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Ambient house
Stylistic origins Ambient music
House music
Acid House
Electro
Cultural origins Late 1980s
Tokyo (Japan)
United Kingdom
Typical instruments Electronic musical instruments, synth pads, traditional instrumentats
Derivative forms Ambient TechnoTranceIDM

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.[1] 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.[2] They were the first to use the Roland TR-808 drum machine in 1980 and then Technodelic (1981) was the first album to heavily use ambient samples, laying the foundations for ambient house.

Examples from the early 1980s:

Examples during the mid-to-late 1980s:

Examples in the early 1990s:

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.[3]

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,[2] 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".[4] 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).[4] 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.[4]

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.[4]

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

Major ambient house artists[]

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)

References[]

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  2. 2.0 2.1 Yellow Magic Orchestra at AllMusic. Retrieved 2011-05-25.
  3. Reynolds, Simon. Generation ecstasy: into the world of techno and rave culture. New York: Routledge, 1999.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Prendergast, Mark. The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Moby-The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2003.
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