How can music that goes nowhere be so drop-dead gorgeous? Ambient lovers only....

[NRaleighLiberal]

the band is Stars of the Lid. I've been listening to "....and Their Refinement of the Decline" for many evenings.

http://www.amazon.com/Refinement-Decline-Stars-Lid/dp/B000NIIUX8/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1360123446&sr=1-1&keywords=stars+of+the+lid

here is a taste - the first song

And how can you not love a band that names a song "December Hunting for Vegetarian Fuckface" - a song that lasts over 17 minutes!



This may be a bit easier - "Even If You're never Awake"

[Honeycombe8]

1. ??? I found that very unpleasant.

I didn't get past the first few notes. French horns is what I think those horns are...a lonely, morose sound.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. You need to just put it on and listen to it all...and the rest of the album.

Like I said - you need to love ambient music, perhaps (my musical tastes are admittedly a bit wide-ranging!)

It is heavily processed, moves at glacial speed - but once it gets into your bones.....mine, anyway!

[harmonicon]

8. Naw, that stuff's downright fast. It's only slow-moving as pop music goes.

There are more extreme examples than this, but for the uninitiated, I'd check out Phill Niblock

and, especially, Eliane Radigue.

[bif]

3. I love ambient music.

And a lot of electronica and downtempo stuff. My family thinks it's boring. I keep reminding them, it's subtle. Someday they'll get it! Maybe.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. we found it useful when one of our children was in the midst of a pretty serious issue -

we got into the habit of listening to it at night to help us sleep. In the process, we listened to Tim Story, Eno, Steve Halpern, then most recently got into more "creative" ambient. I love to have it playing while I work on my book.

[NightWatcher]

5. Thx for the tip. Pretty good. Will dig further into them

I just did get into Brian Eno's Songs for The Airport.

[sendero]

6. eno was practically...

.. the originator of this style of music. Ok, well at least the coined the term "ambient". I, and most other interested folks, think Another Green World is his masterpiece and I would heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the genre, although not every track is ambient.

[harmonicon]

7. I think those pop albums of his are the best.

Though he gets attention for the ambient stuff, I don't think most of it was any good, though I do have a soft spot of the Fripp and Eno records.

[sendero]

9. Agreed..

... although to be honest I'd not really call them "pop". Most folks call them the "vocal" albums because they each contain some vocal tracks and the last two contain several ambient tracks. Each of these is his best work overall for sure. And I love the Fripp/Eno records as well, especially Evening Star.

back in the late 70s I made a mix tape from these 4 albums for a friend. I gave it to him and never heard anything back, I am used to people not taking the time to listen or just finding the music too difficult or not their cup of tea. I didn't give it much thought.

He had changed jobs and I hadn't heard from him in quite a while. About a year later he called me one Sunday morning. "What WAS that stuff? he said". I told him that was Brian Eno and he couldn't stop talking about how fantastic is was. Turned out him and a friend had taken a popular 3-letter hallucinogen the night before, and running out of music they wanted to hear popped in my tape on a lark. They were in the perfect state to "get" it

[harmonicon]

11. Yeah, "vocal albums" is a better description.

"Pop" is just too relative. Coming from a world of classical music, I'd call all of his records "pop," but if I were coming from the top 40 side of things, I'd maybe say that none of them were.


... and, yes, "Evening Star" is definitely the best Fripp/Eno collaboration.

[In_The_Wind]

10. I prefer your first offering, Stars of the Lid - Dungtitled (In A Major).

The visual effects were perfect.

Thank you, NRaleighLiberal.