Ambient Spotlight #11: Brian Eno - Apollo

Full album-name: "Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks". This album was originally recorded as a soundtrack for the documentary Apollo (For all mankind) in 1983. Songs of this album were later used in lots of other movies (Trainspotting) and tv-series. Brian Eno, Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois produced the album.

It's one of Brian Eno's warmest ambient albums, although there are some pieces that are inspired by country and western ('Silver Morning') and feel a bit out of place compared to the rest of the album.

Apart from that it's an excellent ambient album.

http://itunes.apple.com/album/apollo-atmospheres-soundtracks/id49814746

Ambient Spotlight #10: Mark Hollis

Maybe not strictly an ambient album, but who cares about labels if the music is stunningly beautiful!
This is the only solo-album from former Talk Talk frontman Mark Hollis, released in 1998. It’s inspired by 20th-century classical music and jazz from the late 1950s and 1960s.

The acoustic music is quite minimal, every note is there for a reason and full of emotion.

Did I mention that it's beautiful? ;-)

http://itunes.apple.com/album/mark-hollis/id14978331

Ambient Spotlight #9: The Dead Texan

The Dead Texan is an audio-visual musical duo comprising of Adam Wiltzie and video artist Christina Vantzou. Adam Wiltzie is known as one half of the ambient project Stars of the Lid (probably one of their albums will be covered in another Ambient Spotlight).

The music on this self-titled album is a combination of acoustic music (piano, guitar, strings) and electronic sounds and drones. It’s actually a CD/DVD package with visuals on the DVD.




Here’s a clip of one of the songs:
http://www.brainwashed.com/common/video/mov/the_dead_texan-aegina_airlines.mov

http://itunes.apple.com/album/the-dead-texan/id21770684

Ambient Spotlight #8: Pete Namlook - Silence III

German composer Pete Namlook (real name: Peter Kuhlmann) released a lot of ambient and electronic music albums on his FAX label. Besides solo-albums, he collaborated with a lot of artists, like Biosphere (Geir Jenssen), Richie Hawtin, Dr Atmo and Bill Laswell.

Among the many albums, he created the ‘Silence’ series (5 albums). The first Silence album was released in 1992 and this was the first release on his FAX label.

I especially like Silence III, which creates a beautiful atmosphere. Top ambient:
http://itunes.apple.com/album/silence-iii/id43569476

Ambient Spotlight #7: Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Boards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin. Their music has a warm, analog feel and often processed vocal samples are used in combination with beats.

Geogaddi is one of my favourite Boards of Canada albums. There are tracks with beautiful warm and light melodies and sometimes it’s seriously dark with driving beats.

http://itunes.apple.com/nl/album/geogaddi/id281208446

Ambient Spotlight #6: Locust - Weathered Well

This album is one of the reasons for me to get interested in ambient music and to start making ambient music myself. I heard it at the end of a party when my friend TC was playing this album in the room where I and some other people slept over. The track ‘Prospero’ did it for me, but also tracks like ‘Moist Moss’ and ‘Still’ have an atmosphere that I really like.

I’m talking about the album ‘Weathered Well’ from Locust alias Mark van Hoen. It was released in 1994 on Apollo records (sub-label of R&S records). Another great Locust album is ‘Morning light’ which is quite different. The songs have a more poppy, acoustic feel (including vocals) with an electronic edge.

Weathered Well:
http://itunes.apple.com/nl/album/weathered-well/id372794362

Morning Light:
http://itunes.apple.com/nl/album/morning-light-bonus-track/id334663996

Ambient Spotlight #5: Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports

Ambient Spotlight wouldn’t be complete with at least one album from the ‘godfather’ of Ambient music, Brian Eno, who is generally known for introducing the term ‘Ambient Music’ back in the 1970s.

His first complete ambient album was Ambient 1: Music for airports, which was released in 1978 on his own Ambient label. This album was one of a series of 4 ambient albums, labeled Ambient 1 to Ambient 4, all having a quite different atmosphere.

Eno’s inspiration for making Ambient 1 came after being stuck at Cologne Bonn Airport in Germany in the mid 70s. He had to spend several hours there and was extremely annoyed by the uninspired sound atmosphere. Eno’s definition of ambient music: "music that can be actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener", and that exists on the "cusp between melody and texture."

Enjoy!

http://itunes.apple.com/nl/album/ambient-1-music-for-airports/id29468379

Ambient Spotlight #4: Biosphere - Substrata

One of my all-time favorite ambient albums is Substrata (1997) from Biosphere (Geir Jenssen), which was (and is) a big inspiration for my own music.
This was his first completely beat-less ambient album.

The compositions and sounds are deep and beautiful sometimes containing samples, most notably from the tv-series Twin Peaks.

If you were to get only one ambient album for your music collection, Substrata has to be it.

http://www.biosphere.no/shop.html

Ambient Spotlight #3: Vangelis - Blade Runner (soundtrack)

The movie Blade Runner was released in 1982 and is one of my favorite movies, also because of the great soundtrack made by Vangelis. The atmosphere of the music fits the movie perfectly or actually enhances the atmosphere of the movie in my opinion. The soundtrack itself contains some famous monologues and dialogues from the movie (“have you ever retired a human by mistake?”).

The link below is pointing to the Blade Runner Trilogy, which was released in 2007 as a 25th anniversary box set. It contains more music and also some sketches from Vangelis that didn’t make it to the final version of the soundtrack.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/blade-runner-trilogy-music/id274024314

Ambient Spotlight #2: Global Communication - 76:14

Going through my ambient music collections, I found this great album from the year 1994 by Global Communication, called ’76:14’, which is the total playing time of the album. All tracks are named after their songlength. Global Communication consists of Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard. It’s a classic ambient album with nice downtempo grooves and beatless ambient.

http://itunes.apple.com/nl/album/76-14/id256182912

Ambient Spotlight #1: Cliff Martinez - Solaris

In Ambient Spotlight I’d like to inform you about great ambient albums that I either recently discovered or that I’d like to share with you for no particular reason.

This time the spotlight is on Cliff Martinez with his album ‘Solaris’ which is a soundtrack for the science fiction movie (you guessed it) Solaris from 2002. It’s a beautiful album with sometimes dreamy, sometimes dramatic orchestral pieces.

You can get a preview of this album via iTunes where you can buy it as well.