For both these reasons, Ciani was an exciting inclusion in the FRKWYS series, which focuses on intergenerational collaboration. This album was an event, whether you were listening at the time or not, and that’s just, This decade’s ambient has had no shortage of experimental adventures, among which Grouper stands as one of its most representative artists. 2. Sleep takes a long, serious look at sleep and the desire to sleep. The release was ambitious, but the extra effort resulted in a classic long-form composition. (Samuel Rogers), Max Richter ~ Sleep (Deutsche Grammophon, 2015) Marked by this very album, that finished cycle gifted us listeners with some of the most intricately, delicately built music of the decade. Search by Country. Having extensively explored life as a young black man in the city of Compton, Kendrick Lamar turned his sights broadly for its followup. Bill Laswell - … To Pimp a Butterfly examines American society at large in an era of escalated violence against people of color – or more specifically, society’s escalated ability to discuss the violence publicly – but it also turns inward, discovering deeply personal truths. – JT, Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica The inventor of vaporwave steps away from plundering ’80s infomercials to make sleek drones from his synth collection. Philadelphia’s Frances Quinlan has proven time and again to be one of the singular voices of a lifetime, and that’s no better exemplified than on Painted Shut, which pulls inspiration from the stories of Buddy Bolden, Jackson C. Frank, and Quinlan’s own life. Pay attention to the “middle” voice – the harmonies are worlds in themselves. The at once gauzy and subterranean soundscapes do not demand, but request a lucid patience from the listener. Support Local Music Journalism WXPN and its many programs, including: World Cafe, XPN2, the XPoNential Music Festival, and The Key, are made possible thanks to the generous donations of music fans, like you. As recent reissues and rediscoveries are making increasingly clear, she has a fantastic and diverse body of work reaching back to the late 1960s. Kanye West, ‘Yeezus’ (DEF JAM, 2013) Tracklisting: 1. Standout Tracks: “The Joke,” “Party of One,” “Every Time I Hear That Song”, The Drive-By Truckers affiliate had released three solo albums previous to Southeastern, but none were this vulnerable and emotional. – Sam Kesler, Standout Tracks: “Fill In The Blank,” “(Joe Gets Kicked out of School for Using) Drugs with Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem),” “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales”. Standout Tracks: “Depreston,” “Dead Fox,” “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party”. If you’re like us (and we think you are), you may be poring over large collections and old lists at the end of the decade, replaying albums to see if they are as good as you remember them. Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city – Interscope Records, 2012. In 1978, that metamorphosis reached its conclusion with the first of Eno’s “Ambient” series of albums, titled Music For Airports. Donato Dozzy & Neel – Voices From The Lake (2012). A soothing, slowly moving collection of four lengthy pieces, Airports as intended was to take on a therapeutic role for the listener, creating a calming force for those afflicted with a fear of flying. This is a statement release for people curious to see if ambience could be used in an almost conversational manner, not as Alpha and Omega. is a record that banishes escapism and instead vomits out hallucinatory immersion, where sea and sky meet on the indistinguishable horizon. – S.K. Christian Fennesz has a history of changing his aesthetic approach from release to release, his noisier glitch beginnings eventually giving way to more haunting textures. It’s vast and engulfing. 317 She also helped to carve out a space for female musician-composers at the macho frontier of electronic sound. The record falls under hauntology, which deals with nostalgia more than spooks ~ a different form of haunting. – J.V. One could probably point to minimalism or John Cage as a more accurate point of origin, but Tangerine Dream was one of the first groups to be primarily composing what we now know as “ambient” music, and that’s significant. That their tracks are so minimal is but one obstacle to fully grasping what they do; that they have a tendency to release music in two-hour sets is another. The 10 Best Ambient Albums of 2019 1. It is an outlier in Hillage’s catalog, a leap into the future on a sleekly ambient pulse, mixing guitar, synthesizer, piano, and exotic percussion into a seamless wash of sound. A coming of age story in rock record form, Frances Quinlan and her bandmates explore life on the cusp of adulthood with imaginative, artful production and vivid lyrics about memory, trauma, and resilience. Pay no attention at all – the music will heartily, cozily, wrap you up. Throughout the album, Julianna Barwick multiplies her skeletal voice into oblivion, reaching a point where the center is lost and every scattered harmony sounds peripherally trapped. is nostalgically and unashamedly “new age”; anyone who ever turned their nose up at that appellation will feel their shame lifted away like spray from the ocean. The arrangements tend toward the hazy; although Leeds does underpin much of this album with a subtle pulse, there’s no sense of the other instruments being locked into a groove, which gives the tracks here a shimmering, intangible quality. ( Log Out /  These lists celebrate the power ~ and the idiosyncrasies ~ of the individual. Where many ambient artists create music based around waves, pulses, noise or merely gentle melodies, Stars of the Lid specialize in low, humming drones. As the self receded into absence, “Dive’s” slow fade in of granular chordal melds resonated with coarse serenity inside the curved bowl of an empty skull. Singer and songwriter Frank Ocean’s first major label project sits perfectly between the loose, poppy kitsch of his debut project Nostalgia, Ultra and the immersive, artful ambition of its follow-up, blonde. So if the band’s self-titled debut sets its scene on the coke/ecstasy/PBR-ridden dancefloor of some all-night rager in a Brooklyn loft, and Sound of Silver is the hungover, sleep-deprived subway ride into one’s soul-crushing Manhattan 9-to-5 the next day, the new decade brought This Is Happening, the point where the trappings of youth have been long outgrown and a leaner, meaner kind of existential malaise sets in. Fading loops play on and on, emerging from a haunted ballroom where the dance never ends. This is as ambient as it gets – six lonesome pieces of patient drone that barely develop over run-times that breach ten minutes. – JT, Stars of the Lid – The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid A good ambient record isn’t mere background music, it’s something that haunts your dreams and evokes entire landscapes on the strength of subtle shifts in tone. Standout Tracks: “Digital Witness,” “Prince Johnny,” “Birth in Reverse”. Morals and Dogma. After a decade and a half out of the spotlight, R&B star D’Angelo revealed his long-in-the-making third LP to much-deserved fanfare. Both beatless and beatific, For Those… is an album that shuns many of the tools of techno production whilst producing a comparable state of euphoria. Standout Tracks: “Swimming Pools (Drank),” “Real,” “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”. (Richard Allen), The Caretaker ~ An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners, 2011) March 1, 1982 4. Stacking the upbeat, sun-soaked tunes on the A-side leaves room for a B-side that’s sprawling and sparse. In a musical landscape dominated by … Standout Tracks: “Formation,” “Freedom,” “All Night”. – J.V. Learn how your comment data is processed. Pick one. The 190-minute score is both calming and curious. Music Reviews: Music For the Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organ EPs by Shackleton released in 2012 via Woe to the Septic Heart. (2006; Kranky) – J.V. We obviously like Brian Leeds at ACL, we just don’t like talking about him. Slowing down insistent rave rhythms, bringing in hints of progressive rock and hallucinogenic sound collage — this was ambient administered the best drugs ever, inducing the labor and birth of modern ambient dub. Yet by A Turn of Breath’s close, entire passages of words have become discernible, completing the soul’s transcendence with the message: we will prevail. bkunerth@dailyemerald.com, VP OPERATIONS Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land. Tangerine Dream – Zeit – J.V. There are stacks upon stacks of great examples, of course, but here are what we consider 10 of the Best Ambient Albums of all time. Wolfgang Voigt is best known for the forest-inspired Gas project (whose four albums are good to brilliant). city. Inspired by all the discussion surrounding Pitchfork's list of the genre, I decided to lay out my favorites. Various Artists - 環境音楽 Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980–1990, Shackleton - Music For the Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organ EPs, Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein - Stranger Things, Vol 1, A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Huerco S. - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have), Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - The Revenant, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - A Year With 13 Moons, Bing & Ruth - Tomorrow Was the Golden Age, Users' Highest Rated Ambient Albums of the 2010s. For Those of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have), Best of Decade Lists: Part II – Avant Music News. On his sixth release as Oneohtrix Point Never, Daniel Lopatin (half of Ford & Lopatin) built his atmosphere from the unlikeliest of sources: plunderphonics. – S.K. It’s at times orchestral and grand, at others stark and haunting, and almost invariably stunning in its ability to both lull and evoke a sense of eeriness that more rhythmic pop music generally doesn’t accomplish.

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