is a loosely defined
Musical Genre that incorporates elements of a number of different styles - including
Jazz ,
Electronic Music ,
New Age ,
Rock And Roll , modern
Classical Music ,
Reggae ,
Traditional ,
World and even
Noise .
"'' Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting. ''"
: — Brian Eno (''Music for Airports'' liner notes
{Link without Title} , September 1978)
The earliest electronic soundscape music and theories come from the work of
Pierre Schaeffer who followed the futurists in classifying music into categories such as man made, natural, short and long. He made some of the first electronic music using record players and natural sounds, and cutting up tape, making the first experimental music use of recording and magnetic tape. Even his work can be seen as preempted by Shopenhauer's ideas of 'soundworlds', literally worlds made up entirely of sounds.
Karlheinz Stockhausen created pioneering electronic musical experiments later in 1955, and these two (amongst others) lay the groundwork for ambient music to appear decades later when music technology had developed.
The term "ambient music" was first coined by '' includes a manifesto describing this music. Although having coined the word "ambient", he is also quick to reference the works and influence of
Erik Satie . Eno coined the term in an essay to distance his work from
Elevator Music and
Muzak , it is more often similar to
Mood Music or an ambient background in movie and radio
Sound Effect s. Often listeners will forget they are listening to ambient music, which is one of the biggest attractions of the genre. It can be any musical style, including jazz, electronic music and modern classical music.
Some of the works of the
20th Century French composer
Erik Satie , today best known for his ''
Trois Gymnopédies '' suite, can be regarded as predecessors of modern ambient music. He referred to some of his music as "Musique d'ameublement" ('furniture music' ,or more literally, 'music for the furniture' and 'music to mingle with knives and forks', referring to something that could be played during dinner and would simply create an atmosphere for that activity rather than be the focus of attention. Similarly some of the works of the French composer
Edgard Varèse , who used the theremin extensively in his compositions as well as atonal techniques and non-standard time signatures, can also be viewed as predecessors of ambient music.
John Cage created the ultimate ambient work with his
4'33" , three periods of silence first played on the piano, which make the audience listen to the ambient sound surrounding them. Cage inspired minimalist composers such as
La Monte Young ,
Morton Feldman ,
Terry Riley ,
Steve Reich and
Philip Glass also influenced Eno's groundbreaking style, and ambient music can be seen as a kind of minimalism.
Early albums by
Pink Floyd (such as ''
Ummagumma '' and ''
Meddle '') and by the "kosmische music"-oriented
Krautrock artists, like
Tangerine Dream ,
Popol Vuh , and
Cluster have greatly influenced the genre. Among the first
Electronic ambient albums were ''Affenstunde'' (
1970 ) and ''In Den Garten Pharaos'' (
1971 ) by
Popol Vuh . Another important album was Sonic Seasonings (
1972 ) by
Wendy Carlos . Other early artists such as
Klaus Schulze (a former member of
Tangerine Dream and
Ash Ra Tempel ),
Jean-Michel Jarre , and
Kraftwerk in the 1970s and 1980s were influential. In the 1970s, some ambient, krautrock, and other musicians who were influenced by
New Age spirituality created the eclectic genre known as
New Age Music , selling millions independent from the mainstream music industry by direct order or new age shops. By the 1980s, New Age music had become so much better known than ambient music, that ambient was taken as a synonym for "New Age", and many ambient musicians deliberately took on new age themes to market themselves to this audience.
Beginning in the
1980s , Ambient music influenced some pop bands (examples can be found among instrumentals by
New Order ,
Simple Minds and
U2 ). Later,
Electronic Dance Music and synth pop merged in many artists' works with the dreamy, meandering sound of Eno-style ambient music. Under the guise of various styles, this new genre sometimes referred to as
Ambient House ,
Ambient Techno , ambient
Dub ,
IDM , ambience, or simply "ambient" in common use, saw the birth of a new wave of artists like
The Orb ,
Aphex Twin , the
Irresistible Force , and Geir Jenssen's
Biosphere .
Early Warp records artists, (as well as later ones such as
Aphex Twin ), FSOL
Future Sound Of London (
Lifeforms ,
ISDN )
Autechre , (
Incunabula ,
Amber ),
Boards Of Canada ,
Massive Attack ,
Portishead , and The
KLF all took a part in popularising and diversifying ambient music. There are now a dizzying array of different sub-genres, festivals, websites, discussion lists, clubs, labels and artists making new, interesting, original music.
Organic ambient music is characterised by integration of musical instruments.
Aside from the usual electronic music influences, organic ambient tends to incorporate influences from
World Music , especially
Drone instruments and hand
Percussion . Organic ambient is intended to be more harmonious with
Nature than with the
Disco . Some of the artists in this sub-genre include
Robert Rich ,
Steve Roach ,
Vidna Obmana ,
O Yuki Conjugate ,
James Johnson ,
Loren Nerell ,
Numina , and
Tuu .
Some works by ambient pioneers such as Brian Eno, which use a combination of traditional (such as piano) and electronic instruments, would be considered organic ambient music in this sense. In the 70's and 80's
Klaus Schulze often recorded string ensembles and performances by solo
Cellists to go along with his extended
Moog Synthesizer workouts.
The music is composed from samples and recordings of naturally occurring sounds. Sometimes these samples can be treated to make them more instrument-like. The samples may be arranged in repetitive ways to form a conventional musical structure or may be random and unfocused. Sometimes the sound is mixed with urban or "found" sounds. Examples include much of
Biosphere's ''
Substrata '',
Mira Calix 's insect music and
Chris Watson 's ''
Weather Report ''. Some overlap occurs between organic ambient and nature inspired ambient. One of the first albums in the genre,
Wendy Carlos ' ''Sonic Seasonings'', combines sampled and synthesized nature sounds with ambient melodies and drones for a particularly relaxing effect.
See Also: Dark ambient
Dark Ambient is a general term for any kind of ambient music with a "dark" or dissonant feel, but often involves extensive use of digital reverb to create vast sonic spaces for frightening, bottom-heavy sounds such as deep drones, gloomy male chorus, echoing thunder, and distant artillery. It has a relentlessly gothic feel. Lustmord's collaboration with
Robert Rich ''Stalker'' epitomizes this sub-genre. Related styles include and '''isolationist ambient'''.
See Also: Ambient industrial
Ambient industrial is a hybrid genre of ambient and
Industrial Music ; the term industrial being used in the original experimental sense, rather than in the sense of
Industrial Metal or
EBM . A "typical" ambient industrial work (if there is a such thing) might consist of evolving dissonant harmonies of metallic drones and resonances, extreme low frequency rumbles and machine noises, perhaps supplemented by gongs, percussive rhythms, bullroarers, distorted voices and/or anything else the artist might care to sample (often processed to the point where the original sample is no longer recognizable). Entire works may be based on radio telescope recordings, the babbling of newborn babies, or sounds recorded through contact microphones on telegraph wires.
Among the many artists who work in this area are
Coil ,
CTI ,
Lustmord ,
Susumu Yokota ,
Hafler Trio ,
Nocturnal Emissions ,
Zoviet France ,
PGR , Thomas Koner,
Controlled Bleeding , and Deutsch Nepal. It is important to note, however, that many of these artists are very eclectic in their output, with much of it falling outside of ambient industrial per se.
Also known as . The term was popularized in the mid-1990s by the British magazine .
There are many other styles which identify themselves as ambient music. There is information on these styles on other pages, but many artists who are not in the new age world of music making produce albums which mix beatless ambient music with downtempo electronica, so the categories have blured edges.
Chill Out (music) is generally linked to club culture and is sometimes used as a term which includes ambient music as a subset of itself. UK techno developed in particular at
Warp Records in Sheffield, where previous electronic pioneers such as
Cabaret Voltaire and
Autechre laid the groundwork for ambient techno to develop, and for
Aphex Twin and
Boards Of Canada to develop later. From this scene developed ambient dub and ambient techno.
Intelligent Dance Music is another term synonymous with this scene. Electroacoustic and acousmatic music are 'classical' art music forms that use electronic sound creation instead of or alongside acoustic instruments.
Glitch music is a subset of this work. Some club groups have made live ambient music, mixing dub techniques and styles with ambient textures and dance grooves, for example artists such as Sonic State, Junkielover, the Orb,
Chillage People , H.U.V.A. Network, Solar Fields, The Starsound Orchestra, and the Kuma Mela Project.
''Main article:''
List Of Ambient Artists
''Main article:''
Film Director
- Ambient.us (Positive Energy Ambient Music Guide) cd reviews, radio stream, forum and music download site.
- Ambient Music Guide Comprehensive ambient music resource site.
- Ambient Music Resources Anotated guide to the most relevant ambient music mega-sites.
- Ambient Reviews - Morpheus Music Ambient review, news and interviews.
- Mp3blog Ambient Mp3blog
- Ambient Music Guide to ambient music style, including reviews of important ambient works.
- 25 Years of Ambient Music Retrospective on ambient music.
- Calmscape, the Chillout Lounge Portal for chillout, ambient and downbeat music.
- Royalty Free Mood Music Ambient/Mood Music Used as Background Music.
- Properlychilled.com Dedicated to down tempo music & culture (ambient, glitch, idm, ...)
- Farfield Ambient Reviews, CDs, downloads, radio station and licensing
- The Buzzoutroom 24hrs a day Chilled-out Ambient Downbeats
- Chill Zone One Radio chillout, ambient, downtempo, soundscapes, atmosphere
- SomaFM Listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative internet radio. Has a strong focus on ambient music.
- AmbientMusic-Radio An online ambient music show.
- StillStream Ambient music mixed by DJs and streamed live, 24 hours a day.
- Urban_D RADIO - A weekly podcast of ambient music by independent artists.
- Native Instruments Computer based music software, ambient as well as many other styles of music
- SSEYO Generative Music Brian Eno used Koan software on Another Day on Earth
- fLOW ambient soundscape generator by Karlheinz Essl
