Cold Blue Music, a Californian record label that everyone enjoying contemporary ambient/electronic/minimalism should follow closely, is about to release a cd called “The Tubes” by Michael Fahres.

On the title track of this fascinating album, Fahres recorded the acoustic effect of the rock tube formations on El Hierro: a breathing sound created by waves forcing air through the volcanic rocks. Mixed with Jon Hassell’s breathy trumpet playing and Mark Atkins’ haunting didgeridoo, this piece is an ode to the breath of life itself…

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In between the growing names of contemporary (post-)classic composers, Greg Haines' debut stands out for it's own style. It's not trying to be too 'classical', because it's more electronic than just that. But on the other hand it's not exactly 'ambient' too (to continue the previous post about the ambient subgenres: we could define this music as 'classbient' - classy classic ambient )

The record label Miasmah namedrops some of Greg's inspirations: Arvo Pärt, Ryan Teague, William Basinski... If these names mean anything to you you know where to go. And dont' forget Colleen for the sound of the glockenspiel.

This is a great cd for the dark winter days coming up!

Foambient = folky ambient
Skambient = idm-type ambient
Shambient = shamanic ambient
Harmbient = hard ambient
Oh!mbient = surprising ambient
Smarmbient = Intelligent ambient
Dumbient = Unintelligent ambient
Indumbient = industrial ambient
Dambient = dark ambient
Dimbient = slightly less dark ambient
Clambient = classically-tinged ambient
Trambient = traditional ambient
Grambient = ambient your gran might like
Mumbient = ambient your Mum might like
Flimflambient = insubstantial pretentious ambient
Jambient = ambient with an improv element.
Wambamthankyoumambient = a taxonomic domain into which you may conveniently place anything in a post-Bowie vein.

Nihilists may be referred to the Amnotbient list.
Third persons to Isbient.
Pluralists to Arebient
Minimalists to mbnt

(thanks Alan Lockett)

Ambien = non-habit forming ambient
(Brent Colflesh)

Ommbient = far eastern-tinged ambient
(Rob :: db)

Wombient - Drone ambient that simulates environments outside of the womb; music for the womb.
(Jacob Newman)

Well now I'm finally getting a map of the complete genre!
Please post your own valuable additions too.

It seems there’s an ongoing outbreak of Buddha Machine–inspired releases…

Only a few days ago I reported about the ‘Buddha Jukebox’, containing all sorts of remixes based on the original Buddha Machine samples. One day later I stumble across this Robert 'Monolake' Henke release. (One track of his CD is also featured on the Jukebox Buddha: check the sample track below).

Compared to the Jukebox Buddha, there’s quite a different feel. Whereas the Jukebox Buddha explores all possible surfaces of the Buddha Machine, Henke dives deep into the soul of it. He has magnified the sounds, enhanced the unheard artifacts and created a layered soundspace that has ZEN written all over it.

It’s astonishingly beautiful (and not unlike his last year’s ‘Signal to Noise’ release).

Conceptually it’s lightyears away from the original FM3 Buddha machine, which was deliberately lo-fi and poor sounding.
But that really doesn’t matter at all. The Buddha Machine now has its own spin off of peaceful sounding drone recordings - would FM3 ever have imagined that their lo-fi anti-Ipod machine would ultimately lead to a whole new sub-genre??

Note:
The  original Buddha Machine sounds and the CD spinoffs will be featured in the FOLIO show early 2007.

About a year ago the chinese duo FM3 released the Buddha Machine. 9 short ambient loops, to be played through a lo-fi plastic player with a deliberate crappy speaker. The ultimate 'Anti-Ipod' concept created an instant hype, and even those that cannot stand ambient music fell in love with this device after holding it. (The Buddha Machine is still available, so get one while you can).

A full year later we hear the beloved samples again on the cd Jukebox Buddha, in compositions much more complex. Among the artists showing their respect are some well-known names: Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Adrian Sherwood/Doug Wimbish, Robert Henke, Thomas Fehlmann, Blixa Bargeld, Sun O))). 
Impressing electronics for the more adventurous listener. Pay honour to the conceptual statement the Buddha Machine was/is.

Geir Jenssen, aka Biosphere, has conquered Tibet’s Cho Oyu –the sixth heighest mountain of the world. That, in itself, is a quite remarkable fact. Climbing mountains this high involves a lot of waiting,  to accomodate to the changing circumstances - and at those moments the Minidisc recorder came in handy. The beautiful package of Cho Oyu 8102 m – Field Recordings from Tibet contains a diary of this journey, as well as said field recordings.

The fact that this is released under Geir’s own name and not as Biosphere, is a statement in itself. This is not meant as musical compositions, it’s a Tibet soundscape. Still, in Geir’s hands, the use of the samples has a distinct musical quality, not unlike the Biosphere projects. It’s a document in itself - you can almost feel the impressive landscape, and imagine quite clearly how it feels to slowly lose contact with civilization ( the shortwave radio recordings like the sample track here). And how hard the journey itself can be (Neighbours on oxygen).

It must be the fact that these sounds illustrate Geir’s personal struggle with the mountain that makes this CD much more impressive than the latest Biosphere release Dropsonde.

The sound of Goldmund (Keith Kenniff's) piano on this record definitely reminds me of the early Harold Budd recording The Serpent (in Quicksilver).
The intimately recorded piano sound (including all pedal movements and instument cracking), the emotional melancholy themes...
Take, for example, this first track: 'Unbraiding the Sun'. It's only 1'33'', but put it on repeat and you've got a beautiful Satie-esque soundtrack.

The music of this short 6-track 7" will haunt you much longer that the 10 minutes of music it consists.

Note 24-08-2009:
This mix can be found on the revised weblog now: check HERE!

To celebrate the start of a new radio program series of Folio, a program dedicated to ambient and electronic music in which I will participate monthly, the october programs of Folio will feature a 5 hour selection of some of my previous ambient mixes for the NPS.

The fifth part of these re-broadcasts is "Klanksluis" from 2002, scheduled for october 31. "Klanksluis" was commissioned for the Polderlicht Festival in Amsterdam in 2001. Here is the playlist:

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This, as you may guess, is not intended as ‘easy background ambient’.  The result is not unlike some of Thomas Köner's work - but it's the concept that makes is almost frightening.

Someone mentioned this hilarious animation, entirely from album covers...it's a must-see for anyone that remembers the good old times of vinyl collection. I bet you see quite a few from your own collection (come on, admit it   ). Just try to count them!

Here's the link (No ambient content, by the way)

A local independent production most of the time is not a good one to judge – most of these can be categorized as ‘sympathetic’ only. Imagine my surprise when I started listening to this CD an I could not leave my place until it got finished...only to hit the 'replay' button.

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By definition, ‘ambient music’ cannot be 'vocal music' unless only wordless syllables are sung (by my traditional definition, that is). Recognisable text generally asks too much attention, and singing almost always requires chords that can be ‘remembered’ easily. Still – in the last year I have heard some great examples of music that defies this narrow definition. There are quite a few examples of “songs” that work very well with a clearly ambient, droney background. For a good example, listen to Wheely Down cover by the Uncertain Music Corps.

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Tor Lundvall’s name has been a bit of a buzz in the ambient community recently. Contrary to what you may expect, he’s not living in Scandinavia but in New York. And he’s not only a musician but also a painter, as can be seen on his website http://www.torlundvall.com/.

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I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again: Michel Banabila's music (a well-balanced fusion of electronic, ambient, jazz and ethnic music) deserves much more attention, and not only in Europe! 
To get a good impression of his versatility, you can check the myspace accounts listed below. Or read the 'Hilarious Expedition' weblog entry earlier. Or just click the icon below to listen to 'Oh No Uaredeo' with Salar Asid on violin).

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Rune Grammofon does it again! Can you imagine what ‘electronic’ music based on the sound of a ram’s horn, a cow’s horn and a harpeleiki (a norwegian zither) could sound like? Well - in fact it sounds a bit like the compositions of Information’s ‘Biomekano’, because that’s where Per Henrik Svalastog comes from. Only this time the sound is much more natural (as opposed to electronic), due to the nature of the instruments used. This is a complete new definition of the electro-acoustic genre. Fascinating!

Although Keith Kenniff's (aka Helios, aka Goldmund) music is labelled as 'ambient' in fact it's nothing like it. At least not in my definition of the genre. There's way too much melody and rhythm in it, you could even hum along...
It's not just strictly electronics - there's a soft guitar, piano, laid back percussion. This is the sort of music that feels like a warm bath. It's very 'friendly' music...opposite to the dark threatening atmosphere that ambient drones sometimes have.
Sounds a bit like Susumu Yokota on his better works, and, yes indeed, Goldmund.

To say that I was touched by "Melody Mountain", by Susanna and the Magical Orchestra would be an understatement. In fact, it hit me quite hard.
It may seem a bit strange to have an entry on this blog about a vocal cd containing pop covers...if it weren't for the music in the background. This sparse, mainly electronic music will certainly appeal to the ambient music fan. It is created by jaga Jazzist keyboard player Morten Qvenild and produced by Deathprod (Supersilent) - who is well known for his own ambient music and his collaboration with Biosphere. Backed by this (almost ambient) soundtrack, Susanna's voice sounds even more intimate and honest.

The selection of artists covered may well raise an eyebrow (or two): Prince, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, AC/DC (!!), Kiss (!!!!), Depeche Mode, Fairport Convention (the cover of Fotheringay is especially moving) , and the inevitable Joy Division (sampled here). If you like Nouvelle Vague but think they were a bit too light-hearted, be sure to try out Melody Mountain!

At the start of the new radio season, a new program is scheduled for tuesday nights: FOLIO.
Folio will be focussing on ambient, electronic, experimental music and soundscapes. 
From november, the programs will be totally new (watch this blog for more news about this program), but in september and october FOLIO will celebrate it's new start start with a series of rebroadcasts of remarkable broadcasts from the past.
I am very proud that all october programs will contain one of the mixes from the past years!
This totals 5 hours (I'm lucky the last tuesday of this month is Oct 31) of ambient-electronic mixes!

This is a great chance for those that missed the earlier broadcasts: be sure to catch 'em this time.

FOLIO is broadcast on the dutch Concertzender/Radio 6, every tuesday night from 0:00 - 01:00 (GMT+1)..
Since this is cable radio, you'll have to check HERE for your local cable frequencies (or use the familiar Concertzender frequency).

If you cannot receive Concertzender/Radio 6 (no cable, or not dutch), you can click the 'live audio' link on the same page to listen to a realtime webstream. There a three versions available for various bandwidths.
(Note: there's a cool Yahoo widget too on this page, so you never have to look up this info again)

Schedule:
03-10 - "Vergeten Tijd" (2002)
10-10 - "Mantra of Walls and Wiring" (2005)
17-10 - "Ambient Mix #3" (2000)
24-10 - "Peinzing, part 1" (2003) (slightly shortened for this broadcast)
31-10 - "Klanksluis" (2002)

You can still find all playlists for these programs here

Recently the Impakt festival in my hometown presented a ‘street’ version of the Dreamlines Project, originally created by Argentinian artist Leonardo Solaas for the internet. We’ve seen this kind of image-gathering trick done before (using Google or Flickr image collections), but never with results as beautiful as this! 

As the information states: “Dreamlines is a non-linear, interactive visual experience. The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association.“

Yes – this is generative ambient art! It’s your visual companion to your ambient soundtrack.
So…start up the sound (by clicking the ‘play all available tracks’ above right), open up a new browser screen through the link below, enter some random keywords and enjoy…. 

Some examples? Just click here for the ambient association. Funny thing: entering four-letter words has equally aesthetic results (but with harsher colours). And just entering black is equally enchanting..

Thanks, Leonardo, for this beautiful vision.

If you're a fan of the music of Bill Laswell, then probably you're also one of the followers that cannot seem to get enough of that stuff! Check out www.sacreddub.com.
Apart from a wealth of information, hot news, and an extensive discography, the collection of downloadable podcasts is especially interesting. At time of writing there are already 13 available, each one lasting one hour, and complete with full track details!

As the title suggests, these podcast focus on Laswell's (ambient-) dub experiments. Apart from Laswell's own music there's also interesting material from artists closely related to his style. The nonstop mixes are available as 128 Kbit MP3-files, which is good enough to listen on your MP3-player. Polish up your internet connection and start downloading before it's too late!

Ambient electronic music sometimes seems to lack self-relativism and humour. That's why track-titles like "ECM Haircuts" or "Sign Everyone in Iceland" call for immediate attention.

"Excellent Swimmer" - the latest Modern Institute Album on Expanding Records - has just the right mix of relativism and seriousness, and a perfect blend of electronic and acoustic sounds too..

It's Martina Bertoni (on cello) and Teho Teardo (on everything else) - with a little help from Mark Beazley (Rothko) on the track you can listen here (called "post.ino"). 

"Excellent Swimmer" defies standard genres; there's quite a lot of references found in it...sometimes it even reminded me of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

Nice. Or more than nice - Great!

Environmental ambient music. Peace & Quiet, Whales, Birds. The reassuring sounds of the city. The dreamlike landscapes of your subconscious mind.
Most of us hardly have any serious worries.

Mazen Kerbaj is a musician playing improvised music using his trumpet in a sort of Arve Henriksen style.
He is living in Beirut. Hís environmental sound at this very moment is the sound of the Israeli airplanes bombing his city.

On the night of 15/16 july 2006 he recorded this track ("Starry Night") on the balcony of his flat in Beirut.
This is where environmental music gets very, very frightening.

We already enjoyed Pole, of course, and Deadbeat, and don't forget Rhythm & Sound. And now from London comes Burial with this self-titled CD.
The genre is called 'DubStep' - and there are quite a lot of new electronic DJ's exploring it. Lot of times it sounds flat, one-dimensional, analogue and not very inspiring. But every genre has it's geniuses.
Burial is a very good example of how adventurous this new music can be. Neither Dance(-able) nor Reggae, neither ambient nor classic dub. Yet all of these at the same time, and very heavily electronic. A bit like Adrian Sherwood mixes from another dimension...??On the 'Hyperdub' label, which describes it as "Burial’s parallel dimension sounds set in a near future South London underwater. You can never tell if the crackle is the burning static off pirate radio transmissions, or the tropical downpour of the submerged city outside the window. In their sometimes suffocating melancholy, most of these tracks seem to yearn for drowned lovers."

'The tropical downpour of the submerged city' ...(well it wás quite hot in London, that's true)....'yearn for drowned lovers'...Just top thát for a description!

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...And while in London, the inevitable visite to the Tate Modern Museum brought an unexpected auditive experience:Bill Fontana's 'Harmonic Bridge' sound installation.
Just imagine a massively immersing multi-channel sound in the Turbine Hall pictured above!

In this installation, the Millennium Bridge acts as a giant string instruments. The processed sounds can be heard in the Tate Turbine Hall, as well as in London Underground's Southwark Station (both locations are linked by this Millennium Bridge).

You can find more information HERE: 
"A network of vibration sensors have been placed within the bridge turning it into a vast stringed instrument which plays an ever-changing musical composition based on it's surrounding environment. The noise created by pedestrians passing overhead, the wind, bicycles and the architectural elements which make up the bridge have been transformed into a sound installation which can be heard simultaneously in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall and also at Southwark Underground station."

The sound from the bridge is picked up through "accelerometers" and is processed and transformed into "live sonic mappings". As this sounds like a live (real time) process, I wondered why the sounds faded sometime to periods of silence - as this resulted in a bit of a pre-recorded feel..
The answer is in the project description on the artists website: "The work would enter the space as a slow moving wave, emerging from the ground tone of the background hum and then slowly decaying back into it."

This installation is extended until august, 23. So when you're heading for London be sure to visit the Tate Turbine Hall. Use the Underground, get off at Southwark Station and be sure to bang the bridge heavily while crossing it!

If you have a reasonable internet connection, decent sound speakers, some spare time and if you're not afraid of Flash and/or Shockwave plugins, you'll find some lovely online audio tools here. Some only for laughs, some quite serious and some ridiculous. Enough for a good night of fun!

My personal favourites: the Grotran Pianos (try the Satie - let it play for a while and it'll get quite generative), the DJ trainer (reggae version), and the best of all: I know where BRUCE LEE lives!

Away for a small vacation in the next weeks...visiting London and Oxfordshire...
Expect much more ambient clips upon return...

'Krazydad' Jim Bumgardner created quite a few amazing projects (involving Flickr photographs, for example, such as a caleidoscopic screensaver based on flickr photos). 
This particular one is based on the musical theories of John Whitney, as described in his book "Digital Harmony". While the theory may be for diehards only, most people will simply just enjoy the harmonic aesthetics. Play and enjoy!!

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Those of us that bought the original album back in 1981, would never have dreamt anything like this would ever be possible…:
To celebrate the re-release of Brian Eno & David Byrne’s “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” there’s an opportunity to remix two of the tracks yourself.
From the special remix website, you can download track-packs for “Help me Somebody” and “A Secret Life” and start working on them yourself.
Re-upload your mix, and you’re in..!

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Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is part of mankind’s collective memory – everyone knows and recognises it (or at least parts of it).
Can you possibly imagine how this 74 minute symphony would sound, if it was stretched to 24 full hours? I bet not. Still, it's worth a try. Leif Inge is the man who actually did this, and the resulting 9BeetStretch is unforgettable. If there’s a sound of infinity, this must be it.

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If Matthew Florianz can create a track like this from his 'discarded material', imagine what he can come up with when he's satisfied with the result!

By the way:
if you check Matthew's website (and you should!), check out (and listen closely to) the video he made of his 'Luchtkastelen' remix!

The musical worlds seem far apart, but still there's is a firm connection between (English) folk music roots and ambient drone music. (Just think of the drone of the bagpipe..)

This track is a beautiful reworking of the original Richard Thompson song (from "Henry the Human Fly, 1972"). Mark ‘Uncertain Music Corps’ Harrop revives this old time original and provides it with an ambient background that emotionally enhances the song and brings it back to life in a very contemporary way.

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I had a bit of trouble acccustomizing to this cd, because it is so diverse and has some rather fierce improvisational material on it. But after a few spins it finally got me hooked. The ‘duos’ (Lê alternately plays and improvises with trumpeteer Paolo Fresu and Oud-player Dhafer Youssef) are described as ‘musical dialogues in an electronic laboratory’, and that’s a well-fitting description. There’s very beautiful, inspired and adventurous music here. Sometimes resembling the sound of Nils Petter Molvaer, but with the focus more on jazz than dance. This is not ‘easy’ music, but you’ll be rewarded for your persistence. The sample track presented here - Thang Long - is a good example of the blend of world music roots, improvisational jazz end modern electronics.

Although this is a Jason ‘Bong-Ra’ Kohnen side project, there’s none of his usual mind-blowing breakcore to be heard here. It’s ‘dark jazz’ instead – inspired by and meant as a soundtrack for films like Metropolis and Nosferatu.
There’s a lot of beautiful atmospheric moments to be found: highlights are tracks like The Nothing Changes, Solomon’s Curse, Amyghdala, Guernican Perspective. These are, as you may have guessed, the more quiet tracks. At other times the music is nicely running off the rails for your more experimental experiences…

Just mention the words 'Kranky' (for the label), 'Loscil' (for the artist alias of Scott Morgan) and 'Plume' (for the cd title), and the experienced ambient listener that will know what to expect.  
This is the fourth full cd release since 2001 (after Triple Point, Submers and First Narrows). Again, it’s very good, as were the ones before. Comfortable atmosphere, beautiful sounds, never boring. And extremely peaceful.
"I opted to choose the better improvised passes and merely mix them in and out rather than cut them up. I think this leaves a lot more natural space and balances the heavily structured and repetitive electronic elements with more organic performed layers."

And if this wasn't enough, the free net release Stases can still be downloaded here!

The four one-hour radio shows that will be broadcast on Radio 4FM on the coming wednesday nights (april 5, 12, 19 & 26) will be available as a webstream for a week after the original broadcast.
After that, they will be gone forever, so be sure to capture them if you're interested.

Here's the schedule:

April 6-12: SPELLE - special about Akira Rabelai's project 'SpelleWaueRynsherde'
April 13-19: WAVE - first part of two one-hour uninterrupted ambient mix collages
April 20-26: RING - second part of two one-hour uninterrupted ambient mix collages
April 27-May 3: SHARDE - Iceland Music Special (NOT ambient!)

Thanks for your help & interest

The ‘Luchtkastelen’ (Castles of Air) Festival focuses on new music for church organ. |The festival will feature organ performances, improvisation performances, as wel as performers 'remixing' classical organ recordings.
This follow up to the 2000 edition of this festival can be enjoyed on three days on different locations: April 22 in Utrecht, may 13 in Amsterdam and may 20 in Rotterdam.

Apart from all live performances, traditional church organ music will be remixed by Matthew Florianz, Arno Peeters and myself.
"Asma Morgana" is my deconstructed version "Andante Cantabile", played by famous dutch musician Feike Asma. Mixed by ... yours truly !! (Click 'Read More' to listen)

Check the website link for more information and program details in English.
[The remaining post is written in Dutch.]

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Anyone that has experienced the magnificent 'Le Pas Du Chat Noir' (2002), will know what to expect from this follow-up. It's the same line-up: Anouar Brahem (Oud), Francois Couturier (Piano) and Jean-Louis Matinier (Accordion). It's also the same beauty. Stylish, introspective lyrical compositions that have their root in French melancholy as well as in Tunisian passion. This is not just for the jazz- or ethno-purist audience, it's simply too beautiful for that. Try it.

The music on this disc is just incidentally something remotely 'ambient'. Most of the time it's experimental electronic music, vaguely remembering the avant-garde scene from the late 60's and seventies. At first listen, that is. When you listen more closely, you'll hear that this music perfectly fits the 2006 timeframe. It's clicks, cuts, hums and bleeps, but there's something most other recordings in this field mostly seem to lack: emotion. (It's exactly th?t in which this music resembles Murcof's 'Remembranza')
It's the perfect blending of Zazou's electronics with strings (played by Archea Strings) that makes this music stand out compared to a lot other releases in the same field. That, ?nd the help of some of his friends: Brian Eno (performing onthree tracks), Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Sylvian and Peter Buck (!? Peter Buck of R.E.M. fame!?).
It's not often that projects like this 'touch' me like this one does: most are too arty, or too pretentious, or just not interesting. This project proves that Zazou is a master in this field of experimental electronic and it must have been the work of Bernard Caillaud that inspired him to do this.

Apart from the audio cd, the package contains a DVD with the 5.1 surround remixes (!) of the music accompanying the digital artwork of Bernard Caillaud. There is no direct (intended) relation between the music and the computer art, but both perfectly fit each other. This really turns your living room into a modern art gallery!

Both discs are packaged respectfully, along with 10 reprints of Caillaud's work (one for each track).
Commercially, this release may be a risky one when compared to Zazou's earlier projects. Praise to Materiali Sonori (the label) for taking that risk.

2006 celebrates the 10th anniversary of a musical revolution that hardly anyone noticed.
In 1996, a company called SSeyo released the first version of their KOAN musical software. An incredible ingenious piece of work that introduced the concept of “Generative Music” – music that chooses it’s own path from a set of rules and parameters, and sounded slightly different every time it is played.

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