Any lovers of ambient?

[Harmonie]

True! Many of the early ambient pioneers came from or were inspired by the progressive and krautrock movements. Tangerine Dream and Brian Eno being two of the main crossover artists that started to transcend genres (Eno mainly after his coma).

When you hear an album like Ricochet from Tangerine Dream from 1975, about 3 years before Eno's Music for Airports, you can already hear the ambient undertones coming through:

(ofcourse before that there were already hints of this with Dark Side of the Moon and other progressive artists)

Tangerine Dream ...
back to the high school for some of us ...

 

[Freeway]

Since I don't think anyone has posted any HIA. The new reissues of Freefloater and Colourform are fantastic. Yes ambient can have a beat-

Bought me a couple of CDs.

 

[litemotiv]

The new reissues of Freefloater and Colourform are fantastic. Yes ambient can have a beat-

HIA is one of my favorite electronic artists.

Arguments about genres and subgenres are generally a bit fruitless, but i think in the electronic music scene albums like Freefloater/Colourform have generally been labeled as IDM and not Ambient, since they are so rhythm-focused that they are not really about the 'ambience' anymore'. For people who like that type of sound there is another world of music to check out as well.

There are a few albums that really border on the two genres, like Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works 85-92", but generally when the rhythms contain full drum kits (bass/snare/hihat) it's labeled as IDM.

Anyway, HIA rules.

Another of my favorite IDM/Ambient crossover artists from that era is Esem:

Both from the Album Scateren (2005) which is available as a free download from archive.org:

scateren - [kahvi-160] : Rubicante : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

kahvi is honoured to present something the world of idm has only dreamt about for the past months - a new album by none other than esem. words are not enough...

archive.org

 

[Godataloss]

HIA is one of my favorite electronic artists.

Arguments about genres and subgenres are generally a bit fruitless, but i think in the electronic music scene albums like Freefloater/Colourform have generally been labeled as IDM and not Ambient, since they are so rhythm-focused that they are not really about the 'ambience' anymore'. For people who like that type of sound there is another world of music to check out as well.

There are a few albums that really border on the two genres, like Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works 85-92", but generally when the rhythms contain full drum kits (bass/snare/hihat) it's labeled as IDM.

Anyway, HIA rules.

Another of my favorite IDM/Ambient crossover artists from that era is Esem:

Both from the Album Scateren (2005) which is available as a free download from archive.org:

scateren - [kahvi-160] : Rubicante : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

kahvi is honoured to present something the world of idm has only dreamt about for the past months - a new album by none other than esem. words are not enough...

archive.org

I think IDM was coined initially to differentiate this music from the morass of horrible Techno music exploding at the time. Hence the somewhat aggrandizing Intelligent Dance Music.

 

[litemotiv]

I think IDM was coined initially to differentiate this music from the morass of horrible Techno music exploding at the time. Hence the somewhat aggrandizing Intelligent Dance Music.

Afaik one of the earliest places it was used was on the Ambient@Hyperreal mailinglist in the early nineties. At the time, there was some discussion about how to properly categorize albums such as Aphex's Selected Ambient Works 85-92. While the name of the album obviously contains the word 'ambient', many felt that it was confusing since ambient had been used to describe the mostly beatless, 'aural wallpaper' style of music that followed Eno's "Ambient 1: Music for Airports".

I personally have no knowledge of the usage you refer to, about the term IDM being used to describe 'non-sh#tty' Techno, but it's certainly possible that was one of the uses it eventually got!

 

[Joe Smith]

I listen to it a lot. I've walked around a lot of forest paths listening to Wolfgang Voight's G.A.S. pieces at a low level. Lately, I keep coming back to Brian Eno's Ambient 4: On Land, kind of perfect for a one hour walk. What a masterpiece that is. Lux is also very beautiful. Oh yeah, and about anything by Aphex Twin, in particular Selected Ambient Works and Syro.

 

[Godataloss]

Afaik one of the earliest places it was used was on the Ambient@Hyperreal mailinglist in the early nineties. At the time, there was some discussion about how to properly categorize albums such as Aphex's Selected Ambient Works 85-92. While the name of the album obviously contains the word 'ambient', many felt that it was confusing since ambient had been used to describe the mostly beatless, 'aural wallpaper' style of music that followed Eno's "Ambient 1: Music for Airports".

I personally have no knowledge of the usage you refer to, about the term IDM being used to describe 'non-sh#tty' Techno, but it's certainly possible that was one of the uses it eventually got!

yeh- pitchfork kinda alludes to it in this article. It was elitist from the jump, but there was just sooo much bad techno at the time, something needed to be done to differentiate this content that was clearly of a much higher production quality and thoughtfulness.

"when the music—not content with borrowing rhythmic tricks from post-rave styles like jungle—actually moved to assimilate the rudeboy spirit of rave itself: the original Stupid Dance Music whose cheesy ‘n’ mental fervor was the very thing that IDM defined itself again."

I didn't even know what IDM was when the term first began to be tossed around. Ambient Dance is what I knew it as. I initially thought IDM was Industrial Dance Music like Ministry, or Muslimgauze lol. I think the term IDM was adopted more by the rave culture on IRC message boards than by the artists themselves. I'm clearly not an authority though. I was more an admirer of the music than the scene and the interwebs were somewhat new then.

 

[litemotiv]

Here is the Hyperreal mailinglist it started with, as a spinoff from the Ambient@Hyperreal list:

Intelligent Dance Music Mailing List

The introduction is quite hilarious and fits in with the ASR approach pretty nicely:

"The IDM list was originally created in August of 1993 for the discussion of music relating to Aphex Twin and Warp's early "Artificial Intelligence" compilations. Since that time, both the list and the range of music that is discussed on it have grown considerably. As there is no set definition of the boundaries of "Intelligent Dance Music", the official stance is that all opinions are to be respected. That being said, when you declare that "Rozalla is intelligent dance music", you should be willing and able to back it up - not just "because it obviously is."

It's also mentioned as the source of the term IDM on the Wikipedia page:

Intelligent dance music - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Unground]

Brings back memories. Was very into Ambient in the early 90s while at college. Many already mentioned like Biosphere, Banco de Gaia, a Steve Hillage project called System 7 I think. And psychedelic things like Ozric Tentacles and their electronic offshoot neat Static. Many days spent in hazy rooms listening to Tim Wheater, A Calmer Panorama especially.

 

[Godataloss]

Here is the Hyperreal mailinglist it started with, as a spinoff from the Ambient@Hyperreal list:

Intelligent Dance Music Mailing List

The introduction is quite hilarious and fits in with the ASR approach pretty nicely:

"The IDM list was originally created in August of 1993 for the discussion of music relating to Aphex Twin and Warp's early "Artificial Intelligence" compilations. Since that time, both the list and the range of music that is discussed on it have grown considerably. As there is no set definition of the boundaries of "Intelligent Dance Music", the official stance is that all opinions are to be respected. That being said, when you declare that "Rozalla is intelligent dance music", you should be willing and able to back it up - not just "because it obviously is."

It's also mentioned as the source of the term IDM on the Wikipedia page:

Intelligent dance music - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mailing lists, lol- 1993 probably was pre IRC. Man I'm getting old... But yeh, that quote captures the sentiment of the time which was separating the wheat from the chaff so to speak. Rozalla is exactly the type of music the term was created to differentiate from, lol.

 

[pads]

I was able to get an original copy of Mad Music Inc, an odd and interesting LP from the late 70's. The artists are basically unknown but rumoured to be well known studio musicians from the disco era. There's no info on the album itself however it has been rediscovered and repressed through Yoga Records and Drag City, there's some lovely moments throughout and well worth searching out.

 

[Svperstar]

This came up when I was listening to music on shuffle today. Fantastic Autechre track. Back in the early 2000s some ambient artist said this is what inspired him to make his own music, don't recall his name:

 

[Godataloss]

Any Tetsu Inoue fans? He is likely my favorite true Ambient artist. I wish to god he would come back to us if he is still alive.

 

[Freeway]

I was able to get an original copy of Mad Music Inc, an odd and interesting LP from the late 70's. The artists are basically unknown but rumoured to be well known studio musicians from the disco era. There's no info on the album itself however it has been rediscovered and repressed through Yoga Records and Drag City, there's some lovely moments throughout and well worth searching out.

Most mysterious album.
Found it in Spotify, by a roundabout way, but would not play. Also in Qobuz but would only play 30 second clips.
Drag City has mp3 and flac downloads though.
No song titles.

 

[Freeway]

 

[pads]

 

[Godataloss]

I love his stuff. Ample use of the Roland 808 beats and trance elements takes me back.

 

[Freeway]

I love his stuff. Ample use of the Roland 808 beats and trance elements takes me back.

"I play with sine waves mostly and build my sounds from them; I love to play around with harmonics." - Aleksi Perälä
Kind of ASRish.
Interesting interview - https://15questions.net/interview/fifteen-questions-interview-aleksi-perala/page-1/

 

[Godataloss]

"I play with sine waves mostly and build my sounds from them; I love to play around with harmonics." - Aleksi Perälä
Kind of ASRish.
Interesting interview - https://15questions.net/interview/fifteen-questions-interview-aleksi-perala/page-1/

Have you listed to his new one? It sounds like a glitchy homage to the early 90's technosphere. Really good.

 

[Boris Badinov]

Thanks for this 1