Bliss This: Beatport staffers’ ambient faves

Bliss This: Beatport staffers’ ambient faves

20 April, 2010 | 12.01AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: ambient

Matthew Hawtin’s ‘Once Again, Again’ has had all of us here at Beatport HQ reminiscing about the golden era of ambient music.

Ambient doesn’t get the kind of attention that it used to. Chalk it up to the demise of the chillout room, or a shift in listeners’ habits, or the new agey associations the music unfortunately endures.

Perhaps it doesn’t help that ambient is one of those genres that exists primarily in the ear of the beholder; there are no hard-and-fast rules to define it. (Here at Beatport, we don’t even have an Ambient category; it’s filed variously under Chill Out or Electronica.) I tend to think of ambient mainly in terms of beatlessness and drone, but that’s just me — it can also encompass elements of techno, dub, Krautrock, IDM, industrial, metal… you name it. Hell, someone out there has probably even come up with ambient gabber (and if they have, I’d like to hear it). There are as many different kinds of ambient music as there are ambient listeners.

In any case, we figured that Hawtin’s paean to retro bliss-out provided a convenient opportunity to highlight some of our own favorites from the genre. It is, admittedly, a highly selective list — if I had the time and the room, I could happily have listed 20 or 30 albums and I still would have felt like I was only scratching the surface — but hopefully you’ll find some avenues for discovery.

And by all means, please use the comments section to tell us what we missed! I’ll start us off: Sun Electric, Dettinger, Lukid (ambient hip-hop, why not?), Vainqueur, nsi., Mark Van Hoen...

Philip Sherburne, Contributing Editor

Seefeel, ‘Succour’ [Warp]

From what I gather, Seefeel’s ‘Quique’ is often tipped as the canonical pick, most likely for its more pronounced shoegaze influences. But for my money, ‘Succour’ is the group’s key album. Fifteen years since I first bought it (on vinyl and CD, for that matter) it’s still one of the most engrossing albums I know, an underwater swirl of synthesizers and down-pitched guitar feedback pushed forward by clanging drum machines and mammoth sub-bass. (You can even hear a pre-history of dubstep in tracks like ‘Extract’ and ‘Gatha.’) ‘Utreat/Tempean’, my favorite song on the album, must be one the loneliest sounding things I’ve ever heard.

September Collective, ‘All the Birds Were Anarchists’ [Mosz]

The members of September Collective (Barbara Morgenstern, To Rococo Rot’s Stefan Schneider, and Paul Wirkus) probably don’t call their own music “ambient”. Working with laptops and processed instrumental samples, they’re more like electro-acoustic improvisers with a healthy interest in pop. But whatever you want to call it, this 2007 album hits the shimmery sweet spot every time, balancing Wirkus’ abstract digital whirr with Morgenstern’s delicate piano melodies and Schneider’s dub-influenced bass.

Grouper, ‘Way Their Crept’ [Type]

Portland, Oregon’s Grouper doesn’t necessarily make a textbook version of ambient music; rather than synths and computers, she uses electric guitar, effects pedals, and looped field recordings. (Live, she sets up a battery of old Walkman-style cassette players, which churn out drones and railway chug while she strums her guitar and sings.) But the effects are undeniable: this is dark, gorgeous stuff with the intensity of a fever dream. (Her 2008 album ‘Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill’, also on Type, is every bit as good.)

Clark Warner, VP of Music Services

Biosphere, ‘Substrata’ [Touch]

If there is a place in the world that could inspire music mood music as simultaneously warm and cold as Biosphere’s ‘Substrata’, the northern tip of Norway seems quite appropriate. Geir Jenssen has been composing beautiful music for film, installation, and live performances of various types for over two decades. ‘Substrata’ is my favorite of his works because of its human qualities of breathing as music can, creating its own imaginary pulse. Given the album’s off-world tones and lack of beats, there is a genuine feeling of exploration and peace that evolves organically from start to finish.

Gas, ‘Nah Und Fern’ [Kompakt]

Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS project has, over time, established its own class of ambient electronic music. There could be theoretical comparisons to loop-based innovators like Steve Reich or even the DJ skills of Jeff Mills creating a “third” record out of mixing two records so expertly, but Voigt is in a league of his own with the deep style and finesse of all the GAS albums released over a decade. The music’s dark, brooding rawness creates a sense of unmistakable elegance, as classical-music samples are looped and tempo-shifted over the constant heartbeat of muted basslines and kick drums. With tracks originally limited to the maximum playing time of one side of a vinyl record, some pieces run 15 minutes in length without any obvious changes. That’s where you get lost: time passes subtly by, and you’re left with the mixed feeling of being on land and water at the same time.

Daniel Cole, Merchandising Manager

Thomas Fehlmann, ‘Gute Luft’ [Kompakt]

In terms of recent material, I’m hooked on the new Thomas Fehlmann album on Kompakt. Composed as a score for a 24-hour styled documentary on life in Berlin, the abstract and moody album really captures the concrete aesthetic and grey winters, whilst taking influence from the ravey minimal undertones.

Nathan Fake, ‘Drowning in a Sea of Love’ [Border Community]’

As far as classics go I’d have to say ‘Drowning In A Sea of Love’ by Nathan Fake. Albeit an obvious choice and technically not entirely ambient, nothing really beats ‘Charlie’s House’, ‘The Sky Was Pink’ and ‘Stops’.

Kangding Ray, ‘Automne Fold’ [Raster-Noton]

Something more of an abstract selection, recommended to me by an old colleague, would be the ‘Automne Fold’ album by Kangding Ray on Raster-Noton. I know very little about the label except that it releases abstract, highbrow, experimental music, with this album being no exception. There are some really beautiful ambient pieces on here that have forced me to listen to this record on repeat.

Peter Wohelski, Label Manager

Spacetime Continuum, ‘Pressure’ [Reflective]

Originally released on Astralwerks in North America and Pete Namlook’s FAX Label for the rest of the world, this blippy-bloopy, yet melodic slice of chilled electro was a huge staple of my DJ sets in the chillout rooms of the early/mid 90’s, the halcyon days of Central Florida’s rave scene. Jonah did this live in Ft. Lauderdale at Astralwerks’ WMC party in ‘95, and old school heads who were there still talk about it to this day.

Pete Namlook, ‘Je Suis Triste Et Seul Ici’ [FAX Label]

A moody, but groovy headnodding favorite, I used to pitch this up closer to trip-hop tempo and it seemed to attract gaggles of Orlando rave girls trying to bellydance in front of the decks at 9am. 

Fred Giannelli, ‘The Acid Didg’ [Telepathic Communication]

Fred’s usually better known for his tougher techno fare, but this swirling, tripped out didgeridoo experiment was the perfect intro to a set or as one of many layers of tracks in a soundscape.  It never left my bag back then.

Mike Chapman, Content Merchandising Manager

Aphex Twin, ‘Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2’ [Warp]

While, yes, everyone in electronic music owns this album and claims it to be one of the greatest, I had to include it simply because it has aged like a fine wine. When I first purchased it at the Mall Of America (embarrassingly admitted), my naïve mind was expecting a party-rocking techno rave record. (I was 16 at the time.) Upon first listen, I absolutely hated the album and was convinced I had wasted my money. Fortunately, however, I didn’t throw it away. A few years later, I decided to give it another listen, and was quite surprised at how amazing it all really was. Now, at 30 years old, this album is one of my favorite pieces of music to listen to. Not only is the album itself amazing, but it was the musical purchase that convinced me to take my time with music and not focus specifically on instant gratification—learning, instead, that good things come to those who wait.

Spooky, ‘Orange Coloured Liquid’ [Spooky]

Taken from the Holy Grail of progressive house albums, Spooky’s ambient masterpiece ‘Orange Coloured Liquid’ is a timeless track which was perfectly made for the journey back down to earth after a heavy weekend of raving. It seems produced to sonically capture the feelings of a perfect dream about outer space, of being at absolute peace with every part of the world, and nothing at that very moment could possibly go wrong. Bliss!

Donnacha Costello, ‘Cocoa B’ [Minimise]

This is an unbelievably beautiful song from Donnacha Costelllo. I first heard ‘Cocoa B’ as an opening track from a DJ mix by Nick AC (Robots NYC) following a long night out in Denver. The melodies are simple, patient and soothing. There is an analogue acid line that runs throughout the entire track that takes the brain on a journey while listening, which gains in intensity as the track progresses. I love listening to this song as much today as I did the first time I heard it.

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