Thread: Ambient Music

I personally love ambient music to death- as a person with synesthesia it makes a profound emotional and visual journey for me every time I hear it.

My personal favourite by far is Aphex's Selected Ambient Works Volume 2- everything has such intensely deep and warm emotions evoked from the songs.

What about you? Share your experiences with ambient music, and please post your favourites or at least tell who some of your favourite ambient musicians are.

Also, I have a question for people that can easily distinguish different moods and settings of ambient music-- anybody know where I could find songs pertaining to vastness or large abandoned areas that are significantly beautiful? May be quite the task, but just putting that out there 8)

If I might recommend Steve Roach.

His stuff varies quite a bit between two extremes however; you have his tribal stuff with powerful rhythmic pulses, and his beatless stuff with synthesizer waves. A massive discography too; 30-40 albums, often with multiple discs. He's been doing this a long time.

A couple of my own recommendations, since I haven't heard too much of his stuff admittedly:

Structures from Silence (for the beatless)
The Serpent's Lair (for the tribal)
AND ESPECIALLY Egg Chamber Dreaming as a song from the latter. I've rarely heard anything as powerful.

Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Harold Budd, Brian Eno, Tim Hecker, Biosphere.

Originally Posted by Tarsier

Steve Roach, Harold Budd, Tim Hecker

yah bro

Isan is nice too :3
Isan - Meet Next Life

I don't know if I would consider Isan to be ambient... Definitely not in the way we are talking about here.

Yes! I am a huge fan of ambient space music. Steve Roach is a great performer of it. I also really like Kevin Braheny, Dominic Woosey, Robert Rich, Michael Stearns, Michael American, and especially these two...

Jonn Serrie:



Dwight Ashley:

http://www.last.fm/music/Dwight+Ashl...umbs?autostart

I'm not a fan of that kind of stuff. I'm Green Day punk rockin' all the way man!

That's pretty good stuff, Dragon. More so the first volume of Selected Ambient Works by Aphex's style than traditional ambient stuff, which I quite like from time to time. Gives a much different mood overall, but in a good way that's still structured like ambient music.

I just dived into the Ambient Music Realm, and I think it's great! Very relaxing.

Hah, I just realized I already have the song Over The Ice by Field o_O I completely didn't make the association when it shuffled within this big trance album compilation I have >_> hehe. Great song.

I just got a hold of Steve Roach's Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces. Man, this stuff is just fantastic. Very powerful and deeply mind numbing. I'm really loving this.

When I'm doing my writing I divide my playlists in six seperate ambience genres: General, Dreamy, Uplifting, Tension, Panic, and Nightmare. Tension is by far the most packed playlist I have, with Lustmord, rips from Hitman: Contracts by Jesper Kyd, rips from Twisted Metal: Black and Head-on from the Twisted Metal music team, and Mortal Kombat, amongst other miscellanious artists I've come across on Last.fm through the dark ambience group I've joined.

Depending on what I'm feeling, I'll fall asleep with whatever playing in the background. I've been trying to have nightmares lately, but the Nightmare and Tension music isn't working.

If you're looking for a very uplifting and dreamy set of ambient songs that play for about 10-20 seconds each (they're looped in the game), then rip the songs from Mirror's Edge. I was pissed off to find that the soundtrack only had remixes of the song's main theme, and didn't have the background ambience that plays in the background, so you may have to do a bit of research before downloading the "music from the game", definately worth it, though, not to mention they're low in size because of their duration.

Holycow, I just came across this site o_O

http://www.sleepbot.com/ambience/

Great stuff if you're looking for something specific. I actually feel like I need to get in touch with some more dark ambient stuff. Like the stuff you hear in 99 Rooms.

Ash Ra Tempel (who later became Ashra) is considered by some to be a pioneer ambient group. They are also sort of rock, but I guess they are ambient enough to be posted in here. I definitely think they are phenomenal .

Bump because I want to inform that I ordered the 4 disc, 5 hour long box set Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces this is probably the most spiritually connected ambient music I've ever heard, just draws you right into the realm of a distance galaxy within moments of starting the experience.





Mmm...

As well, I discovered Yagya... just fantastic and beautiful to listen to. Really rare to come across though (a CD by them is upwards of 200 bucks o_O)

I don't really like Steve Roach... I downloaded some of his tracks for meditation, and although the music really does take you places, its too dark for me. All his stuff I've listened to seems to be very dark, whereas I prefer music that's more uplifting.

I'm a big fan of Altus. You can download all his music for free save for one album.

My favorite ambient:

Aphex Twin (SAW I & II)
Autechre (Amber)
Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill 2 OST)
COIL (Time Machines, Astral Disaster)

I really love the Silent Hill 2 OST. Has a great atmosphere that's both dark but also blissful and dreamy... Some of the best music in a game, especially for the time it was made

I recently (like, within a few days ago ) got in touch with some Coil stuff-- The Ape of Naples and The New Backwards as well as Snow EP are all I have at the moment, but they're definitely someone I want to check out more of

Today I listened to Ulf Söderberg's Vindarnas Hus album, which sound wickedly ancient. At times it builds up with some awesome tribal ambient beats, but otherwise it's rich and atmospheric and wonderful.

@Eonnn: a ton of Steve Roach's music has a darker spiritual nature, even if it's in there subtly; there are definitely a ton of more uplifting things in his discography though. Albums like Dreamtime Renewal and Dreamtime Return are... well, pleasantly dreamy

Personally I welcome the dark nature of most of his work. I'm all about that rich alternate mental world, whether or not it's a spooky place...

YouTube - TheAmbientSpace's Channel

There you go

I'm really digging the stuff by "Aalborg Soundtracks" reminds me of stuff from Half Life when they add in that kind of tense post-apocalyptic city ambient theme. Great stuff.

Some stuff:




v this one is interesting, very dark though. Imagining I'm at the base of a cave is what I feel most relevant.

Ambient music is great, definitely one of the genres I listened much to at one point. Personally I find that a lot of it is just headache inducing, though I do come across the occasional brilliant stuff.

Solar Fields, edging somewhat on ambient, though still implementing a defined rythm in most of his stuff, I find this guy pretty interesting. This particular track can really take you places.




Recently I've also looked into Jami Sieber. She doesn't actually do ambient stuff, but rather electric chello. If you've played the game Braid, you've heard a lot of her stuff.

The album Hidden Sky is pretty interesting.



I'll pour some more of my real ambient stuff in here later.

Bump because G A S is amazing.

This is one of my favorite bands, most of there stuff is classified as post rock but feel like a lot of it is ambient.
http://youtu.be/8L64BcCRDAE

check it out and tell me what you think!

For sure, Sigur Ros is in my top artists as well definitely have an ambient vibe to their dreamy pieces... Ágætis byrjun is my favourite

I somehow feel that even their really loud/epic tracks are still ambient. It doesn't seem possible, until you hear it.