Mmmm, Ambient!
Now that's one confusing word(for me atleast). So many bands I listen to are considered "ambient"
.
There's Tangerine Dream/Klaus Schulze(collecting their stuff itself is a daunting task), Brian Eno, Harold Budd and Jean Michel Jarre.
Then there's Dark Ambient(scary kinda music which I usually sleep off to
), 90s Ambient/IDM/Ambient-Techno/Drone-Ambient(some of it has this "beats" you are talking about), and many more weird soundscapes that are considered ambient.
Anyways, I'll just list a few(It's all ambient, but sounds keep varying) -
Steve Roach's Structures From Silence might interest you, but I haven't explored much of his stuff other than that. It's a great piece of ambient work though.
Jean Michel Jarre -
Oxygene - Not completely ambient for me, but still has a great atmosphere. Sounds a bit dated though.(I didn't like it the last time I listened to it)
Tangerine Dream -
Zeit - Great place to start with Tangerine Dream(or atleast where I started). You could go with
Phaedra as well, but I like this one more. I could make a compilation, but most of their tracks are quite long.
Klaus Schulze -
Irrlicht - A lot of early german so called "Ambient" stuff sounds like this. Very spacey and dreamy. Some krautrock(like Ash Ra Tempel) might interest you as well if you like this.
Murcof -
Martes - Ambient, techno kinda thing with a bit of classical thrown in.
Global Communication -
76:14 and
Future Sound of London -
Lifeforms - Both amazing ambient-techo. Even if you don't prefer it, this might definitely change your mind. My favorite is definitely 76:14.
The Orb -
The Orb Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld - Not exactly ambient-techno, but anyways, an amazing - very much 90s ambient work with a bit of everything thrown in.
Robert Rich & Lustmord -
Stalker - Scary stuff. Your either goona sleep off here or **** in your pants
If you don't mind the 90s ambient-IDM-Techno kinda stuff, then there are lot more I could suggest. I'm not much into this "Drone-ambient" kinda thing.(bah all these terms are screwing my brain
)
Or hey, I could just make a compilation with a track from all these artists.(If you are interested)