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Ambient music

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I started listening to ambient music a few years ago, starting with Brian Eno. But I didn’t start at the obvious place—Music for Airports, Eno’s canonical ambient album from 1976 that launched the genre. No, I started with Reflection, the first serious release of Eno’s iterative music; that is, music based on an algorithm that essentially composes itself. I was fascinated by that because I found that this music satisfied impressively Eno’s definition of ambient music as being as interesting as it was ignorable. It could work as background music as well as being foregrounded as serious music, which, frankly, much of it is.

It was in Italy, in the fall of 2018, when I ventured beyond Brian Eno. As I took my daily walks around the ancient town of Sansepolcro, I would often listen to ambient music softly through my phone. I became particularly fond of Moby’s Hotel: Ambient, especially the two versions of Live Forever, which if scored for orchestra (easily enough done, I would think) could become a concert hall staple. They are really that good!

Alas, as always happens with genre boundaries, there is a wide range of music now that can be labeled ambient, and, frankly, much of what I hear so labeled really isn’t ambient. Conversely, on streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, what have you, there is much music labeled new age or alternative or even electronic that should be considered ambient. For example, Steve Roach is an important composer of ambient music; but there is little consistency on the streaming services about how his albums are labeled with respect to genre. This is a pity, because one can’t just search for ambient music on these services: you would miss too much good stuff! You have to do your own exploring.

I’ll leave you with a few suggestions for exploring ambient music, beginning with the albums I’ve already referenced above.

And there’s much more.

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