Your nominations for the ILX AMBIENT ALBUMS POLL (nominations close on Friday, May 31st)

Okay, people asked for an ambient albums poll, so let's do it! Here's the rules:

* You can nominate up to 30 records.

* You have until Friday, May 31st, midnight GMT to post your nominations to this thread.

* Only albums or album-length recordings qualify. You can nominate a maxi-single or an EP, but it needs to be at least 30 minutes long.

* Any record that's released as self-contained album counts as one album. So, for example, if you nominate Max Richter's Sleep, that's still just one nomination, even though it has 8 CDs. On the other hand, multi-album compilations don't count as one. For example, Lorenzo Montanà's Trilogy/i] is not a single album, cos the three discs on it had previously been released as separate albums. You should nominate those indididual albums instead of the comp.

* Classical compositions qualify, but you need to specify which recording of the piece your nominating. Like this, for example: John Tavener - Towards Silence (Signum Classics 2010). Also, you’re nominating the entire album, so if it has one 10 minute ambient composition and 50 minutes of non-ambient pieces, you probably should consider whether it fits here. The same applies to other genres too, obviously: if an album has some ambient interludes, but most of it is banging techno, it doesn't really qualify.

* There are no strict genre restrictions, so you can nominate stuff that’s usually labelled as new age, space music, minimal techno, drone, jazz, contemporary classical, musique concrete, etc, if you feel it also counts as ambient music. I'm not gonna disqualify anything, as long as it's a record that's at least 30 minutes long.

* However, you should remember that the main characteristic of ambient music is that it's non-intrusive background music that doesn't call attention to it with abrasive or aggressive sonics, dancey beats, fast tempo and mood changes, catchy hooks, etc. So, for example, something like Aphex Twin's [i]Selected Ambient Works 85-92 wouldn't (despite its title) really qualify as ambient defined this way because of its fast techno rhythms. Nor would albums by Enya; even though they are definitely new age, and many new age records are definitely ambient, Enya's music is too pop and hook-oriented to be in that category. Again, I'm not gonna stop anyone from nominating anything just because I don't think is ambient, but hopefully you'll consider these things before nomming some IDM classics or something.

So those are specifics, now start nominating!

Might as well kick it off with a few:

2814 - Birth of a New Day
Akira Rabelais - Spellewauerynsherde
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II
Black Swan - Aeterna
Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land
The Caretaker - Everywhere at the End of Time
Global Communication - 76:14
raison d’être - The Empty Hollow Unfolds
Robert Rich - Somnium
Robert Rich & Lustmord - Stalker
Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid
Tangerine Dream - Zeit
Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet

(13/30)

Oh and

Celer - Engaged Touches
The Haxan Cloak - Excavation

(15/30)

some personal faves, more later:

David Jackman - Sol Mara
Organum - Vacant Lights
Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music For Airports
Aeolian String Ensemble - Lassithi/Elysium
Chihei Hatakeyama - Minima Moralia
Gas - Pop
Climax Golden Twins - Lovely
Harold Budd - Ambient 2: The Plateaux Of Mirror

8/30

David Hykes & the Harmonic Choir – Hearing Solar Winds
Satoshi Ashikawa - Still Way
Hiroshi Yoshimura ‎– Music For Nine Post Cards
Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid
Stars of the Lid - The Ballasted Orchestra
Gas - Königsforst
William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops
Brian Eno - Discreet Music
Harold Budd / Brian Eno - The Pearl
Brian Eno - Thursday Afternoon

10/30

whoops, i've already managed to duplicate a nomination (SotL - tired sounds)

Gavin Bryars - The Sinking of The Titanic (Point 1995)
Constance Demby - Novus Magnificat
David Hykes & The Harmonic Choir - Hearing Solar Winds
Paul Horn - Inside the Great Pyramid
Ingram Marshall - Fog Tropes - Gradual Requiem
Popol Vuh - In The Gardens of Pharao

6/30

Whoops, missed David Hykes already nommed, so 5/30

Tony Conrad - Four Violins
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
Eliane Radigue - Trilogie de Mort
Eliane Radigue - Adnos I-III
Belong - October Language
Folke Rabe - What??
Eluvium, Talk Amongst the Trees
Laraaji, Ambient 3: Day of Radiance
Earth, 2
Charlemagne Palestine, Strumming for Bosendorfer Piano
Shamantis, U Smile (800% Slower)
Sunroof!, Bliss
Brian Eno - Apollo
Lichens - The Psychic Nature Of Being
Phil Niblock - Nothing to Look at Just a Record
La Monte Young - Dream House 78' 17"
La Monte Young - The Black Record
La Monte Young - The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath
Keith Fullerton Whitman - Playthroughs
Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon

Here's my nominations:

Alio Die & Sylvi Alli ‎– Amidst the Circling Spires
Alquimia ‎– "Coatlicue" Goddess of the Earth
Baked Beans ‎– Baked Beans
Biosphere - Departed Glories
Constance Demby – Novus Magnificat: Through the Stargate
Debit - Animus
Éliane Radigue – Jetsun Mila
France Jobin ‎– Intrication
Iotronica – Of Moons and Stars
John Tavener - Towards Silence (Signum Classics 2010)
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Tides
Khan & Walker ‎– Empire State Building
Lorenzo Montanà ‎– Phase IX
Lucia Hwong ‎– Secret Luminescence
Lucette Bourdin - Nordic Waves, Vol. 2: Spring
Mariolina Zitta ‎– Concert for Bats, Voices and Natural Sounds
Meg Bowles – The Shimmering Land
Minilogue - Blomma
Move D ‎– The Silent Orbiter
Music to Films ‎– Music to Films
Oliver Lieb – Inside Voices
Omni Vu Deity ‎– Uvunayatu
Organic Cloud – Organic Cloud
Shades of Orion – Shades of Orion 2
Solar Quest ‎– Orgship
Sheila Chandra – ABoneCroneDrone
Silence – Silence V
Suzanne Ciani ‎– Seven Waves
Vangelis – Soil Festivities
Zalys - Sublime

(30/30)

Hiroshi Yoshimura - Wave Notation 1: Music for Nine Post Cards
Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster & Panaiotis - Deep Listening
Ben Frost - By the Throat
Ben Frost - AURORA
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Insen

Music for Nine Post Cards already nominated :)

lotta great stuff already

I think IDM classics are mostly ambient techno, so I'm rather against their inclusion too.

Would any of these qualify?
Eno + Laraaji - Ambient 3 (I see Whiney already nommed it)
Fennesz - Venice
Richard Skelton - Landings
Julia Kent - Asperities

My nominations:
Oren Ambarchi - Triste
Colleen - The Golden Morning Breaks
Eluvium - Copia
Kinski - Don't Climb On And Take The Holy Water
Labradford - E Luxo So
Labradford - fixed::context
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Atomos

7/30

napalm death

^i did make a quick 10% time stretch of "you suffer", and it's the most ambient 20 second burst of pain you've ever heard

so were conflating ambient and drone again

anything without a pulse is ambient now

tony Conrad - fine purveyor of furniture music

Ok I’ll stop

Irresistible Force - Global Chillage
Irresistible Force - Dreamfish
Biospehere - Patashnik
Rather Interesting presents DOTS
Masters of Psychedelic Ambiance - "Mu"
Further - 5 Further Journeys
MLO - IO
FAX et al : The Ambient Cookbook vol. 1
Future Sound of London - Lifeforms

so were conflating ambient and drone again

i'm sure there's a whole thread on this, but there's not exactly a fine line

Harold Budd - Lovely Thunder
Yagya - Rigning
Steve Roach - Structures From Silence

if I used it to fall asleep to at any point in my life, it's ambient :)

These Hammock LPs

Hammock - Kenotic 
Hammock - Raising Your Voice...Trying to Stop an Echo 
Hammock - Oblivion Hymns

Grouper - A I A: Dream Loss
Chubby Wolf - Ornitheology
Tetsu Inoue - Ambiant Otaku
Hiroshi Yoshimura - Green
Eleh - Location Momentum
Kyle Bobby Dunn - Kyle Bobby Dunn and the Infinite Sadness
Marble Sky - Marble Sky
Catherine Christer Hennix - Central Palace Music
Christopher Heemann & Andrew Chalk - Mirror of the Sea
ASC - No Stars Without Darkness
Kid606 - Recollected Ambient Works, Vol. 1: Bored of Excitement
Alex Cobb - Chantepleure
Ian William Craig - A Turn of Breath
Marconi Union - Weightless
Loscil - Endless Falls
DJ Olive - Sleep

16/30

Hijokaidan ‎– Noise From Trading Cards

sorry, j/k, promise I’m done

if I used it to fall asleep to at any point in my life, it's ambient :)

well, in that case I should nom every classic era Moody Blues album

Christopher Heemann & Andrew Chalk - Mirror of the Sea

I love this one so much, thanks for nominating!

it's so good, gonna have to (try to) campaign for that one

Moss Harvest - Constructs Of Loss And Longing

17/30

There's definitely Ambient as a liise genre and Ambient as an even looser way of listening but hey

Anyway

Aloof Proof - Piano Text

(1/30)

Daniel Pemberton - Bedroom
Spacetime Continuum - Sea Biscuit
Axiom Ambient - Lost in the Translation
Miles Davis - In a Silent Way
David Sylvian/Holger Czukay - Flux and Mutability
Juno Reactor - Luciana

oh wait gotta correct the name tho lol

Christoph Heemann & Andrew Chalk - Mirror of the Sea

17/30

so were conflating ambient and drone again

― brimstead, Thursday, May 16, 2019 2:39 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://pics.me.me/Facebook-Are-you-a-noob-4fa2f3.png

I will die never knowing the difference between hard bop and post bop.

xp way to miss the point but whatever's easiest for you i guess

some actual noms
DJ Olive - Buoy
Heathered Pearls - Loyal
Robert Turman - Flux
Strategy - Noise Tape Self
Terekke - Improvisational Loops
Various - Pop Ambient 2002
Brian Eno - Reflection
Randall McClellan ‎– The Healing Music Of Rana Vol. II
Randall McClellan ‎– The Healing Music Of Rana Vol. III

(8/30)

oops 9/30

i'm just saying isn't the point of stuff like phil niblock for you to like listen to attentively so you can trip out and stuff?

sorry sorry i'm done really

The KLF - Chill Out
The Orb - Chill Out, World!
New Dreams Ltd. - Sleepline
Jean-Michel Jarre - Waiting for Cousteau

(not sure which Orb albums really count here, and quite frankly I'm not sure about the other two either)

Ben Frost - By the Throat

There are a lot of competing definitions of ambient, coming up with submissions that fall under none of them is quite an achievement.

If we're going broad, does Live From A Shark Cage count? Sowiesoso? No Pussyfooting?

Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon
Petrels - Haeligewielle
JD Emmanuel - Wizards
Eyvind Kang - Live Low to the Earth, in the Iron Age
Biosphere - Substrata
Peter Wright - An Angel Fell Where the Kestrels Hover
Susumu Yokota - Sakura
Daevid Allen - Seven Drones
Sun Electric - 30.7.94
Roly Porter - Aftertime
Roy Montgomery - Scenes From the South Island
Birchville Cat Motel - Beautiful Speck Triumph
Robert Ashley - Private Parts

13/30

Well aware some of these are pushing it!

Pete Namlook & Tetsu Inoue - 2350 Broadway IV
Sleep Research Facility - Deep Frieze
Blamstrain - Disfold
Jeff Greinke - Cities in Fog
Nicholas Szczepanik - We Make Life Sad
Colleen - Everyone Alive Wants Answers
Loscil - Sea Island
1991 - No More Dreams

(8/30)

^playing it safe for now. wonder if I should be an asshole and nominate a bunch of deadmau5 albums in my next post

Huerco S. - Colonial Patterns
Prurient - Rainbow Mirror

(10/30)

Chinaski: Whiney already nominated KFW's Lisbon!

Eck - I'm blind!

Bang on A Can - Music for Airports
Mary Lattimore - The Withdrawing Room
Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol.1
High Aura'd - Sanguine Futures
The Dead Texan - The Dead Texan
1 Mile North - Minor Shadows
Motion Sickness of Time Travel- Motion Sickness of Time Travel
Koen Holtkamp - Gravity / Bees
Mountains - Sewn

(22/30)

i guess i'm going to nominate a catchall ambient-era OPN release, even though it's sort of a comp:

Oneohtrix Point Never - Rifts

Loscil - Plume
Stars Of The Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline
Kasper Bjørke Quartet ‎– The Fifty Eleven Project
CFCF ‎– Exercises
Tommy Awards - Sessions II
Wilson Tanner - 69
The Fires Of Ork ‎– The Fires Of Ork 2
Hatchback ‎– Zeus & Apollo
Various ‎– (The Microcosm) Visionary Music Of Continental Europe, 1970-1986

(9/30)

The CFCF record is 8 tracks but don't think it's over 30 minutes

(And are comps allowed? Saw Ambient Cookbook was nominated upthread so thought they might be)

I had no idea there were so many ambient fans still on ILM. I had no idea there were so many folks still on ILM at all, I thought it was all pretty much just five-ten recalcitrant stragglers. Is ILM actually more active than ever, and if so does that explain why dad rock dominates the site now?

Veering sharply into another realm of me being a nuisance, I really don't get some of the ambient hipsterism on display here. If you're truly averse to calming music, why focus on ambient at all?

I'll show myself out...

...And another thing:

Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement - Ambient Black Magic

I really hope folks have given this a listen. Best ambient I've heard from the past ~decade.

i don't know about best i've heard in the past decade, but it is pretty good.

xpost

I don't listen to that much new ambient to be fair. Checking out your list, I definitely like the Loscil but it is slightly treacly. RSE have a distinctive sound which as a hot take I'd rate higher.

The only other artist I recognize from yours is Sunn O)) but I'm not much of a drone fan if it's harder than SoTL (I do quite like their more droney cuts). Which other one would you rate as the greatest of the decade?

Speaking of last minute, how about this Anthony Rother?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EOAqGAuWZk&t=3337s

I'm familiar with the last song which just popped up on my random but I haven't had a chance to check out the full release yet. Hi ho hi ho it's off to work I go...

Link is borked?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EOAqGAuWZk

why is fennesz not ambient?

I kind of feel that the intersection of drone and ambient is a pretty large overlap, and the sustained washes of Venice become texturally unobtrusive through its saturation, like minimalism through maximalism.

But as to why I denominated it, it's looking like I misread Lowell's post (I must have elided the "less"), haha oops.

Tuomas: please reinstate Fennesz - Venice.

thanks for the extension!

Thom Brennan – Mountains
Seconds in Formaldehyde – Suchness 3
Star Turbine – The Sleeping Land
Andrew Pekler – Tristes Tropiques

26/40

sustained washes? are you thinking of another album?

https://www.discogs.com/style/harsh+noise+wall

https://harshnoisewally.tumblr.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UerLIFo4d6k

One more nom

Broken Hearted Dragonflies: Insect Electronica From Southeast Asia

Also don’t forget

FM3 - The Buddha Machine

The Buddha Machine is not a record, so it's not eligible, sorry. If you want, you can nominate some of FM3's actual albums. Also, someone has already nominated Robert Henke's Layering Buddha, which is an album made by sampling the Buddha Machine, so you can always vote for that.

It doesn't look like I have the time to go through the nominations today, so I'm gonna give you 24 hours more time. The nomination process ends this time tomorrow.

Boris - Flood
Julia Kent - Temporal
Julia Kent - Character

Speaking of last minute, how about this Anthony Rother?

I have that album (62 Minutes on Mars), and while it's not among my favourite FAX releases, it's indubitably ambient. So feel free to nominate it, if you wanna.

many xposts to Viborg, I really think that Richard Skelton's work (Landings in particular, as well as his work as A Broken Consort) is probably my highest-rated of the past decade after SotL. it's definitely more influence by Arvo Part and a sort of academic minimalism, but it has an emotional depth in its slight variations that make it really worth for me.

Here's one from Landings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NTvcfkPq4Y

and here is how his latest is described:

Music for the retreating ice-sheets of Iceland, produced whilst on a 'Frontiers in Retreat' residency in Seyðisfjörður in 2016.

www.frontiersinretreat.org/artists/richard_skelton

Front Variations is composed from sine waves subjected to increasing amounts of feedback in order to simulate the so-called 'ice-albedo' feedback mechanism.

This is the process whereby the action of melting glaciers reduces the global surface area of ice, thereby reducing the amount of solar radiation that glaciers reflect, which in turn increases global temperatures and causes further glacial melting.

Ring modulation and distortion were also used to further deteriorate the sound signal.

Front Variations is also available as part of Quoin 4 - the annual publication for friends and patrons of Corbel Stone Press. Quoin 4 features data collected by the World Glacier Monitoring Service and aerial photography of arctic glaciers from the US Naval Oceanographic Office.

https://aeolian.bandcamp.com/album/front-variations-one-two

Kyle Bobby Dunn - From Here To Eternity

just came out, and it's really good

The Buddha Machine is not a record, so it's not eligible, sorry.

― Tuomas, Saturday, June 1, 2019 2:59 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is an absolute horseshit decision, you can listen to it on spotify*

https://open.spotify.com/album/7COTnWvHjhkq10ph3q4xH4?si=koVhRwTiQLmeodVPb4NbMg

*also thanks for spending an insane amount of your free time on this internet poll for my enjoyment

Can I sneak in:

M. Geddes Gengras - Ishi
Omicron - Acrocosm
V/A - Plug In + Turn On Vol. 2
Skyramps - Days of Thunder (is this ambient?)

lol whiney

It has an entry on Discogs too, idk what else you need

https://www.discogs.com/FM3-Buddha-Machine/master/517873

According to that Discogs tracklist it’s too short!

Bonus time! I'll submit my final three:

Löwenritter - Prelude: Ten Seconds Before Sunrise
Vangelis - Fais Que Ton Rêve Soit Plus Long Que La Nuit
Cernunnos Woods - Awaken the Empire of Dark Wood

Cernunnos Woods, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in over twenty years.

Great call on Kasumasa Hashimoto, I must revisit his stuff, I love that little boutique label he was on, Noble Records, they have some lovely music, much better than Childisc.

dark forest ambient! it has some spoken word bits, but then so does the Harold Budd/Clive Wright stuff

Dang it *Kazumasa

was considering Midori Takada's "Through the Looking Glass" but it seemed a bit too dynamic.

Kazumasa Hashimoto can be a bit twee but I find it delicate and poignant at its best. I don't want to discriminate but it seems like the urge to sweeten the mood is a common strain in much of the Japanese electronic music I've heard. There's a Japanese artist called Pass Into Silence who's made releases on Kompakt, the songs are some of the most exquisite ambient creations ever (I'm not so familiar with LPs). But it definitely has a lullaby quality about it.

MaresNest, what else do you especially like on Noble Records?

Saw1

I find that Japanese musicians have a hard time making garden variety flat-line ambient or drone, they like to add more movement in there than is common sometimes adding more unusual chords and so on...

For noble records, I would recommend maybe Cinq, Midori Hirano, World's End Girlfriend, oh and Yasushi Yoshida especially.

I have an urge to embitter the mood, but still keep it sweet, like a foodie dark chocolate bar.

Spotify playlist not *quite* three weeks long. Its growth really slooowwwwed in the last few days, with all the retractions and generous helpings of not-on-Spotify stuff.

After consideration, I'm gonna allow the Buddha Machine in the poll. It's true that the individual loops only amount to 3 minutes of playing time, but on obviously the way it works means the music goes on as long as you want. And it certainly meets both the functional and aesthetic definition of ambient music perfectly.

The nominations are now closed, thanks to everyone for nomming such cool stuff! I'll finish the album sheet and probably will start the voting thread later today.

Thats too bad I forgot to nominate my refrigerator, it makes a very pleasant hum.

Eh I find your fridge to be a bit cold and empty with just a few stale old reheated ideas. Never enough to chew on and yet I keep coming back to it thinking there’ll be something new.

Fair enough, I retract the fridge.

Lots of found fridge sounds among the current noms tbf.

ILX AMBIENT ALBUMS POLL: the voting thread. Voting ends on Sunday, June 23rd.

Woooooo!

I haven't got a chuffing CLUE about how to rank my choices. Might have to go unweighted for the first time ever.

Weighting feels very counter to the ambient spirit ;-)

XP - Rothko at the top plz :)

Can I at least hear the fridge to judge for myself before it's denommed to the abyss?

of course, it's playing right now, you just have to listen for it ... very carefully