Thursday, September 20, 2018

Various Artists - 1993 A Brief History of Ambient Vol. 1 - "152 Minutes 33 Seconds"

Ambient 1: A Brief History of Ambient is a 1993 compilation album released on the Virgin Records label, as part of their Ambient series. The album was issued as a double CD, and was compiled by Simon Hopkins.

A great sampling of ambient music, both chronologically and technologically diverse. Includes excerpts from the classic Eno-4 and some of the others like John Hassell from his old EG Records label. Tangerine Dream appears as well as some great Indian Trance. Hawkwind and Killing Joke (!) are on here for Christ's sake. Quite an impressively diverse selection of great quality, especially for the price. Never boring on either disc, and makes for great background or headphone listening.
A real surprise!

Although it seemed to arrive out of nowhere in the early '90s, ambient music actually has a long and varied history, leading back to Brian Eno and Kraftwerk's electronic experiments in the 1970s, right up to Aphex Twin's textural techno soundscapes. As an introduction and history lesson, the two-disc A Brief History of Ambient Music can't be beat; it shows that the ambient-techno trend has roots that most fans wouldn't even realize existed.

https://jazz-rock-fusion-guitar.blogspot.com/search?q=Ambient

Personnel / Track Listing:

CD 1:
01 Harold Budd Flowered Knife Shadows 7:05
02 Tangerine Dream Thru Metamorphic Rock (Edit) 9:46
03 Robert Fripp / Brian Eno Evening Star 7:30
04 Amorphous Androgynous Mountain Goat 4:28
05 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sea Of Vapours 3:49
06 Hawkwind The Forge Of Vulcan 3:01
07 Killing Joke Requiem (A Floating Leaf Always Reaches The Sea Dub Mix) 10:35
08 Brian Eno An Ending (Ascent) 4:11
09 Richard Horowitz Marnia's Tent 2:58
10 Irmin Schmidt / Bruno Spoerri Rapido De Noir 6:32
11 Ashra Kazoo 5:36
12 Harold Budd / Brian Eno Their Memories 2:38
13 The Grid Leave Your Body 4:46
14 Christopher Franke Electric Becomes Eclectic 3:39

CD 2:
01 Tangerine Dream Phaedra (Edit) 10:25
02 Brian Eno / Jon Hassell Delta Rain Dream 3:20
03 William Orbit The Monkey King 4:49
04 Gong Castle In The Clouds 1:02
05 Hawkwind Life Form 1:40
06 Laraaji The Dance #2 9:04
07 Sheila Chandra Sacred Stones 5:26
08 Michael Brook Earth Floor 4:44
09 Faust Läuft...Heisst Das Es Läuft Oder Es Kommt Bald...Läuft 3:19
10 Jon Hassell Gift Of Fire 4:41
11 Material The End Of Words 3:46
12 Edgar Froese Panorphelia 9:35
13 Roger Eno Voices 2:15
14 Holger Czukay Träum Mal Wieder 7:21
15 David Sylvian Home 4:14

32 comments:

  1. Your downloads are great, your tagging, however, is abysmal.. please take the time to tag properly, you give people so much extra work, what artist is various

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    1. It's not that much extra work. Quit bitching and be thankful for the great music!

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    2. I'm not bitching, you bitched saying "your tagging, however, is abysmal.. please take the time to tag properly" and I said "This one is tagged properly".
      Unless I'm reading this wrong and you are another person telling the person who bitched about my tagging to STFU and be thankful, in which case I applaud your comment.
      Enjoy the music, sorry about the tagging, I'll do better next time.

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    3. I'm directing my comment to the person complaining about tagging. I appreciate your (Crimhead420) long-time efforts to provide great music and just didn't think anyone should bitch and whine about having to put a little time in to have the files exactly as they wanted them. Sorry if my comment was mis-understood. - James

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    4. Why don't you anonymous people just select Name/URL and type in whatever you like. (You don't need to bother with the URL). It would help to alleviate confusion. Also why can't you update the tags yourself instead of bitchin (that word again) about it. I sometimes do. Its not rocket science.

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  2. thanks for the music and the files were named and fine

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  3. The music that is downloaded here by Crimhead420 is outstanding and well documented-anyone not appreciating all the work put in to this is just plain ignorant and should keep quiet so as not to show that ignorance. Happy New Year to you Crimhead420!!!

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  4. this blog is the shizznit! When I found it, I immediately pulled a good 8GB of music, expecting mp3s. You can't imagine my delight to find this is all FLAC goodness! Thank You so much for posting these gems!!!

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  5. I have been reviewing & promoting & creating ambient music since the late 90s and as far as ambient music goes, even in its infancy -- this collection is NOT ambient music but a cleverly disguised psuedo-ambient, compilation of material the label was simply pushing and attached the ambient moniker as a ploy to generate sales of their fringe genres. Even the amazing database of music, Discogs, categorizes it as Leftfield, Abstract, Space Rock, and lastly as "Ambient ". Don't waste your money on this -- like I did.

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    1. I agree with this release....BUT Vol. 3 is pretty good, here's the link: https://jazz-rock-fusion-guitar.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-brief-history-of-ambient-vol-3-1994.html

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    2. And Vol. 2 is also pretty good: https://jazz-rock-fusion-guitar.blogspot.com/2015/08/various-artists-brief-history-of_31.html

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    3. I WILL CHECK 'EM OUT. VOL 1 WAS A JOKE.

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    4. To anonymous at 20:12 2022-05-11, I have to respectfully disagree. I remember when this comp came out in 1993. By the mid-90s 'ambient' was as meaningless a term as 'new wave' was fifteen years earlier, or 'alternative' was in the 90's.

      As with any compilation, the proof is in the pudding, and any music fan could find something to like on this one. For my part, the Laraaji, Killing Joke and Can-related items alone make this a killer comp. Who cares how it's labeled and/or marketed, and major props to Crimhead for sharing it!

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    5. I been reviewing and promoting fusion as well as ambient electronic music since the 90s ... and -- you are just not the well versed & informed about the genre called ambient. It was definitely early on a sub-genre coming out of the new age fad, that caught on and persists to this day as its very own genre. Being a guitarist and synth player myself -- I have released many ambient albums since 2004 and again, I reiterate Various Artists - 1993 A Brief History of Ambient Vol. 1 is NOT an ambient compilation by any means.

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  6. Now I'm curious about vol. 1!! :-) I like 2 and 3 fine. Please re-up if you have the time.
    Also regarding old comment about tagging, I think your tags are fine. I re-tag to my preferences anyway. Don't spend time redoing old stuff, rather just keep up the good curation and output. Thanks.
    Plug for Mp3tag. I like it so much, I send the author money regularly. Easy scripting for common operations etc.

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  7. Also Mp3tag can do bulk operations with ease. Select multiple folders to open them all. I've updated even 1000s at a time with common changes. Be careful with all that power though.

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  8. Volumes 1, 2 and 3 are simply & still NOT ambient music. Sorry, but fact is fact.

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    1. See my comment above - if you ask ten people what 'ambient' music is, you'll get ten answers, nine of which you won't like. Ditto 'progrock', 'new wave', 'alternative', 'fusion', 'third stream', 'leftfield' (thanks, Discogs), and any of the other bs labels dreamt up by marketing people to sell music to gullible people who only buy by genre.

      Caveat emptor and judge by the music not the marketing.

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    2. I agree ambient music is misunderstood and few people can really accurately define the genre -- yourself included.

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  9. Yeah, the title could be misleading. Many of the musicians are ambient pioneers, but these titles are outside the genre. Still, a lot of good music. I'm a fan of compilations like these, even though I already have many of the tracks. I always end up hearing new stuff, which is bottom line for me.

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    1. Well said. Being a longtime fan and supporter of deep, beatless, non-rhythmic, evolving ambient music — the misleading labeling of the release simply irks me. Guess I am too picky.

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  10. https://www95.zippyshare.com/v/S7WiCQfB/file.html
    https://www95.zippyshare.com/v/RsbD3MGo/file.html

    https://workupload.com/archive/vS8g7UAD

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  11. So glad to see this available! You are a DIAMOND, crimhead. Please look for me on Soulseek (nick_in_mersey).

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  12. Thank you very much for all the music.

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