Ambient techno is a subgenre of
techno that incorporates the atmospheric textures of
ambient music
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes Musical tone, tone and atmosphere over traditional Musical form, musical structure or rhythm. Often "peaceful" sounding and lacking Musical composition, composition, beat, and/or structured melod ...
with the rhythmic elements and production of techno.
It was pioneered by 1990s electronic artists such as
Aphex Twin,
Carl Craig,
The Orb,
The Future Sound of London,
the Black Dog,
Pete Namlook and
Biosphere.
Characteristics and influences
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
states that ambient techno, building off the
ambient house scene, blended the "soaring, layered, aquatic atmospheres of beatless and experimental
ambient" with
techno's "well-produced, thin-sounding electronics."
Artists fused the "environmentalist" work of
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno (, born 15 May 1948), also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambien ...
,
Jon Hassell, and
Wendy Carlos with the rhythms of urban dance styles such as techno and
acid house
Acid house (also simply known as just " acid") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synt ...
.
Ambient techno artists returned to the instruments of the
Detroit techno and
Chicago house scenes, including
analogue synthesizers, the
Roland TB-303 bass machine, and the
TR-909 drum machine.
Common elements included heavily reverbed
string pads and subtle drum programming that moved beyond the simple patterns of 4/4 techno and
house, while artists typically de-emphasized
sampling.
One principal influence on the genre was the 1984 album ''
E2-E4'' by German musician
Manuel Göttsching. The Orb's 1991 album ''
Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld'' would inspire
dub-influenced ambient techno.
''
Artforum'' noted the genre's similarities with
new age
New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...
: "swaddling the listener in a womblike sound bath, it means retreat from the environment, relief from the stresses of urban existence."
Critic
Simon Reynolds characterized the style as a "post-rave genre" meant "for immobile contemplation," comparing it to "the aqua-mysticism and forest idylls of
Claude Debussy."
The style would be associated with labels such as
Warp,
Apollo
Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...
, GPR, and
Beyond,
with releases focusing more on
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
s than
12-inch singles.
History
Origins
Ambient techno departed from the communal, dance-oriented sound heard at
raves and instead gained popularity in the early 1990s as a form of "electronic listening music."
Artists such as
Carl Craig,
the Black Dog, and
The Orb produced early works in the style. Carl Craig's early releases as part of the
Detroit techno scene (later collected on the compilation ''
Elements 1989-1990'') showcased an ambient style of "narcoleptic, interior techno,"
and would inspire UK artists aiming to make atmospheric listening music.
Aphex Twin's 1991 recording "
Analogue Bubblebath" would also signal a shift toward meditative, ambient-leaning techno,
while his 1992 debut LP ''
Selected Ambient Works 85-92'' became "the flagship of the emergent genre" according to ''
SPIN''.
Producer
Pete Namlook released a prodigious amount of music in the genre, starting the label
Fax in 1992 and becoming a "spiritual leader" of the movement.
Other prominent artists in the style included
Irresistible Force,
Global Communication,
Higher Intelligence Agency, and
Future Sound of London.
According to
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
, early classics of the era included Aphex Twin's debut LP,
Ultramarine's ''
Every Man and Woman Is a Star'' (1991),
Biosphere's ''
Microgravity'' (1991), and the Orb's ''
U.F.Orb'' (1992). Author Sean Albiez added Higher Intelligence Agency's ''
Colourform'' (1992) and the Black Dog's ''
Temple of Transparent Balls'' (1993) as early examples.
The release of Warp's ''
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
'' compilation in 1992 helped to establish the genre and featured ambient techno pioneers such Aphex Twin,
B12,
Autechre, the Black Dog,
Richie Hawtin, and the Orb's
Alex Paterson. B12's 1993 Warp album ''
Electro-Soma'' was also called a classic of ambient techno by ''
Resident Advisor''. ''
The Quietus'' characterized
Luke Slater's early-90s work under his 7th Plain moniker as important to the style's development. Following the release of Warp's
Artificial Intelligence series, the genre developed further into the "
intelligent techno" scene.
Developments
During the 1990s, compilation series such as ''Chill Out or Die'' popularized ambient techno and
house. In reaction against the more "cozy" features of the early ambient techno scene, some artists would move toward a darker sound heard on releases such as Aphex Twin's ''
Selected Ambient Works Volume II'' (1994) and projects by other "ambient noir-ists" such as
Seefeel and the duo of
David Toop &
Max Eastley.
Virgin's 1994 compilation ''
Isolationism'' served as a summary of this darker tendency.
In the early-to mid-1990s, a small network of ambient techno artists developed around the Berlin-based labels
Basic Channel and
Chain Reaction. In 1995, producer
Wolfgang Voigt began releasing influential ambient techno projects as
Gas, bringing together lush and expansive atmospheres with 4/4
minimal techno beats. Voigt co-runs the German label
Kompakt, which has released installments of the influential ambient techno compilation series ''Pop Ambient'' annually since 2001.
See also
*
Electronica
*
Intelligent dance music
*
Techno
References
{{Electronica
20th-century music genres
Techno genres
Electronica
Ambient music
Electronic music genres
British styles of music