Ambience...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Okay, let’s talk about ambient music for a bit. I’ve had several conversations with Adam in this regard (and he would theoretically know, seeing as ambient is what he makes) but he hasn’t actually answered my questions. I figure with the couple thousand regular readers here, at least a couple five of you make ambient music. Here’s what I’m wondering:
1. What actually comprises the genre of ambient? As far as I can tell, it is just as varied as any other electronic music sub-genre. Obviously shit like Music For Airports, which is apparently the Led Zeppelin IV of ambient music, is a gimme, but it seems to me that the definition is broad enough to say “this music is electronic and doesn’t have drums. Therefor it is ambient.” I have, however, heard plenty of music on the various ambient intardweb streams that has drums.
2. Is ambient music made with, e.g., found sound just as ambient as tracks made with only synths? Is there some sort of hierarchy involved? With electronic music, the artists that use “real” instrumentation as opposed to soft-synthing their way along are at the top of the food pyramid, obviously. (This is demonstrable fact, so don’t bother arguing with me.) Is the same the case with ambient artists?
3. I went to see Unrecognizable Now last weekend, and the show was notable inasmuch as it markedly did not consist of someone bent over a laptop with a pained expression. This is, as far as I’m aware, the only “ambient” performance I have attended, despite having watched thousands upon thousands of shows. Is a good ambient show marked by actual performance on actual instruments? Or does it not really matter?
No particular reason for these questions; it’s just my insatiable curiosity.
10 comments
No idea exactly how to answer your question other than to say listen to everything on Kranky (start with Stars of the Lid and Tim Heckerand the ambient stuff on Touch (oren Ambarchi's glacially slow guitar manipulations are gorgeous, especially Grapes of the Estate.)
"Real" instruments, whether hardware synths or guitars are king, always.
oh and "ambient" that has drums in it is usually ambient-techno, whereas stuff without drums is usually part of the wider world of ambient.
Yeah, I think the only people who consider ambient-like music with drums to be ambient are the people who make ambient-like music with drums. :P
Ambient is more catch all term than actual style. Compare stuff on Touch or 12k with stuff like Robert Rich or Ian Boddy, very different musically and probably appeal to completely separate audiences, yet both get called ambient.
Some laptop jockeys have been reasonably successful at ambient stuff, but yeah, guitars and electronic hardware tend to rule on most fronts.
1. When Eno coined the term, he meant it quite literally as music to be used as ambiance. One of the main criteria was that the music had to be "as ignorable as it is interesting"; that's probably easier to achieve without beats, but doesn't forbid beats per se.
With the explosion of electronic music in the early 90s, the term was pretty much redefined to include any type of electronic music that wasn't dance music, including what later become known as IDM (like Aphex Twin's first Selected Ambient Works). Nowadays though, that stuff is generally just called "chill out", and ambient seems to have gone back a bit closer to its original definition.
2. By "real" instruments do you mean hardware, or live instrumentation? I wouldn't say there's a hierarchy in terms of the various sub genres of ambient, but there definitely seems to be one based on the size of artists' modular synths.
3. Doesn't matter, especially with the artists doing audio visual stuff. And then there's the stuff from the electro acoustic camp, whose concerts have the audience sitting in complete darkness (but that may be stretching the definition of ambient music).
One of the best performance I've ever heard was Robert Henke (of monolake) performing his Studies for Thunder. Just a guy sitting in the middle of the audience, hunched over his laptop, producing the most unbelievable sounds.
Is Tangerine Dream considered ambient? I didn't think so, but bands/people who sound exactly like TDream call their music ambient.
My definition would be, "repetitive, dowtempo electronic music without a drum beat."
I've learned that ambient music makes me depressed. Almost without exception. To the point that I've stopped listening to it.
My personal definition would be soundscapes that let you impose your own feelings and moods onto the music rather than 'music' that imposes it's feelings onto you the listener.
I don't believe instrument choice is as important as reverb... and lot's of it!
It's funny, when describing my own stuff I often refer to it as ambient noise, hoping that gives folk an idea of what they're in for. Thinking now about the ambiguities of the terms, I'm not sure I'm helping any.
I find music with synth arpeggios very distracting, the opposite of what I would consider ambient (blending in with the room/environment), but then lots of people disagree with me on that point.
I think that it's one of those 'genres' that's more about an attitude than a specific sound, the attitude being you're trying to construct an environment with sound, not 'rock the party' or strike a jesus pose on top of the subs.
And it can be things as varied as Tim Hecker, who did a disc for the Morte Aux Vaches series, originally broadcast on Dutch radio, which varied only slightly from the sound you get between stations on a shortwave radio, to something as post-rockist as Labradford.
And speaking of Labradford, they were superlative live, and it was very much a performance with some performer-y performer, though not like Steven Tyler. And it might be gentle, echoey, wistful music, but it takes some balls to tour with a MemoryMoog. I helped carry that fucker down the stairs and with a road case it's HEAVY.
Like anything else, you can be good at it or bad at it. anyone can hit the hold button on a Jupiter 6 and take 5 minutes to do a filter sweep, but to make it mean something, that's art.
I make and have made ambient music in the past. Basically, its audio wall paper.
Generally its laid back, primarily electronic, and almost never in any way confrontational. Think IDM with out the DM. Its all about laying in the dark with some chick (probably of a wiccan influence) and watching the lava lamp while you figure out just how your going to convince her to let you bone her.
Sorry if this offends some. I speak only from my own experience.
haha, that's the bad kind of ambient music.
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