Ambient Music. A general discussion on all aspects of this unique genre.

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beerking

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Hi All
With more and more folk on QQ showing an interest in Ambient music; it was suggested that it would be great to have a separate thread to cover all the relevant elements of this fascinating genre.
Please add any thoughts and information about new or old releases, so we can all share our passion for this unique music.
This can be about any format and mix.
Cheers
Mike
 
Can't talk about ambient without talking about Eno! Sadly, he does not seem to work with surround, which is rather surprising, given how he loves tech and tinkering with it. . . .

I do recall he did a duo ambient show in a volcano (!) in Lanzarote. The boot I heard of it was sadly stereo, but the sound must have echoed and been very surround-like in a volcanic cavity!
 
Can't talk about ambient without talking about Eno! Sadly, he does not seem to work with surround, which is rather surprising, given how he loves tech and tinkering with it. . . .

I do recall he did a duo ambient show in a volcano (!) in Lanzarote. The boot I heard of it was sadly stereo, but the sound must have echoed and been very surround-like in a volcanic cavity!

Yes, it's a shame that Eno doesn't release surround mixes, since many of his installations had several CD boomboxes hung around a gallery space.
 
like rain through my hands...
Michael Whalen, an award winning composer, and who I believe is the King of Ambient Piano music, has a CD out that I've gone to for years to relax and even helps me sleep on some nights.

Here's a link for a youtube sample

Unfortunately, Amazon's listing for this title has the wrong music samples for it - (GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AMAZON!)

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Can't talk about ambient without talking about Eno! Sadly, he does not seem to work with surround, which is rather surprising, given how he loves tech and tinkering with it. . . .

I do recall he did a duo ambient show in a volcano (!) in Lanzarote. The boot I heard of it was sadly stereo, but the sound must have echoed and been very surround-like in a volcanic cavity!

Personally not as big on Eno's ambient music as on his songwriting. I've heard a brilliant upmix of Drums Between the Bells; I have to think much of his ambient stuff would upmix well, too (and/or sound great through a SurroundMaster). Maybe @Simon A can confirm that parenthetical?

But yes: Eno's absence from the surround world is perplexing.
 
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Personally not as big on Eno's ambient music as on his songwriting. I've heard a brilliant upmix of Drums Between the Bells; I have to think much of his ambient stuff would upmix well, too (and/or sound great through a SurroundMaster). Maybe @Simon A can confirm that parenthetical?

But yes: Eno's absence from the surround world is perplexing.

Sorry, I haven't heard the album in question. :)
 
Sorry, I haven't heard the album in question. :)

Knowing you're an ambient fan, Simon, I was thinking you might have tried running any or all of Eno's ambient titles (Music for Airports, etc.)--as opposed to his more traditional (if that's the right word for Eno...okay, it's not) pop/rock output--through the SM.
 
Knowing you're an ambient fan, Simon, I was thinking you might have tried running any or all of Eno's ambient titles (Music for Airports, etc.)--as opposed to his more traditional (if that's the right word for Eno...okay, it's not) pop/rock output--through the SM.

I get what you're saying, but I haven't really had the time to play around with his Ambient albums. :)
 
Simon, if it hasn't become too pricey, there's a special edition of Drums Between the Bells that has a 2nd disc of instrument mixes of the tracks. I play that more often than the main disc, which is poetry and music.

I didn't know about that one.

At some point--maybe it was when the "complete" My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was released on CD?--Eno and David Byrne released the multis for "A Secret Life" and "Help Me Somebody" and invited fans to do their own remixes. I've never heard any of the results, but I have to think that at least a few competent amateurs tried to mix in surround?
 
Easily the most notable ambient album I know of in surround sound is Ryuichi Sakamoto's async (of the async surround blu ray audio). I don't really know of any other ambient album that is well known outside of surround sound with a 5.1 mix. It's also one of my all time fav albums too. Incredibly cinematic really can't recommend it more. I have the blu ray and the mix is surprisingly fantastic. While it is not quite as good as async and a bit more obscure, you may also wanna check out connect.ohm's 9980 in surround sound which you can download in 5.1 from ultimae records. It's decent ambient but I've heard better, but it's alright in it's little "psybient" subgenre. I only wish more fanastic ambient albums were made in surround sound like async because it's really incredible! If anyone knows of any other mainstream/notable ambient albums in surround sound please let me know!

for async surround (one of my favorites) you can find it here: Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani - Async Surround

for 9980 you can find it here: CONNECT.OHM | 9980 - 24bit (Ultimae Records)
 
Oh also I didn't think about it but I will be releasing a ambient ep in 5.1 in like a week if anybody is interested heh. And also I wanted to note that async was mastered by Bob Ludwig.

edit: previous message awaiting mod approval cus im new to here.
 
Welcome to the QQ @RelentlesSausage -please tell us more 🙂
About the EP? It's my first musical thing that I'm actually releasing. It's 3 tracks, the first being 7 minutes, second being 2 minutes, and the third being another 7 minutes (may change slightly in the final release, still finalizing a few things. They're all very inspired by the music of Dream Catalogue (A specifically important ambient/vaporwave [yes i know vaporwave sounds ridiculous] record label) more specifically the work of 2814. The first track is a cinematic kind of thing with the feel of walking around Tokyo or Hong Kong at night with all of the neon signage. I think it'll be called "city". The second track is inspired by the noise music of merzbow and I honestly don't have much to say about it haha. The third is a more mellow ambient track with a slow building atmosphere over a repeating piano lick. Most of my freinds seem to like the first track the best but my favorite that I made is the third track. When I was making this EP I got kind of inspired how I can use feedback to my advantage in suddle ways, so you may hear some feedback at parts which i find can have a beauty to it. While most ambient music seems to be made with computers and midi (which there is nothing wrong with) I performed all of the parts by hand "organically" on my keyboard with an fx unit. It's very layered.

It's my first real release so I'm still improving and I will definitely improve with time. If you ask nicely maybe I'll send you some tracks before the actual release ;).

If you're asking about async, it's in a post i made right before that one that's still getting moderator approval cus I'm new heh :).

Thanks for the warm welcome!
 
This one's pretty decent (hours of content too): Robot Check

Here's a link to his Bandcamp page with some high fidelity downloads: Robert Rich

This one's good too: Structures From Silence - Deluxe Edition, by Steve Roach
Steve Roach is amazing... Dreamtime Return is another great one. If we are talking about non surround sound ambient music, the obvious pick for me is 新しい日の誕生 (birth of a new day) by 2814 as it is also my favorite album of all time. 新しい日の誕生, by 2814
 
A favorite genre of mine! For stereo, check out Emancipator's albums: safe in the steep hills and soon it will be cold enough. Easy to find on YouTube for streaming. In fact, create a emancipator station on pandora and let it carry you away 😁
 
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