Beat logo

The People Responsible For Making Ambient Music Interesting Again

"Ambient? As in, 'this is really boring, this must be Ambient'?"

By Ed Morris-KnightleyPublished 5 years ago 8 min read
Like

In 2010, I was at the height of my crippling gaming obsession.

Every day was spent staring at an oversized TV through a greasy, straightened fringe, keeping myself hopped up on Rockstar Energy and Vitamin D supplements. It was an exciting time; wasting fools on Halo 3 and avoiding any conversation or social outing, thinking I was "alt" by throwing up a peace sign and not showering enough. I figured a personality wasn't necessary as long as you wore as much neon as you could and, instead of smiling, pull that sideways scrunched face people break out when they're insecure about their teeth. I wouldn't have talked to me, you wouldn't have talked to me, let's sit and pity me together.

At some point during my tenure of shooting "turr'rists" and grunting at the other square-jawed men slathered in baby oil, I discovered a game called Limbo. The screenshots showed a small character traversing through a monochromatic, foggy woods, being stalked by hellish monstrosities and exploring bizarre, other-worldly structures. Nothing had definition or explanation, a faint haze masking an already indistinct world. It seemed dissonant and oppressive; a surreal art style depicting a dream, but in the dream, elements of our most primal fears creeping in and spoiling the fun.

I hate giant spiders nearly as much as I hate turr'rists, I thought.

I broke out my father's hard-earned cash, sat my little brother next to me, and downloaded it the moment it was available. We had no idea what to expect. I had never played a puzzle platformer nor had I even explored the indie gaming scene, so when the title screen appeared and Martin Stig Andersen's "Menu" started fading into the room, it struck a chord with me that would mold my taste in music forever.

Ambient music, for the most part, gets a bad rap. Ambient music, for the most part, also kinda sucks. People spending five minutes making a synth pad and sticking some reverb on it, thinking that their uninteresting songwriting can be made less so by dragging it out and refusing to do anything to it over an hour-long run time. It's "background music" at it's most literal, a genre filled with material that would grind down the attention of even the most patient, and often the most pretentious. Composers like Brian Eno and Steve Reich, masters of minimalism and achieved songwriters in their own right, pumping out fractions of songs and inspiring groups all over the world to only write a tenth of a track, copy and pasted in the hopes of it being "relaxing" or "hypnotic." It was an art of filler, where post-Dubstep producers would run out of material before they reached their album's full track-list, taking their preset instruments and chipping in an interlude here and there.

Look everyone, he's sensitive and introspective, he doesn't need drops and club bangers. He's above all that.

No one, in the history of either music critique or music listening it general, has ever had an ambient interlude as their favorite album cut. They're just there because we expect them to be. Ambient, in the eyes of most people, is used more so as a tool than a collection of music made for listening enjoyment. You're doing your homework, sorting your taxes, you've crammed in too much Adderral and haven't left the shower for four hours. You go onto YouTube, search "music for relaxation" and boom. Years of hard work marginalized to "oh, stick it on in the background." It shouldn't have to be this way.

Ever since playing Limbo, I've been on an odyssey. A journey of discovery, where my ignorance has been washed away in waves. I feel like I've struck upon an entirely new world of music, where artists aren't bound by structure or typical, rudimentary song writing techniques. There's a freedom to ambient music, as long as you're willing to dig through the sedatives masquerading as full-length LPs, sit down and actually give the genre a chance. I implore you to take the plunge, and I have the landmark discoveries necessary to push you in the right direction. I might divulge some overly flowery synonyms and moments of "what's this bloke on about?," but you'll understand if you give these projects a chance.

Martin Stig Andersen - 'Limbo'

It honestly can't be understated just how wonderful of an experience Andersen's work is for this game. I hesitate before calling an album an "experience", because it strikes a level of pretension that would quite rightly put off a person just looking for the next cool album to listen to, but I struggle to describe the Limbo OST as anything else.

"Menu" sways in and out with its alien choral melodies, the wide range of calming frequencies gripping your chest like a safety harness. It's a guttural submersion of sound, a feeling of melancholy without the melodrama. This motif continues through the whole soundtrack; huge walls of blissful sounds sweeping in like the ocean over a moonlit shoreline. "City" and "Sister" feel like distant fractals of music, where you can almost decipher and piece together the connection with more traditional tracks. Much like the game; nothing really makes sense, but it's not off-putting or even overtly experimental, just an epic harmony of sonic soundscapes, melded together by soaring cascades of unknown origin. Brass-tacks, objective, technical details are a struggle here, Andersen is tight-lipped about his method both in and out of the context of his music. He's as vague during an interview as the origins of his sounds are in his works. After eight years of repetitive, obsessive listening, I still couldn't even begin to understand where these sounds came from or how he created them. It will make you break out the tortoiseshell reading glasses, the chai latte and the musty leather-bound tomes filled with words you don't understand (or were ever really going to read). Just don't get fixated into your trance before skipping "Rotating Room" 'cause it feels like someone taking a cheese-grater to your ear drums; an intense hit of industrial noises and seemingly endless bombardment of harshness, only for it to relent right as you're about to tap out. Or cry.

Highlights: "Menu," "City"

Tim Hecker - 'Harmony In Ultraviolet'

Tim Hecker is a wizard of modern electronic production. Never have I heard a discography so concise in its quality and detail, yet so brazen with its experimentation and originality. I struggle to recommend him to people knowing that, within a mere few hours, they'd have denounced all religions and erected a shrine in his honor. Too many people have been lost so far. You haven't moshed until you've thrown on some of Tim Hecker's dark, ambient drone whilst wearing your blood-stained monk robes. Harmony In Ultraviolet might not be his most experimental or varied project, but it's so singular in its approach and distinct in its sound that it should be used as a résumé for his achievements. He indulges fully in his skills and individual idiosyncrasies, he knows he's a baller and here he'll show you exactly how.

"Rainbow Blood" doesn't start so much as it seeps in. What sounds like ghosts waltzing over an organ's keys are tap-dancing over a bent up, broken guitar motif. "Chimeras" with it's Victorian, vaudevillian melody, putting you firmly into the haunted house the spirits occupy. As the album verges on blood-curdling, "Dungeoneering" rears its head. It feels as close to a "drop" as Ambient can achieve, like the blood rushing back to a limb that's been riddled with pins and needles. Everything Hecker excels in is present; that wall of sound, those broken synthesizer leads, that trademark crunch keeping the intensity alive. A guitar whirls over the constant barrage of organ notes, the distortion building and building, like someone's grabbed a lung and given it a firm squeeze. It's truly breathtaking. The album continues on, establishing an idea and dotting around playful renditions of the same themes. It's all encased in a serene harshness, you'll want it to send you to sleep but you'll be afraid of the dreams it might give you.

Highlights: "Dungeoneering," "Palimpsest II," "Harmony in Blue III"

William Basinski - 'Cascade'

This one's a bit bizarre. It's not a challenging experiment in futuristic production nor a wallowing in anti-formalities, it's just odd. It's a single, short piano loop, repeating and breaking down over the forty minute run time. William Basinski is known for his usage of tape loops, where he'll record short ideas and put them onto cassette, and let the natural disintegration of the format play out over the course of the album. It's simplistic and minimal, taking a huge amount of confidence and restraint, and some patience from the listener, but Cascade is the mecca of tape looping mastery.

The piece itself only consists of a few moody piano notes, the tape's natural fuzz and analogue distortion giving the whole track an almost apocalyptic atmosphere. There's so much movement and business in its simplicity, like observing white blood cells through a microscope, only for the track to fade out and your eyes to focus back into the real world. It's ghostly and wistful, the variation so apparent if you let the endless repetition take your ears and focus, as your eyes would adapt to a darkened room. Basinski's entire discography follows a similar formula, with his most famous work "Disintegration Loops" having its title lay out the method behind the monotony, but you'll be intrigued and entranced all the same. He's a magician of relaxation and repetition, with Cascade as his Mona Lisa, all painted with one color and probably not even on the canvas.

The whole thing's a highlight.

Ambient music can be a bore, and a lot of ambient projects can feel like listening to dial tone, but there's promise among the static. An entire community of people relinquishing themselves of structure and rigidity and playing with noise, sound and melody, letting the harmony speak for itself. It doesn't all have to be the tripe that a masseuse would stick on or what your yogi might play to help align your chakras. People will want to literally fight you if you broke out some Oneohtrix Point Never through the aux cord, but play "Describing Bodies" through some decent headphones and you'll never head-bang again.

song reviews
Like

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.