Nefardec, I know exactly what you're talking about. I think about it all the time.

Simply put: tracks which sound the same the whole way through, perhaps using the same melody for 5 whole minutes, yet are still interesting the whole time.

Chock Full Of Nutts - Got To Be Free is a good example. It uses the same hook for the whole song, yet stays awesome. Love it.

I think Petter of "Some Polyphony" and "Untight" fame is good at this trick too. His layering of elements is very precise.

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Originally posted by PETRAN Yeah, but thats probably because its so slow and repeatetive that your attention can't help to wander, only to realise minutes later when attention switches back that there is no music lol. But yeah the fact that the music itself is slow and gentle with not much going helps to make you wander, or rather, induces a kind of "entrancing habituation" (hmmm i liked that).

Sure, and when the music is completely devoid of rhythm i would even say it's "steady" rather than repetitive. Like a line _______________ compared to something that can be equally entrancing but is rhythmic . . . . . . . . . . It engulfs you and let's you wander at the same time. Like a sphere that is exciting to be in but is also big enough for you to move around. I could sit all night thinking of metaphores but i always end up quoting Eno's immortal words:

"Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."

So many times i've listened to something and thought of those words and felt like "this is exactly what he meant".

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Lustmord

Some of his music is terrifying, scares the shit out of me. I gave a bunch of Lustmord to a friend of mine who's into ambient aswell, and i jokingly coined the term "death ambient".

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(and yes steve roach but i'm not mentioning him for obvious reasons...)

Good, i have a monopoly on anything concerning Steve Roach. :P No but seriously, he's a legend.

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Labradford- "Scenic Recovery" http://www.brainwashed.com/common/s...ic_recovery.mp3 (although this has some stuff going with the violins and stuff...) Windy and Carl- "Undercurrent" http://www.brainwashed.com/common/s...ndercurrent.mp3 (this is a good example of what you are talking about).

I'm not familiar with these two but the samples sound really awesome, i will take a closer look at both for sure. I really like this type of ambient borderland post-rock stuff which makes clever use of traditional instruments, like guitars and violin here (i have a soft spot for solo violin).

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Biosphere's "Substrata" was also a great ambient album in that style as well . I doubt though that many people in this forum will like such music.

Yes! Substrata is a fuckin masterpiece, it's an album i like to listen to cranked up quite loud. It's so atmospheric and there is also quite a lot of diversity within the album in terms of timbre and sound design. It's one of my favorites for sure, and so is Biosphere among artists.



Maybe we're hijacking the thread a little now, but what the hell.

Excellent thread

3 CD's that i like picking apart each layer in the tracks are

1)Sasha - Airdrawndaggar
2)Tiesto - ISOS 3
3)Danny Howells 24:7 Disc 1

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Originally posted by PETRAN In melodic trance when the bassline and the lead-line play side by side and then the bassline changes e.g. arpeggiates playing corresponding notes in different frequencies, i get the impression that the melodic lead-line on top changes as well (whereas in reality it doesn't). The same can happen with the pads as well. A classic example is Solid Globe's "Sahara" in which after two repetitions of the lead-line the bass-line and the pads play lower notes and the lead-line sounds somehow different without actually changing.

isnt this what is called 'chord progressions'?


monolake and Robert Henke's ambient also has alot of what nefardec described, I think.

also try to check out a guy called "Portable" aka "Bodycode" - I cant get enough of his rhythmic patterns and the way he kind of challeges rhythm and groove with the samples he uses

thanks for the Fluxion recommendation btw


thumbs up at topic!

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yeah definitely know what you are saying about bodycode...

i think petran is describing something more complex than chord progressions - where the bassline changes and thus way in which the separate waveforms create positive and negative interference changes, intensifying and dulling certain frequencies, giving the illusion that both are actually changing.

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Originally posted by nefardec It's probably common knowledge, but I find one of the most pleasing aspects of dance music to be the creation of complexity through the careful layering of its parts that creates non-existent, yet perceived rhythmic structures, melodies, basslines, harmonies, etc. It just blows my mind every time I hear a track put together in such a way, where when you listen carefully and analyze a sound that you at first find insanely complex, you can break it down into very simple yet effectively layered and/or compressed parts. tracks that you think are one thing and with a simple yet critical adjustment to the mix transform into another entirely basslines which sound like they change when the rest of the track drops out but are in reality identical it can be said that all tracks do this to some degree, whether the intention of the producer or not, but there are definitely those which you can tell have been carefully mixed so as to create these phenomenal aural and corporal experiences...sounds which are mere ghosts and traces created through the juxtaposition of others. (incredibly important in architecture and visual art as well)

Nicely said man. I was actually tinking about something similar to that while listening to James Zabiela today.

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Originally posted by nefardec yeah definitely know what you are saying about bodycode... i think petran is describing something more complex than chord progressions - where the bassline changes and thus way in which the separate waveforms create positive and negative interference changes, intensifying and dulling certain frequencies, giving the illusion that both are actually changing.

It's not complex at all, it's called oblique motion and it's about the most simple thing you can do with a melody and a bassline.

sorry i meant like the topic title - "perceived to be complex". it is quite simple really

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Originally posted by nefardec sorry i meant like the topic title - "perceived to be complex". it is quite simple really

I see.

The track that dominates this idea for me in that it both implements it and is perfectly aligned with my own music preferences has been for many years

Push - Tranzy State of Mind (club mix)

It seems ridiculously busy in terms of the number of separate paths each synth is taking, but everything is perfectly timed so that nothing is competing with anything else.


You can choose to focus on any sound you want and the other sounds will complement it. It's an amazing effect.

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your pearl casting hero

This is the best thread i've read on here for a long time. I've been thinking about this sort of stuff a lot quite recently.

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"It's not love for music, it's a passion, and it goes beyond liking, and beyond a hobby, it's about a way of living. Music is essential for my life"