ambient music

Content tagged as ambient music.

Atlas Sounds: Let the Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel (Rhythmethod)

This is either a strange coincidence or some weird serendipity -- but this solo album by Brandford Cox of the Atlanta band Deerhunter sounds like it has been made after he eavesdropped on my listenings in the past few weeks: a bit of JPSE's widescreen fuzzypop from Bleeding Star as filtered through Fripp & Eno's tonal landscapes, plus a...

music/1789/atlas-sounds-let-the-blind-lead-those-who-see-but-cannot-feel-rhythmethod/

BRIAN ENO AND THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE: Obscure but not oblique

By happy chance recently I pulled out a vinyl album which has changed my listening habits for these past weeks. It was released 30 years ago but has always struck me as timeless: it is Brian Eno’s Music For Films and the austere, pale brown cardboard cover is mottled with age. At any opportunity since I have gravitated to my cherished...

further/2108/brian-eno-and-the-sounds-of-silence-obscure-but-not-oblique/

Atlas Sound: Logos (4AD)

The previous outing by Atlas Sound, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, was a real find: ambient and cinematic but with hints of hazy pop, and at the time I noted I hoped Brandford Cox -- who is Atlas Sound and also of the equally interesting band Deerhunter -- would make more such solo albums. He almost didn't. The...

music/2676/atlas-sound-logos-4ad/

Memory Tapes: Seek Magic (Inertia)

This hazy and sometimes hypnotic album is the project of Dayve Hawk out of New Jersey who also works under a number of other names. Memory Tapes is his sweeping, electronica-pop personae and this MT debut hits an unusual ground between the less outre Mika, MGMT and Empire of the Sun at the poppy end, and the more interesting experimental types...

music/2932/memory-tapes-seek-magic-inertia/

Annemarie Duff: Music for Sleep and Creativity (Mmdelai)

Because I confess a love for Brian Eno's ambient music -- and that what I call "massage music" isn't unfamiliar in my home (my wife does massage) -- I have heard my share of music which can be either vacuous or beguiling . . . and there's a fine line betweeen them. New Age spawned a lot of music which was also neither, it just was....

music/3501/annemarie-duff-music-for-sleep-and-creativity-mmdelai/

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2010 Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest (4AD)

After their last album Microcastle (one of Elsewhere's best of '08) this beguiling outfit seemed to go off the map, perhaps in part because of mainman Bradford Cox's side project as the equally fascinating (but different) Atlas Sound. If that last Deerhunter sounded like an astute distillation of diverse influences this slightly more low-key...

music/3546/best-of-elsewhere-2010-deerhunter-halcyon-digest-4ad/

Brian Eno: Small Craft on a Milk Sea (Opal)

In the early Seventies the ambient albums by Brian Eno -- sometimes soundtracks for quiet, imagined films -- ushered in a kind of intelligent ambient music and the music on his Obscure label brought people like Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and others to a wider audience than they might have otherwise enjoyed. Eno's own Music for Films series,...

music/3682/brian-eno-small-craft-on-a-milk-sea-opal/

MICHAEL NYMAN INTERVIEWED (1993): Play us a film, piano man

For director Jane Campion to have as noted a composer as Michael Nyman to score the soundtrack for her film The Piano was as simple as a phone call. From his home in Toulouse, Nyman -- whose extensive career is best known for his soundtracks to Peter Greenaway films – acknowledges that he knew Campion’s previous films...

culturalelsewhere/3694/michael-nyman-interviewed-1993-play-us-a-film-piano-man/

ARVO PART, TABULA RASA (2020): The sound of angel wings

The story is such an improbable cliché it can only be true: one night in the late 70s while driving between Stuttgart and Zurich, the famous jazz producer Manfred Eicher heard music on the radio so entrancing he had to pull over to listen more closely. Eicher – founder of the ECM label which has a reputation for music of often...

culturalelsewhere/3713/arvo-part-tabula-rasa-2020-the-sound-of-angel-wings/

Darkstar: North (Hyperdub/Southbound)

By happy coincidence I mistook this band's name for that of a prog outfit I was once curious about -- maybe if I had heard the words "dubstep electronia" (which is how they are sometimes described) I might not have so enthusiastically pulled it out of the pile. Not that prog is my thing, but the Darkstar I was thinking about had a...

music/3723/darkstar-north-hyperdub-southbound/

POINT MUSIC (1992-2002): A decade of delivering new music

In many ways Rory Johnston looked exactly what he was, the vice-president of A&R (artists and repertoire) of a contemporary classical music label. It was there in the high, broad forehead and clear eyes, in the modulated speech and the vocabulary which didn't shy from a polysyllable or two. When I met him in the mid Nineties in...

culturalelsewhere/3878/point-music-1992-2002-a-decade-of-delivering-new-music/

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Rhian Sheehan

New Zealand electronica artists Rhian Sheehan has steered an astute path between experimental and ambient, orchestrated and elemental music, and as a result has been picking up acclaim from the main thread of electronica artists and also for his soundtrack work. One of his works, We Are Astronomers, is used by Britain's National Space Centre...

thefamouselsewherequestionnaire/4184/the-famous-elsewhere-questionnaire-rhian-sheehan/

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Alan Brown

Auckland-based keyboard player and composer Alan Brown has been around the New Zealand jazz scene for decades in groups like Blue Train and the Grand Central Band, has toured and played with the likes of Nathan Haines and Caitlin Smith and of course helmed his own trio . . . as well as passing on the message through his teaching. But his new...

thefamouselsewherequestionnaire/6950/the-famous-elsewhere-jazz-questionnaire-alan-brown/

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