Who's into ambient, electronica, etc?

[Mike Anderson]

I've always loved ambient/electronica stuff, and have been getting more heavily into it in recent years. The genre has really taken off with the availability of inexpensive, computer-driven production.

It also sounds *incredible* on high end audio systems.

My favorites albums lately:

Phutureprimite, "Sub Conscious"
Entheogenic, "Spontaneous Illumination"
Bliss, "Quiet Letters"
Jon Hopkins, "Opalescent"
Pitch Black, "Ape to Angels"
Kaya Project, "Elixir" and "Walking Through"
Almost anything on the Waveforms label

And of course all the classics, e.g. Future Sound of London, Spacetime Continuum, Higher Intelligence Agency, Orb, Starseeds, Shpongle, etc.

Anyone else? I'm always looking for more.

OH, and if you're new to the genre (or even if you're not), be sure to check out the RadioIO Ambient station, free on your squeezebox. In fact there are quite a few very good internet radio stations devoted to ambient, but RadioIO is one of my faves.

[TCM]

I've always loved ambient/electronica stuff, and have been getting more heavily into it in recent years. The genre has really taken off with the availability of inexpensive, computer-driven production.

It also sounds *incredible* on high end audio systems.

My favorites albums lately:

Phutureprimite, "Sub Conscious"
Entheogenic, "Spontaneous Illumination"
Bliss, "Quiet Letters"
Jon Hopkins, "Opalescent"
Pitch Black, "Ape to Angels"
Kaya Project, "Elixir" and "Walking Through"
Almost anything on the Waveforms label

And of course all the classics, e.g. Future Sound of London, Spacetime Continuum, Higher Intelligence Agency, Orb, Starseeds, Shpongle, etc.

Anyone else? I'm always looking for more.

OH, and if you're new to the genre (or even if you're not), be sure to check out the RadioIO Ambient station, free on your squeezebox. In fact there are quite a few very good internet radio stations devoted to ambient, but RadioIO is one of my faves.

The Orb mmmmmmmm, memories...

http://www.theorb.com/

I'm not really into ambient music, but recently I listened to RadioIO Ambient (I think you've mentioned it before...:-D) and it was great. I'm definitely going to listen to that station again.

/Håkan

[gandt]

Thanks for posting. I like a lot of that stuff and there are some names there Ive never heard of but I'd also like it if people tracked back to some of the pioneers of this kind of thing. Eno natuarally but also Klaus Schulze whose entire back catalogue is reing remastered and rereleased and whose 20 mins plus compositions, particularly early stuff like "X" or "Cyborg", paved the way for music that was just allowed to hang there and kind of envelope you. I have a special affection for it partly because of history (heard em when i was about 16) and partly because some of those old synths with their mass of plugs and wires made noises i heaven't really heard since except maybe as samples.


(and on an almost entirely unrelated note - so unrelated that surely nobody reading this thread will even reads it - Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine is fabulous and sounds brilliant on my set up (ripped to lossless AAC, dali speakers, tact pre and power, highly modified squeezebox)

[DrNic]

I've always loved ambient/electronica stuff, and have been getting more heavily into it in recent years. The genre has really taken off with the availability of inexpensive, computer-driven production.

It also sounds *incredible* on high end audio systems.

My favorites albums lately:

Phutureprimite, "Sub Conscious"
Entheogenic, "Spontaneous Illumination"
Bliss, "Quiet Letters"
Jon Hopkins, "Opalescent"
Pitch Black, "Ape to Angels"
Kaya Project, "Elixir" and "Walking Through"
Almost anything on the Waveforms label

And of course all the classics, e.g. Future Sound of London, Spacetime Continuum, Higher Intelligence Agency, Orb, Starseeds, Shpongle, etc.

Anyone else? I'm always looking for more.

OH, and if you're new to the genre (or even if you're not), be sure to check out the RadioIO Ambient station, free on your squeezebox. In fact there are quite a few very good internet radio stations devoted to ambient, but RadioIO is one of my faves.

This "genre/s" forms the basis of a large part of my music collection. Being both an avid fan of the music and into the production of it myself (well most active during med school - when I had time!) I am always on the look out for new stuff too.

Check out *anything* by Global Communications - they are the dogs..

Suzuki K1 - Satellite Serenade is another splendid track

Floris de Haan does excellent remixes (ambient stylie!) of "electronica" dance tracks

There's a few for you to check out.

For me, ambient music is extremely involved - you can really listen and pick out the subtle changes and progressions in a well constructed track. It isn't just background music (as my wife often thinks!!)

Nic

[nathanroberts1]

I'm just dipping my toe into this area, but have been blown away by Four Tet (Rounds). Also the Scandinavian bands Sigur Ros and Mum make sublime atmospheric stuff, if you can live with whispery vocals amongst the ambience. All have come alive in my system since they received the flac -> SB3 treatment.

[Cleve]

Even 30 years ago, I liked electronic pioneers like Tangerine Dream. I find that, as I grow older, I prefer electronic and ambient more and more. There's many sub-genres of ambient - Dark, Organic, Natural, and others.

There's a good article at Wikipedia on ambient

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_music


A few of the artists that I enjoy, in no particular order

Peter Namlook
Tetsu Inouye
Dan Gibson
Steve Roach
Lustmord
Bill Laswell
Matt Borghi
Biosphere
Stars of the Lid
Windy and Carl
Ooi Phoi


There are also many Ambient Internet radio stations that can be enjoyed with the Squeezebox. Here are some of my current Squeezebox Favorites...

Mixing of Particulate Solids Radio 1 - http://147.175.61.250:8000/listen.pls

Mixing of Particulate Solids Radio 2 - http://147.175.84.45:8000/listen.pls

Mixing of Particulate Solids Radio 3 - http://147.175.61.55:8000


These three stations originate from a university in Slovakia, of all places. There's no 'language barrier' since they play almost entirely instrumental/electronic music. Not all three stations are "on the air" at the same time.

Sleepbot Environmental Broadcast - http://www.sleepbot.com/ambience/cgi...cgi/listen.pls

One of the first ambient radio stations I found, and one of my favorites. Unfortunately, it's only a 56 kbps feed - somehow, though, it sounds better than 56k.

The Drone Zone

http://www.somafm.com/dronezone.pls

Soma FM has a wide variety of stations - Check out the others at www.somafm.com

OEM Radio - http://205.188.215.231:8000/listen.pls

More electronica than ambient, but it's one of the stations I frequently listen to.


BlueMars - http://207.200.96.225:8020/listen.pls

The station has been off-line for a couple weeks, but it's running today

Cryosleep - http://207.200.96.225:8022/listen.pls

The 'sister station' of Bluemars, this is "Zero Beat Guaranteed". The website for both stations is www.bluemars.org

[ezkcdude]

Anyone else? I'm always looking for more.

A friend of mine let me borrow his Sound Lab Sector Nine album ("Artifact"). I'm sure it would be right up your alley. You may also like Boards of Canada.

[Mike Anderson]

For me, ambient music is extremely involved - you can really listen and pick out the subtle changes and progressions in a well constructed track. It isn't just background music (as my wife often thinks!!)

I agree completely. Thanks for the tips, I will definitely check em out.

Re Boards of Canada, that's been recommended to me a couple times too, I will also check it out.

[Pale Blue Ego]

I love ambient, but mainly use it for sleep music. Steve Roach, Harold Budd, Eno, etc. I even have a genre named "sleep" that is separate from "ambient", because some of the ambient stuff can be nightmare-inducing if used to crash to.

Love the new music forum

[jth]

Here's a few more for the list:

Harold Budd / Brian Eno - The Pearl
Labradford - Mi Media Naranja
Brian Eno - Apollo, On Land, Shutov Assembly, and others
Pauline Oliveros / Stuart Dempster / Panaiotis - Deep Listening
Bark Psychosis - Hex
Seefeel