Good Ambient Music?

Anyone have any suggestions for ambient music? BY that I mean music with nature or nature-inspired sounds, is somewhat minimalistic, and in general feels relaxing. Because musical genres can get blurry, I also count drone, some dark ambient, electronica, dream pop, world, folk, and space music into the mix. I prefer instrumental but will gladly try vocals if it doesn't intrude too much.

I'm quite fond of Mirror myself. They were a very low key dark ambient/drone group, and very much worth looking into if you like subtly arranged, mysterious soundscapes. You might find The View and In To The Wood to your liking; neither is particularly easy to find, but if you drop me a line...

Some big names in ambient:

• Brian Eno
• Steve Roach
• Tangerine Dream

Bohren & der Club of Gore mixes jazz with dark ambient for great effect.

edited 27th Sep '12 6:39:47 PM by Erock

Naturally, I would recommend all of these, but the OP's explicit reference to nature-inspired sounds made me think more of Mirror than Eno. Roach, however, is excellent at creating an organic atmosphere.

Here are few more groups that I think conjure an expansive, naturalistic feeling. Most of them are roughly in the realm of dark ambient, as that is my purview, but I've avoided anything excessively noisy.

• Final (particularly their first album)
• Jeff Greinke (especially his early work)
• Thomas Köner
• Gregg Kowalsky
• Loscil
• Lustmord (specifically Heresy; most of his other work is more abrasive)
• Nocturnal Emissions (later albums)
• zoviet*france (particularly after Soviet Songs and Marches)

Is that name even slightly literal? I remember them sampling something vaguely Soviet on Shadow, Thief of the Sun.

It's basically two lengthy cassettes of... whatever the hell you call what :zoviet*france: were doing at the time.

Also, I got the title wrong. It's Popular Soviet Songs and Youth Music, which is even more wonderfully misleading.

edited 2nd Oct '12 7:38:50 PM by JHM

What is the general consensus on Aphex Twin's ambient stuff?

Selected Ambient Works 2 is a personal favorite of mine from his discography. Other than that there are a few ambient tracks scattered here and there in his albums but nothing as specific or exclusively ambient as SAW 2.

Maybe adding a couple of other artists : William Basinski, Celer, Milieu (aka Brian Grainger), Andrew Chalk (who was a member of Mirror but who also has a great solo career, particularly with his Faraway Press label), Biosphere, Robert Rich, Pete Namlook...

And I can't stress enough the importance of Thomas Köner, the guy's a genius.

edited 26th Oct '12 1:47:00 AM by Akalabth

How about The Great Mundane?

I'm not a fan of most ambient, but even I like Chill Out by the KLF, The Magic Place by Julianna Barwick, and I suppose maybe The Tick Tock Companion by Joy Electric would also count.