General Chat / What Are You Listening To Right Now
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31-March 03
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JFK
Offline
I am listening to The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski and it is fucking brilliant. Best ambient work I've heard in... A long fucking time, man. A long fucking time.
I avoided getting this out of some sort of bizarre and irrational pseudo-snobbery. Basically: Pitchfork raved about this album, and Pitchfork don't know shit about ambient, just like those dumbasses don't know shit about metal, and therefore give tripe like Mastodon good reviews.
But I was wrong to be put off, this stuff is incredible.
Think track three of Selected Ambient Works Volume 2, disc one. That kinda stuff. Slowly disintegrating. This is the concept The Future Sound Of London were going for on Dead Cities, except, of course, their "decay-theme" is limited only to the 200 page book that comes with it - the music seems to be a completely seperate entity.
Now ambient isn't for everyone, I'll grant you. People perhaps don't understand why I can say, for example, Nirvana are boring, and yet I can devote my full attention to listening to a Brian Eno ambient album without it getting the least bit tedious.
The appeal comes from how ethereal this shit can sound.
Now, talking to Chris about ambient, he says to me, he says, "It lacks substance". My reply was that it is nothing BUT substance, stripped of everything else. The everything else, in my opinion, is superfluous.
I suppose if you're all about melody or rhythm, you're not going to dig it. It's not about melody, it's about tone, it's about texture, it's about FEEL. Like it's closest genre cousin, noise, it is SOUND, not neccessarily music.
But ambient is so pure and minimal as to be completely visceral. There is No Pussyfooting: This is why, for example, SAW2 has the fucking POWER to scare you completely shitless. It's completely terrifying in its stark aliennessnessosity.
By being completely free from constraints like melody, by being completely reliant on tone and tone alone, a good ambient track can evoke feelings like nothing else on the musical landscape. The odd feeling of disquiet and dislocation found in Brian Eno's The Lost Day, for example. There is almost no frame of reference for it. To describe it, the only thing I can come up with is -
"It sounds like... You know when you wake up in a ditch, and you don't know where you are, and you're hungover and confused, and half asleep still. It's like that, man. It's exactly like that."
Which perhaps isn't as lucid as whatever Mister Johnny Rolling Stone can come up with, but, fuck, it's the best I can do, dammit. It is, literally, like nothing else you've ever heard before. It gives you a FEELING you never thought could be expressed through music.
That's the appeal.
To me.
At least.
Each to his own, and all, I can understand how people consider it boring, because so much of it is about SPACE, empty space, huge black expanses between notes, that's kind of the point.
In any case.
My favourite ambient albums:
1. Selected Ambient Works Vol. II - Aphex Twin
2. Ambient 4: On Land - Brian Eno
3. The Disintegration Loops - William Basinski
4. Endless Summer - Fennesz
5. Apollo: Atmospheres And Soundscapes - Brian Eno
6. Beyond The Pale - Experimental Audio Research
7. FFWD>> - FFWD>>
8. Kesto CD4 - Pan Sonic (fuck off, it counts!)
9. Ballasted Orchestra - Stars Of The Lid
10. Ambient 1: Music For Airports - Brian Eno
And I guess Salt Marie Celeste by Nurse With Wound, and the first two albums by Fripp & Eno deserve credz, too. I have yet to get their new one. I'm approaching with caution.
Sorry the list was so, uh, Brian Eno dominated. I'm no expert on the genre, and he is kind of the biggest name, and all.
Uh, I could compile a list of some of my favourite ambient tracks*, but, uh, I'm a little lazy. Plus, it's not like anyone actually reads this shit. Or cares.
Did you know that Basinski is signed to David Tibet's label, Durtro. True - and yet completely useless and uninteresting - story.
*See, it would include stuff like Entry Of The Crims by King Crimson and Ill Flower by The Future Sound Of London and those ambient tracks on Old Man Gloom albums, basically ambient tracks on non-ambient albums. Do you see.
Edit: I now have 666 posts (each one an epic masterpiece exploring the cancerous dark hysteria which eats away at our very souls). I shall now sign off and never post again. It's been good knowing you, NewElement.
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mantis
Offline
I think her music works a lot better live than on CD, but I still appreciate it. It's just that it's got a little less substance without the 'performance' spectacle that goes with it. -
PBJ Offline
firdt of all sorry of the topic (part 2 >_< ) but this one was not loading (that explains the dubble post)
Good Charlotte
S.O.S. -
cg?
Offline
I am listening to The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski and it is fucking brilliant. Best ambient work I've heard in... A long fucking time, man. A long fucking time.
I avoided getting this out of some sort of bizarre and irrational pseudo-snobbery. Basically: Pitchfork raved about this album, and Pitchfork don't know shit about ambient, just like those dumbasses don't know shit about metal, and therefore give tripe like Mastodon good reviews.
But I was wrong to be put off, this stuff is incredible.
Think track three of Selected Ambient Works Volume 2, disc one. That kinda stuff. Slowly disintegrating. This is the concept The Future Sound Of London were going for on Dead Cities, except, of course, their "decay-theme" is limited only to the 200 page book that comes with it - the music seems to be a completely seperate entity.
Now ambient isn't for everyone, I'll grant you. People perhaps don't understand why I can say, for example, Nirvana are boring, and yet I can devote my full attention to listening to a Brian Eno ambient album without it getting the least bit tedious.
The appeal comes from how ethereal this shit can sound.
Now, talking to Chris about ambient, he says to me, he says, "It lacks substance". My reply was that it is nothing BUT substance, stripped of everything else. The everything else, in my opinion, is superfluous.
I suppose if you're all about melody or rhythm, you're not going to dig it. It's not about melody, it's about tone, it's about texture, it's about FEEL. Like it's closest genre cousin, noise, it is SOUND, not neccessarily music.
But ambient is so pure and minimal as to be completely visceral. There is No Pussyfooting: This is why, for example, SAW2 has the fucking POWER to scare you completely shitless. It's completely terrifying in its stark aliennessnessosity.
By being completely free from constraints like melody, by being completely reliant on tone and tone alone, a good ambient track can evoke feelings like nothing else on the musical landscape. The odd feeling of disquiet and dislocation found in Brian Eno's The Lost Day, for example. There is almost no frame of reference for it. To describe it, the only thing I can come up with is -
"It sounds like... You know when you wake up in a ditch, and you don't know where you are, and you're hungover and confused, and half asleep still. It's like that, man. It's exactly like that."
Which perhaps isn't as lucid as whatever Mister Johnny Rolling Stone can come up with, but, fuck, it's the best I can do, dammit. It is, literally, like nothing else you've ever heard before. It gives you a FEELING you never thought could be expressed through music.
That's the appeal.
To me.
At least.
Each to his own, and all, I can understand how people consider it boring, because so much of it is about SPACE, empty space, huge black expanses between notes, that's kind of the point.
In any case.
My favourite ambient albums:
1. Selected Ambient Works Vol. II - Aphex Twin
2. Ambient 4: On Land - Brian Eno
3. The Disintegration Loops - William Basinski
4. Endless Summer - Fennesz
5. Apollo: Atmospheres And Soundscapes - Brian Eno
6. Beyond The Pale - Experimental Audio Research
7. FFWD>> - FFWD>>
8. Kesto CD4 - Pan Sonic (fuck off, it counts!)
9. Ballasted Orchestra - Stars Of The Lid
10. Ambient 1: Music For Airports - Brian Eno
And I guess Salt Marie Celeste by Nurse With Wound, and the first two albums by Fripp & Eno deserve credz, too. I have yet to get their new one. I'm approaching with caution.
Sorry the list was so, uh, Brian Eno dominated. I'm no expert on the genre, and he is kind of the biggest name, and all.
Uh, I could compile a list of some of my favourite ambient tracks*, but, uh, I'm a little lazy. Plus, it's not like anyone actually reads this shit. Or cares.
frown.gif
Did you know that Basinski is signed to David Tibet's label, Durtro. True - and yet completely useless and uninteresting - story.
*See, it would include stuff like Entry Of The Crims by King Crimson and Ill Flower by The Future Sound Of London and those ambient tracks on Old Man Gloom albums, basically ambient tracks on non-ambient albums. Do you see.
Edit: I now have 666 posts (each one an epic masterpiece exploring the cancerous dark hysteria which eats away at our very souls). I shall now sign off and never post again. It's been good knowing you, NewElement.
Today I woke up with a great desire to listen to Abba... and reading this post made it leave... thank you, and goodbye.
"Silver morning", by Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Roger Eno, "Apollo: atmospheres, and soundtracks." -
spiderman
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A surprisingly awesome song.Michael Jackson - Beat it
Black Star
Yngwie Malmsteen
Rising Force -
cg?
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"P.Y.T." is a better one!
Which leads to...
"P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)", by Michael Jackson, from "Thriller."
...which is made 1,000 times more wonderful, frightening, and hillarious, when one considers recent events... -
Janus
Offline
Rosemary - Interpol
This CD finally (and surprisingly) works on my stereo, after months of only listening to it on my walkman. Strange.
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