ambient musics

[ZippZopp]

Hey everyone....i've recently been tryin to find some new music to listen to and i really wanna find something relaxing and kind of ambient. i'm not really looking for something like natural moods or sounds of nature. none of that synthesized stuff....

not sure if anyone is familiar with the pink floyd songs: 'terminal frost', 'marooned', 'signs of life' or 'cluster one' but i'm looking for music along those lines. slow guitars, all instrumental, relaxing stuff.

i'm sure this is a somewhat odd request but i figured i could find a lot of people here who have a wide variety of musical interests..maybe someone could point me in the right direction to some smooth tunes....

Thanks!

[tyboogie]

check out the soundtrack to the movie "dead man" directed by jim jarmusch and starring jonny depp

the soundtrack was done by neil young
it has a bit of a country western vibe to it but its very ambient and magical and makes you think of mystical spiritual love/ majestic introspecction ...you know ambient stuff

[JoshuaTheJames]

www.sparkrecords.com

click on the Mythos site and you can check out their audio library...

-Joshua

[mtw]

I like ambient music as well, but I've never gotten around to buying any. I do have some suggestions however.

Nivbed (http://www.nivbed.com) has made music for his world, and it's ambient stuff. I'm not sure if it's relaxing, though. It's not upbeat, but it's kind of somber.

Brian Eno is famous for his ambient music.

Aphex Twin has also made ambient music, but as with Nivbed, it might be a different mood than what you're looking for.

[buffaloe]

the myst games have awesome ambient soundtracks! Or you could go to www.live365.com and search for astreaux world.... that's a great station and free! :D

[sparth]

ambient stuff you might be interested in:

- Hariprasad Chaurasia - the.elements.wind
- brian eno and toto, grab the dune album, expanded version,
released in 1997. it's an absolute keeper.
- peter gabriel, two albums: birdie in 1984, and "last temptation of christ" in 89, both are amazing.
- like mtv mentioned, there are two very interesting albums done by aphex twins. ambient atmospheric sounds with a great spooky touch, keepers, once again.
- paul ruskay, in 1998, released an amazing rare soundtrack for the game homeworld. you'll find it on soulseek, nowhere else, i guess.
-cheak out stuff done by the "extreme" label. though it might be a little bit too "synthesized " for your taste. skull sverrisson released an interesting album called seremonie, with guitars.
- philip glass and ravi shankar, released a joint project called "passages", in 1989. amazing indian atmospheric - melodies. a classic.
- danny kreutzfeld released some ver yinteresting ambient compositions on http://www.thinnerism.com/main.php . too electronic for you probably, but it's great.
- on the indus side, you have deutsch nepal, a lot of stuff released, a lot to check out.

if you want more regular stuff, you should chek out the movie scores, which are a bit more "audible", especially if you come from the rock world.
a few scores:
- mark isham - galapagos, the enchanted voyage (1999)
- hans zimmer - music from black hawk down
- hans zimmer - more music from black hawk down
- james horner - the name of the rose (1986)

so much to mention. i'd need pages in order to make a complete list of the ambient stuff i listen too while painting.

sparth

[tyboogie]

yea the aphex twin stuff is cool, specifically "selected ambient works...vol 2"

also the autechre album "amber" is ambient--and erally good

and while were speaking of hans zimmer---the soundtrack to "tears of teh sun" is superb. great african epic stuff

i also ordered this album recently called STALKER by robert rich and B. Lustmord ( sparth--might want to check it out)

its really dark and very ambient--no beats etc

http://www.hos.com/album.lasso?shortcatno=059

[ZippZopp]

thanks for all of this everyone, i appreciate it, i'll get to listening to all of this stuff

sparth: i have the black hawk down soundtrack and absolutely love it!!! very good music there.

[mos667]

Wow I love this thread. Hey sparth, if you have a page to list all the things you listen to, why stop where you..you know..stopped? :)

Why don't some more people put down what they like to listen to when they paint or draw?

thanks for starting this thread ZippZopp :-D

mos

[krossgrus]

Hmm i would also like to hear something more natural.. I recently saw a local medieval inspired band perform very moody songs about witches, wolves and cows etc.. and between the songs they read texts about actual burnings of withces that happened on the little Island where I live

here are my 2cents on the ambient music I can remember having listened to at the moment:

aphex of course..

and don't forget the bladerunner soundtrack by vangelis.
he has done some other stuff that is good allthough much feel old and boring now (just like most of Jarre's work IMO)

Have you tried the Ghost in the shell soundtrack by kenji kawai while you're in a bathtub?

amelie soundtrack maybe? lots of GOOD variations of the same melodies

a finnish demo-scener called mellow-d occupied my headphones for quite some time some years ago. try www.scene.org

sometimes I keep the same BUZZTRACKER (www.buzzmachines.com) patterns running in the background over and over while painting.. and just modify them a little whenever I feel like it

[Atomick]

*trying* not to repeat too many other posts here...

A Small Good Thing released an acoustic-electronic LP called "Slim Westerns." Tiny, special, evocatative as all get-out. Great stuff, even for those who usually like stuff like Autechre.

Arovane has a few LP's, all excellent. "Tides" is also evocative, has harpsichord and guitar sounds (altho synthesized).

Fibre is dead, but was released on Gabor Csupo's (yes, as in Klasky-Csupo animation sstudios) Tone Casualties label. Great, varied stuff, lots of natural instruments and abstract vocals. Nice tone.

Switzerland's The Young Gods, known for aggro and trippy industrial and techno, released an amazing ambient LP called Heaven Deconstruction (self-titlted). Don't miss that one.

The KLF's "Chill Out" is an utter ambient classic. Lots of natural sounds, minimal instrumentation.

Dead Can Dance and Lisa Gerrard are also great.

Other obvious choices are early Autechre, DJ Spooky's "Songs of a Dead Dreamer", anything by Delerium or Synaethesia...so...much...music... :)

-N

[Orban]

Just try Inade. Maybe a bit dark... but hey.
Die Form is pretty cool, but it's more an experiment with different kind of music(metal, electro, ambient...)
Coil... great group. But with a singer :D The album Music to play in the dark, and his sucessor (Music to play in the dark²) is... well, just listen it.

To continue in electro style, well Amon Tobin is a very good match, his last EP is pretty cool.

[Lono]

my arse produces some pretty interesting ambient stuff..

pretty consistant and reliable too.. you could set your watch to it.

shall i mic it and give you guys a demo? then we could all sit back and trip out to it.. WOooooo... . . . :trippy:

-Lono

[tyboogie]

Lono you possess a hella wicked crazy intellect..one minute its politics and philosophy ..and the next its ambient ass noise...

OMG..the recent steven sauderburgh flick with george clooney "SOLARIS" --AMAZING soundtrack ..(cool flick too)

K-pax has a really cool soundtrack too


yay!!!


:cat; :chicken: :batman: :chicken:

[Ian Mack]

The soundtrack to Gladiator is pretty good as I recall. Hmm, what do I listen when I want ambient.

Somafm.net -- check out Groovesalad.

I find some of Matt Good's cds are ambient-ish. Don't know if anyone will agree with me there. :)

Radiohead of course..

Lord of the Rings also has a good ST.

[AndreasM]

Cinematic Orchestra - Everyday is a lovely, ambient song.

Also, "The Great Below" by NIN, and "Pyramid Song" by radiohead are pretty ambient, though, not instrumental.

[Duchess]

I Like Emerson, Lake & Palmer is similar. I also like The Moody Blues , My sister said Stereo MC's, The Cure, Queensryche, Yngwie Malmsteen

[Living Rope]

-NIN "the Fragile"
-NIN "and all that could have been" (It's live but the limited edition has a second CD very atmospheric)
-Eric Satie "Gymnopédies"
-Sylvain Chauveau "Nocturne impalpable", "un autre décembre" (find it easily with Soulseek)
-Dead Can Dance... anything is great !!!
-Radiohead "Kid A"
-Kruder & Dorfmeister "K&D sessions"
-Ghost in the Shell Soundtrack
-Zbigniew Preisner "the Double life of Veronique" soundtrack
-Wojciech Kilar "Portrait of a lady" Soundtrack

[Chromo48]

Oh yes, great thread here.

Pretty much all on Hanz Zimmers' stuff is great (even days of thunder) Gladiator and the Rock are probably the best though

-And yes the second disk of the NIN best of CD, and from the downward spiral; track 10: A Warm Place
-Thomas Newman (American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, Six Feet Under)
-Edward Shearmur (K-Pax)
-Alan Sylvestri (Predator, Back to the Future)
-Jerry Goldsmith (Total Recall, The Mummy, The 13th Warrior)
-Brad Fiedel (T1 and T2, sadly not T3)
-Paul Oakenfold (of course)
-Trevor Rabin (Gone in 60 Seconds, Armageddon)
-Karsh Kale
-Lake Trout (East Coast, USA band, very moody and relaxing, you could probably find a couple of their albums on line)
-Pi (movie Score, hard to find, its electronic, kind of reminds me of propeller heads)
-Orbital (another electronic band)
-Shpongle (Simon Posford)
-Wang Chung (To live and die in L.A. soundtrack: no words, very 80's)
-Tangerine Dream (Risky Business, Street Hawk)
-Ozric Tentacles
-Danny Elfman (Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, basically anything from Tim Burton and many other things)
-Kyuss (no longer a band. If I had to explain it I'd say these guys are atmospheric metal mixed with jam band, they really go off on a tangent at times, not too hard, very relaxing)
-The guy that did the music for AEon Flux (forget his name)
-Nightwish (Epic Metal, with a female singer who posesses a beautiful opera voice, again, not too hard)
-Glory (movie score)
-Bourne Identity (movie score: John Powell)
-Dune (movie score: Toto)
-Brian Eno & Daniel Llanois (also worked on Dune, not to mention a million other things)
-Bladerunner (movie score: Vangelis)

and the list just keeps growing and growing.

[morbidhumor]

Adding on I'd say
The "Donnie Darko" soundtrack.

If you like the "Bladerunner" soundrack you might try "Juno Reactor" -Bible of Dreams, set low.

Also I recommend "Underworld"- Dubnobasswithmyheadman to everyone for getting into that artistic groove.

[softdrawer]

try these out guys...

dead can dance - enigma of the absolute
dead Can Dance - Black Sun
dead can dance - the host of seraphim

Gattaca Soundtrack - The Departure ( by Michael Nyman )
Gattaca Soundtrack - Opening Theme

Philadelphia - Neil Young
Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen

Stone Temple Pilots - Sour Girl

Radiohead - High and Dry

Coldplay - Beautiful World
Coldplay - Clocks

Dave Brubeck - Take Five

[I.was.ink]

there are some wonderful suggestions here. Has anyone heard of www.esposthumus.com ?

They make great epic ambient music. If you check out their site, they have sample mp3's of their music. Can someone please check it out, and tell me if you know of any other people that have a similar epic soundtrack sound?

thanks!

[Blind]

Astral Projection (http://www.mp3.com/astralprojection) for some good spacey/dancey type stuff.

[F3nix]

Try songs from DELERIUM, EMMA SHAPLIN or i just listen to the VOCAL TRANCE station at:

www.digitallyimported.com

[morbidhumor]

"The Last of the Mohicans" sountrack. Orchestral, epic and perfect background sound.

[ZippZopp]

i've been listening to some NIN stuff...i really really really love ' A warm place' , 'adrift and at peace' and my favorite is 'leaving hope' i sit down and just listen and it just mellows me out and lets my mind drift, its great stuff!! anyone know this stuff?? and if so, does anyone know of more music of this type??

[ceenda]

I notice you kicked off the thread by mentioning Pink Floyd who, imo, pretty much started the whole other-worldly ambient thing before Eno and Vangelis even started.

I'd pretty much second Sparth's list, in particular the expanded version of the DUNE soundtrack. Be careful where you buy it from (or download it). I got ripped off by a company in the States that took my money and didn't deliver and won't answer my emails now (www.supercollector.com, they are on eBay as well and have a good rep, so I dunno why they decided to be dicks.).

[NOOSE]

'terminal frost' Great Tune!! I find it hard to find ambient but not sleep induceing music , needs to have some edge/energy to keep me awake, but not too distracting ie too many double stops ......but

If you want heavy yet ambient, sort of like(a bit of a stretch) pink floyd metalized try "OCEAN MACHINE"(the only record is biomech, best record in my opinion i ever shelled out for) or "Terria" by Devin townsend, he`s the guy that does SYL(almost too heavy), but his "ocean machine", Terria ,and accelerated evolution albums are completly different, more lighter/ambient,... his "Physicist" record is great but alot heavier,

If anyone else know other artists like this I would kill to hear of them!! :chug:

[J Bradford]

Here is a collection of winamp shoutcast stations that I listen to; they are primarily ambient, some are variations. Also a great way to discover new artists by hearing their stuff. Radioambient and drone are my favorites .. :)

http://www.bradfordart.com/ambient_stations.zip

[evillair]

I have some instrumental/ambient music that I have made.
>> In Winter's Embrace
(http://www.evillair.net/music.htm)
You might find it interesting.

[yoshiman1/4]

the only thing i can think of is this one song i just got through listening to.........its called amber and its by 311...its not instimental but its nice and fun to listen to

[JoshuaTheJames]

http://www.amethystium.com/

and my favorite...

http://www.sparkrecords.com/mythos/

You can sample their music in their audio libraries!

-Joshua

[Ni*]

Seems surprising and it may have been mentioned before but if not, i can't believe no one has mentioned Biosphere, the album Substrata is lovely.

not exactly 'natural' sounding but the guy is good.

N

[Amish Rake Fight Man]

the narcosis compilation is pretty good with shinjuku thief and Fetisch park as well as legion.

I dig orbital and FSOL