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Comment by candiddevmike | Hacker News Reader

Anyone have some other ambient works similar to Eno's? Preferably something more landscapey like music for airports or Apollo.

Some of my favorites include Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Robin Guthrie (So Many Short Years Ago), Brian McBride (Overture for other halfs), and Helios.

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This should cover a bunch of different Ambient styles, but all of the artists are absolutely fantastic and worth digging into. I'm definitely leaving out a fuckload more, but there are a ton of great suggestions in the other responses, too. Happy listening! :D

  Biosphere
  Ryuichi Sakamoto
  Loscil
  A Strangely Isolated Place (record label & mix series)
  Silent Season (record label)
  Kelly Moran
  Rafael Anton Irisarri
  Harold Budd
  Steve Roach
  Terre Thaemlitz
  Gel-Sol
  Koss
  Nils Frahm
  FAX Records
  Pete Namlook
  Hiroshi Yoshimura
  Benoit Pioulard
  Carlos Nino
  Woob (particularly woob1194)
  ASC
  Autumn of Communion
  Wanderwelle
  Celer
  Christina Vantzou
  Julianna Barwick
  Mary Lattimore
  Grouper
  Suzanne Ciani
  MPU101
  Deru
  Lusine (Language Barrier in particular, his only full-Ambient album)

Nice list. I would second Ryuichi Sakamoto, Loscil, Julianna Barwick, Mary Lattimore, and Grouper for sure and there are lots of other good ones on there.

I'd add Windy & Carl, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Yui Odonera (lots from the Serein label actually), Max Richter, and most of all Stars of the Lid.

There's also mainstream artists/series like:

The Orb

KLF (Chill Out)

Tipper

Irresistible Force / Mixmaster Morris

Future Sound of London

Higher Intelligence Agency

Sun Electric

Vermont

Erased Tapes (label)

Apollo (label)

Armadillo (label)

12K (label)

Pop Ambient (series)

Some (perhaps) less-known: Masayoshi Fujita, Yutaka Hirose, Void

Plus 10k+ electronic music artists that dabble in ambient / chill out.

Self-plug: I DJ 2-3x month for Sunday Sundowns with The Ambient Mafia

Biosphere for sure. Also William Basinski who is somewhat hated but if you love endless loops its great.

The Disintegration Loops is lovely and I found it very thought-provoking. The concept of hearing the medium being destroyed, in this sort of breathing / heartbeat / day and night cycle, is a very powerful way to think about mortality.

One of the tracks still sounds like you're hearing someone drowning over the course of 17 minutes and it's terrifying. It's the first track here, though I believe they are named / ordered incorrectly. Just comparing 2 minutes in vs 15 minutes.. it still creeps me out.

Some great choices. I’m gonna pile in with my own suggestions, as it’s been a topic for me this week. Specific works in brackets:

Ryuichi Sakamoto (Async LP, collabs with Alva Noto)

Kelly Moran

Burial (1st half of Tunes 2011-2019 LP)

Oneohtrix Point Never (Returnal, R plus 7 LPs)

Kara Lis-Coverdale

Harold Budd

Huerco S (For Those Of You.. LP)

Steve Hauschildt

GAS

Laurel Halo (Raw Silk Uncut Wood LP)

Malibu

Loscil

Hiroshi Yoshimura

Kareem Lofty

Ulla Straus

Sky H1

Johnny Jewel

Roedelius (Einfluss LP)

Dedekind kut

Great suggestions, to which I would add Marty Hicks.

Listen to this radio show on KEXP: https://www.kexp.org/shows/pacific-notions/

It's every Sunday early morning Pacific time but you can listen to recent shows in their streaming archive. The whole show is modern ambient and similar music, it's absolutely fantastic and a great way to hear new artists in the genre.

edit: lol someone already posted it. This should give you an idea of how good this show is if multiple people are suggesting it. I've never heard any other show/podcast/or anything as comprehensive about new ambient music as this one.

It's fantastic. I also really enjoy the blues show the immediately follows it, Preachin' the Blues. Bit of a contrast but the curation on both shows is stellar.

KEXP out of Seattle has a good program on Sunday mornings with music that often falls in this genre. https://www.kexp.org/shows/pacific-notions/

Also, the blog Headphone Commute has some excellent ambient showcases. Suggest finding their year-end lists and listening through: https://headphonecommute.com/ https://headphonecommute.com/best-of-lists/headphone-commute...

I'd look into stuff like Harold Budd, William Basinski, or Jon Hassell (who in turn influenced Eno; you can hear some similarities but also radical differences because Hassell played processed trumpet and had a much more dense sound palette. Albums like "Fascinoma" or "The Surgeon of the Night Sky Restores Dead Things By he Power of Sound" for starters, but they did one album together in the early 80s called "Possible Musics" worth a listen)

I love ambient music. Some favorites in the same corner of the genre as Eno:

Pauline Oliveros - Deep Listening

Virginia Astley - In Gardens Where We Feel Secure

Machinefabriek - Slaapzucht

Biosphere - The Hilvarenbeek Recordings (anything Biosphere is sublime but a lot of it is darker ambient than Eno)

I could go on forever. But check these out.

Also, every release from this label is gold:

http://www.slaapwelrecords.com/

« Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 »

Vol. 1 is not really ambient but is a masterpiece nonetheless.

Thanks for the recommendations. Some of my fav ambient(ish) albums that might fit in that list:

- William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops

- Jon Hopkins - Music For Psychedelic Therapy

- Erland Cooper - Music for Growing Flowers

There is a label called Past Inside the Present that does a lot of landscape/soundscape/dreamscape recordings. They are on bandcamp and https://www.pastinsidethepresent.com/ (I am not affiliated, I just have a fair number of their recordings). Check out Zake (I think he is the owner too) and also 36.

I'll throw in the 'Ghosts' series by Nine Inch Nails. These land somewhere between Eno and Aphex Twin and were basically a precursor to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's soundtrack work (some of which may also be worth a listen).

I like Eno, Eluvium and Helios and these are some artists that have similar music I’ve found that I didn’t see mentioned so far:

Ryuichi Sakamoto (sample piece: solari)

Roedelius (sample piece: A Short Walk in the Hills)

Vangelis (sample piece: Memories of Green)

Jun Fukamachi - Quark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9UtpJ2iAQA

I absolutely love "Music for REAL Airports" by The Black Dog.

An obvious poke at the original, it features a darker, moody and slightly unsettling ambience, with some minimal percussive elements in a couple of tracks. It's meant to remind you of the real experience of being in an airport, which isn't exactly a pleasant experience :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icnjrONRCdQ&list=OLAK5uy_lxK...

In the 1990s Virgin released a 2 CD sampler followed by a whole series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Ambient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Ambient_series

The first pair of CDs is basically a "who's who" of ambient artists up to that point.

David Sylvian & Holger Czukay produced two wonderful ambient albums together in the 80s...

Plight & Premonition - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plight_%26_Premonition

Flux + Mutability - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_%2B_Mutability

Couple of articles about their collaboration: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/david-sylvian-holger-cz... | https://thequietus.com/articles/24916-david-sylvian-holger-c...

The band The Glitch Mob maintain an ambient playlist on spotify that I listen to constantly while working. They update it really regularly (4 day since last song added right now).

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1sJKFhnCYglVaDXtA2y7Ao?si=...

Ulrich Schnauss (a bit more of a beat, but still extremely minimal) - Far Away Trains Passing By, A Strangely Isolated Place.

Music for Programming[0] is a nice site with mixes of music, most of it ambient, intended to provide focus while programming. Each mix has a setlist so you can follow along and perhaps find some new artists to explore.

[0] https://musicforprogramming.net/

I slightly different flavor of ambient, but I love this playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0FRsEBJWjCWOyia0Yyz7ak?si=...

Steve Reich did a number of pieces that are loopy and programatic in the 1960's and 70's, but with analog instruments. Kind of like Javanese Gamelan but more western style.

Music for 18 Musicians

The Desert Music

Drumming

I think it is debatable if they are "ambient", since some get quite loud, but they are meditative.

If you like Robin Guthrie, you may like the ambient music of Harold Budd, one of his collaborators. One of the their cool joint projects is the instrumental score for the film Mysterious Skin from 2004.

Milieu's soundtrack to Eufloria, https://milieumusic.bandcamp.com/album/eufloria

Check out Astral Industries (https://www.astralindustries.co.uk/) and Silent Season (http://www.silentseason.com/) - this is another good place to "dig" for ambient stuff https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-ambient - cheers!

This free stream:

http://echoesofbluemars.org/

various artist including Brian Eno. Listening to the bluemars stream now :)

Kyle Bobby Dunn (apparently he's done some unkind things in the past, but the music stands alone): https://open.spotify.com/album/2NVB7DIA1wTUEM7KmXnWeZ

Hotel Neon: https://open.spotify.com/album/4qpdELAzEbL1nI8fvWtLLE

You might like https://ambientsleepingpill.com/

More soundscapey: Warmth, 36, Azure State, Purl, Poemme, Hilyard

Other ambient I like: Global Communication, Balmorhea, Marconi Union

Steve Reich was another tape loop pioneer.

Very musical ambient compared to Eno but I love this currently: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2aGCFk3Mvhs9Am7JHwoyRr?si=Ci...

BT did a pair of ambient albums in 2019 that I really enjoy:

Everything You’re Searching For Is Between Here and You

I also appreciate Brain FM [0]. It makes it easy to dial in background music that matches my mood and activity.

[0] https://www.brain.fm

Jordan De La Sierra

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kGay5yTzELiOx8...

I didn't find him from the mentions yet so I'll add Gas. Start with Zauberberg, Königsforst and Pop, and if you like them get completely lost with the rest of his productions.

Look into Japanese environmental music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx7CyMZVhHY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9UtpJ2iAQA

You might try Deus Arrakis by Klaus Schulze https://youtu.be/UPCq1o4yvow

You may enjoy Patrick O'Hearn - particularly something like Still Standing from the Slow Time album.

Check out the album “Tape Loops” by Chris Walla, artist Loscil, and John Cage’s “In a Landscape”.

Tycho.

Eno's experimental ambient collab with Fripp is maybe a bit heavy.

Some of M83

Lots of Boards of Canada might fit

Explore Am Boy and Teen Daze

Clocolan

maybe Lorn

Sarin Sunday

try Freescha, but it's kinda depressing

not quite like eno but still great ambient album, green by hiroshi yoshimura: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx7CyMZVhHY

Burial (his ambient tracks like State Forest, Forgive), Huerco, Biosphere

Stars of the lid and Steve Roach have a lot of comparable stuff.

Madis, Sea of Tranquility, Ambient Edit (2020) is really good.

Try the EoN app from Jean-Michel Jarre.

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