Ambient House

Ambient House
Stylistic origins	Ambient House Acid House Electro
Cultural origins	Late 1980s Tokyo (Japan) and UK
Typical instruments	Electronic musical instruments (synthesizer, synth pad, sampler, drum machine), traditional instruments
Level of recognition	Major Genre
Derivatives
Ambient Techno – Trance – IDM

Ambient House is a subgenre of IDM and House music that combines elements of Acid House and Ambient music. Tracks in the ambient house genre typically feature four-on-the-floor beat patterns, synthesizers such as synth pads, and vocal samples integrated in a style classed as atmospheric. The genre originated from Tokyo (Japan) and the United Kingdom during the late 1980s.

History

Tokyo

Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) was a Japanese electronic music group consisting of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. Active in Tokyo from 1978 to 1992, YMO are frequently cited as pioneers of ambient house. The YMO trio were the first to use the Roland TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines along with heavy use of ambient samples and reverb effects in the early 1980s, laying the foundations for ambient house.

Examples of Tokyo ambient house in the early 1980s:

• Yukihiro Takahashi productions
  • Susan's "Screamer" (1980)
  • "Ark Diamant" (1981) by The Beatniks (Yukihiro Takahashi and Keiichi Suzuki)
  • Susan's "I Only Come Out At Night" and "My Love" (1981)
• Akira Sakata's "Yarin'Age", "Meuniere" and "Panco" (1980)
• Ryuichi Sakamoto
  • "Riot in Lagos" and "E-3A" (1980)
  • "Front Line" (1981), "Happy End" (1981) and "Bamboo Houses" (1982)
• Yellow Magic Orchestra (1981)
  • "Riot in Lagos" from Live at Budokan 1980
  • "Ballet", "Camouflage" and "Loom" from BGM
  • "Seoul Music", "Light in Darkness", "Prologue" and "Epilogue" from Technodelic
  • "Light in Darkness" and "Ballet" from Winter Live 1981
• Haruomi Hosono productions
  • Sandii's "Zoot Kook" (1980)
  • Haruomi Hosono's "Sangokushi Main Theme" (1982)
  • Testpattern's "Ring Dance" (1982)
  • Interior's "Technobose" (1982)
  • Chiemi Manabe's "Untotōku" (1982) co-produced by Nobuyuki Shimizu and Kenji Ohmura
• Colored Music's "Heartbeat" and "Ei Sei Raku" (1981) produced by Atsuo Fujimoto and Ichiko Hashimoto
• Noriko Miyamoto's "After You've Gone" and "Arrows & Eyes" (1981) produced by Kazuhiko Katō
• Magical Power Mako's "Fresh Vegetable" and "Little Darling" (1981)
• Yuji Ohno's "Living Satelite Of "IO" Of Jupiter" and "Landing On The Surface Of Venus" (1981)
• Logic System (Hideki Matsutake)
  • "Intro", "XY", "Prophet" and "Automatic Collect, Automatic Correct" (1981)
  • "Orient Express" (1982)
• Ippu-Do tracks produced by Masami Tsuchiya (1981–1983)
  • "Radio Cosmos", "Yomotolo-Waiya", "Dubling Radio" and "Listen To Me" from Radio Fantasy (1981)
  • "Sorrow", "Lonely Sealion", "Dream of the Gypsies" and "Sail On" from Night Mirage (1983)
• Ryo Kawasaki's "Marilyn" and "Hawaiian Caravan" (1982)
• Sakata Sextet's "Tra" and "Uma" (1982)
• Naomi Akimoto's "Tennessee Waltz" (1982) produced by Masanori Sasaji and Daikō Nagato
• Yasuaki Shimizu's "Kakashi", "Semi Tori No Hi" and "Umi No Ue Kara" (1982)

Examples of Tokyo ambient house in the mid-1980s:

• Ryo Kawasaki's "Lucky Lady" (1983), "Long Time Before You Were Born" and "Caravan" (1983)
• Yellow Magic Orchestra's "The Madmen" and "Shadows on the Ground" (1983)
• Mariah's "Shinzo No Tobira" (1983)
• Naomi Akimoto's 4 Seasons (1983) produced by Masaki Iwamoto
  • "He's So Trendy", "Bad Imagination", "Honey Bee" and "Jinx"
• Masao Hiruma productions
  • Testpattern's "Ryugu" (1983) and "Watashi no Shōnen wa Nihonjin" (1984)
  • Apogee & Perigee's "Hope" (1984)
• Ryuichi Sakamoto productions
  • Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Ao Penki no Naka no Boku no Namida" (1983)
  • Mari Iijima's "Odeko ni Kiss" (1983)
  • Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Tibetan Dance (Version)" and "Tabi no Kyokuhoku" (1984)
  • Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Robot" and "Steppin' Into Asia" (1985)
  • Ryuichi Sakamoto's "A Wongga Dance Song" and "Adelic Penguins" (1985)
• Hiroshi Sato's "Funky Multi" (1984)
• Haruomi Hosono's "Non-Standard Mixture" (1984) and "Sayokoskatti" (1985)
• Jun Fukamachi's "Treasure Hunter" (1985)
• Ichiko Hashimoto's "Kitsune" (1985)
• Hajime Tachibana's "XP-41" (1985)

Examples of Tokyo ambient house in the late 1980s:

• Akira Inoue's "Tick it, Tock it, Turn it True" (1986)
• Chika Asamoto's "Self Control" (1988)
• Haruomi Hosono's "Pleocine" and "Orgone Box" (1989)
• Seigen Ono's "Something to Hold on To" (1989)

Examples of Tokyo ambient house in the early 1990s:

• Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Rap The World", "Borom Gal" and "High Tide" (1991)
• "Multiplies" (Remix) and "Light In Darkness" (Remix) by Yellow Magic Orchestra (1992)
• Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Be A Superman" and "Hi-Tech Hippies" (1993)
• Haruomi Hosono's "Laughter Meditation" and "Medicine Mix" (1993)
• Tetsu Inoue's "Did You Ever Retire A Human..." (1993), "Karmic Light" and "Ambiant Otaku" (1994)

Ambient house was taken up in large part by artists such as Tetsu Inoue in the early 1990s.

United Kingdom

In 1989, Paul Oakenfold ran the Acid house night at Heaven, and Dr. Alex Paterson ran a chill-out counterpart in the White Room. There, Paterson (soon to be front man in The Orb) spun Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, and 10CC songs at low volume and accompanied them with multiscreen video projections. Around the same time, in the East End of London, so-called Spacetime parties were held at Cable Street. These parties, organized by Jonah Sharp, were designed to encourage conversation rather than dance, and featured Mixmaster Morris.

The ambient house movement began in the late 1980s largely due to the demand for post-rave "come-down" music. It was founded mainly by The Orb members Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty. They drew from various influences, particularly Yellow Magic Orchestra, in addition to influences from Steve Reich, Brian Eno, reggae music, and 1970s psychedelic rock, including Pink Floyd. Inspired by the house music played by DJs such as Larry "Mr. Fingers" Heard, Paterson and Cauty began DJ-ing and composing experimental music. The Orb established the genre in 1989 as DJs during night-club events called The Land of Oz, based at the night-club Heaven.

After a recording session with John Peel later that year, The Orb released the twenty-minute "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld", which featured "bright, translucent sounds" and "tinkl[ing]" keyboards, as well as heavily sampling Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You". Out of Paterson and Cauty's sessions at Trancentral studio, came Cauty and Bill Drummond's KLF album Chill Out (which featured no credit to Paterson). After splitting from The Orb, Cauty finished work on his own album Space, and Paterson's Orb went on to create the single "Little Fluffy Clouds" – both important works of ambient house. In 1991, The Orb released the album The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, featuring both of their previous singles. Combining Moog synthesizers with religious chorales and audio clips of the Apollo 11 rocket launch, The Orb popularized the "spacy" sound of ambient house.

The musicians of The KLF stopped their musical production in 1992, whilst in the same year The Orb released the single "Blue Room"which was to become their most successful, reaching eighth place in the UK singles chart. At forty minutes, it was the longest single to reach the UK charts. An edited form of it appeared on The Orb album U.F.Orb later that year. U.F.Orb brought in dub influences into ambient-house. In the years after the release of their live album, Live 93, The Orb largely stopped their ambient-house music production, instead concentrating on producing more "metallic" music.

Ambient house was taken up in large part by artists such as Juno Reactor, Pete Namlook and Aphex Twin.

Major ambient house artists

• 808 State
• Aphex Twin
• Biosphere
• Boards of Canada
• Global Communication
• Haruomi Hosono
• Juno Reactor
• Masao Hiruma
• Pete Namlook
• Ryuichi Sakamoto
• Tetsu Inoue
• The KLF
• The Orb
• System 7
• Yellow Magic Orchestra
• Yukihiro Takahashi

Key albums

• The Orb - A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld (1989/1990)
• Jimmy Cauty - Space (1990)
• The KLF - Chill Out (1990)
• Biosphere - Microgravity (1991)
• The Orb - Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (1991)
• Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992)
• The Orb - U.F.Orb (1992)
• The Irresistible Force - Flying High (1992)
• Pete Namlook - Air (1993)
• Tetsu Inoue - Ambiant Otaku (1994)
• Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children (1998)