Ambient (album)

Ambient is the second studio album by American electronica musician Moby, released in August 1993 by record label Instinct.

It received a mediocre critical reception. Ambient, unlike most other Moby studio albums, has never been re-released in a special-edition or a remastered issue.

Compositions

The album is composed of electronic ambient pieces, similar to Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works releases. Like the Aphex Twin releases, the work is mainly instrumental (although there are samples of the sound of a choir vocalizing on "Tongues", and a woman saying 'bad days' in the background of "Bad Days"). Many of the tracks are beat-driven, except "J Breas" and "Piano and String", which both use pianos and synthesizers. "Bad Days" uses a 'sweeping' synth effect, and "Sound" is a high pitched loop playing and fading out and in. "80" uses synths mimicking an acoustic guitar.

The album has an experimental, moody style. Many of the tracks (including "Bad Days" and "Lean on Me") are dark and unearthly. There are also some more uplifting numbers, like "Heaven", "Tongues" and "Dog", which are more beat driven, dancable numbers. The track "Myopia" uses a bubbling synth-bass style. "House of Blue Leaves" and "My Beautiful Blue Sky" are more experimental beat songs ("House of Blue Leaves" is a simple beat and some keyboards, and "My Beautiful Blue Sky" is a tribal rhythm, synths, and a piano).

Album

Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, then from 1948 as vinyl LP records played at 33 ¹⁄₃ rpm. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century albums sales have mostly focused on compact disc (CD) and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used in the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl.

An album may be recorded in a recording studio (fixed or mobile), in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to several years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately, and then brought or "mixed" together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live", even when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation, so as to assist in mixing different takes; other locations, such as concert venues and some "live rooms", allow for reverberation, which creates a "live" sound. The majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones; with each part recorded as a separate track.

Ambient

Ambient or Ambiance may refer to:

Music

Other

See also

Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno,RDI (/ˈiːnoʊ/; born 15 May 1948 and originally christened Brian Peter George Eno), professionally known as Brian Eno or simply Eno, is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music. Born in Suffolk, Eno studied under Roy Ascott at Ipswich Civic College and later attended Colchester Institute art school in Essex, England, taking inspiration from minimalist painting, cybernetics, and experimental music techniques during his time there. He joined the band Roxy Music as synthesiser player in the early 1970s. The group's success in the glam rock scene came quickly, but Eno soon became tired of touring and of conflicts with lead singer Bryan Ferry, leaving the group in 1973 to record innovative solo albums that would explore various styles and help pioneer ambient music.

Throughout the 1970s, Eno also worked as an influential collaborator and music producer, collaborating with Robert Fripp on the LPs (No Pussyfooting) (1973) and Evening Star (1975), David Bowie on his acclaimed "Berlin Trilogy," avant-garde musicians Jon Hassell and Harold Budd on several respective projects, and David Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (released 1981), and further producing the acclaimed "No Wave" compilation No New York (1978), three albums by New York post-punk group Talking Heads, and albums by new wave bands Devo and Ultravox, among others. In subsequent decades, he has produced or worked on albums by U2, James, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay, Paul Simon, Grace Jones, James Blake and Slowdive, among others. Eno has also pursued multimedia ventures in parallel to his music career, including his mid-1970s development of "Oblique Strategies" (written with Peter Schmidt), a deck of cards featuring cryptic aphorisms intended to break creative blocks and encourage lateral thinking.

Ambient 1: Music for Airports

Ambient 1: Music for Airports is the sixth studio album by Brian Eno. It was released by Polydor Records in 1978. The album consists of four compositions created by layering tape loops of differing lengths. It was the first of four albums released in Eno's "Ambient" series, a term which he coined to differentiate his experimental and minimalistic approach to composition from "the products of the various purveyors of canned music". Though it is not the earliest entry in the genre, it was the first album ever to be explicitly created under the label "ambient music."

Overview

Eno had previously created similarly quiet, unobtrusive music on albums such as Another Green World, Evening Star, Discreet Music, and Harold Budd's The Pavilion of Dreams (which he produced), but this was the first album to give it precedence as a cohesive concept.

The music was designed to be continuously looped as a sound installation, with the intent of defusing the tense, anxious atmosphere of an airport terminal. To achieve this, Eno sought to create music "as ignorable as it is interesting." Rather than brightening the atmosphere as typical background music does, Music for Airports is "intended to induce calm and a space to think." Eno conceived this idea while spending several hours waiting at Cologne Bonn Airport in Germany in the mid-1970s and being annoyed by the uninspired sound atmosphere.