1.Prologue
In the 2000s, advances in DAWs meant that anybody and everybody could make music digitally on their laptops just by paying the price of the software. Up until then, an artist had to hole up in the studio, spending hours upon hours messing around with analogue electronic instruments in order to produce satisfactory music. The tools they had at their disposal in the 80s and 90s can be grouped into three categories: synthesizers, sequencers like drum machines and samplers, and players like turntables and CDJs. The synthesizer, especially, would drive a revolution in electronic music, and also change the landscape of rock, pop, R&B, and jazz. Furthermore, it would spur the development of electronic music other than the kind meant for dancing: ambient music.
Among the electronic music pioneers that first started making the synthesizer a central part of their sound were Kraftwerk and YMO—groups that we’ve covered a number of times in this series. Another key figure in the development of synthesizer music was the Japanese musician Tomita Isao. Tomita got his start in the late 50s making music for TV and movies. Famously, in 1965, he wrote the theme music for Tezuka Osamu’s TV anime adaptation of Jungle Emperor Leo (a.k.a. Kimba the White Lion). In the late 60s he became interested in Wendy Carlos and Robert Moog’s work with synthesizers, and shifted to electronic music. He acquired a Moog III synthesizer and began experimenting at his home studio. In 1974, he arranged Claude Debussy’s “tone paintings" for his studio album Snowflakes Are Dancing, which rose to No. 17 on the U.S. album chart and was even nominated for four Grammy Awards in 1975. Tomita continued to create music for TV and movies while releasing a series of classically themed albums that also introduced a sci-fi theme. Tomita’s apprentice in the early 70s, Matsutake Hideki, would go on to participate in the recording of Sakamoto Ryuichi’s 1978 solo album Thousand Knives, after which he joined Yellow Magic Orchestra as sound programmer, eventually becoming known as its fourth member.
The instrumental nature of most TV and film scores meant that the synthesizer was ideally suited for the medium. There was a significant rise in the number of synthesizer-based soundtracks in the 70s and especially in the 80s. Among the most iconic works in this area include Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme” and “Crockett’s Theme” (1985), and Harold Faltermeyer’s work on the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack, namely “Axel F”(1985).
The spacey, otherworldly qualities of the sound that synthesizers produced also made them ideally suited for sci-fi soundtracks. The most famous example of sci-fi synthesizer music is the work Vangelis did for the film Blade Runner. Vangelis’ music, which evokes bleak dystopian cityscapes and loneliness, would significantly shape the development of electronic dance music in the decades that followed. Unlike pop music, which was meant to stand alone, these works were designed to accompany visual media; they were music for establishing mood and setting—they were a kind of ambient music.
In this article I will provide an overview of electronic music that was meant for purposes other than dancing.
2.Ambient Music and Ambient House
The term ambient music was first coined by the English musician Brian Eno. Eno studied painting and experimental music in college, and made his professional debut as the synthesizer player of the art rock band Roxy Music. It soon became clear that the band was too small to contain the personalities of both Eno and lead singer Bryan Ferry; Eno also quickly became uninterested in the rock star lifestyle, and left the band in 1973.
Eno wasted no time getting to work on his solo projects, and released a number of avant-garde pop albums where he experimented with various recording techniques. In 1975, he was hit by a taxi as he was trying to cross the street, and spent several weeks recuperating at home. One day his girlfriend brought him a record of old harp music; she put the record on for him and left, but Eno soon realized that he had set the amplifier volume too low. Lacking the energy to get up and turn it up, he listened to the distant harp sounds come in and out of focus as they mixed with the sound of the rain outside. “This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music," he says, “as part of the ambience of the environment, just as the color of the light and sound of the rain were parts of the ambience."
He began to develop this new sound in his 1975 album Discreet Music and 1978’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports. He first coined the term “ambient music” in the latter, writing in the liner notes, “Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular, it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” He also wrote that ambient music was“designed to induce calm and space to think.”
Eno would go on the produce many ambient works for film scores and as musical accompaniment for art exhibitions. He also became famous for producing albums for many famous pop and rock artists, including David Bowie’s Low and Heroes, U2’s Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, and Coldplay’s Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. In 2014, he teamed up with Underworld’s Karl Hyde to release a pair of albums, Someday World and High Life.
While artists like Brian Eno would shift from rock into ambient music, other artists shifted from dance music into ambient music. Two notable artists in this vein are The KLF and The Orb—both duos from the U.K. In MUSIC & PARTIES #035, we wrote about how The KLF helped pioneer trance music with their 1988 track “What Time is Love (Pure Trance 1)". The duo can also be credited for pioneering a genre called ambient house.
In 1988, Alex Patterson left his position as roadie for a rock band and formed The Orb with Jimmy Cauty who was already active as one-half of The KLF. The Orb started DJing and creating music, but after a weekend of unsuccessful attempts to craft a satisfactory drum sound, they decided to go in a beatless direction. Their music caught the ear of English DJ Paul Oakenfold, who asked the duo to be in charge of the chill out room for his parties at the London nightclub Heaven. Clubbers who had danced themselves to exhaustion or who were looking to come down from an ecstasy high would gravitate toward the chill out room, and soon The Orb became popular in their own right. The English music press called their music ambient house.
In 1990 the duo started to work on their debut album. However, a rift grew between Patterson and Cauty. Cauty wanted to release their work on his KLF label; Patterson did not appreciate how Cauty was treating The Orb like a side project. The duo ended up splitting, with Cauty subsequently focusing on The KLF, while Patterson found new partners and continued as The Orb. In 1991 the group released its debut album, The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, a double album that takes the listener on a psychedelic trip through space.
Meanwhile, The KLF pursued a more idyllic ambient sound. Around 1990, illegal outdoor “Orbital" raves were frequently being held along the M25 motorway on the outskirts of London. The KLF wanted to make an album of music suited for those early mornings after a night spent dancing, when the sun would come up and shine on the pastoral landscape. In 1990, they released the album Chill Out, which combines steel guitar, synthesizer, bird sounds and other environmental noise with samples from artists like Elvis Presley and Fleetwood Mac. For the KLF, the 44-minute journey ended up evoking a nighttime road trip through the southern states in the U.S. that border the Gulf of Mexico. (At the time, neither members of The KLF had actually ever been to the American south.) While Eno’s ambient music blends into the environment, The KLF’s ambient music transports the listener to a specific landscape.
Two important Japanese names in the ambient/chill out music genres are Sunahara Yoshinori and Takagi Masakatsu.
The keyboardist Sunahara Yoshinori came to prominence as a member of the techno duo Denki Groove between 1991 and 1999. He started working on solo side projects in 1995. While his work with Denki Groove was in a more edgy techno vein, his solo work leans more toward lounge music. Especially notable are his three concept albums based on airports and the idea of traveling the world by plane: Crossover, Take Off and Landing, and The Sound of ‘70s. The music is also great for a drive or when you just want to take a breather.
The Kyoto-based Takagi Masakatsu is known for his piano music as well as his visual art. He released his first solo album, Pia, from an American indie record label in 2001. Mixing experimental ambient music with things like the sound of children’s laughter, Takagi’s music is both warm and nostalgic—just what Japanese listeners like. He would gradually adopt a more pop-leaning sound in the years the followed, but Omusubi and Kagayaki, two albums he released in 2013 and 2014, respectively, are masterpieces of modern Japanese ambient music. Takagi is also known for his scores for Hosoda Mamoru’s animated features Wolf Children (2012), The Boy and the Beast (2015), and Mirai (2018).
●Ambient Music Picks
Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Brian Eno – Thursday Afternoon
The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
The Orb Featuring David Gilmour – Metallic Spheres
Sunahara Yoshinori - TAKE OFF AND LANDING
Takagi Masakatsu – Kagayaki
3.New Age Music
New age music developed out of the hippie and back-to-nature movements of the 60s, and was conceived as soothing music meant to accompany meditation and yoga sessions. In 1976, the guitarist William Ackerman founded the independent record label Windham Hill Records to specialize in mellow instrumental acoustic music; Billboard magazine originally called the music soft jazz, and later listed it as new age. Some of the notable artists to release music from this label include the pianist George Winston, Yanni, and guitarist Michael Hedges, fusion musicians like Earl Klugh, Spiro Gyra, and The Rippingtons, and the jazz duo Tuck & Patti. Perhaps the most famous new age musician of the 80s was the Irish singer Enya. Her 1988 single “Orinoco Flow" played a significant role in bringing new age music to the public consciousness.
New age music, by nature, is very loosely defined; in Japan it is often called “healing music”. In this article I’d like to focus on several new age artists that have a synthesizer-based electronic sound.
One of the pioneers of “healing music” is the Japanese musician Kitaro. The Aichi-born Kitaro played electric guitar in high school, and moved to Tokyo after graduating to immerse himself in the music scene. In the 70s, he became the keyboard player for the Japanese progressive rock band Far East Family Band. While in Europe for recording sessions, he met German synthesizer player Klaus Schulze, who produced two albums for the band and taught Kitaro how to control synthesizers. After returning to Japan, Kitaro went solo in 1977 and began his synthesizer experiments.
Kitaro brought his progressive rock sensibilities to his synthesizer music, blending Eastern influences with elements of folk music and classical music to create music that was epic but gentle, soothing and melodic. His reputation grew throughout Asia in the early 80s, and in the mid 80s he entered a worldwide distribution arrangement with Geffen Records, which subsequently re-released six of Kitaro’s earlier albums. Because Kitaro’s music was inspired by nature and combined electronic and acoustic instruments, his music was labeled as new age. Kitaro himself, however, was not comfortable with the term. Nonetheless, the Grammys established an award for Best New Age Album in 1987, and Kitaro was nominated several times before finally winning for his 1999 album Thinking of You. Side note, Kitaro’s ex-wife is Taoka Yuki, the daughter of Taoka Kazuo, the third kumicho (godfather) of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest yakuza organization.
Taking Enya’s lead, the German group Enigma helped make new age music a worldwide phenomenon in the 90s. Enigma is a musical project founded by Romanian-German musician and producer Michael Cretu. The song “Sadeness (Part 1), taken from its debut album MCMXC a.D., became a worldwide hit, selling over 5 million copies. Enigma’s sound combines Gregorian chants, folk music, and flute sounds with dance beats, and heralded a new frontier for new age music. And whereas hip hop music and dance music often strive to reinterpret samples in ways that make them almost unrecognizable, Enigma is notable for using long, instantly recognizable samples—something that the group was criticized for. That being said, it’s also important to note that Enigma’s music drove renewed interest in traditional music such as Gregorian vocals and Asian folk music.
Of the many artists that Enigma influenced, the most important to recognize here is the French duo Deep Forest, which combined ambient music with world music and sounds from nature. Michel Sanchez was inspired by recordings he had brought back to France from a recent trip to Africa and started Deep Forest along with the keyboardist Eric Mouquet. Their breakthrough song was “Sweet Lullaby", which is adapted from a traditional song from the Solomon Islands. The song was a hit in Europe and Australia, but the duo also drew criticism for its unlicensed appropriation of African music to create what’s been described as “ethno-introspective ambient world music". Deep Forest won a Grammy for Best World Music Album in 1995 for their album Boheme.
●New Age Music Picks
Kitaro – Best of 10 Years
Enigma – Love, Sensuality, Devotion: Greatest Hits & Remixes
Deep Forest – Boheme
The Very Best of Enya
George Winston – Autumn
Tuck & Patti – Dream
4.Intelligent Dance Music
In the early 90s, the U.K. acid house and rave scenes had reached a fever pitch. This spurred groups like The Orb and The KLF to create ambient house music as an alternative—or more accurately, a respite—from the mayhem and madness on the main dance floor. Other U.K. artists would take that sound in a more experimental direction.
At the center of this experimental scene was the music label Warp, which released a compilation of forward-thinking material called Artificial Intelligence in 1992. The album included contributions from The Orb, as well as Aphex Twin and Autechre (albeit all under different names). The title of the compilation inspired fans to dub electronic music that was meant not for the dance floor but for home listening intelligent dance music, or IDM for short.
One of the most innovative figures in IDM—and in all of electronic music, for that matter, was Aphex Twin. From a young age, Aphex Twin took apart and rebuilt synthesizers in his bedroom, experimenting and creating music. In the late 80s he started DJing at raves. In 1992, he released his debut album, Selected Ambient Works 85-92, which compiles works going back to his teenage years and is now considered one of the most important electronic albums of all time. Combining the ambient music of Brian Eno with the beats and bass lines of techno, the music makes you feel as if you’re floating in space.
In 1996, Aphex Twin released the Richard D. James Album, where he fused the quietude of ambient music with the ferocity of jungle. Rolling Stone magazine said that “Aphex Twin coaxes great emotional resonance from his machines and combines jolting beats, pristine melodic fragments and random noises into elegant – if at times unnerving – futuristic pop." The devilish grin on the cover of the album says it all.
The U.K. duo Autechre combined funk, electro, and acid house influences to create a new kind of essentially undancable techno, called—what else—ambient techno. Their 1994 album Amber, released on Warp, is considered an important work of the genre, and is characterized by a sound that is both machine-like but also fluid, evoking an urban futurescape.
Autechre would subsequently move in an increasingly experimental direction. Their 2001 album Confield marks a complete shift away from warm ambient music to avant-garde computer music; compared to their synthesizer-based earlier work, Confield is based on computer programs, resulting in an inorganic, jagged, disorienting sound. The duo have stated that the name Autechre was created by starting with “Au" and then randomly bashing the keyboard to complete the title, and they take the same approach in their music.
The drum ‘n’ bass artist Squarepusher is another important figure in IDM. Heavily influenced by progressive jazz acts like Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius, Squarepusher brought a jazz fusion sensibility to his blend of ambient music and breakbeats. His music caught the ear of Aphex Twin himself, who signed him to his sublabel at Warp, Rephlex. His debut album Feed Me Weird Things is one of the seminal works in drill ‘n’ bass—basically an undancable subgenre of drum ‘n’ bass.
Squarepusher soon grew tired of the predictability of samplers and sequencers, and decided to experiment with live instruments for a while. His 1998 album Music Is Rotted One Note combines IDM with jazz fusion, with Squarepusher himself playing drums and bass.
Much like the term new age music, IDM is a vague term that can be taken any number of ways. In the 2000s and beyond, most of the artists would either go in a more experimental direction, or a more beat-oriented direction. Here it’s important to note that most of the artists who have been labeled as IDM have rejected the term. For a time, Warp attempted to introduce the term “electronic listening music"; Aphex Twin tried to get the term “braindance" to stick. Neither would. If you had to give IDM a definition, it is electronic music that is the opposite of commercial dance music.
●IDM Album Picks
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Aphex Twin – Richard D. James Album
Aphex Twin - Syro
Autechre - Overteps
Squarepusher – Ultravisitor
Squarepusher – Be Up A Hello
5.Electronica/Digital Rock
IDM itself would never break through to the mainstream, but its influence would shape much of pop and rock in the late 90s and into the 2000s.
The most important example of IDM’s influence can be seen in the evolution in the sound of the English alternative rock band Radiohead. Radiohead came onto the scene as a grunge rock band in the early 90s, but started to incorporate electronic instrumentation and a more experimental approach as the decade wore on. Its 1997 album OK Computer marked a shift from its earlier guitar-centered work with abstract lyrics and densely layered sound that presaged the social alienation and political malaise that would overtake Western society in the 21st century. When starting on their follow-up album Kid A, it’s said that Thom Yorke bought and listened to all of Warp’s catalog to prepare. Ever since Kid A, Radiohead’s sound has been categorized as electronica.
The American alternative rock group led by Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails, is also often compared to IDM. The band is responsible for bringing industrial rock to the mainstream, but less known is its ambient work—specifically, its 1999 album The Fragile and 2008’s Ghosts I-IV.
Ghosts I-IV proved to be a turning point for Resnor; in the 2010s he teamed up with Atticus Ross to produce many well-received scores for movies like The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Gone Girl (2014).
The experimental hip hop producer and rapper Flying Lotus is another important name to emerge from the Warp label. The grand nephew of legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, Flying Lotus fuses jazz rap, hip hop, and IDM with elements of P-Funk and the psychedelic hip hop of groups like Arrested Development. His 2010 album Cosmogramma won the Dance/Electronica Album category at the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards, and is a great place to start for newcomers to his music.
The Icelandic avant-garde rock group Sigur Rós is also reminiscent of IDM in its avant-garde approach to its atmospheric music. It is known for its ethereal sound, falsetto vocals, and the use of bowed guitar—where a guitarist uses a bow to play his instrument, similar to playing a violin or viola. (The bowed guitar technique is often associated with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.) The group received international acclaim for its 1999 album Ágætis byrjun.
Sigur Rós’s ethreal sound is often classified as shoegaze. Shoegaze is a subgenre of rock that combines waves of distorted guitar with whispered vocals, and can be described as a reinterpretation of psychedelic rock. The name comes from the fact that performers often stood heads down in a detached, introspective state; part of it was that they had to look down because the music involved heavy use of effects pedals. Shoegaze was pioneered by the Irish rock group My Bloody Valentine.
The German electronic musician/composer Ulrich Schnauss is heavily influenced by shoegaze artists like My Bloody Valentine. His sound combines the dream-like qualities of shoegaze with the floaty feel of new age music—perfect music to come down to after a party. Especially recommended are his albums A Strangely Isolated Place (2003) and Underrated Silence (2012).
●Electronica Album Picks
Radiohead – Kid A
Thom Yorke – Anima
Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile
Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I-IV
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Gone Girl
Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
Flying Lotus – Flamagra
Sigur Ros - Agetis Byrjun
Sigur Ros – Kveikur
Ulrich Schnauss – Underrated Silence
Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
6.Epilogue
The common thread between the music I’ve written about in this article is that all of the genre labels are as vague as the music they are supposed to describe. While it’s true that Brian Eno has a specific vision and philosophy behind his brand of ambient music, the genre is nevertheless as intangible as the music itself—and the idea of atmosphere, for that matter. And while Eno’s ambient music blended in with an environment, artists like Aphex Twin combined ambient sounds with dance beats. Meanwhile, the line between ambient house and ambient techno is nonexistent. Then there’s the term electronica, which is used both as an umbrella term for all of the music presented in this article, as well as a term referring to the electronic-leaning sounds of rock bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails.
As I mentioned earlier, the term intelligent dance music was and remains controversial. For artists like Aphex Twin, perhaps they questioned whether spending hours and hours holed up in your room or a studio fiddling around with synthesizers and other audio equipment could be described as “intelligent". They also took umbrage at the idea of classifying all of electronic music into either “dance music" or “music to listen to at home". Given that much of their music was designed to be listened to at home in the first place, the “dance" in intelligent dance music feels inaccurate.
Much like the “progressive" in progressive rock and progressive house, the term “intelligent" carries a stigma, as if you were being labeled as uncool. At the same time, it’s worth noting that the pioneers of IDM were mostly English. Much like progressive rock in the 70s, the English have a tendency to try to elevate popular music with heady concepts.
Across the pond, mainstream music in America—rock, pop, party music—takes pride in being unpretentious and unsophisticated. The transformation of uplifting house music into mainstream EDM, which I outlined in MUSIC & PARTIES #038, is a perfect example of that. If EDM is for mass consumption in big, packed spaces, IDM is for private enjoyment. And ravers who attend events like Ultra Music Festival are certainly not looking for a sophisticated time out. The commercialization of EDM over the past decade, more than anything else, argues that the term IDM was incredibly apt.
