Tangerine Dream - Phaedra

Every second hand record shop in the 1980s had copies of Phaedra by Tangerine Dream. It was mysterious, gave very little away and kept asking for our attention just by being there. I wish I'd bought a copy sooner and given it a spin because when I did, it immediately became an album I fell in love with.

Is it ambient? Maybe it is. It's classic Berlin School electronica, in that it creates layers of synth pads for atmosphere and then staccatto synth sequences glide across the top, bouncing in echoes into the distance. It's abstract, very mysterious, slightly unsettling or spooky. Fascinating, alluring. It has dark moments but to me it seems to ask questions, it embodies moments of doubt and uncertainty.

It's use of mellotron voices is eerie and pre-empts the use of samples in this way by about 20 years. I used to think Tan Dream played too much flute (well Kraftwerk used to back in the early 70s) until I found out it was mellotron and then I forgave them.

Max Corbacho & Bruno Sanfillippo - Indalo

Although this album has recently been re-released and credited to Max Corbacho via his Bandcamp page, I think of it as jointly credited with Bruno Sanfilippo - that's the CDr version I have. Who exactly did what remains unclear but for me this is the best album I have heard by Max Corbacho. 

(Max informed me that Bruno Sanfilippo asked for his name to be removed, hence the re-release on Bandcamp).

It is a hugely expansive work, with stark vistas and large soundscapes, evocative of the arrid lands of Spain where the Indalo symbol can be found. Long swathes of synth notes circle around passages of gentle percussion creating an inspiring, primal and ancient space. Deeply relaxing and calm, welcoming but mysterious in tone. Sounds often unidentifiable moving through the air, forming a warm peaceful atmosphere.

There are occasional bird calls and rustling sounds, what might be voices calling across a distance, water.

A particular favorite moment is Lava Atmospheres - a slowly pulsing drone which emanates from a deep cavernous place, gives me goose bumps every time.

This new version on Bandcamp contains two previously unreleased tracks.

Some good information here http://www.groove.nl/cd/8/87197.html

Original Artwork

Thom Brennan - Vibrant Water

This is a warm, sumptuous album, despite it's slightly cold title. Created purely from gentle synth tones gliding gently between each other, it has a subtle melodic quality without playing tunes as such. It is more like the exploration of a tonal centre and I can imagine this being the result of real time improvisation. It comprises 3 tracks, each around 20 minutes long and includes detailed sounds in a huge, enveloping reverb.

This album is perfect for relaxing, drifting away and letting the mind wander or even falling asleep (that's no bad thing in my book- in fact it's a top qualification for any ambient music). It is a prime example of self-restraint as being a key ingredient for ambient music, less is most definitely more and this demonstrates it beautifully.

http://www.thombrennan.com/home.html

https://soundcloud.com/thombrennan

Fripp & Eno - No Pussyfooting

This album has probably been raved about thousands of times as a classic ambient work from 1973. I wont try and cover the recording or composition techniques which have been well documented elsewhere https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/essentialelsewhere/1970/fripp-and-eno-no-pussyfooting-1973-and-evening-star-1975/ or Eric Tamm's Eno biography - Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound (1995).

And let's not forget the amazing cover photo 

http://www.paulgormanis.com/?p=4844

I heard "Evening Star" first, probably in the mid-eighties and was enamoured by its abstract ambient subtlety. I was just getting to know Fripp who would become my favourite guitarist, due to his totally unique, un-rock approach to raucous guitar. In "Evening Star" he showed his experimental side, willing to think in purely sonic terms. Eno was already familiar as someone who could take the sounds of others and warp them into lush, sonic landscapes. His work with Fripp pre-dated his ambient albums by a few years.

No Pussyfooting has two parts - The Heavenly Music Corporation - a perfect title - which is Fripp's drone notes, overlayed with his unique soloing, more reminiscent of classical violin than anything rock or blues based. The tones have harsh overdriven edges but they seem rich and golden as they echo and roll around between the speakers.

Part two - Swastika Girls - is slightly stranger and less accessible, but equally enjoyable to my ears. Similar approach of sound-on-sound, echo tape loops, long drone notes dissolving slowly into each other but this time less melodic, more abstract, beginning with the sound of laughing insects and drifting into bright sunlight, more delicate, picked guitar notes cascading around each other.  In comes full-on Fripp guitar, hard to describe but completely wonderful to me. At 18 minutes 42 seconds it seems to finish all too soon.

Highly recommended. Not as relaxing as some, but beautiful as hell.

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17849252

Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume 2

Richard D James was a real marvel during the 90s when he first made his mark as the "rave age Mozart". His simple and unique style was predominantly dance-based techno becoming increasingly glitchy and edgy but at it's best, creating grooves and textures we'd never quite heard before. Sometimes he would be mellow and melodic and at other times harsh and industrial.

When I heard Digeridoo played as the intro music to a Curve gig in London, it changed my life.

Selected Ambient Works 85-92 was probably the album which put Aphex Twin firmly on the map and at the forefront of electronic music at that time. It is a beautiful collection of works which for some of us have become classics. Beat driven, analogue synth, squelchy, sometimes dissonant....I'll save this one for another time.

Selected Ambient Works 2, however, was a surprise. An uncompromising stride into the world of pure ambient, non-dance oriented experimental sonic meanderings, usually brief, based around tone and atmosphere. Mesmerising and sometimes harsh. Sounds with unique qualities. A little earlier than this album there had been a genre called "isolationist" music which was a bit vague and undefined. This album seemed to fit that category and it creates a quiet environment for introspection and gentle thought. The album artwork suggests the uncovering of something ancient and there were no track titles on the original, only a photo for each track - the tracks were later known as "cliffs" or "radiator" or "shiny metal rods" giving the whole album a certain arthouse feel.

My only reservation is that the tracks could be longer, more immersive, but I only think that now having got used to longform works by other artists.  This is a beautiful and unique album.

Brian Eno - Ambient 3: Day of Radiance

This is the third in Brian Eno's ambient series and features the zither playing of Laraaji. The first three tracks of titled dance and feature rhythmic hammered dulcimer style zither which is reminiscent of Indonesian gamelan and produces an uplifting, hypnotic tone. Although these are both beautiful tracks I'm not sure I categorise them as ambient, rather than simply instrumental but that's not something I would quibble about.

The second set of two pieces (which used to be on side two of the vinyl release) are entitled Meditations #1 and #2. They are performed very differently by stroking strings of the zither to create swirling, beatless waves of hypnotic music which roll around. It wasn't entirely clear what Eno's contribution to these recordings actually was but it appears to have been processing the sound and applying effects and layering of recordings, and the result is a unique contribution to the ambient world truly hypnotic and as it's title suggests very good for meditation. Highly recommended.

Sylvian and Czukay - Plight and Premonition

This album was released in 1988. I'd been a big fan of Japan and when they split up I followed David Sylvian's work with real interest. When this album appeared it was unexpected but for me it opened up the area of ambient music which was developing from the work of Eno and others.

This album was originally on vinyl - Plight on one side and Premonition on the other. It is low-key, hypnotic and mesmeriszing and I found it a good focus for meditative introspection.

There was talk of how this was created using long tape loops and the casual repetition of elements gives these pieces a gentle familiarity.  It also includes moments of radio drifting by into ethereal space like a message from the beyond.