Some 80s - 2000s Ambient Songs/Artist?

[cameronight]

Can anyone link/suggest me some 80s maybe even 70s ambient music? I need to know the good stuff

[aoVI]

Some to get you started:

Brian Eno:

Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Ambient 4: On Land
Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks
Thursday Afternoon

Brian Eno/Harold Budd:

Ambient 2: Plateaux of Mirror
The Pearl

Harold Budd:

Abandoned Cities
White Arcades

Brian Eno/Jon Hassell:

Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics

[betadecay]

Brian Eno: Music for Films (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_Films) & The Shutov Assembly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shutov_Assembly)

[tf-drone]

Tangerine Dream: Zeit (1971)
Cluster: II (1972)
Eberhard Schoener: Meditation (1973)
Harmonia: Musik von Harmonia (1974)
Ashra: New age of earth (1977)
Steve Roach: Structures from silence (1982), Quiet music (1984), Dreamtime return (1986)
Manuel Göttsching: E2-E4 (1984), a classic, but relies on a steady rhythmn
Thom Brennan: Mountains (1987)
Jon Mark: The standing stones of Callanish (1988)

[betadecay]

Cluster: Cluster (http://www.discogs.com/Cluster-Cluster/release/262961, later re-issued under the name "Cluster '71") - no easy listening music but a very expermimental and avantgardistic work.

[Boqurant]

I agree very much with aoVI's and betadecay choices but I'd like to add David Sylvian's " Gone to Earth" (1986) CD#2 to the list. I still have the feeling this is quite an overlooked and underrated album but it's really good IMO (actually I think it's splendid...).

Note: there's also a 1 CD version of this album but it lacks some of the ambient pieces of the original vinyl double album so go for the CD double album (CD #2 consists entirely of ambient pieces).

Here is CD#2 of the double CD:

[aoVI]

Glad to see more suggestions with other artists, my recommendations are always Eno-heavy. ;)

Speaking of Eno...and Cluster....

Begegnungen I and II by Eno, Moebius, Roedelius, and Plank. While it's not really the same kind of ambient throughout the albums, definitely worth checking out these experimental sessions of exceptional group of people.

[Boqurant]

tf-drone already mentioned Steve Roach but I think also worth mentioning is Robert Rich; his output also stretches from the early eighties til now. Both composers write ambient that's almost (!) New Age at times (a genre I don't like at all) but their output is large and diverse and there's some stuff that's quite good.

Your post title suggests you're also looking for important/good 90's and 2000's ambient:

- Biosphere (Substrata is his best known work).
- Stars of the Lid (and certainly also their solo/collaboration projects like The Dead Texan, Aix Em Klemm and Brian McBride's works; not all pure ambient but comes close).
- William Basinski
- Labradford and solo work of their guitarist: Pan American (not pure ambient but a crossover between ambient and post-rock).

[seismic1]

Tangerine Dream: Zeit (1972) (One of my favourites now, but it took a long time to really appreciate this - about 25 years)
David Sylvian: Gone to Earth (1986) (I listen to this a lot - I have both versions)
Fripp and Eno: No Pussyfooting (1973) (I don't listen to this so much these days, but I still like it, It's a much more competitive market these days)
Peter Baumann: Romance '76 (1976) (At first listen this is a Berlin school album, but there is something else going on here. Lots of sonic similarities to the next album on my list)
David Bowie: Low (1977) (Not an ambient album, but lots of ambient cues and influences, possibly the previous album is among them)
Edgar Froese: An Epsilon in Malaysian Pale (1975) (I think nothing else sounds quite like it, except Froese's other work)

[Boqurant]

I've been listening to Gone to Earth for almost 30 years now but tonight it struck me how much it's been influenced by certain tracks of Eno's Music for Films and Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Oh, and don't forget Robert Fripp's wonderful contribution! Just some random thoughts.

Speaking of Apollo: that album isn't mentioned here but it certainly is worth it although I have to admit I often forget about it (don't know why), I really have to give it a few extra spins.

[aoVI]

Apollo: Space-country that works.

[Boqurant]

Apollo: Space-country that works.

Haha, I had to read this a number of times before I got it. You must be referring to the country style of Daniel Lanois' contribution. I always thought of those three tracks as somewhat corny (although not bad) and kind of misplaced. Over half of the other tracks are very dark and without Daniel Lanois and Roger Eno the album would be almost on par with and practically sound like On Land. Sort of...

[aoVI]

The country feel was intentionally part of the overall project (soundtrack to the film).

from an interview with Eno:

"When director Al Reinert approached me about doing the Apollo music – which ended up in the 1989 film For All Mankind – he told me there was music on the moon shot. Every astronaut was allowed to take one cassette of their favourite music. All but one took country and western. They were cowboys exploring a new frontier, this one just happened to be in space. We worked the piece around the idea of zero-gravity country music."

[Massergy]

Pete Namlook

[Ambient Mechanics]

Boqurant mentioned "Gone To Earth"..and I'd just like to tag onto that Sylvian's second solo album "Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities", which features the likes of Robert Fripp and Ryuichi Sakamoto, amongts others..as well as the classic track "Steel Cathedrals".

Also worth mentioning, though ofter debated as to if or not his work is totally ambient, is Vangelis. I think some of his less "popular" pieces are as ambient as you can get..though I guess it's really a matter of taste and what you personally think of ambient music as being.