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I would assume some of you guys are well into ambient music...

This topic came to mind this morning as I'm listening to a record I purchased last year and haven't spun until today. I bought Urkaos II without during a huge sell-a-thon by Fallen Empire Records when they were still distributing international black metal albums here in the U.S. I bought it under the impression that it was another black metal album, as the album art looks like any other metal record - but to my pleasurable surprise, it turned out to be dark ambient soundscapes. Icy cold at that. Almost the sound of someone having hope while being held in Purgatory. Anyways, thought I would share because it is so surprisingly good...

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoKrN50ugE0[/video]

I love ambient. And that is a great release. Other top quality ambient stuff if recommend are as follows.....

Soundtrack wise you have to start with Valhalla if you like dark drone metal like sunn o)))

The tired sounds of stars of the lid is awesome,

Rainforest spiritual enslavement - dark water cannot pass

Biosphere - substrata

Loscil - sketches from new Brighton

Matt berry - music for insomniacs

Jon brooks - sharp wick

Plinth - music for smalls lighthouse

Global Communication - 76:14

Donato Dozzy - Voices From The Lake

Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works

The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World

All brilliant records!

I enjoyed Kiln meadow:watt

^^ all those as well^^

I've got a nice white label of 76:14

Oh add the klf chill out as well

Not so into the genre but I love Autechre, they have some awesome tracks.
My favourite, today.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqKOISC-kd8[/video]

You have to be a bit careful with Autechre - some of their later stuff is bangingly chaotic and a very long way from being ambient!!

If you fancy a bit of old skool, there are several excellent Eno albums and, of course, "Rainbow Dome Musick" by Steve Hillage - cosmic maaaaan!!

Autechre are good but they are IDM/ambient techno similar to deepchord who are also very good

@drrhythm - I know of Hillage, I have a few albums by him or with him playing...and yet I've never seen or heard Rainbow Dome before till now. I've been listening to it since I read your suggestion, and wow is it great! Absolutely in love with it. Could be very easily paired with Hoenig's Departure From the Northern Wasteland! Thank you for suggesting it.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCBlQaZxOc4[/video]

I´m not sure if it is ambient, but I love the work from Jon Hopkins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc1IkYwK ... PFQG-sanPw

I think this deserves another plug as well.....

http://headphonecommute.bandcamp.com

Neologist Productions is a new tape label (that might be putting lathes out at some point too). I grabbed two of their tapes so far and they are really great ambience...

http://shop.neologistproductions.com/album/journal

http://shop.neologistproductions.com/album/deprimere

Add to that list:

Oneohtrix Point Never - Commissions
This is one of my favourite records this year, no doubt

Brian Eno - Ambient 1 Music for airports
Simply incredible album

I'd heavily recommend Terry Riley

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy3W-3HPMWg[/video]

and JD Emmanuel's Wizards.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqK2pAHB43Q[/video]

Assuming vinyl only:

Andrew Liles - The dying submariner, Space music
Nurse with wound - Salt, music from the horse hospital
Thomas Köner - La Barca (and many more)
Lustmord - Dark star
Bass Communion - Ghosts on magnetic tape, Loss
Black Swan - Black Swan

I'll second the Lustmord recommendation. I think he's hands down the king of ambient music.

Also, get some Steve Roach, that's some rad stuff as well.

I've got some great conversations saved in lots of emails between Brian of Lustmord and I. He is a brilliant guy, and had an ear like no one else I've ever met.

With that said, I can't really get into any of his newer albums - but his classic albums are just incredible. Black Stars is by far one of the most impressive ambient albums that will ever be released.

I still think Eno is the king of ambient though, with Gottsching and Ash Ra being the godfathers of ambient.

If anyone here has never listened to the B-side of Ash Ra's Join Inn....you absolutely must! It is truly an incredibly perfect listen from start to finish.

I'd like to see Lustmord's "Heresy" and "The Place wehere the black stars hang" get a vinyl release, but maybe the low frequencies would be problematic.
Bass Communion's "Pacific Codex" was originally planned as a vinyl release, but they couldn't get the very low frequencies to work on a record.

A few more great Ambient albums on vinyl:

-David Sylvian and Holger Szukay - Plight and premonition
-William Basinski - The disintegration loops
-Taj Mahal Travellers - All the original vinyl records are wort >1000$ and the recent releases are on James Plummer's infamous bootleg labels but they are technically available on vinyl.

As for the pioneers of ambient I'd mention Pierre Schaeffer and Arne Nordheim. They were using tape recorders to layer/distort recorded instruments and found sounds in the 1950's.
And some of Giacinto Scelsi's work almost sounds like an orchestral Lustmord Album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GZgbt9sTcY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc_08a0syp8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpbkg_KRWAc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKyyxBqjssk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckJZ6o13mM0

Just bought 2 new ambient records thought I would share as both are brilliant.

The First is Myrmyr - Fire Star



Heres what Antigravitybunny had to say:

Two lovely ladies (Agnes Szelag from Evon & Dokuro and Marielle Jakobsons from Darwinsbitch & Date Palms) making exquisite electro-acoustic tunes (heavy on the acoustic). Lots of delicate syrupy strings, like liquid lace being stretched to its thinnest. Looped into charming beats with handclaps, plucked strings, bells, accordions, like Animal Hospital teaming with Eluvium, except with more pep in its step. Sadness & somber darkness abound, weaving seamlessly with moments of cheering reprieve. The electronics are an understatement, not a crutch, slightly bending the acoustics or adding an element of static otherwise unavailable. Culminates in a long heaving drone, blissful, a perfect closer. Recorded on Shasta Mountain during a snowstorm, Fire Star is a very warm record, one of solitude. A triumph if I’ve ever heard one.

The second is Christopher Willits - Opening



Heres what Ghostly International said:

"For years, I’ve imagined the work I do in music, photography, video/film, immersive audio and meditation all coming into one space," says music-art guru Christopher Willits from his home in San Francisco. It's an ambition that seems especially befitting of a worldly polymath like Willits. "Sound and light can transform and inspire our imaginations," he continues. "It can be used as a tool to awaken our consciousness." And that is exactly what he has set out to do with OPENING, the veteran Ghostly artist's new immersive audio-visual project.

Across seven tracks of widescreen ambient music, 45 minutes of visuals shot over four years in multiple countries, seven photographs, and a multi-sensory, multiple channel live performance, Willits has created something which might better be thought of as an experience than a simple album. OPENING features Willits' latest music since Ancient Future, his 2012 collaboration with Japanese pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto, and his recent production and mastering work on Tycho's Awake. The vibrant, enveloping sounds we've come to expect from him are on full display. The quiet majesty of "Vision" ushers us into the sacred world Willits creates, a living universe that billows and heaves alongside slow-grooving songs like "Clear" and "Connect," or with the textural minutiae and harmonic subtleties in "Ground" and “Now”. Closing out the album, "Wide" and "Release" offer the listener a gentle comedown through 15 minutes of transcendent audio, with Willits' delicate guitar manipulations breathing life into the aether of finely textured atmospheres and soft-glowing synths.

The other integral facet to the experience of OPENING is Willits' visual work. After building a library of images from his travels around California, Hawaii, Japan, and Thailand, Willits is unveiling an abstract narrative film, with seven scenes that correspond with the seven songs from the album along with seven limited edition photo prints. The 45-minute film interfuses music and a first-person perspective of meditative scenes—inspiring nature sections reminiscent of the films Baraka, Koyaanisqatsi and Planet Earth—to create the space of OPENING.

Willits says, "There are no actors or dialogue in this film. The audience and their perception is the main character, and everyone's imagination is going to create some meaning that's relevant to their own experience. My intention is to create a space where people can open up and expand into, relax and recharge.” OPENING is unlike anything Willits has accomplished before, perhaps because the audio-visual project is about expanding one's mind to invite something new. Or, as Willits puts it, "For me, OPENING is about transformation, the experience of changing oneself to be more of who you know you can be, and, ultimately, the joy that comes with that change."

The Myrmyr album is fantastic, one of my favourites from the last couple of years. Sadly, I think the label has since folded.