pleasant ambient music

he has a bunch of free stuff downloadable at his site, including two good albums: http://www.marsenjules.de/

The Dead Texan strikes me as kind of sad sometimes, but mostly comforting and pleasant.

An old "chill-out" CD that I still like quite a bit is Omicron's Acrocosm.

I also really love Gas's Pop and Köenigsforst, although the latter is downright creepy at times.

Another classic is Shuttle358, especially Chessa. Some of the songs on it might be in the uncomforting and cold category, though.

http://www.emit.cc/release/

They still hold up. Gas was a regular contributor there as well.

Budd + Cocteau Twins - Moon and the Melodies. Very pretty, laden with sweeps of piano arpeggios all treated heavily in Guthrie stylee; only caveat is some of the songs have Liz singing on them and have some drums, so not technically fully ambient.

I'd Add:

The Hope Blister - Underarms/Sideways - The Markus Guentner Mix of it is amazing
Christopher Bissonette - Periphery
Level - Cycle
Grouper - The Way Their Crept
William Basinski - Disintigration Loops or the River, or almost anything by him

http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/music/rotorpls.htm
(Rotor+: Aileron)

although i know nothing about them apart from 'they are from New Zealand'. (it popped up on the shuffle this morning which is why it's fresh in my mind).

the banyex mixes i've mentioned before are also nice (http://soutiengorge.davidope.com/index_en.php), 'Numbers Stations' especially (http://www.cloneshit.hu/2005/07/21/tizenkilencedik-podcast)

Don't bother with this album, it's fucking cack

murcof - remembranza (more of a desert / western soundtrack but brilliant) http://www.theleaflabel.com/

johann johannsson - englaborn or virthulegu forsetar http://www.johannjohannsson.com

max richter - the blue notebooks http://www.maxrichter.com/

recommend me some good modern/experimental classical music has some more suggestions, including a few of these.

in the great abbey of clement vi, with a nice sound sample.

underground overlays from the cistern chapel

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrr, the track "Vuh" (i.e. half the album)? Pleasant and soothing?!??!?! In what universe?

Zammuto is also sometimes known as "The Books" - and this is his fabulous debut album for Infraction. It is easy to forget, but a few years ago the release of Systemisch and Diskont 94 by Oval saw a quiet, subtle take on electronic minimalism become and grow into a conceptual field that has since then spawned the birth of a myriad of some welcome, and some not so welcome subgenre’s. Interesting, then, to listen to this long 70-minute piece by Nick Willscher that was recorded several years ago in New York and only now given a full CD release. Interesting because there is a very appealing parallel to be found here with Markus Popp’s early works – a kind of overwhelming, almost naïve approach to drift and tone that doesn’t really require any grounding in the academic side of music and music theory. If we forget for a second about the concept and concentrate instead on the sound – what we have here is an exploration of an ambience that is steeped in organic pulses and a warmth that cannot be reduced to ‘Click’ or ‘Pop’.

Weird, didn't know he was 1/2 of the Books but it sort of makes sense. A great disc, limited to 1000 copies unfortunately.

more info bits

jim wins.

Not totally beatless, but Dettinger's Intershop is pretty good too.

Keith Fullerton Whitman--Multiples

Murcof is definitely worth seeking, though I've only heard a little it 'stuck' even as ambient, enough to pique my interest, and I'm very apathetic towards modern 'ambient electronica' of late.

also, I think the Gas on em:t and the Kompakt-related Gas are two different artists actually.

I don't know how much of this stuff they've done but Fila Brazillia (the track 'Subtle Body' in particular) might be worth checking out.

The last Orb album was pretty nice too, not all beatless tracks though.

Yeah, that is a nice record. Same guy also makes prog under the name "epsilon blue", and basic channel type dub/clicks as "son.sine". Haven't heard anything new from him in the last year or so, but there's one of his son.sine tracks on a swayzak mix cd called "groovetechnology".

As far as ambient goes I listen to stuff like the kompakt 'pop ambient' series, Thomas Fehlmann and Kaito in particular are good in the ambient area. Marc Leclair's "Music Pour 3 Femmes Enceintes" album is another one. Susumu Yokota and Fennesz as well, they both have 'pleasant' moments in their music.