In an effort to acknowledge Loomer’s remark I’ve put together a more in-depth response than a mere list. I’ve included noteworthy recordings from the ambient family of subgenres and a chronology of essentials with a synopsis of each. These span the wider umbrella of ambient music to include downtempo electronic and ambient future jazz. If I’ve omitted any critical recordings let me know and I can amend the post.

Windham Hill Highlights:

William Ackerman - Passage, In Search of the Turtle's Navel, It Takes a Year, Past Light, Conferring with the Moon, Imaginary Roads, Childhood and Memory

George Winston - Autumn, December and Winter into Spring.

Liz Story - Solid Colors may be the finest Windham Hill release.

Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries

Alex De Grassi - Southern Exposure (a great stereo reference record)

Various - A Quiet Revolution: 30 Years of Windham Hill 4CD compilation is an excellent collection showcasing the most memorable works from the label’s history.

Classical Crossover / Ambient Modern Classical Highlights:

Canadian arranger and composer André Gagnon has released over forty albums of solo piano works. Piano Solitude (Un Piano Sur La Mer) is a good introduction.

Equally enjoyable are the quiet melodies of Sophie Hutchings and those of UK composer Helen Jane Long, whose Embers LP quickly became widely requested on worldwide classical radio stations, and was "most requested" on Classic FM radio.

Fax +49-69/450464 Label / Carpe Sonum Ambient Highlights:



The Dark Side of the Moog V is considered the apex of the FAX label.

Pete Namlook & Dr Atmo - Silence (1)

Pete Namlook - Air (1), (and see also the Die Welt ist Klang and Dark Side of the Moog box sets later in this write-up.)

Namlook & Laswell - Psychonavigation (1)

Jah Wobble & Bill Laswell - Radioaxiom (issued on the Palm label)

Rhythm & Sound - s/t and w/ the artists

Arctic Ambient / Drone Favorites:

The discographies of Deathprod, Deaf Center, Loscil, Carbon Based Lifeforms, William Basinski, Biosphere, Tim Hecker, Gas, Deepchord Presents Echospace, Thomas Köner, Higher Intelligence Agency, and Lull are all wonderful specimen of the genre.

A Note on the Illbient Subgenre:



While I don't have an extensive catalog of illbient artists, (just the mainstays like Scorn, Third Eye Foundation, kIRk, and DJ Spooky ’Gas’ Optometry LP), I wanted to call attention to the pending vinyl reissue of Future Sound of London's masterpiece, Lifeforms. I'm friends with Gaz Cobain and he was delighted by the crowdsourced petition to reissue the genre classic, and the preorder has just gone live in the UK. I’ll be publishing a full feature once the LP arrives Stateside.

A Chronology of Ambient Highlights:

I apologize if most of this is review for many members, but we don't seem to have a solid roster of ambient classics so I wanted to contribute.

1970s



Manuel Göttsching / Ash Ra Tempel - Inventions For Electric Guitar. A minimalist classic of the space music genre.



Terry Riley - Persian Surgery Dervishes is four variations of a meditative cyclical piece for organ.



Fripp & Eno - (No Pussyfooting) and Evening Star. I am a tremendous fan of frippertronic tape loop electric guitar treatments and these two albums showcase the effect exquisitely. These were followed 30 years later in 2004 by Equatorial Stars.



Brian Eno - Discreet Music, Another Green World, Music for Films, Cluster & Eno, Eno-Moebius-Roedelius - After the Heat, and the incomparable Ambient 1: Music for Airports. Eno is a one-man supergroup. With a catalog spanning hundreds of albums and production credits on many hundred more, the 1970s comprised many of the finest works of his expansive repertoire.



In 2015 Harmonia issued a glorious vinyl box set of their complete recordings from 1973-1975 including Musik Von Harmonia, Deluxe, Live '74, Documents, and Tracks & Traces. Exquisite instrumental ambient rock bliss.



Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation, Alpha Centauri, Zeit, Atem, Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet, Stratosphere. Another band with well over 100 albums, their earliest efforts are by far their strongest.



Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht, Cyborg, Blackdance, Join Inn (with Ash Ra Tempel), The Cosmic Jokers (feat. Klaus Schulze), Timewind, Moondawn, and the minimal electronic symphony, "X". Schulze is one of the greatest Moog synthesizer virtuosos in the world, but unlike Keith Emerson, Schulze explores the minimal sonic space that the instrument can create.



Steve Hillage - Rainbow Dome Musick. This record was spun almost daily along with Gottsching's E2-E4 LP at the VIP room at Heaven in London around 1990 at the dawn of the ambient house explosion.

The next several parts will explore a chronology of essential ambient releases.

1980s



Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4. Named after the most common opening move in a game of chess, E2-E4 showcases longform hypnotic minimal electronic guitar compositions and makes for great ambient music.

Since 1983 Stephen Hill has produced the radio program Hearts of Space: Slow Music for Fast Times. Over 1,100 programs showcase quality ambient and new age music commercial-free. The website provides listeners with a searchable index of all programs and the entire archive is available for download from various sources.



Harold Budd / Brian Eno - Ambient 2 (The Plateaux Of Mirror), The Pearl (with Daniel Lanois), The Pavilion Of Dreams, The Serpent (In Quicksilver), Abandon Cities, Lovely Thunder, and The White Arcades. Budd’s music makes for magnificent sonic wallpaper and his 80s releases are his strongest.

Eno continued his work with Thursday Afternoon, Ambient 4 (On Land), Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks (with Daniel Lanois & Roger Eno), and Fourth World: Possible Musics with Jon Hassell.

Michael Stearns - Chronos. You’d be hard-pressed to find more epic scores than those of the Ron Frick filmography. Stearns produced Chronos, Baraka, and Samsara, and Philip Glass produced Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi. Stunning works both visually and sonically. Koyaanisqatsi is a strong favorite both visually and sonically.

George Winston - Autumn, December and Winter into Spring. Some of the finest recordings from the Windham Hill label.



Vangelis - Blade Runner (OST). While most die-hard fans pledge their allegiance to the unofficial 5-volume Esper 25th Anniversary ‘Retirement Edition’, Vangelis’ original score remains my favorite. In 2013 the original score was pressed for the very first time in a limited red wax audiophile edition, and I didn’t waste any time claiming a copy.

Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis ‎– Deep Listening. An iconic improvisational collaboration recorded 14 feet underground in the disused Dan Harpole Cistern in Port Townsend, Washington 200 feet in diameter with a reverberation time of 45 seconds. The trio brought a trombone, didgeridoo, accordion, garden hose, pipe, conch shell, and their voices, and allowed their sounds to stretch out slowly, like sonar, as if nodding to the chamber’s original two million gallon contents.

1990s



The KLF defined the chill out genre with their album of the same name. Chill Out is the sound of driving across the American Midwest after a weekend rave. Elvis on the radio… steel guitar in my soul.



And Jimmy Cauty of The KLF produced an impressive one-off side project called Space - a sparse drone album fully realized years later by M Ward who engineered an expanded edition dubbed, This Is Not What Space Is About.



Space was produced during Cauty’s collaboration with The Orb, concurrent with the production of the essential Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. Buy this and The Blue Room LPs as soon as you see them.



Pete Namlook spent the 90s exploring ambient electronic soundscapes in collaboration with veteran minimalist Klaus Schulze with the 12-volume Dark Side of the Moog series. Each of the track titles play off of classics from Pink Floyd’s catalog, such as “Wish You Were There,” “A Saucerful of Ambience,” “Obscured by Klaus,” and “Careful with the AKS, Peter.” These were eventually issued as a series of CD box sets.



The 90s also bore the realization of Namlook’s musical vision, founding the FAX +49-69/450464 ambient record label. After his untimely passing a tribute label was founded by his successors and fellow artists called Carpe Sonum, who issued a limited edition 8-disc box set housed in a wooden box etched with his FAX typeface reading, “DIE WELT IST KLANG.” The set features tracks by both FAX artists and fans alike and is a beautiful tribute to his memory and music.



In 1994 Aphex Twin released the genre classic, Selected Ambient Works Vol II. Definitely a staple to track down.

Another classic was also released in ‘94 - Global Communication’s downtempo/ambient techno opus, 76:14. Excellent for both active and passive listening.

In the field of psybient music there is a wonderful 8-volume independently-sourced collection of major works called The Psybient DVD Pack collection. DVD 1 features all of Simon Posford's related work (Celtic Cross, Dub Trees, Eclipse, The Infinity Project, Hallucinogen, Shpongle, etc.), while later volumes showcase collections like the Fahrenheit Project series, H.U.V.A. Network and Solar Field discographies, and more. It is quite a substantial archive, and thankfully there is a guidebook included with the set and a map of all featured recordings.

Brian Eno continued to add albums to his incredibly vast catalog, but perhaps the most noteworthy of his 90s releases is :Neroili: (Thinking Music Part IV). It is important to note that the 2014 reissue of this recording featured an hour-long b-side, “New Space Music” which is one of my all-time favorite minimal ambient drone pieces.

Prior to the release of their critically acclaimed debut LP Moon Safari, Air released an EP titled, Premiers symptômes. An incredibly satisfying listen, this instrumental record is arguably superior to the full-length album that followed.



Kruder & Dorfmeister produced a 3LP set titled, The K&D Sessions - an atmospheric set of downtempo nu jazz and ambient dub which effectively transforms your listening space into a hip urban cafe.

Continued in pt 3.