In a feature almost guaranteed to annoy every reader, here is a little curation of the 'best' ambient albums that are actually on Spotify. This is mainly for my benefit, but if you get any use out of it, please feel free to let me know. Also, if there are any obvious holes in the list, do comment below.
What this isn't.
Your favourite albums. It's not even my favourite albums. One of my favourite ambient albums is The KLF's Chill Out and until recently the The KLF's catalogue wasn't available for streaming anywhere. Even now it's still only possible to stream a more copyright-friendly version of the album: Come Down Dawn. Another personal favourite is Dt Atmo and Ramin's Sad World (Fax, 1993), but I can't see this album appearing on Spotify any time soon. Sadly, Ramin Naghachian passed away from a brain tumour earlier this year.
Who says these are the 'best'?
Although there are tons of useful Reddit threads in r/ambient and r/ambientmusic, especially as best-of-the-year roundups, it's difficult to really parse which albums are getting the most votes, or simply have particularly vociferous champions. Also, is the 'best' ambient album of 2019 really one of the best of all time? In the end, I went with a selection from several curated lists:
- The 50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time (Pitchfork)
[Spotify playlist by Daman Hoffman] - 32 Best Ambient Albums Ever Made (Optimistic Underground)
- The 20 Greatest Ambient Albums Ever Made (Fact Magazine)
- 10 Essential Ambient Albums (Treblezine)
- The 10 Best Ambient Albums (discogs blog)
- 11 Best Ambient Albums of All Time (The Sound of Vinyl)
I then counted how many lists each album appeared in, and ended up with 21 that appeared in two or more, 19 of which are on Spotify (20 if you count the reworked 'Chill Out'). So without further ado, here are the 21, along with their Spotify links:
The winner!
Appearing in five lists, though surprisingly overlooked by Pitchfork's top 50, the most referenced album is Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld by The Orb. I've long preferred Orbvs Terrarvm, so I will clearly need to revisit this.
Then, grouped only by how many lists they appear in:
In 4 Lists:
- Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports
- The KLF - Chill Out (not on Spotify, though do check out Come Down Dawn)
- Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume II
- Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid
In 3 Lists:
- Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air
- Brian Eno - Apollo
- Global Communication - 76:14
- GAS - Pop
- Fennesz - Endless Summer
- William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops I-IV (I, II, III, IV)
In 2 Lists:
- Manuel Göttsching - Inventions for Electric Guitar (not on Spotify)
- Laraaji - Ambient 3: Day of Radiance
- Brian Eno / Harold Budd - The Pearl
- Oval - 94diskont
- Biosphere - Substrata
- Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet
- Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
- GAS - Königsforst
- Robert Ashley - Automatic Writing
So there we have it. Enjoy exploring if any of these are new to you; I know I will!
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Update
Inevitably, I have combined the above selections into a Spotify playlist, for our listening pleasure:
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Modular synth image courtesy Adi Goldstein on Unsplash