Dear listeners,
For several reasons, I have found myself listening to a lot of ambient music this week — even more than usual, which is already a significant amount. I have a new upstairs neighbor who seems to really like high-BPM techno, so I’ve needed to ensconce myself in a more inhabitable soundscape.
As I noted last year, when I shared a previous ambient playlist, I am incredibly wary of streaming culture’s emphasis on “chill-out music,” a blanket term that dulls the kaleidoscopic differences between all sorts of ambient compositions. That puts the emphasis not on the artistry of musicians but on the kind of predictable and inoffensive user experience it can offer the listener. I am also aware, though, of the genre’s very worthy history as “functional music,” to borrow a phrase from the man who more or less invented ambient music, Brian Eno. As he told me in an interview recalling his earliest forays into “discrete music,” “The emphasis was on saying, ‘Here is a space, an atmosphere, that you can enter and leave as you wish.’”
I believe it is possible to have it both ways: to turn to ambient music for its “functional” purposes while also developing an appreciation for all the varied sounds, textures and subgenres that fall under that category. And so, on today’s playlist, you’ll hear some minimalist compositions, some drone and even some ambient techno, from the likes of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Gas and Lou Reed (yes, that Lou Reed). I’ve culled all six of these tracks from albums that were either released or reissued in the past year or so, just to keep things fresh.
I hope that it brings you some respite from whatever ails you — be it noisy neighbors or the usual dread — and that it also compels you to seek out more.
Discretely,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Hiroshi Yoshimura: “Time After Time”
The pioneering Japanese ambient composer Hiroshi Yoshimura is perhaps best known for his gorgeously textured 1986 album “Green.” That same year he also released the sublime “Surround,” a collection of pieces commissioned to be played in a Japanese company’s prefabricated homes. “Surround” was reissued last October by Light in the Attic Records, and it reflects Yoshimura’s lifelong fascination with the connections between sound and space. This opening track is marked by a translucent, repeating vibraphone riff, and it achieves Yoshimura’s stated goal of creating “music that’s as close to air itself.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Laraaji: “Bethlehem (Glimpse)”
The recently released compilation “Glimpses of Infinity” is an excellent primer for anyone looking to get into Laraaji, the prolific new age musician who creates sonic tapestries seemingly woven out of sunbeams. This luminous, zither-heavy track is a fragment of a longer piece, “Bethlehem,” which appeared on his 1978 debut album, “Celestial Vibration.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Akio/Okihide: “Phoenix at Desert”
I’ve been listening to “Virtual Dreams II,” an immersive collection of ’90s ambient house and techno from Japan. (It’s a worthy sequel to the equally lovely “Virtual Dreams,” released in 2020 by the archival label Music From Memory.) This spacey, twinkling track from the duo Akio/Okihide is a highlight.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Gas: “Gas 5 (1996)”
Under the name Gas, the German musician Wolfgang Voigt has long been releasing lengthy, sparse and strangely emotive psychedelic compositions inspired by the natural world. A recent reissue of his self-titled 1996 debut album calls attention to the somewhat different but equally mesmerizing music he was making before that aesthetic solidified. Driven by a gently pulsating beat and a bright, barely perceptible sample, this 16-minute track sounds like a euphoric late-night party overheard from half a mile away.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Laurel Halo, Lucy Railton & James Underwood: “Naked to the Light”
Last September, the experimental musician Laurel Halo released the hazy, atmospheric album “Atlas” — nearly 41 minutes of bleary-eyed sounds poised between waking life and a dream world. This track, which features contributions from the cellist Lucy Railton and the violinist James Underwood, is particularly hypnotizing in its haunting, aqueous fluidity.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Lou Reed: “Move Your Heart”
Finally, this year I’ve also been listening to Lou Reed’s final album, “Hudson River Wind Meditations,” released in 2007 and reissued by Light in the Attic in January. Reed initially composed these droning, spacious tracks for his own use — a personal soundtrack for meditating, receiving acupuncture treatments or doing tai chi — but after friends and acquaintances kept asking him for copies, he decided to put it out. This undulating opening track runs nearly 30 minutes (even longer than “Sister Ray”) and, as Reed’s longtime partner Laurie Anderson wrote in the liner notes, it contains a sample of “processed wind, wind whirling off the Hudson River.” She added, with an affectionate bias, “There have been a lot of musical pieces that try to represent the wind in some way, but for me, this is the ultimate one.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“6 Ambient Tracks to Transport You Someplace Else” track list
Track 1: Hiroshi Yoshimura, “Time After Time”
Track 2: Laraaji, “Bethlehem (Glimpse)”
Track 3: Akio/Okihide, “Phoenix at Desert”
Track 4: Gas, “Gas 5 (1996)”
Track 5: Laurel Halo, Lucy Railton & James Underwood, “Naked to the Light”
Track 6: Lou Reed, “Move Your Heart”
Bonus Tracks
Last night I had the pleasure of catching one of Laura Marling’s four shows at the Bowery Ballroom. It was stunning, just like her new album, “Patterns in Repeat,” which she played in full with a string quintet. My favorite part, though, was an opening suite of the first four songs from “Once I Was an Eagle,” her great 2013 album that I have been revisiting this morning. This song is on repeat.
Also, a correction from Friday’s newsletter: I stated that the British rock band Idles received two Grammy nominations this year, but they actually received three. This calls for an extra Idles song, so here, from their Grammy-nominated album “Tangk,” is “Grace.”
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