Ambient music doesn’t get a whole lot of love: you’re into such extravagances as drums and vocals, it might be difficult to get into the formless compositions associated with the genre. But done right, ambient can transport the listener to somewhere familiar, nostalgic or completely alien. Here are some of the albums this decade that have successfully accomplished this feat.
1. Biosphere – N-Plants (2011). The eerie, mechanical calm of Norwegian veteran Biosphere’s eighth and best album is fitting considering its inspiration in the potential instability of Japanese nuclear plants. Coincidentally, it was released only months before the Fukushima disaster, and though this interpretation gives N-Plants added gravitas, it’s more than capable of standing on its own.
2. Donato Dozzy & Neel – Voices From The Lake (2012). Italy’s Donato Dozzy emerged as ambient music’s loudest new voice (though that may seem like a contradiction) with his masterful mix Voices From The Lake, recorded with countryman Neel. Split into eleven segments, VFTL is a single, flowing piece that demonstrates ambient music’s ability to spirit the listener away to wherever the producer chooses to take them.
3. Vladislav Delay – Visa (2014). Recorded in a two-week burst of inspiration after being denied a visa to tour in the United States, Finnish master Vladislav Delay’s Visa bristles with both anger and the awe of discovery—two things the man himself must have felt with so much free time on his hands following a major disappointment. Punishing 23-minute opener “Visaton” might make this a non-starter for some, but braving it to get at the ambient treasure later in the album is more than worth it.
4. Wolfgang Voigt – Ruckverzauberung 10/Nationalpark (2015). Wolfgang Voigt is best known for the forest-inspired Gas project (whose four albums are good to brilliant). On Nationalpark, a piece commissioned for the opening of a new nature preserve in Germany, he steps back into the woods. The result is an achingly gorgeous hour-long meditation that evokes a small-scale awe, and at times more reminiscent of psychedelia and baroque pop than ambient music.
5. Loscil – Coast/Range/Arc (2010). This is as ambient as it gets – six lonesome pieces of patient drone that barely develop over run-times that breach ten minutes. But the Vancouver producer’s seventh album forms an interactive, widescreen space for the listener to step into. It’s a head trip into a vast, pelagic wonder-world that seems to stretch to infinity in all directions.
Honorable mentions:
The Caretaker – An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (2011). Shining-loving noisenik Leyland Kirby reincarnates old swing records as fractured, eerie ambient.
Donato Dozzy – Plays Bee Mask (2013). One-half of Voices From The Lake remixes Bee Mask’s club track “Vaporware” and transforms it into a multi-part ambient suite.
Grouper – AIA (2011). Reverb-loving Portland guitarist Liz Harris conjures a nocturnal stillness with her impressive 2011 double album as Grouper.
Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal (2010). The inventor of vaporwave steps away from plundering ’80s infomercials to make sleek drones from his synth collection.
Jurgen Muller – Science Of The Sea (2013). Prankster Norman Chambers marketed Science of the Sea as a lost ’70s ambient record. It’s not, but it’s amazing.