From: Mike J. Brown <mjbrown@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: FAQ: Ambient music [2/3]
Followup-To: bit.listserv.emusic-l,alt.rave
Originator: recmusic@galaxy
Reply-To: mjbrown@magnus.acs.ohio
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 08:55:16 GMT

Part 2 of 3
______________________________________________________________________

Recommendations: by others

===Lazlo Nibble <lazlo@triton.unm.edu>

Various: Ambient House -- The Compilation By DFC                  album [1990]

    CD: 1990 GE (BCM Records BCM 50422) (UK: BCM 422 CD)
	  6:13  Morenas: Hazme Son\~ar
	  5:45  Aqua Regia: N.Y.C. Smile On Me
	  6:00  The KLF: Last Train To Trancentral [remix 1]
	  4:44  Extreme: Trasparenza
	  4:07  Suen\~o Latino: Luxuria
	  5:27  The Orb: A Huge Ever-Growing... [why is six scared of seven?]
	  3:57  Suen\~o Latino: Suen\~o Latino
	  5:55  Morenas: Somnambulism
	  3:50  Aqua Regia: Aqueanosolo
	  6:00  Lux: Deep Down

This was my first serious exposure to ambient-house, including my first
KLF or Orb tracks, and I couldn't really tell you whether I like it
because it's genuinely great or just because it was so fresh at the time
but like it I do.  The KLF and Orb tracks are otherwise-unavailable-on-CD
("LT2T" from the impossible to get original UK "LT2T" 12" and "Pulsating
Brain" from the original "Loving You" 12" as well) and were the obvious
draw tracks; most of the rest are Italo-ambient . . . a little more meat
on the ambient bones, but still quite good.  


===steve@cse.fau.edu (Steve Smith)

Judging by all the attention the ORB gets here, I though I should check
it out.  Not willing to cough up 14.99 for an album, I bought the only
single the store had: Little Puffy Clouds.  I didn't care for it but
I'd like to believe there's something more to this ORB thing.  What's
the deal?  Is this representative of the ORB or should I give it a second
chance? 

===rej@bob.sal.wisc.edu (Randy Jones)

Not "or", mate, "and"! YES it is representative of the finest hour (from 
within their more beat-oriented mode, pre geosynchronous sound collage stuff)
of Orb-ness, and YES, you should give it another chance. Otherwise, you
may be left in this mundane plane of being whilst those of us who are able
to fly along with the Orb's sublime peregrinations will MUTATE ourselves
RIGHT OUTTA HERE into a LIQUID FUELED perpetual spacelovevibe APOGEE.
So kick back, Unfurl your Pagoda Probe Booster, and get ready for IGNITION.
 
You got me?

===Andrew C Crosby <ndc@engin.umich.edu>

Space                   _Space_
infinitely better than chill out

Tangerine Dream         _Poland_
perhaps one of the best ambient forerunning techno albums of all time

Intermix                _Intermix_
comprised of some of the people from front line assembly (bill leeb et al). 
haunting and hard in places, but still very musically powerful;
it doesn't sound 'industrial' at all, mostly funky, orbish. 
a bit harder than the orb, though.

Underground Resistance
a lot of their stuff is screaming techno but many bits of it are 
ambient, bizarre, cool acid music

The Orb                 <everything>
Fortran 5               Crazy Earth 12"
808 State               Pacific
Brian Eno               <the ambient series>
Eno & Byrne             _My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts_
David Byrne             _The Forest_ & Forestry EP


===jondr@sco.COM (Jon Drukman)

GAT DECOR - Passion (Effective CD EFFS 1)

passion (naked mix edit)        [4.21]
passion (d.emerson mix edit)    [3.26]
passion (naked mix)             [7.44]
passion (d.emerson mix)         [14.06]

total time: 29.47

wow - not a lot of music for your import cd single dollar, but this
song is great.  spacy melodic jam with a great bassline, some
wonderful piano tinkles and lots of ambience.  a good mood-setter.
really, only the naked mix is worth anything - the d.emerson version
has some nice bits but goes on way too long and has these annoying
weird vocal things running throughout.

i recommend the song wholeheartedly.  i wish there was a more cost
effective way to get it.  the edit version is out on some CD comps but
i think it's too short to do the song justice.


===barth@ihlpf.att.com (Barth Richards)

Zoviet France           _Shouting At The Ground_
I cannot think of a better ambient industrial CD than <this>. 
The whole thing is astounding.


===kzim@watserv.ucr.edu (Christopher Zimmerman)

Art Of Noise            _The Ambient Collection_


===cj@eno.corp.sgi.com (C J Silverio)

The Orb                 <everything>                        
and mixes of other people's stuff by Alex Patterson, Thrash, and Youth

various                 _Give Peace A Dance II: The Ambient Collection_
various                 _Ambient House: The Compilation by DFC_
various                 _Trancemaster Vol. I_     
Doubting Thomas         _The Infidel_
Delerium                <anything other than _Morpheus_>
Erasure                 Erasure Club Series 12"s (difficult to find)
Primal Scream           _Screamadelica_ and The Dixie Narco EP
Brian Eno               _Another Green World_ 
			  (my favorite album ever)
			_Ambient 1: Music for Airports_
			_Ambient 2: Day of Radiance_ 
			  (looped hammered dulcimer, performed by Laraaji)
			_Ambient 3: The Plateaux Of Mirror_
			_Ambient 4: On Land_
			_Discreet Music_ 
			  (the seminal work in the genre)
			_Thursday Afternoon_ 
			  (60 minutes of slowly moving sound--
			  the video would be a great thing to show in
			  a chill room)
			_Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks_ 
			  (soundtrack to a film on the Apollo moon 
			  missions-- good stuff)
			_Music for Films I & III_
Fripp/Eno               _No Pussyfooting_
			_Evening Star_     
			  (both tape-loop guitar experiments)
Jon Hassell             <various titles>
			  (mutant trumpet)
Eno/Hassell             _Possible Musics_ 
			  (mutant trumpet over Africanish drums)
Holger Czukay/David Sylvian  _Plight and Premonition_
Enya                    <various titles>
Jean-Michael Jarre      <various titles>
Tangerine Dream         <various titles>
Hafler Trio             _Dislocation_
			_Intoutof_ 
			<and other titles>
			  unmusical but unabrasive barely identifiable 
			  noises, no beats)
Terry Riley             _A Rainbow in Curved Air_
			_Descending Moonshine Dervishes_
Steve Reich             _Drumming_
			_Music for 18 Musicians_
			_Electric Counterpoint_ 
			  (w/ Pat Metheny)
			  (Reich is a modern minimalist composer)


===pwh@bradley.bradley.edu (Pete Hartman)

various                 Give Peace A Dance II: The Ambient Collection
I'd like to second this recommendation.  I bought it with the
advice of alt.rave, and I think it's fantastic.

===lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble)

The KLF                 _Chill Out_  
Try listening to it while driving on the interstate fifty
miles from anywhere or anything at 3 a.m., preferably during a snowstorm. 
Only then can you truly understand Chill Out's miraculous perfection. 


===fuzzbox@world.std.com (Jason Bilsky)

I just found a CD in the UK by a band called "Red Sun". Supposedly
this band contains Alex Paterson form the Orb, although no mention
is made of his name on the sleeve. But I do have a tough time 
believing that the people who actually made the CD are really named 
"Niki Patriarchaea + Yale Del Fabbro".

Anyway, the CD is ultra-ambient, with mostly just lolling synth sounds
and the occasional keyboard or guitar, and an occasional beat.
I highly reccomend it...


===bbs.brienv@tsoft.sf-bay.org (Brien Voorhees)

Doubting Thomas         _Infidel_ 
			_Father <somethin' somethin'>_
Clock DVA               _Buried Dreams_
Will                    _Pearl of Great Price_
Delerium                _Euphoric_
In The Nursery          _Counterfeit_
			_Koda_
			_L'Esprit_
Dead Can Dance          _Passage of Time_
			_Aion, Spleen, and Ideal_
		       
Art of Noise            <everything>
Jean-Michel Jarre       <various titles>
			_Zoolook_ especially.
Anne Dudley & Jaz Coleman  _Songs From The Victorious City_
 

===cramsay@nextweek.Reed.Edu (Celeste Ramsay)

Zoviet France           <everything>
Brian Eno               <ambient series>
Coil                    _The Consequences of Raising Hell_
			_Unnatural Histories_
The Hafler Trio         <various titles>
Illusion of Safety      <various titles>
			  (if you can find them they're great)
SPK                     <various titles from before 1985>


===darrell@twics.co.jp (Darrell Berry)

Practically any music on 4AD prior to 1986ish, especially
This Mortal Coil        _It'll End In Tears_ 
			  (essential)
Cocteau Twins           _Spangle Maker/Pearly Dew Drops Drop_
			_Treasure_
and some of their later stuff, especially
Elizabeth Fraser/Simon Raymonde/Robin Guthrie/Harold Budd
			_Moon and the Melodies_

Durutti Column          _LC_ 
			  (at least first track side two)
Brian Eno               <ambient series>
			_Thursday Afternoon_ (CD mix)

Eyeless in Gaza         _Caught in Flux/Eyes of Beautiful Losers_
			_Pale Hands I Loved So Well_
			  (my favorites)

Klaus Schulze           _Mirage_
			_Dune_
Eroc                    _Eroc_
			  (not exactly cool, but can be perfect at the 
			  right time)
 
Slowdive                <everything> 
			  (though they're a bit twee)
 
B-sides of pre-1985 OMD singles are another excellent find. 
(Honest, they didn't always do shit)
 

===gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)

I'm sure that there are a host of angst-ridden young men working toward
that high-paying computer job who can slam orthodoxies much better than
I, but 4AD as ambient industrial? Come on.

One of the earlier works that I can think of from the late 70s/early
80s would be Jeff Greinke's "Cities in Fog" [on the Seattle indie label
Palace of Lights]. Unlike the label's head Kerry Leimer, the music is
far less tonally organized, and the noise sources function more as well
layered kinds of white noise over a drone. Lots of slowed - down tape
stuff from train crossings, metal on metal in large spaces, etc. Quite
lovely, in a chilly sort of way.

You might find Greinke's later works on the German import label Dossier
of some interest as well. I think that Jeff is really an unsung hero of the
genre's early days.

You could also try and hunt up a copy of the PoL cassette release "Music
for Industry" by Marc Barreca. Mostly heavily filtered spoken word where
it's used at all. Nice square corners and lots of steam escaping. Marc's
other work doesn't really fit well in Industrial IMHO [but hey. Holger
Czukay and David Sylvian's "Plight and Premonition" would even beat out
This Mortal Coil], but it is nonetheless interesting.


===max@teleride.on.ca (James "Max" Morehead)

Tear Garden, Cocteau Twins, Lush, Severed Heads (you'd probably like 
their later stuff)...


===thoth@uiuc.edu (Ben Cox)

The KLF                 _Chill Out_
The Orb                 _The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld_
Tangerine Dream         _Tangram_ 
			  (not industrial? who can say?)
Brian Eno               _Music for Airports_
Neu!                    <the album with "Negativland" on it>
Nurse With Wound        _The Sylvie And Babs Hi-Fi Companion_
			  (This is not really "Ambient" but is more like
			  Zappa's stuff--cf. Lumpy Gravy)


===paul eng-yi tan <pet@mullian.ee.Mu.OZ.AU>

The Orb, KLF (not the house/techno songs), The Grid (esp. Floatation... 
GREAT single), 808 State's Pacific



===Todd Keenan Bowman <tb0o+@andrew.cmu.edu>

Halfer Trio, LustMord, Zoviet France, Morthond, Vasalisks
O Yuki Conjugate, Jeff Greinke


===Keith Lewis <lewis@aera8700.MITRE.ORG>

Brian Eno.  Everything he ever did.
My personal favorite is the album he put out with Robert Fripp (marketed 
"Fripp and Eno").  


===Christopher Eborn <cs_s437@kingston.ac.uk>

Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar   _Passages_
An ambient mind-blow. Listen to it after a rave with your SO, when you are 
still up, and strange things happen...


===foetus@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (rocky)

Spacemen 3                      _DreamWeapon_
The best ambient bit i know of, which i like to call hypno-drone. 
It should blow your mind.


===Mike Brown <mjbrown@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

I knew that using Negativland as an example wasn't the best thing to do, but
actually they exist out on the fringe of what I'm including in the definition
of "ambient" ... when you hear entire songs composed of looping sound effects
and samples, there is an ambience to them that is a little more subtle than
in something more obviously ambient like KLF _Chill Out_ or The Orb stuff...
A friend recommended I listen to Severed Heads after he heard the ambient
stuff and Art of Noise stuff I am into.  So I happened across their _Clifford_
double-LP and listened to it, and thought, gee, this is like Negativland,
and it's got an ambient arrangement to it, and it would sound like other
ambient music if they replaced each sound and sample with less abrasive, less
disjointed sounds.


===aankrom@isis.cs.du.edu (Anthony Ankrom)

 Maybe it's just me (and it probably is...) but I could never figure out
the connection between acid and The Dead. It just doesn't fit the
psychedelic groove for me (of course neither does almost all of that
psychedelic crap from the 60's either...). Maybe the big thing is, I'm
just not a Grateful Dead fan. I would rather listen to 20th century
avant-garde or ambient industrial like Throbbing Gristle's Heathen Earth
and CD1. Brian Eno's ambient stuff is also very tuned to the psychedelic
mind-state. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Ruminations: On the other hand...

===REEKES@applelink.apple.com (Jim Reekes)

How sad.  You seem to be following the wrong roots of the family tree.  I
don't think you should call this the "Ambient Music FAQ" since such house 
music isn't what I would call ambient music.  It's much more "house" than 
it is "ambient."  The Orb is a good band, and I rather like them.  BUT, I 
would not necessarily recommend ambient music to someone that said they 
like The Orb.  You need to differentiate between "Ambient" and the new 
term "Ambient House".

The first time I can remember hearing the word ambient to describe music
was from Brian Eno (a trend setter for many pop music fields).  His album 
"Ambient I: Music For Airports" dates back to 1978.  I think "Discrete 
Music" was even earlier.  You should read the back cover of the Discrete 
Music album, and the liner notes for his Ambient series.  I also have 
reference material from a couple of books about Eno if you need more.

You should reference the Editions EG label (started by Eno) which was
producing many ambient recordings.  Such artists on his label were Mike 
Nyman and Gavin Bryars. These dated back to at least 1974.  I would not 
consider anything that Tangerine Dream nor Steve Hillage has done to be 
ambient.  Ambient music includes an element of chance or randomness.  
For example Eno used many tape loops in his music which he considered 
ambient music.

Eno also has a very distinct production style, which Daniel Lanois has
successfully integrated into his own style.  Groups such as The Orb have 
incorporated this style of sound into their music, but not the aspect of 
randomness that is truly contained into the definition of ambient.  At 
first hearing, you might want to classify the sound as being similar to 
Eno's ambient music because of this sonic quality to the production, 
but it does not contain true ambient aspects such as treatments, signal
processing, tapes loops, etc..

Ambient House is not ambient music.  Bach and Beethoven did not write
Classical music.  Mozart was Classical, Back is Baroque, and Beethoven 
was Romantic.

I'm a long time Eno fan and listener.

Jim Reekes, Polterzeitgeist  |     Macintosh Toolbox Engineering
			     |          Sound Manager Expert
Apple Computer, Inc.         | RAll opinions expressed are mine, and do
20525 Mariani Ave. MS: 81-KS |   not necessarily represent those of my
Cupertino, CA 95014          |       employer, Apple Computer Inc.S


To: REEKES@applelink.apple.com

Thank you for the well-written reply; I will include it in the FAQ.
I do realize that there is a distinct 'split' in the musical genre
tree between ambient house and ambient, as ambient house descended
as a natural extension of acid house, its creators being strongly
influenced by but not really connected with the original ambient
music.  I don't think it's going at it 'from the wrong end' to
consider ambient music alongside ambient house, as that is all I
am trying to do --     ^^^^^^^^^  --I am not considering ambient
house as a direct mutation of ambient music.  I also consider
ambient industrial as a parallel genre as well.  All of these
forms of music are very similar, despite the individuality of
the actual composers.  Just because the newer forms are not
exactly like the original 'ambient' music doesn't mean they are
not 'ambient' themselves; rather, they redefine 'ambient' as a
more encompassing style, not just 'what Eno did.'  Rock music of
today sounds nothing like Rock music of 1958... jazz today sounds
nothing like jazz of 1938... see what I mean?

Mike


_______________________________________________________________________

Ruminations: Chill Out Areas

===kurt@redbck.enet.dec.com (Kurt Svendsen)

i know it's tangential to your query about appropriate ambient music for
your chill out area but i was wondering about how you were going about setting
up your area visually. From my experience of raves in Sydney, Australia, IMHO
the organisers have somewhat lost the plot when it comes to COAs; the music is
ambient & the volume is not assertive but the lighting tends to very dim or
dark with perhaps some sort of slide shows. You could view a rave as being 
zoned into various Sensorium enclaves each with different function & an 
associated sensorial profile ranging over the 5-6 senses. The dance areas 
are characterisedby in-your-face, intense, NON-static visual & aural fields 
to which you add your own kinesthetic one of dancing, there is also the 
other intense field which is the movements physically, energetically & 
emotionally of your fellow dancers which impinge upon your sixth sense or 
mental-contents.
	The function of the dance areas is to immerse yourself into the sound
& light & to possibly move; what is the function of a COA? to rest, to talk,
to interact more deeply interpersonally...? if so it would contrast with the
dance area but does it follow that the variation in one Sense naturally maps
to the others? Thus the sound field quietens & the sound may not stir the
organism so intensely but is it appropriate to map this to dim/dark lighting
& unobtrusive graphics? What if the lighting was instead very bright but
indirect & diffuse with perhaps some unobstrusive kinetic variations like a
slide show or an oil film device such that the net effect was that all objects
living & dead were all clearly & sharply delineated in an essentially STATIC
visual field. Would this not be more harmonious with the intended function
of the COA? The nature of the sound field allows you to talk without shouting
& there is no rhythmic imperative to move, the light is bright but still &
so you can rest the vision or view clearly & without interpretive effort
the people you are interacting with.
	I have to a degree waxed rhetorical; defining my view of a COA & then
espousing why the visual field of such should be rethought. This posting is
a consequence of some contemplation, lately, about the direction raves have
been going lately in Sydney, Australia; too much emphasis on
how-big-is-my-dick sound systems & how-cool-is-my-haircut lighting rigs & not
enough consideration to establishing & maintaining mood & other psychodynamics.
	In summary, in general, I prolixly wax: you have a rave it's
divided into functional zones, the zones are differentiated by the nature of
Sensorium presented, over the spectrum of the individual senses each with
a panoply of qualities: intense vs mute, static vs non-static, simple vs 
rich...analysis-without-end; be aware! the nature of the transformation of a 
sense between zones may not be applicable to the other sense's 
transformations in concert with the intended function.

hullo!?! i'm seriously waffling;
stopped
______________________________________________________________________

Continued in Part 3

Newsgroups: rec.music.info,rec.music.misc