Classic 70s/80s ambient synth stuff...

Soldato
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Just had my Squeezebox playing my "Electronic Abient" genre this morning, which includes all the classic ambient stuff from the glory days of ambient synth music. ie: When synth music was new and we had some amazing inventive music coming out.

I think some classic examples of this are:-

Jean Michel Jarre:-
- Oxygene: How can synths from 1976 sound so amazing, and of course the music to this day still stands out as totally original and wonderful IMHO!
- Equinoxe
- Magnetic Fields

Kraftwerk
- The Man Machine: An amazing album. How can a bass (Man Machine) sound so good in 1978!

Tangerine Dream
- Exit
- White Eagle
- Poland

Edgar Froese
- Pinnacles


Sometimes, when I hear some of this music, I travel back in time to sitting at my Commodore 64 or Amiga, programming away :) I'd always have this sort of stuff playing on my record player when doing that sort of thing!


Anyone else got such fond memories of this genre/era/time?


 
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Maybe some stuff by Vangelis?


Probably better examples than that but they're the only one's I can think of off the top of my head.
 
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Yeh, Vangelis is amazing!

Always recall this one, which I think was use for the Cosmos soundtrack...

 
Yeh, Vangelis is amazing!

Always recall this one, which I think was use for the Cosmos soundtrack...

Yep, Vangelis did the soundtrack to the television series, "The Cosmos". Have the 7" single somewhere on which "Alpha" is the B-side and the theme to "The Cosmos" is the A side.
 
I saw all those bands in the 70s including a few more such as -
Can, Faust, Neu, Cluster and Amon Duul.

One of the worst gigs was when Tangerine Dream walked on stage, turned the keyboard/computers on then walked off for an hour and we were assaulted with a noise.

Funnily enough only yesterday I was able to get my Trace albums back.
Not necessarily what you're on about but still keyboard based and fronted by this guy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_van_der_Linden
 
Don't want to make you guys feel old but my parents were heavily into these bands. I grew up listening to this stuff and remember falling asleep to some of it :D haven't heard some of these tracks in 20 years :eek:

They still have (although divorced years ago) some immaculate vinyl boxed sets of Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and Edgar Froese...probably quite expensive at the time

I have many Jean Michel Jarre albums on CD, but have come to realise that he doesn't actually play 'live' despite thinking his concerts looked amazing when televised when I was as a kid. Kraftwerk are probably the best live act of the era...

I would strongly recommend the Blade Runner soundtrack...amazing
 
What!, no Brian Eno?
his ''Discrete Music'' was the first ambient recording.
Get people to run out of the room by playing Terry Riely's ''Rainbow in curved Air'' or even better ''In C''
 
What!, no Brian Eno?
his ''Discrete Music'' was the first ambient recording.
Get people to run out of the room by playing Terry Riely's ''Rainbow in curved Air'' or even better ''In C''

Personally, don't really like his very early stuff... Just like I don't really like Tangerine Dream's very early stuff...
 
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