Brian Eno Ambient 1
Brian Eno Ambient 4
Magma MDK
Magma Köhntarkösz
KLF Chillout
KLF Chillout
Cluster Sowiesoso
After the excesses of the monumental Magma last week we wind it back a bit this outing at Bamyasi studios with some gentle ambience in the form of two from the four original Eno ambient series:
Ambient 1 / Music For Airports (1978)
Ambient 2 / The Plateaux of Mirror (1980) with Harold Budd
Ambient 3 / Day of Radiance (1981) with Laraaji
Ambient 4 / On Land (1982)
Music for Airports although strictly not the first ambient record, or even Eno's first ambient record, is often viewed as such having been the first album specifically labelled as "ambient". It's the record Eno created literally after sitting at an airport and meditating on a background sound that could be...
The four tracks merge imperceptibly using short piano loops (some piano provided by Robert Wyatt) and ethereal vocals. The album as a whole was designed to be continually looped and it works well that way. It's the sort of background music you can have on all day and just catch snippets of as you pass by, occasionally recognising repeating themes particularly in the piano. Alternatively it's a record you can totally immerse yourself in through concentrated headphone listening.
A friend hearing the piano melodies told me it reminded her of Star Wars. (?)
3 outings and 4 years later and Eno drops Ambient 4 On Land. Considered by many to be the best in the series the album is a classic of the ambient genre spawning many imitators. There is much more movement and depth to this album than Ambient 1. The atmosphere is dark and brooding with sound effect embellishments based on Eno's experiences exploring the countryside, marshes and coast of Suffolk.
From the Suffolk marshes to the Deep South with one of the albums that On Land spawned. KLF's Chillout takes us on a cross state train and for me the album is really the younger and slightly more unruly brother of Ambient 4. The albums seem to sit well together (a third to make up a nice trilogy of atmospheric ambience would be the Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld).
Finally we visit Sowiesoso with Cluster. I don't know what Sowiesoso is but it sounds like a country or state in Southern Africa.
Actually what it means is "anyway" or "one way or another". I guess the equivalent to the modern term "whatever". The music fits this description: it's very easy going containing thick melodic synth lines with gentle pulses and atmospheric background effects. It simply bubbles along like a mountain stream engendering a very chilled out reverie.
These muted descriptions do make it seem like the music may be lightweight and not particularly original but on the contrary the Cluster of Sowiesoso is instantly recognisable and I can't immediately think of another album in my collection that sounds like this one.
#Lovely
A new term I heard while researching this entry: Musique Concrete. According to Wiki:
A type of music composition that utilizes recorded sounds as raw material. Sounds are often modified through the application of audio effects and tape manipulation techniques, and may be assembled into a form of montage. It can feature sounds derived from recordings of musical instruments, the human voice, and the natural environment as well as those created using synthesizers and computer-based digital signal processing. Compositions in this idiom are not restricted to the normal musical rules of melody, harmony, rhythm, metre, and so on. It exploits acousmatic listening, meaning sound identities can often be intentionally obscured or appear unconnected to their source cause.
So very similar to ambient but with more "found" sounds not necessarily arranged in conventional musical forms, so why not avant garde? I'm assuming enveloping artists like James Joyce and Keith Berry, and pretty much a description of On Land too. The Frenchness of the term, literally translated as "real music", was first adopted in the 40s via French composer Pierre Schaeffer (1910 - 95).
Ambient 1 / Music For Airports (1978)
Ambient 2 / The Plateaux of Mirror (1980) with Harold Budd
Ambient 3 / Day of Radiance (1981) with Laraaji
Ambient 4 / On Land (1982)
Music for Airports although strictly not the first ambient record, or even Eno's first ambient record, is often viewed as such having been the first album specifically labelled as "ambient". It's the record Eno created literally after sitting at an airport and meditating on a background sound that could be...
As ignorable as it is interesting.
The four tracks merge imperceptibly using short piano loops (some piano provided by Robert Wyatt) and ethereal vocals. The album as a whole was designed to be continually looped and it works well that way. It's the sort of background music you can have on all day and just catch snippets of as you pass by, occasionally recognising repeating themes particularly in the piano. Alternatively it's a record you can totally immerse yourself in through concentrated headphone listening.
A friend hearing the piano melodies told me it reminded her of Star Wars. (?)
3 outings and 4 years later and Eno drops Ambient 4 On Land. Considered by many to be the best in the series the album is a classic of the ambient genre spawning many imitators. There is much more movement and depth to this album than Ambient 1. The atmosphere is dark and brooding with sound effect embellishments based on Eno's experiences exploring the countryside, marshes and coast of Suffolk.
From the Suffolk marshes to the Deep South with one of the albums that On Land spawned. KLF's Chillout takes us on a cross state train and for me the album is really the younger and slightly more unruly brother of Ambient 4. The albums seem to sit well together (a third to make up a nice trilogy of atmospheric ambience would be the Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld).
Finally we visit Sowiesoso with Cluster. I don't know what Sowiesoso is but it sounds like a country or state in Southern Africa.
Actually what it means is "anyway" or "one way or another". I guess the equivalent to the modern term "whatever". The music fits this description: it's very easy going containing thick melodic synth lines with gentle pulses and atmospheric background effects. It simply bubbles along like a mountain stream engendering a very chilled out reverie.
These muted descriptions do make it seem like the music may be lightweight and not particularly original but on the contrary the Cluster of Sowiesoso is instantly recognisable and I can't immediately think of another album in my collection that sounds like this one.
Synthetic birds chirrup, bells chime and life is easy and good.
Euan Andrews in Quietus
#Lovely
A new term I heard while researching this entry: Musique Concrete. According to Wiki:
A type of music composition that utilizes recorded sounds as raw material. Sounds are often modified through the application of audio effects and tape manipulation techniques, and may be assembled into a form of montage. It can feature sounds derived from recordings of musical instruments, the human voice, and the natural environment as well as those created using synthesizers and computer-based digital signal processing. Compositions in this idiom are not restricted to the normal musical rules of melody, harmony, rhythm, metre, and so on. It exploits acousmatic listening, meaning sound identities can often be intentionally obscured or appear unconnected to their source cause.
So very similar to ambient but with more "found" sounds not necessarily arranged in conventional musical forms, so why not avant garde? I'm assuming enveloping artists like James Joyce and Keith Berry, and pretty much a description of On Land too. The Frenchness of the term, literally translated as "real music", was first adopted in the 40s via French composer Pierre Schaeffer (1910 - 95).
The question turns around; "what am I hearing?... What exactly are you hearing" - in the sense that one asks the subject to describe not the external references of the sound it perceives but the perception itself.
Good write up on what are my two favourite Eno ambient albums.
ReplyDeleteOne of the fathers of musique concrete incidentally was Pierre Schaeffer - check out his early pre-tape(!) 'Edtudes...' from the 1930s. A forerunner of looped samples AND turntablism.
One of his students was a certain Jean-Michel Jarre...
Delete*1940s
ReplyDelete*Etudes
Thanks for the comments and the tips on Pierre Schaeffer's Etudes EA, EB
ReplyDeleteI need to thank your collaborator Ring Modulator for alerting me to the beauty of Ambient 4!
ReplyDelete