Coordinates	56°20′″N36°42′″N
Name	Ambient music
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Electronic art musicMinimalist musicDrone musicPsychedelic rockKrautrockSpace rockFrippertronics |cultural_origins = early 1970s, United Kingdom |instruments = Electronic musical instruments, Electroacoustic music instruments, and any other instruments or sounds (including World instruments) with electronic processing |popularity = Low, mainly based in the European Union, but growing interest in the USA thanks to association with post-rock. |derivatives = Ambient house – Ambient techno – Chillout – Downtempo – Trance – Intelligent dance |subgenres = Dark ambient – Drone music – Lowercase – Black ambient – Detroit techno – Shoegaze |subgenrelist =:Category:Ambient music |fusiongenres = Ambient dub – Illbient – Psybient – Ambient industrial – Ambient house – Space music - Post-rock |regional_scenes = |other_topics = Ambient music artists – List of electronic music genres – Furniture music }} Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.

History

The roots of ambient music go back to the early 20th century. In particular, the period just before and after the first world war gave rise to two significant art movements that encouraged experimentation with various musical (and non musical) forms, while rejecting more conventional, tradition-bound styles of expression. These art movements were called Futurism and Dadaism. Aside from being known for their painters and writers, these movements also attracted experimental and 'anti-music' musicians such as Francesco Balilla Pratella of the pre-war Futurism movement and Kurt Schwitters and Erwin Schulhoff of the post-war Dadaist movement. The latter movement played an influential role in the musical development of Erik Satie.

As an early 20th century French composer, Erik Satie used such Dadaist-inspired explorations to create an early form of ambient / background music that he labeled "furniture music" (''Musique d'ameublement''). This he described as being the sort of music that could be played during a dinner to create a background atmosphere for that activity, rather than serving as the focus of attention. From this greater historical perspective, Satie is the link between these early Art movements and the work of Brian Eno, who as an art school trained musician, had an appreciation of both the music and art worlds.

Alongside these early developments, more conventional forms of music began to take note of such experimentation and in turn gave rise to future influence of ambient in the work of modernists composers such as John Cage and Morton Feldman as well as minimalist composers such as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. Douglas Leedy's Entropical Paradise, released as a three LP set by Seraphim in 1971, consisting of six, side-long, compositions of "environmental music", in which single modular synthesizer settings were allowed to play out without further intervention.

Brian Eno is generally credited with coining the term "Ambient Music" in the mid-1970s to refer to music that, as he stated, can be either "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". Eno, who describes himself as a "non-musician", termed his experiments in sound as "treatments" rather than as traditional performances. Eno used the word "ambient" to describe music that creates an atmosphere that puts the listener into a different state of mind; having chosen the word based on the Latin term "ambire", "to surround".

The album notes accompanying Eno's 1978 release ''Ambient 1: Music for Airports'' include a manifesto describing the philosophy behind his ambient music: "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."

Eno has acknowledged the influence of Erik Satie and John Cage. In particular, Eno was aware of Cage's use of chance such as throwing the ''I Ching'' to directly affect the creation of a musical composition. Eno then utilised a similar method of weaving randomness into his compositional structures. This approach was manifested in Eno's creation of Oblique Strategies, where he used a set of specially designed cards to create various sound dilemmas that in turn, were resolved by exploring various open ended paths, until a resolution to the musical composition revealed itself. Eno also acknowledged influences of the drone music of La Monte Young (of whom he said, "La Monte Young is the daddy of us all") and of the mood music of Miles Davis and Teo Macero, especially their 1974 epic piece, "He Loved Him Madly", about which Eno wrote, "that piece seemed to have the 'spacious' quality that I was after...it became a touchstone to which I returned frequently."

Beyond the major influence of Brian Eno, other musicians and bands added to the growing nucleus of music that evolved around the development of "Ambient Music". While not an exhaustive list, one cannot ignore the parallel influences of Wendy Carlos, who produced the original music piece called "Timesteps" which was then used as the filmscore to ''Clockwork Orange'', as well as her later work ''Sonic Seasonings''. Other significant artists such as Mike Oldfield, Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis have all added to or directly influenced the evolution of ambient music. Adding to these individual artists, works by groups such as Pink Floyd, through their albums ''Ummagumma'', ''Meddle'' and ''Obscured by Clouds''. The Yellow Magic Orchestra developed a distinct style of ambient electronic music that would later be known as ambient house music. Other groups including Yes with their album ''Tales from Topographic Oceans'', the Hafler Trio and Kraftwerk have all added distinctive aspects to the growing and diversified genre of ambient music.

1990s: Developments

By the early 1990s artists such as The Orb, Aphex Twin, Seefeel, the Irresistible Force, Geir Jenssen's Biosphere, and the Higher Intelligence Agency were being referred to by the popular music press as ambient house, ambient techno, IDM or simply "ambient" according to the liner notes of Brian Eno's ''Ambient 1: Music for Airports'':

So-called 'Chillout' began as a term deriving from British ecstasy culture which was originally applied in relaxed downtempo 'chillout rooms' outside of the main dance floor where ambient, dub and downtempo beats were played to ease the tripping mind.

The London scene artists, such as Aphex Twin (specifically: ''Selected Ambient Works Volume II'', 1994), Global Communication (''76:14'', 1994), FSOL The Future Sound of London (''Lifeforms'', ''ISDN''), The Black Dog (''Temple of Transparent Balls'', 1993), Autechre (''Incunabula'', 1993, ''Amber''), Boards of Canada, and The KLF's seminal ''Chill Out'', 1990, all took a part in popularising and diversifying ambient music where it was used as a calming respite from the intensity of the hardcore and techno popular at that time.

Later in the period much experimental electronica (particularly sound artists such as Pole, Mika Vainio, Ryoji Ikeda, Christian Fennesz, Aphex Twin (''drukQs'', 2000) and Autechre expanded the themes of 'ambient' along the lines of earlier 1970s ambient music & dub but with increasingly abstracted sample-based textures and digital electronics that ultimately began to converge with minimalist compositions and music concrete.

Digital era musicians and sound artists, including Brian Eno are notable in their attempts to create 'sonic sculptures' which interact with the physical architecture of the listening space using advanced electronic installations.

Literally 'ambient' field recordings are a specialism of the Touch Music label. Forerunner of this species in Poland is Brunette Models (since 1995). The electroacoustic influence can be heard in the contemporary work of Polish artist Jacaszek (since 2008).

Glitch music is a major subset of this work produced by (mainly German) labels such Mille Plateaux (Clicks & Cuts Series, 2000).

Some dubstep producers, notably Burial and Kites (Bristol ambient dubstep) have nostalgically referenced the sonic 'post-rave' ambience of the nineties era.

Soundtracks

Ambient music has been used in many video games, television shows and motion pictures and is notable for contributing to their atmosphere, or soundscapes. David Lynch's 1984 film ''Dune'', for example, forgoes the epic sci-fi adventure style theme music popularized by ''Star Wars'' in favor of a more atmospheric music score by Toto and Brian Eno. Electronic musician Paddy Kingsland is noted for the music style he brought to several serials of the television series ''Doctor Who'' which had until then relied mostly on stock music cues or minimal music for much of its history. The video game trilogy ''Fallout'' and its spinoffs use ambient music that sometimes contains gentle rumblings to portray the bleakness of the post-apocalyptic world which the games are set in. Relic Entertainment's 1999 game ''Homeworld'' uses such music to highlight the vast emptiness of the areas of deep space the Mothership often finds itself in. Another game series that uses ambient music is the Oddworld games, notably ''Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath''. That music was composed by Michael Bross. The games featured in Valve's Half-Life series, including spinoffs such as Portal, feature ambient music soundtracks by composers Kelly Bailey and Mike Morasky. The EA Game ''Mirror's Edge'' also used ambient music, composed and produced by Magnus Birgersson under his guise Solar Fields, to give a futuristic feel or puzzling atmosphere to sections of the game. The Sci-Fi horror game ''Doom 3'' uses an ambient soundtrack made by former drummer Chris Vrenna of the band Nine Inch Nails, instead of having a song, mainly a MIDI file, looped through the entire map.

Related and derivative genres

Organic ambient music

Organic ambient music is characterised by integration of electronic, electric, and acoustic musical instruments. Aside from the usual electronic music influences, organic ambient tends to incorporate influences from world music, especially drone instruments and hand percussion. Organic ambient is intended to be more harmonious with nature than with the disco. Some of the artists in this sub-genre include Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana, O Yuki Conjugate, Voice of Eye, Vir Unis, James Johnson, Loren Nerell, Atomic Skunk, Tuu and Robert Scott Thompson.

Some works by ambient pioneers such as Brian Eno, Laraaji or Popol Vuh who use a combination of traditional instruments (such as piano or hammered dulcimer or hand percussion, though usually processed through tape loops or other devices) and electronic instruments, would be considered New Age / organic ambient music in this sense. In the 1970s and 1980s, Klaus Schulze often recorded string ensembles and performances by solo cellists to go along with his extended Moog synthesizer workouts.

Nature-inspired ambient music

The music is composed from samples and recordings of naturally occurring sounds. Sometimes these samples can be treated to make them more instrument-like. The samples may be arranged in repetitive ways to form a conventional musical structure or may be random and unfocused. Sometimes the sound is mixed with urban or "found" sounds. Examples include much of Biosphere's ''Substrata'', Mira Calix's insect music and Chris Watson's ''Weather Report''. Some overlap occurs between organic ambient and nature-inspired New Age. One of the first albums in the genre, Wendy Carlos' ''Sonic Seasonings'', combines sampled and synthesized nature sounds with ambient melodies and drones for a particularly relaxing effect. ''Transformation'' by Suzanne Doucet and Christian Buehner and the album ''Second Nature'' by Bill Laswell, Tetsu Inoue, and Atom Heart are ambient album that use processed nature sounds, with reverb and echo to create a hypnotic environment.

Dark ambient

Dark ambient is a general term for any kind of ambient music with a "dark" or dissonant feel, but often involves extensive use of digital reverb to create vast sonic spaces for frightening, bottom-heavy sounds such as deep drones, gloomy male chorus, echoing thunder, and distant artillery. It has an eerie feel; the term "isolationist ambient" could be used interchangeably with it according to the listener or artists perspective. Some artists and releases that epitomize the style could include Bass Communion's ''Ghosts on Magnetic Tape'' and ''Vajrayana'', Lull's ''Cold Summer'', Controlled Bleeding's ''The Poisoner'', and the Robert Rich/Lustmord collaboration album ''Stalker''. Related styles include ambient industrial and isolationist ambient.

Ambient house

Ambient house is a musical category founded in the late 1980s that is used to describe acid house featuring ambient music elements and atmospheres. Tracks in the ambient house genre typically feature four-on-the-floor beats, synth pads, and vocal samples integrated in an atmospheric style. Ambient house tracks generally lack a diatonic center and feature much atonality along with synthesized chords. Illbient is another form of ambient house music.

Ambient industrial

Ambient industrial is a hybrid genre of ambient and industrial music; the term industrial being used in the original experimental sense, rather than in the sense of industrial metal or EBM. A "typical" ambient industrial work (if there is such a thing) might consist of evolving dissonant harmonies of metallic drones and resonances, extreme low frequency rumbles and machine noises, perhaps supplemented by gongs, percussive rhythms, bullroarers, distorted voices or anything else the artist might care to sample (often processed to the point where the original sample is no longer recognizable). Entire works may be based on radio telescope recordings, the babbling of newborn babies, or sounds recorded through contact microphones on telegraph wires.

Among the many artists who work in this area are Coil, CTI, Lustmord, Nine Inch Nails, Susumu Yokota, Hafler Trio, Nocturnal Emissions, Zoviet France, Scorn, PGR, Thomas Köner, Heimkveld Kunst, Controlled Bleeding, and Deutsch Nepal. However many of these artists are very eclectic in their output, with much of it falling outside of ambient industrial per se.

Space music

Space music, also spelled spacemusic, includes music from the ambient genre as well as a broad range of other genres with certain characteristics in common to create the experience of contemplative spaciousness. Space music ranges from simple to complex sonic textures sometimes lacking conventional melodic, rhythmic, or vocal components, generally evoking a sense of "continuum of spatial imagery and emotion", beneficial introspection, deep listening and sensations of floating, cruising or flying.

Space music is used by individuals for both background enhancement and foreground listening, often with headphones, to stimulate relaxation, contemplation, inspiration and generally peaceful expansive moods and soundscapes. Space music is also a component of many film soundtracks and is commonly used in planetariums, as a relaxation aid and for meditation.

''Hearts of Space'' is a well-known radio show and affiliated record label, specializing in space music since 1984, having released over 150 albums devoted to the music style. Notable artists who have brought elements of ambient music to space music include Michael Stearns, Constance Demby, Jean Ven Robert Hal, Enigma, Jean Michel Jarre, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Numina, Dweller at the Threshold, Paul Ellis, Deepspace, Telomere, Max Corbacho, Jonn Serrie, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream (as well as the group's founder Edgar Froese), and Vangelis.

Isolationist ambient music

Isolationist ambient music, also known as isolationism, can be differentiated from other forms of ambient music in its use of repetition, dissonance, microtonality, and unresolved harmonies to create a sense of unresolved unease and desolation. The term was popularized in the mid-1990s by the British magazine ''The Wire'' and the ''Ambient 4: Isolationism'' compilation from Virgin, this began as more or less a synonym for ambient industrial, but also inclusive of certain post-metal streams of ambient, such as Final, Lull, Main, or post-techno artists such as Autechre and Aphex Twin. It may be less appropriate to call isolationist ambient a genre than using it to describe the style or "feel" of particular works by an artist working in an ambient mode. This is because many artists better known for other styles of work can occasionally create pieces that "sound" isolationist. (For example, Labradford, Seefeel, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Techno Animal, Voice of Eye, KK Null, etc.) There are many labels releasing work that could be termed isolationist ambient, among these are Malignant Records, Cold Spring, Manifold Records, Soleilmoon, and The Sombient label with the "drones" compilation series. Some of the artists known for this style of ambient music include Lull, Final, Bass Communion, Deutsch Nepal, Inanna, Negru Voda, Thomas Köner, Robert Fripp, Steven Wilson, and Chuck Hammer (Guitarchitecture).

Of late there has been an influx of progressive metal artists who have clear ambient influences. Bands such as Cult of Luna, Isis, Devil Sold His Soul, Porcupine Tree, and Between the Screams have pioneered the genre and are largely credited with popularizing the sound. These bands are largely known as post-metal.

Ambient dub

Ambient dub is a phrase first coined by the now defunct Beyond Records from early 1990s in Birmingham, England. Their defining series of albums ''Ambient Dub 1, 2, through to 4'' inspired many, including sound engineer and producer Bill Laswell, who used the same phrase in his music project Divination, where he collaborates with different musicians on each album (though sometimes the same ones are on more than one of the albums such as Tetsu Inoue and others). Laswell also presented ambient dub and ambient house music on albums by his collaboration project Axiom Dub, featuring recording artists The Orb, Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit, Scorn and DJ Spooky.

Ambient dub involves the genre melding of dub styles made famous by King Tubby and other Jamaican sound artists with DJ inspired ambient electronica, complete with all the inherent drop-outs, echo, equalization and psychedelic electronic effects. As writer and performer David Toop explains in an early Beyond Records newsletter, "Dub music is like a long echo delay, looping through time...turning the rational order of musical sequences into an ocean of sensation."

Notable films incorporating ambient music or sound design

A lot of films have used ambient music in the past. These are the most famous ones:

''Forbidden Planet''

''2001: A Space Odyssey''

''Clockwork Orange''

''Mulholland Drive''

''Blade Runner''

''Donnie Darko''

''Mister Lonely''

''Traffic''

''The Prestige''

''Silent Hill

''Sunshine''

''The Lovely Bones''

''Solaris''

''Crash''

''The Social Network''

Notable ambient-music shows on radio and via satellite

''Echoes'', is a daily two-hour music radio program hosted by John Diliberto featuring a soundscape of ambient, spacemusic, electronica, new acoustic and new music directions – founded in 1989 and syndicated on 130 radio stations in the USA.

''Hearts of Space'', a program hosted by Stephen Hill and broadcast on NPR in the US since 1973.

''Musical Starstreams'', a US-based commercial radio station and internet program produced, programmed and hosted by Forest since 1981.

''Star's End'' a radio show on 88.5 WXPN, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1976, it is the second longest-running ambient music radio show in the world.

''Ultima Thule Ambient Music'', a weekly 90-minute show broadcast since 1989 on community radio across Australia.

''Ambient Zone'', a weekly 2-hour radio show broadcast on RTRFM in Perth since 1994.

See also

Background music

Black ambient

Drone music

Easy listening

New Age music

Glitch

Incidental music

Intelligent dance music (IDM)

Minimalist music

List of ambient artists

List of dark ambient artists

List of electronic music genres

References

External links

Ambient Techno in ''Sound on Sound''

Ambient Music Guide – Comprehensive ambient music resource site

Further examples of ambient music

Category:Electronic music genres Category:Ambient music

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Bruno Sanfilippo has been a musician and producer of ambient music since 1991.

He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1965. Later, he moved to Barcelona, Spain. There, Sanfilippo became a professor for music at the Galvani Conservatory in 1988. Ten years later, he founded the label ad21music. Since then he has contributed to several compilations and also collaborated on projects with Byron Metcalf, Mathias Grassow, Max Corbacho and Alio Die (Stefano Musso).

Through his contemplative music the intention is to transmit something other than emotional stimulus or simple entertainment. In dreams, there’s no imagined thing that’s too absurd, too strange. Sanfilippo's music comes from that inexhaustible source. It has been broadcast on radio shows such as Hearts of Space, Star's End, Echoes, Soma, Ultima Thule Ambient Music and StillStream.

Discography

''Sons of the Light'' (1991), ad21music

''The New Kingdom'' (1995), ad21music

''Solemnis'' (1998), ad21music

''Suite Patagonia'' (2000), ad21music

''Visualia'' (2003), Neuronium Records

''Indalo'' with Max Corbacho (2004), ad21music

''Ad Libitum'' (2004), ad21music

''Anthology 91-04'' (2005), Neuronium Records

''InTRO'' (2006), ad21music

''Piano Textures'' (2007), ad21music

''Ambessence Piano & Drones'' (with Mathias Grassow) (2008), ad21music

''Auralspace'' (April 2009), ad21music

''Piano Textures 2'' (2009), ad21music

''Cromo piano & drones (with Mathias Grassow)'' (2010), ad21music

''Subliminal Pulse'' (2011), Spotted Peccary

References

External links

Official Bruno Sanfilippo site

Category:People from Buenos Aires Category:Ambient musicians Category:Living people

Paul Collier, CBE is a Professor of Economics, Director for the Centre for the Study of African Economies at The University of Oxford and Fellow of St Antony's College. From 1998 – 2003 he was the director of the Development Research Group of the World Bank.

Life

Collier is a specialist in the political, economical and developmental predicaments of poor countries. He was brought up in Sheffield where he attended King Edward VII School. He holds a Distinction Award from Oxford University, and in 1988 he was awarded the ''Edgar Graham Book Prize'' for the co-written ''Labour and poverty in rural Tanzania: Ujamaa and rural development in the United Republic of Tanzania''.

''The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It'' (ISBN 0195311450), has been compared to Jeffrey Sachs's ''The End of Poverty'' and William Easterly's ''The White Man's Burden'', two influential books, which like Collier's book, discuss the pros and cons of developmental aid to developing countries.

His 2010 book ''The Plundered Planet'' is encapsulated in his formulas: Nature - Technology + Regulation = Starvation, Nature + Technology - Regulation = Plunder, and Nature + Technology + Regulation (Good governance) = Prosperity. The book describes itself as an attempt at a middle way between the extremism of "Ostriches" (Denialism, particularly climate change denial) and "Environmental Romanticism" (for example, anti-genetically modified organisms movements in Europe). The book is about sustainable management in relation with the geo-politics of global warming, with an attempt to avoid a global tragedy of the commons, with prime example of overfishing. In it he builds upon a legacy of the economic psychology of greed and fear, from early Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham) to more recently the Stern Review.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. He is a patron of the Media Legal Defence Initiative.

In 2010, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers.

He is currently working for the Copenhagen Consensus, where he is the expert on conflict.

Work

Research Topics

Governance in low-income countries, especially the political economy of democracy

Economic growth in Africa

Economics of civil war, aid, globalisation and poverty

The greed vs grievance debate in international relations

Selected Publications

''The Plundered Planet: Why We Must, and How We Can, Manage Nature for Global Prosperity'' (2010) ISBN 978-0195395259

''Labour and poverty in rural Tanzania: Ujamaa and rural development in the United Republic of Tanzania''

''The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It'' (ISBN 0195311450)

(with Anke Hoeffler) ‘On economic causes of civil war’ ''Oxford Economic Papers'', vol 50 iss 4, (1998), pp 563–573.

(with Anke Hoeffler) ‘Greed and grievance in civil war’ ''Oxford Economic Papers'', vol 56 iss 4, (2004), pp 563–595.

(with Lisa Chauvet and Haavard Hegre) 'The Security Challenge in Conflict-Prone Countries', Copenhagen Consensus 2008 Challenge Paper, (2008).

''Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places'', Harper, (March 2009)

Video

The Royal Economic Society's 2006 Annual Public Lecture, by Coller

Interview with Fareed Zakaria on Foreign Exchange

TED Conference, Paul Collier on "The Bottom Billion"

TED Conference, Paul Collier's new rules for rebuilding a broken nation

Press

Review of The Plundered Planet by the Financial Times

Review of the Bottom Billion by the Financial Times

Review of the Bottom Billion in The New York Times

Review of The Bottom Billion by William Easterly in The Lancet

Samuel Grove, "The Bottom of the Barrel: A Review of Paul Collier's ''The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done about It''."

See also

Environmental politics

Tanzania

References

External links

Paul Collier's home page at Oxford University

Links to downloadable research papers on Africa, Aid, Conflict, Political Economy and other topics

Interview with Paul Collier by J. Tyler Dickovick

Interview with the ''Oxonian Review'' in March 2009

Video of recent talk at Oxford University - "The Bottom Billion"

TED Talks: Paul Collier shares 4 ways to help the "bottom billion" at TED in 2008

Category:British economists Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:Sustainability advocates Category:Development specialists Category:Climate economists Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford Category:People educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield

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