SYNTH WEEK 2024: As one of the originators of the genre, at least in its electronic form, it’s hard to argue with Eno’s suggestion that ambient music should be as "ignorable as it is interesting", but ...

Modular synths are useful for many genres of music, but possibly none more so than ambient. The nature of modular means there are vast swathes of tools and options for creating everything from subtle ...

Lawrence English is the director of Room40. Brian Eno’s Music For Airports celebrates its 40th anniversary this month. This record is widely regarded as formalising ambient music as we know it today.

Host Scott Detrow talks with Pitchfork editor Andy Cush about ambient music and the growth in popularity of marketing it as so-called mood music on streaming platforms. And finally today, to create a ...

From soothing drones and chimes to the sound of rain gently tapping on the roof - ambient music is transforming the way people sleep, focus and relax. Once an esoteric 1970s genre, mood music ...

Eno. Ambient. Rarely has a genre, indeed an entire musical idea, been so completely owned by a single individual. Merzbow and noise, maybe. You have to wonder if, even fifty years from now, every ...

William Basinski’s “Melancholia II” sounds like what might happen if despair itself walked into a studio and someone pressed the record button. Little pops poke through its smeared dreariness, like a ...

One way to track the evolution of popular music is to examine its subgenres. Think of how “rock” begat “punk rock,” which begat “post-punk,” as a simple example. Electronic and ambient music include ...