WikiPortallus: Ambient music.html

Ambient music is a musical genre in which sound is more important than notes.¹ It is generally identifiable as being broadly atmospheric² and environmental³ in nature.

Ambient music evolved from early 20th century forms of semi-audible music, from the impressionism to Brian Eno's deliberate sub-audible approach.^{citation needed}

Later developments found the dreamy non-linear elements of ambient music applied to some forms of rhythmic music presented in chill-out rooms at raves and other dance events, but always with the primary feature that the music is intended to drift in and out of the listener's awareness while creating its effect on the listener's consciousness.⁴

History

Early 20th century French composer Erik Satie created an early form of ambient music that he referred to as "furniture music" (Musique d'ameublement), in reference to something that could be played during a dinner whose sound would simply create an atmosphere for that activity rather than be the specific focus of attention.⁵

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."⁵ 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".⁶

The liner notes of Eno's 1978 release Ambient 1: Music for Airports includes a manifesto describing his philosophy of ambient music:

Eno has acknowledged the influence of Erik Satie and John Cage, in particular Cage's use of chance such as throwing the I Ching to direct a musical composition; and minimalist music in general. This influence was manifested in Oblique Strategies, a set of cards devised by Eno and Peter Schmidt and intended to direct the musician or artist when a dilemma occurred in a working situation. Eno used the term "ambient music" to distance his work from elevator music and Muzak. Eno also acknowledged influences 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."⁶

Influences on other genres

Chillout is generally linked to club culture and is sometimes used as a term which includes ambient music as a subset of itself.^{citation needed} UK techno developed in particular at Warp Records in Sheffield, where previous electronic pioneers such as Cabaret Voltaire and Autechre laid the groundwork for ambient techno to develop, and for Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada to develop later^{citation needed}. Intelligent Dance Music is another term synonymous with this scene^{citation needed}. Glitch music is a subset of this work.^{citation needed} Some club groups have created live ambient music, mixing dub techniques with ambient textures and dance grooves.

Several second-wave black metal artists (most notably Burzum) experimented with dark ambient textures on some of their albums. The two genres still remain linked, however loosely, to this day, as evidenced by the music of Xasthur.^{citation needed}

Soundtracks

Ambient music has been used in many television shows and motion pictures and is notable for contributing to their atmosphere, or soundscapes. 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. 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.

Related and derivative genres

Ambient dub

Ambient Dub was a phrase first coined by the now defunct Beyond record label 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 Laswell, 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 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."

Organic ambient music

Some works by ambient pioneers such as Brian Eno, Laraaji or Popul 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 organic ambient music in this sense. In the 70s and 80s Klaus Schulze often recorded string ensembles and performances by solo cellists to go along with his extended Moog synthesizer 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 Substrata, Mira Calix's insect music and Chris Watson's Weather Report. Some overlap occurs between organic ambient and nature inspired ambient. 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. The album Second Nature by Bill Laswell, Tetsu Inoue, and Atom Heart is an ambient album that uses 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 Yen Pox, Randy Grief, Archon Satani, 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. (See also List of dark ambient artists)

There are also a few black metal bands, such as Burzum and Beherit, who produce ambient music, be it not always with such a dark atmosphere. Illbient is another kind of dark ambient music that has more of a beat but still creates the spooky disturbing feelings.

Ambient techno

A rarefied, more specific re-orientation of ambient house, ambient techno is usually applied to artists such as B12, early Aphex Twin, the Black Dog, Higher Intelligence Agency, and Biosphere. It distinguished artists who combined the melodic and rhythmic approaches of techno and electro—use of drum machines; well-produced, thin-sounding electronics; minor-key melodies and alien-sounding samples and sounds—with the soaring, layered, aquatic atmospheres of beatless and experimental ambient. Most often associated with labels such as Apollo, GPR, Warp, and Beyond, the terminology morphed into "intelligent techno" after Warp released its Artificial Intelligence series, although the music's stylistic references remained largely unchanged.

Ambient house

Ambient house is a musical category founded in the late 1980s that is used to describe acid house 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.⁷ Ambient house tracks generally lack a diatonic center and feature much atonality along with synthesized chords.

Ambient industrial

Ambient industrial is a hybrid genre of ambient and industrial 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 a such thing) might consist of evolving dissonant harmonies of metallic drones and resonances, extreme low frequency rumbles and machine noises, perhaps supplemented by gongs, percussive rhythms, bullroarers, distorted voices and/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.

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.⁸⁹¹⁰ Space music ranges from simple to complex sonic textures sometimes lacking conventional melodic, rhythmic, or vocal components,¹¹¹² generally evoking a sense of "continuum of spatial imagery and emotion",¹³ beneficial introspection, deep listening¹⁴ and sensations of floating, cruising or flying.¹⁵¹⁶

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 moods¹⁷ and soundscapes. Space music is also a component of many film soundtracks, commonly used in planetariums, and used as a relaxation aid and for meditation.¹⁸

Isolationist ambient music

Isolationist ambient music is also known as isolationism, could 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.¹⁹ The term was popularized in the mid-1990s by the British magazine The Wire 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, Sleep Research Facility, or post-techno artists such as Autechre and Aphex Twin. It may be less appropriate to call Isolationist Ambient a genre than than using it to describe the style or "feel" of particular works by an artist working in an ambient mode. This because many artists better known for other styles of work can occasionally create pieces that "sound" Isolationist. (For example; Labradford, Seefeel, Techno Animal, Voice Of Eye, KK Null, etc.)²⁰ There are many labels releasing work that could be termed Isolationist Ambient, among these are Malignant Records, Cold Spring, Manifold Records, Soleilmoon, Dark Vinyl, and The Sombient label with the "drones" compilation series. Some of the artists known for this style of ambient music include Lull, Final, Deutsch Nepal, Inanna, Negru Voda, Sleep Research Facility, Thomas Koner, Robert Fripp and Chuck Hammer Guitarchitecture.

Notable musicians and works in chronological order

Notable films incorporating ambient music or sound design

Notable ambient-music shows on radio and via satellite

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