelligent dance musicIntelligent dance musicIntelligent dance music is a term that describes an electronic music genre that emerged in the early 1990s. The genre is influenced by a wide range of musical styles particularly electronic dance music such as Detroit Techno...
(IDM) - Minimalist musicMinimalist musicMinimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
- List of ambient artists
- List of dark ambient artists
- List of electronic music genres