released January 1, 2023

Radical Ambient Music. A manifesto of sorts…

Ambient Music
In 1978 Brian Eno released “Music for Airports”. It was the first in a series of albums containing a type of music, Eno coined “Ambient music”. In the liner notes of this album, Eno tries to define what Ambient music is, and what it is not. According to Eno, Ambient music is:
• Environmental music
• Music as ambience
• Intended to enhance environments acoustic and atmospheric
idiosyncrasies
• Intended to induce calm and a space to think.
• Must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention
without enforcing one in particular
• Must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

As we can see, there are quite a few words and sentences that connote and describe Ambient music as a sort of “mood” or “relaxation” music. Descriptions like “as ignorable as it is interesting” and “induce calm and a space to think”, could be used as arguments for a focus on calm and evocative themes in Ambient music. And if you listen to a cross section of all music labelled Ambient from the 70’s up until today, the sounds you’ll hear would very much fit the calm, evocative and atmospheric description. Reading the description of “modern” Ambient music on Wikipedia further emphasizes this. Here it is described as a genre of music that “encourage a sense of calm or contemplation”, and “evoke an ‘atmospheric’, ‘visual’, or ‘unobtrusive’ quality”. With this in mind, it’s not hard to grasp why the majority of music within this genre is drowned in seas of reverb and delay effects. Considering that these types of effects are designed to creates space(s). Space to think, contemplate, feel, or just relax?

The above statements are of course biased and describe a simplified view on the current trends in Ambient music. Nevertheless, there is a point to be made in regard of the fact that a lot of the music classified as Ambient music (nowadays) contain some, or all these traits. Considering how this Ambient music is used and abused in our everyday life, be it mass media, shopping malls, social media etc. One could perhaps argue that this narrow understanding of what Ambient is, might have turned it into the very same musical concept Eno was trying to discern it from? The dreaded Muzak!

According to Eno, Muzak is environmental music “arranged and orchestrated in a lightweight and derivative manner”. Perhaps much of the same could be said about the current trends in, and use of, Ambient music today? Maybe better illustrated in the words of the Ambient music pioneer Geir “Biosphere” Jenssen: «I mean, "Ambient," I think Brian Eno described it as music you shouldn't listen to—it should be more like wallpaper, background music. That's not my goal when I make music. I want people to listen to it actively».

Also worth noting is Eno’s description of Muzak as “blanketing their [environments] acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncrasies”. In my opinion much of today’s Ambient music suffer from this blanketing in the form of an over-use of artificial space enhancers. Considering this, I would argue that the extensive use of reverb and delay, that has become a somewhat staple of ambient music, fails to enhance environments acoustics and atmospheric idiosyncrasies. In my opinion this overuse of spatial enhancers rather blankets the acoustic and atmospheric characteristics of the environment.

So, this leads us to the project Radical Ambient Music.

Radical Ambient Music
With RAM I want to pursue Eno’s theoretical framework in a literal and radical fashion.
I want to search for the core of Ambient music.
Release it from its shackles.
Save it from drowning in the sea of reverb and delay.
Be true to the environment, its acoustics, its ambience.
To accomplish this, I will make a set of rules derived from Eno’s definition of what Ambient music is.
There is NO room for bending of the rules.

The rules are as follows:

• The environment you compose for must be a real-world
environment. A place you (and others) will be able to visit and
record.
• The composition must be based on the environment’s soundscape
and acoustic properties. In other words, made to enhance the
environments acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncrasies.
• Before you do any composing, you must go to your chosen
location and record the environments
acoustics/soundscape/ambiance.
o This recording is the starting point and guide for your
composition (your score).
o Every part of this recording must be deleted from the finished
track, it is meant as an audible “guide”/reference in the
composition work, NOT as a part of the composition.
o More specifically, the track can NOT contain any field
recordings, or recordings of the location.
• Photographs or other “visual aids” that depict the
environment/location is NOT allowed in the composition process
• NO artificial spatial enhancers allowed. Meaning, NO reverbs or
delays!
• Recording of the “finished” track should be done as follows:
• Either:
o Return to the site/environment that is the starting point for
your composition.
o Place loudspeakers wherever you feel suits the environments
acoustics best.
o Place microphone(s) at appropriate spots.
o Play track via loudspeakers, record using microphones. Or
preform your composition live.
o Record the track as it is heard.
o Record in one sitting.
o No post-editing allowed
o Oh, and did I mention NO artificial spatial enhancers.
o Done.
• Or:
o Compose the track and record it digitally.
o Do not use any artificial spatial enhancers in the composition
or recording of the finished track. Leave it bone dry.
o Make a wav-file (or similar format file) of the composition
o Done.
• And finally, track title MUST include information about:
o Where the recording was done
o Date of recording
o Time of recording
Now, with these dogmas spelled out, I urge you to embrace the task!

T. Jervell
Gravdal, Lofoten MMXXII

If you want your track added to the Radical Ambient Music online compilation. Please send your submission to: radical.ambient.music@gmail.com