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How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

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Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#41

Post by jjulius »

candiddevmike wrote: post #9

Anyone have some other ambient works similar to Eno's? Preferably something more landscapey like music for airports or Apollo. Some of my favorites include Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Robin Guthrie (So Many Short Years Ago), Brian McBride (Overture for other halfs), and Helios.

This should cover a bunch of different Ambient styles, but all of the artists are absolutely fantastic and worth digging into. I'm definitely leaving out a fuckload more, but there are a ton of great suggestions in the other responses, too. Happy listening! :D

  Biosphere
  Ryuichi Sakamoto
  Loscil
  A Strangely Isolated Place (record label & mix series)
  Silent Season (record label)
  Kelly Moran
  Rafael Anton Irisarri
  Harold Budd
  Steve Roach
  Terre Thaemlitz
  Gel-Sol
  Koss
  Nils Frahm
  FAX Records
  Pete Namlook
  Hiroshi Yoshimura
  Benoit Pioulard
  Carlos Nino
  Woob (particularly woob1194)
  ASC
  Autumn of Communion
  Wanderwelle
  Celer
  Christina Vantzou
  Julianna Barwick
  Mary Lattimore
  Grouper
  Suzanne Ciani
  MPU101
  Deru
  Lusine (Language Barrier in particular, his only full-Ambient album)

Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#42

Post by dclowd9901 »

achairapart wrote: post #8
WilTimSon wrote: post #3

The details still escape me as I feel like I read the words but didn't get the meaning, which is by no means a knock on the write-up, I'm just a complete fool when it comes to musical technology and recording. However, it is a delightfully formatted experience and I spent several minutes playing with the randomize buttons on the site. Don't think any of the resulting mixes sounded bad, but Eno's original is, of cours…

Music is about tempo and sync. In fact, nowadays you can throw anything into a modern DAW software and it will instantly sync everything for you. Eno instead put randomness/chaos at play by using tape loops of different length, so they will never (or very hardly) repeat at the same interval again, or, in his own words: What I mean is they all repeat in cycles that are called incommensurable — they are not likely to c…

It’s very esoteric and even ponderous imho, but that’s just speaking of his personal albums. When he comes in with other artists like Bowie and Roxy Music, he’s an incredible collaborator and gives so much depth to the music.

Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#43

Post by bambax »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #20
achairapart wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music is about tempo and sync. In fact, nowadays you can throw anything into a modern DAW software and it will instantly sync everything for you. Eno instead put randomness/chaos at play by using tape loops of different length, so they will never (or very hardly) repeat at the same interval again, or, in his own words: What I mean is they all repeat in cycles that are called incommensurable — they are not likely to c…

For another interesting musical experiment, listen to "Poème symphonique", a "composition" that basically sets up 100 metronomes, winds them up, sets them to random (I believe) speeds, and lets them play and wind down. It starts chaotic, until they eventually run out and form interesting rhythmical patterns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAYGJmYKrI4

Didn't know about that! But Steve Reich also did many experiments with musical repetitions; his compositions are supposed to be played live (not rely on machines) but they can also be set up in a DAW. "Piano Phase" is pretty easy to implement for example.

Contrary to the quote by Eno in the article, Reich's loops are be "commensurable" -- after a certain point they repeat exactly. It seems that's what interests him: some kind of mathematical predictability.

Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#44

Post by QuizzicalCarbon »

candiddevmike wrote: post #9

Anyone have some other ambient works similar to Eno's? Preferably something more landscapey like music for airports or Apollo. Some of my favorites include Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Robin Guthrie (So Many Short Years Ago), Brian McBride (Overture for other halfs), and Helios.

You might try Deus Arrakis by Klaus Schulze https://youtu.be/UPCq1o4yvow

Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#45

Post by zeruch »

candiddevmike wrote: post #9

Anyone have some other ambient works similar to Eno's? Preferably something more landscapey like music for airports or Apollo. Some of my favorites include Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Robin Guthrie (So Many Short Years Ago), Brian McBride (Overture for other halfs), and Helios.

I'd look into stuff like Harold Budd, William Basinski, or Jon Hassell (who in turn influenced Eno; you can hear some similarities but also radical differences because Hassell played processed trumpet and had a much more dense sound palette. Albums like "Fascinoma" or "The Surgeon of the Night Sky Restores Dead Things By he Power of Sound" for starters, but they did one album together in the early 80s called "Possible Musics" worth a listen)

Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#46

Post by tarboreus »

candiddevmike wrote: post #9

Anyone have some other ambient works similar to Eno's? Preferably something more landscapey like music for airports or Apollo. Some of my favorites include Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Robin Guthrie (So Many Short Years Ago), Brian McBride (Overture for other halfs), and Helios.

Look into Japanese environmental music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx7CyMZVhHY

Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#47

Post by jollyllama »

candiddevmike wrote: post #9

Anyone have some other ambient works similar to Eno's? Preferably something more landscapey like music for airports or Apollo. Some of my favorites include Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Robin Guthrie (So Many Short Years Ago), Brian McBride (Overture for other halfs), and Helios.

Jordan De La Sierra

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kGay5yTzELiOx8...

Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#48

Post by photochemsyn »

candiddevmike wrote: post #9

Anyone have some other ambient works similar to Eno's? Preferably something more landscapey like music for airports or Apollo. Some of my favorites include Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Robin Guthrie (So Many Short Years Ago), Brian McBride (Overture for other halfs), and Helios.

Madis, Sea of Tranquility, Ambient Edit (2020) is really good.

Re: How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)

#49

Post by austinprete »

chaosprint wrote: post #29
skhm wrote: post #26

This was a really pleasant read. Inspired me to spend a few minutes hacking together some out-of-phase pianos ( https://twitter.com/harryaskham/status/1580174416889069570 ).

Interesting. What's this language? The audio comes with some distortions though. Perhaps limiting the volume and adding a filter can fix it?

Tidal Cycles! https://tidalcycles.org/

As layer8 mentioned, it is technically Haskell but more specifically a DSL and environment for live coding music.

Pretty fun to play around with!

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