...can be found in this article on ambient music, from today's (Sunday) San Fransciso Chronicle "Datebook": http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/11/PKGAA45D9R1.DTL
The sky's the limit with ambient music
[font=geneva,arial]Steve Sande
[/font][font=geneva,arial][size=-2]Sunday, January 11, 2004
[/size][/font]Beeps and blips, rhythmic murmurs, droning loops, slowly shifting sonic waves: This is the sound of spacemusic, also known as ambient, chill-out, mellow dub, down-tempo ... call it what you will.
Anything but New Age.
Often beatless, boneless, even vaporous, ambient spacemusic seeks to transport the listener to another state of consciousness -- or another galaxy. In this below-the-radar genre, which has taken the place of what used to be called "headphone music" (or just "head music," in the '60s and '70s), new sonic frontiers summon encompassing atmospheres -- interstellar, aquatic, subterranean -- that supplant the sounds, voices and noise bombarding listeners in everyday life. Often dismissed as "background" music, ambient music challenges listeners to participate in the creative process. It conjures filmic soundscapes that cry out for visual interpretation: Close your eyes, and make the movie in your mind's eye fit the soundtrack. Take a trip to a new world, without the magic mushrooms or the risk of arrest.
Though hardly mainstream, the ambient electronic genre attracts an avid legion of tech-savvy fans. It's no surprise that the Bay Area is home to many spacemusic artists -- and a large segment of its international audience.
A prime mover in the ambient/spacemusic genre is Stephen Hill, founder of the Sausalito record label Hearts of Space, which has carved out a dominant niche in the area of avant-garde electronica by providing what he calls "slow music for fast times."
Hill, who coined the term "spacemusic" more than 20 years ago, hosts the "Music From the Hearts of Space" music program, syndicated on 250 National Public Radio stations, including San Francisco's KALW 91.7 FM, which airs two hours of the program at 10 p.m. Sundays. In addition, Hill's Hearts of Space Web site (www.hos.com) provides streaming access to an archive of hundreds of hours of spacemusic artfully blended into one-hour programs combining ambient, electronic, world, New Age and classical music. Another program centered on spacemusic is Echoes (www.echoes.org), hosted by John Diliberto, which airs from 9 p.m. to midnight Tuesdays and Wednesdays on KALW-FM (91.7).
"The best description of what we do is 'contemplative music,' " says Hill. "It occurs in many cultures because it satisfies a psychological and physical need for rest, coherence and subtlety. It can be relaxing and superficial, but it also has the power to go very deep, which we try to do in every show."
A frequent contributor to the "Hearts of Space" programs is pioneer Silicon Valley electronic artist Robert Rich (www.robertrich.com), who began building synthesizers from kits at the age of 13 during the 1970s. "I toy around with new invented terms like 'mind music,' says Rich, "but it's easy to get bogged down in semantics. I tend to make music that has a lot going on under the surface. I think these layers can unfold new ways of hearing a piece after multiple listenings."
Rich, who has performed his time-intensive and mind-expanding music live around the world (including Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences), is regarded as an innovator in the genre. He is perhaps best known for his all-night "sleep concerts" held at Stanford University in the '80s, in which he encouraged audience members to bring sleeping bags and pillows and to fall asleep during the lulling performances. Rich recently released an audio DVD called "Somnium" featuring more than seven hours of music similar to those marathon concerts.
Steve Roach (www.steveroach.com), another successful veteran artist whose music has been championed by Hill and Hearts of Space, has been making music directly on synthesizers for 28 years. "I make music with whatever is needed," says the prolific Roach, who last year released a four-CD magnum opus called "Mystic Chords & Sacred Spaces," which will keep his fans busy for months. "The use of technology is the base, but the infusion of organic instruments is a big part of my sound," says Roach, a California native who now lives and works in the Sonora Desert of Arizona. "I find a high number of writers, programmers, scientists, doctors, psychologists and so on use the music as a tool to help them in many ways."
It is this use of spacemusic as a conduit into the creative process that draws devotees into a secret society of sorts. Listeners may use the music to get the creative juices flowing, to help with writing, painting or just thinking up new ideas. "It is an open slate," says Roach of his meditative, even trance-inducing spacemusic. "It can be used as each person wishes."
The success of companies like Hearts of Space (which was purchased by New York's Valley Entertainment in 2001), the abundance of do-it-yourself home studios and an increase in tech-knowledgeable customers suggest that the market for ambient music may increase in the near future. "The genre is still alive and evolving," says Roach.
Hill, who has witnessed the ebb and flow of spacemusic over three decades, says he doesn't "ever expect ambient music to get to the level of the mainstream genre. But I think it's a solid division of contemporary music." He notes that some of today's biggest bands, including Radiohead and Sigur Ros, involve ambient music as part of their repertoire.
It is precisely because of the nature of the music -- minimal vocals, atmospheric washes, little or no melody -- that it is inherently non- mainstream. The very obscurity of ambient and its infinite subgenres appeals to technophiles who seek out new music unknown to the Clear Channel hordes.
"What we offer, well, you're never going to find this music on the radio, " says John Buckman, founder of Berkeley's Magnatune (www.magnatune.com), which bases its business model on a "try before you buy" approach. Founded last year, Magnatune provides online downloads of hundreds of MP3s, with a particular focus on ambient electronica. Buckman, whose corporate motto is "We are not evil," promotes undiscovered artists, many of whom create experimental electronic music. "We've received more than 500 new submissions of music since our startup in May, and more and more flood in each week," he says. Visitors to Magnatune can sample the work of thousands of artists for free. If customers like what they hear, they can then purchase high-quality downloads for a fee. "We split all profits 50-50 with our artists," says Buckman. "That is unheard of in this business."
Contemporary ambient spacemusic is rooted in the works of such avant- garde composers as Erik Satie, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Reich's seminal 1965 piece "It's Gonna Rain" features looped speech by a preacher. The loops create various sounds, which slip out of sync, changing and evolving over the length of the piece.
Brian Eno, generally regarded as the godfather of ambient music, was inspired by these avant-garde composers and began experimenting with analog synthesizers and loop-based technologies in the early 1970s. Eno's "Music for Airports" (1978), along with the early electronic masterpiece "Autobahn" (1972) and the spacey "Atem" (1973) by German synth icons Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, took listeners on an extended journey. Unsure of where "songs" began or ended, and exposed to strange, otherworldly sounds, stereophiles found themselves immersed in these slowly unfurling soundscapes.
In time, electronic music became less contemplative and immersive. It also spawned the much-maligned New Age (which has come to be a pejorative term among musicians). "New Age largely bores me to tears," says electroacoustic artist D.A.C. Crowell (www.magnatune.com/artists/dac_crowell), who creates spacemusic from his home-built Aerodyne Works Studio in rural Illinois. "Good ambient work, however, is more likely to open a space for thought. It's not melodic background clutter."
Like an ever-mutating organism, spacemusic continues to evolve. Today, machines or software programs themselves can create original music that changes each time the music is "played." These so-called generative programs, once set in motion, use loops and phase shifting to generate a piece of music that never sounds the same twice.
Like some futuristic nanotechnology experiment, the fusing of organic (man) with machine (synthesizer/computer) continues to create new and extraordinary aural experiences. But, according to ambient artist Crowell, "generative programs are no shortcut and no substitute for musical capability. (It is) the 'mistakes' and other things that make music human and interesting."
10 essential spacemusic CDs
LISA GERRARD: The Mirror Pool
BRIAN ENO: Music for Airports
DJIVAN GASPARYAN: I Will Not Be Sad in This World
ARVO PART: Tabula Rasa
STEVE ROACH: Structures From Silence
PAUL HORN: Inside the Taj Mahal
TONY SCOTT: Music for Zen Meditation
HAROLD BUDD: The Pearl
TIM STORY: Shadowplay
STEPHAN MICUS: Til the End of Time
Selected by Stephen Hill of Hearts of Space
Steve Sande is a freelance writer living in San Francisco. E-mail him at [email protected]. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
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