Recommend me some electronic/ambient music

[Sam]

Here's what I have and like:

Aphex Twin - Selected Ambien Works Vol II
Arovane - Tides
Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children
Godspeed...  - F#A#; Lift Your Skinny...
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Nitin Sawhney - Beyond Skin

I heard some DJ Shadow and Faithless and really liked both. What are the best albums to start with?

But basically I'm looking for more Arovane/Boards type stuff...really dreamy and beautiful. Background music that holds up to foreground listening if ya know what I mean.

So what am I missing? What can't I possibily be without?

[Sam]

Fuck, wrong forum. Any way that this thread can be moved to SE?

Sorry!

[9]

at the momment i'm listening to chris clark - 'empty the bones of you'. Very Beautiful and definitely a grower. Like BOC meets Autechre, but tons more accessible than the latter.

Probably my fave electronic track is the 'Pylonesque' remix by Christ from his last album, 'metamorphic Reproduction Miracle'. Definitely check out that track.


EDIT: if you like real aggro stuff but with a bit of intelligence check out squarepusher. 'Go Plastic' is his finest hour.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

Mogwai usually does the job for me.  Not electronic and not always ambient though.

I've always meant to listen to more Brian Eno, can anyone recommend essential listening?

[chand]

There's a lot of stuff, but one of my favourites is Murcof's 'Martes' album, on Leaf records. Really good mix of glitchy beats and orchestral samples. From Mexico.

[peet]

A few I am liking:

Up, Bustle and Out - Light 'Em Up, Blow 'Em Out: quite funky latin american influenced sort of electronica
Matt Elliot - The Mess We Made: dark, melancholy, eerie, fantastic
Opiate - Objects For An Ideal Home:  sort of smiley BoC, not bad
Hint - Portakabin Fever  (cheersrou :p)
Matmos - A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure: bizarre, experimentalish, but some good stuff
Rachel's - Systems/Layers: classical chamber music mixed with subtle electronica and ambient samplings, crackin
Múm - Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK:  tinkly fluffy Icelanders
Dj Shadow - Endtroducing is great, ditto The Private Press

[Schlippy]

Susumu Yokoto's Sakura sounds like the kind of thing you're after, a real floaty, ethereal beauty.

I like Four Tet's stuff too, Dialogue, Pause and Rounds and all good stuff, guv'ner.

Not electronic, but I've always loved Tortoise's eponymous debut, a tasty slice of jazztabulous post-rock (even though it came out a good three years before that fuckawful phrase was coined).

[didgeripoo]

Múm - Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK:  tinkly fluffy Icelanders

You might want to give their new album 'Summer Make Good'  a shot, it's considerably darker than their earlier stuff so might fit into your Boards of Canada soundworld. It took me a few listens to get into it, I hated it at first due to the strange gollum-esque vocals being much more forthright than usual.

I went out after getting Summer Make Good (I already own Finally We Are No-one, the second album) and bought Yesterday Was Dramatic. Listened to it 5 or 6 times, and took it back. Dreary, average electronica. They've got lots better. I swapped it for the Pixies DVD and am now happy.

EDIT: Drastic typo.

[boki]

Coould be worth giving Manitoba a go - his first album 'Start Breaking My Heart' has quite a Boards of Canda-like feel to it, whereas the more recent 'Up In Flames' is a kind of psychedelic post-rock thingummy that makes a bit of a mockery of this pigeonholing business.

PS - I couldn't figure out how to move the topic. I suck.

[thatmuch]

Lachrymose nozzleticket with balls - empty dosh pocket (remix) - kind of a cross between Your Legs and Bush Electronics.

Speaking of crossing your legs, why not try Corncrake Alarm Call by Floating Thai Baht  ($135) - ambient immediate sound, in your face but pleasantly so, like something stuck up your nose that you could get out if you wanted to.

Just posted on Soul Torrent: no it's gone again, please try later by 9ft blonde with GSOH. Like bathing in a small tub, 50s design, chrome, delicate ornamentation.

[a bald avuncular jew]

Lachrymose nozzleticket with balls - empty dosh pocket (remix) - kind of a cross between Your Legs and Bush Electronics.

Speaking of crossing your legs, why not try Corncrake Alarm Call by Floating Thai Baht  ($135) - ambient immediate sound, in your face but pleasantly so, like something stuck up your nose that you could get out if you wanted to.

Just posted on Soul Torrent: no it's gone again, please try later by 9ft blonde with GSOH. Like bathing in a small tub, 50s design, chrome, delicate ornamentation.

Thought I'd quote this so you can't delete it when you've sobered up/come down from your glue high.  Your prose is, needless to say, sub-Morris drivel.  Tsk, and you sneered at those "10 Ways To Change The World" links that were posted in Comedy Chat the other week, amazing...

[thatmuch]

Lachrymose nozzleticket with balls - empty dosh pocket (remix) - kind of a cross between Your Legs and Bush Electronics.

Speaking of crossing your legs, why not try Corncrake Alarm Call by Floating Thai Baht  ($135) - ambient immediate sound, in your face but pleasantly so, like something stuck up your nose that you could get out if you wanted to.

Just posted on Soul Torrent: no it's gone again, please try later by 9ft blonde with GSOH. Like bathing in a small tub, 50s design, chrome, delicate ornamentation.

Thought I'd quote this so you can't delete it when you've sobered up/come down from your glue high.  Your prose is, needless to say, sub-Morris drivel.  Tsk, and you sneered at those "10 Ways To Change The World" links that were posted in Comedy Chat the other week, amazing...

Jesus, I can't remember anything about '10 Ways to Change the World'. Are you sure it was me? You, I deduce, are someone who's been around this board a while and changed their name. Such bitterness! Who were you before? I think my post is funny, which might explain a lot. I love those Alexander St John things and I like to join in, at a lower level of course (the infant's pool perhaps).

[blue jammer]

Here's a few I've loved in the past year or so:

U.N.K.L.E - Never Neverland
Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By
Hint - Portakabin Fever
Circulation - Colours Two
Colder - Again
Postal Service - Give Up
The Cinematic Orchestra - Man With a Movie Camera
John Tejada - Daydreams in Cold Weather
Soulsavers - Tough Guys Don't Dance
Blue Room - BBC Worldwide 2xCD compilation
Backini - Threads
Bluetech - Prima Materia
CARI LEKEBUSCH - THE ARCHITECT
Tom Middleton - The Trip
Schneider TM - Reconfigures

Read a few words on them if you like here

[elderford]

Eno's bestest are:

Discreet Music (tape loops)
Ambient 1: Music For Airports (minimal piano and lady voices)
Ambient 2: The Plateau of Mirror (dreamy piano)
Ambient 4: On Land (organic uber-sound environments)

The Pearl (his second album with pianist Harold Budd, Ambient 2 is the first)

Evening Star (with Robert Fripp, tapes, loops and delays, some really unexpected sounds created with an electric guitar, much better than the DIY (No Pussyfooting) their first collaboration.

Music for Films: lots of short snippets of ideas

Cluster & Eno: unexpected release of half arsed german electronica

[mr rou-rou]

edit: Eno - Apollo LP

do you have broadband and soulseek, or are you looking to splash out on some CD's?

with access to huge varieties of mp3's people's tastes have broadened and if you can get them for free then recommendations are worth a dabble, if you are paying cash then how do you decide who shares your taste in music?

I reckon an electronica radioshow might be the money saver, Radio One's Blue Room is on at a ridiculous time in the morning but it has a 'listen again' feature, this will let you hear a blend of acoustic/dub/bootlegs/ambient and electronic, it's pretty light on ambient though, I know other whores have a fondness for other similar shows but the show names escape me. There is a website called chilledbeats that has radio streams, !K7 is another, they can be a bit of an acquired taste but there will be something in there you might like but it's whether you can find it.
My Dutch favourites VPRO have sections showcasing either new albums (in streaming format), realplayer DJ sets, artist interviews, real player samples of new tracks from most genres, videos for the same, it's worth a look.

Dunno really, free is good, free lets you build up your own listening soup borrowing flavours from here and there, just going out and buying the Ulrich Schnaus albums is just what it is, as pleasant as they are.

[thatmuch]

The Third Eye Foundation - 'You Guys Kill Me' is an astonishing lp, extraordinarily ignored. Far too upsetting to be ambient though - one of the most frightening albums I've ever heard. Similar to Godspeed... in its symphonic quality, but more condensed.

If you haven't heard it, Suicide's second album, from 1980, is essential to understanding modern electronica (contains 'Harlem' which is still the most exciting piece of electronic music I've heard).

[Johnny Yesno]

Eno's definitely worth checking out. He coined the term "ambient music" after all. I'd recommend On Land as being the most contemporary-sounding.

Here are a few other recommendations. None have beats so fit in more with Eno's vision of ambient music.

Final ... One
Main ... Firmament I  (or II, III or IV)
Main ... Exosphere - Mort Aux Vaches
Thomas Köner ... Teimo
Thomas Köner ... Permafrost
Biosphere ... Substrata (one track from this used in Symptomless Coma)
Hazard ... Wind
Hazard ... Land (both Hazard albums on Touch records, worth checking out their site)
Microstoria ... SND
Mika Vainio ... Kajo (by one of the blokes out of Pan Sonic, as briefly discussed in SE)
Fennesz ... Endless Summer
Jim O'Rourke ... I'm Happy and I'm Singing and a 1, 2, 3, 4

There's also a compilation called "Folds & Rhizomes for Gilles Deleuze" which is rather nice. It's got Main, Oval, Mouse on Mars and Scanner on it.

Some of these may have been deleted but if you want you can pm me to arrange a listen for appraisal purposes.

[Uncle Gripper]

WELL, what after seems like a ambient name drip fest.

i say 'Christ - Pylonesque - Broken Mix'

and of course








most of what Eno DID, what Pansonic ARE doing and what APHEX TWIN will do again, only better

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

The Orb's Adventures in the Ultraworld is a must.

Aphex Twin- Selected Ambient Works 88-92- brilliant

Love Spirals Downwards- Flux- drum and bass with feeling

Ulrich Schnauss- Both his albums are brilliant and unique.

Bluetech- Prima Materia- Got this recently. Excellent dubby electronica.

As a bit of self publicity, I've just finished my album, so I'll copy some for people if anyone wants a listen...

[Key]

I second Fennesz - Endless Summer and also his latest, Venice.
Warm fuzzy My Bloody Valentine unplugged meets Brian Eno. Absolutely amazing 'stoned' music.

Also Arovane has a new one out in the next few weeks called Lillies. Its as Japanese as Tides was French. Very nice and it's Soulseekable already

[SnapperOrgans]

Com.a   -   a shot of love

kinda like plaid, funky, beautiful, clever......especially the tune 'cherryboy trail'

Jake Mandell   -   love songs for machines

'tender growth from random seed' is one of the most beautiful tracks ever

mouse on mars   -    niun niggung

If you ignore the other two be sure and get this at all cost. Its quite simply one of the greatest electronica albums of all time. Dreamy, funky, ridiculosly intelligent cartoonish and bright, I could listen to it all day.

[lazyhour]

mouse on mars   -    niun niggung

Hmm, I always prefered Idiology

I'd like to recommend Jim O'Rourke's stuff like (as mentioned above) I'm Happy, I'm Singing... and also his 2 albums with Fennesz and someone else which they release under the name Fenn O'Berg.  I also recommend The Books, Matmos, Max Tundra, Nobukazu Takemura, The Sea And Cake and anything by Tortoise.

Does anyone really follow up the recommendations made in threads like these?

[boki]

Does anyone really follow up the recommendations made in threads like these?

I hadn't heard of Manitoba until someone on here had mentioned them in a similar thread to this one, so I guess so.  On the other hand, though, when you're faced with a huge list and not a lot of time it can be very daunting.  Brief descriptions and links definitely help,  huge essays or - at the other end of the scale - weird names just chucked into the ether probably don't.

I think it's time I mentioned Global Goon.  His latest album ('Family Glue') is maybe a bit too uptempo and bouncy for this particular thread (though it's lots of fun), so maybe try the earlier material.  Apart from 'Vatican Nitez' (his last album for Rephlex before going the self-release route), the older stuff's just about impossible to get outside of eBay, so you may need to seek it out (I think the Goon himself is sharing most of his stuff most of the time, but I don't slsk meself so I dunno).  I'd recommend trying 'Long Whiney' and 'Afterlife' for a good taster.