I like a lot of the Touch/Ash stuff, like Hazard, Chris Watson (actual ambient recordings of wind and animals growling.)

I also rather like Murcof. Excellent stuff, constructed of orchestral instruments and little clicks and stutters.

Bu-aaahhhhhhhhhhh-vrrrrrroooooom-oooooohhhhh-vzzzzzzzzz-mp

Any new drone stuff/ambient music people are liking?

I have been getting a lot of use out of Circle's Miljard and Steven R Smith's the Anchorite.

I've only heard their earlier release, which was class, but I'm pretty sure that this latest split of our own Mr Hardwick is similarly fine.

Keeping it in the forum, Mezzotint is still the ambient record that I go back to the most. I am just a dabbler in this genre, but a couple of years on this record still gives me a lot of pleasure and a fair few strange thoughts too.

Other than that, the last Stars of the Lid album is a classic. I'm sure others here will be able to add a few dozen more suggestions.

Mezzotint is practically my fucking wife. I listen to that record nearly every day and it's still my go-to bedtime music.

Shame he had to go and ruin everything by having a family, right? What a selfish bastard.

last year's ryuchi sakamoto and fennesz record, called 'insen', is the best ambient record that i heard in years. and i supposedly don't like ambient.

Folks have mentioned Kranky but not specifically Tim Hecker. His latest, "Harmony In Ultraviolet" is gorgeous and features a textural, noisy heft most Ambient music lacks. Hot shit.

On the softer side, find the original Obscure Records version of Gavin Bryars' Sinking of the Titanic/Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet... DO NOT get the Nonesuch rerecording with fucking hokey-ass Tom Waits fouling up Jesus' Blood.

Stephan Mathieu was mentioned, but not all of his work is on the same plane, so I'll single out "Wurmloch Variationen" as it is simply perfect. Maybe my very favorite electronic/experimental album ever.

Dean Roberts is on Kranky, but not all of his stuff impresses me, either. His best album is "And the Black Moths Play the Grand Cinemas" which, like the Mathieu, was on Ritornell which went out of business. But this one was reissued by Staubgold, so Forced Exposure should have it. (Great, odd cover of Eno's 'Cindy Tells Me' on this record, too!)

Also, before Roberts went solo, his NZ band, Thela, made a fantastic second album, "Argentina," which was on Ecstatic Peace. Probably available new, or in a cut-out bin?

JLIAT made album-length drones, but I have no idea if his stuff is findable.

Somebody mentioned Touch, but not Rosy Parlane, whose "Iris" and "Jessamine" albums are stellar. His earlier stuff on Sigma is fine but the Touch cds are the shizz.

Lastly, local weirdo, Nick Butcher, has two killer albums of manipulated tape / fried computer bliss, "The Complicated Bicycle" and "Bee Removal." Ignore at your own peril. Why don't you just Google him?

I like cjh and gjh. Another vote for Labradford too.

The bonus 'untitled' track on the Earth HEX vinyl is absolutely beautiful.

Are 'Remote Viewer' any good? Some of their stuff is really cheap on the boomkat website at the moment.

Some excellent examples of abstract, textured, active listening in jurgis rudkus' post above - Hecker, Roberts (the surfeit of hi-hats involved in and the black moths play.. probably navigates it out the ambient zone but it's a fine album), Parlane (a personal favourite, I love Iris and Jessamine) are all solid and to that I'd add the new Lawrence English, Kiri No Oto, also on Touch which is a hazy, half-glimpsed joy.

Ages ago I posted in a thread with a couple of more traditionally electronic examples, from that I stand by a couple and still absolutely love Gas - the entire back catalogue was recently reissued as a box set, another casualty of the collapse of Mille Plateaux a few years ago. Dense, dreamy and, if you persevere, as psychedelic as fuck.

Also, Vladislav Delay is (or at least was) one of the few people associated with contemporary electronica who I think has a unique and instantly recognizable voice. Entain and Anima remain his high water marks, the former is a slowly evolving sweep of silt made with a very modest palette of sounds, latterly he switched to a computer and Anima is much brighter, an Escher-maze of textures and absolutely brilliant. I still go back to it every year and it never ages.

(Very kind of you to mention my bedroom dilettantism, I'm honestly flattered and amazed anyone spends a moment with it. You deserve some kind of medal Tommy. As for the pram in the hall, it turns out it's my greatest ally. I don't think I've ever had as much purpose when it comes to my job or dabbling with music. I was talking to Joel kranky about the second album just last week. Gumbo is a-bubblin')

same wrote:i'm a huge eno fan, aside from him i really like that elctronic group microstoria as well as popul vuh's first record, 'affenstunde'.

I've really enjoyed most of the Popul Vuh I've heard, especially the Aguirre soundtrack.

Has anyone heard Trollmann av Ildtoppberg? Their (ridiculously named) album Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Caverns Of Stars is a beautiful collection of long, rumbling, fuzzy, dreamy drones made by bass and keyboard.

My "ambient" listening leans more toward quiet drones than field recordings, but there are some recordings of various slow, remote natural processes that are really wonderful, such as Baikal Ice by Peter Cusack - the sound of Siberia and melting ice.