Rolling Ambient/Modern Composition/Drone Thread 2020 Edition

He is right though, no woman has made has a classic ambient record…

Proper mad that they didn’t include any of the current crop of women who are properly leading ambient as a form, or someone like Delia Derbyshire, Pauline Oliveros, or Wendy Carlos as innovators. If they were just looking at classic albums they could have gone with Deep Listening.

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This.

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100%. I do think Open Eye Signal is a really well-paced banger, but he never reached anywhere close to it with anything else he released.

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So lovely, this.

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Exactly this.

yeah, i think this is what i was going for, rather than cheesy which i wrote before. Soulless

I think for me, Hopkins falls into a category with people like Ulrich Schnauss, where they get described as ambient, but all I hear is “really dull electronica”

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That Hopkins album with King Creosote is one of the most lovely things ever set to tape (not ambient mind but still). Immunity is also fab: he’s not ambient at all but I still like him.

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This Prairie album is GREAT.

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Quite like Schnauss but I also just coined the term ‘dullectronica’ in my head for you to use to describe him.

Cheers! I’ll try and use it :joy:

I should say i really haven’t listened to much of Hopkins (mainly Immunity) but that’s because I just couldn’t find anything in there for me

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Hopkins is the Foo Fighters of electronic music.

Also, he has managed to make some of Coldplay shit palatable.

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I’m lucky enough to have a press pass for the online Sheffield Doc/Fest, so i’ve managed to see ‘Sisters with Transitors’, which is basically all about this - the forgotten women of early eletronic music. It’s a brilliant brilliant film. Think it will get a proper release soon(is) when it’s leagl to go to the cinema again

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This sounds ace!

I’m not sure that’s true (IMO, obvs!), even though OES is a stone-cold dancefloor killer. Some of the tracks early on on Singularity absolutely BANG live. Hopkins was incredible headlining West Holts at Glastonbury in 2019, getting a huge crowd absolutely raving, when many/most of them won’t be regular club-goers etc. Mind you, the sound on WH for the last few years has been incredible.

I have a soft spot for JH also because he played one of the most incredible sets of techno I’ve ever had the honour to dance to, underneath Arcadia’s Spider in 2017. It was one of those ‘everything came together at the right time’ moments, with a crowd who had chosen to forego the 5 main stage headliners in order to be there. He dropped Open Eye Signal at exactly the half-way point and It. Went. Off.

Holy shit, do I need a rave…

Ben

Edit - apologies for too many ‘incredibles’ in that post

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Listening again now after your post.

I KNOW!!! It’s soooo good! Can’t wait for the vinyl to arrive.

Ben

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Yes, totally this.

Deep Listening is…well. it’s unique, isn’t it. Anniversary of the passing of that legendary lady ion 2016 was yesterday, I think.

Ben

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Ha. I hear you - and I don’t think he’s bad particularly. & can fully imagine it being awesome in that situation. I guess I just find a lot of his stuff passes me by when I listen, and not in a good ‘ambient’ way.

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Don’t misunderstand me, for me JH is an incredibly skilful musician and producer who makes some very good IDM/techno dance stuff that I like if I’m out. Do I put his records on…? Nah, can’t remember the last time I did. Do I listen to him for ambient? Wouldn’t even occur to me to do so!

Ben

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