Boards of Canada released Music Has the Right to Children in 1998. Mellow and soothing sounds with a touch of nostalgia.



St Germain - Tourist. A slick production of nu jazz, downtempo, deep house, acid jazz, and Mande music.



Pantha du Prince - This Bliss. Glitchy ambient meditative microhouse.



And one more title from 1999 - certainly more dynamic than most ambient records but I’m including other downtempo future jazz recordings so I must mention Cinematic Orchestra’s Motion LP.

2000s

The 2000s saw the release of two essential recordings by Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of… and And the Refinement of the Decline. But their full discography from 1995 to the present is well worth picking up.



The Album Leaf did some wonderful work between 1999-2004. An Orchestrated Rise to Fall, One Day I’ll Be On Time, and In a Safe Place are excellent albums. Turntable Lab is issuing two of these as deluxe colored vinyl editions with die cut covers for 2018.



Iceland’s post-rock ambassadors, Sigur gained considerable global notoriety for their ambient masterpieces sung in their own pseudo-language, Hopelandic. Ágætis Byrjun and ( ) are essential, but their full catalog is top notch. The 7LP In A Frozen Sea: A Year With Sigur Rós box set is quite a find.

Robert Rich produced a 7-hour sleep concert dubbed, Somnium available on DVD. An essential long-form composition.

Alva Noto - Prototypes, Transform, Vrioon (with Ryuichi Sakamoto), Insen, and Xerrox Vols 1 and 2. Wonderful microsound works.

Also highly recommended is the complete catalog of Marconi Union, who was tapped to assist with remastering Brian Eno’s discography. Distance, A Lost Connection, and Beautifully Falling Apart are strong albums.

Hammock crafts quality ambient/post-rock/shoegaze soundscapes. Eleven albums were released between 2005 and the present.



The Books ‎– The Lemon Of Pink (Vinyl Me, Please Records Of The Month Vol. 47 yellow w/ pink splatter album in die cut jacket with metallic inks + 16 page companion book). The vocals, strings, and samples meld together to form something akin to what a disembodied consciousness would sound like if it could sing.

Eno released his 22nd solo album, January 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now. The complete permutations of all ten thousand years' worth of chimes are available as a free MIDI download from http://interglacial.com/clock/about.html.

Eluvium released several excellent titles, including Lambent Material, An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death, Talk Amongst the Trees, Copia, and Miniatures.

Spain’s Mus made their mark with El Naval and the Dominar La Fame (Canciones 1996-2004) compilation on Avant Garden Records.



Skalpel’s self-titled LP is Polish downtempo nu-jazz. Very hip.

Bohren & der Club of Gore released several stellar records of doom-ridden ambient jazz music, the best of which are Sunset Mission and Black Earth.



Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven and Yanqui U.X.O. are post-rock classics, but F# A# ∞ is the real gem to pick up on wax.

Helios was quite active, releasing Unomia, Merck, Eingya, Ayres, Caesura, and Unleft over the course of the decade. Lots of great experimental ambient to explore here.

Highlights of Max Richter’s extensive catalog during this period include Memoryhouse, The Blue Notebooks, and his score to Aronofsky’s The Fountain.



Clint Mansell - Moon film score. Such a simple melodic theme but so effective.

We’ll finish up the 2000s and explore the 2010s next.

The then-unknown Apparition (who would later become the mysterious Black Swan: Drones for Bleeding Hearts) released a free album online titled, Alone Again With The Dawn Coming Up: A Tribute To The KLF. Quality drone music.

In the realm of future jazz, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble released a s/t album and Here Be Dragons.



Telefon Tel Aviv released Fahrenheit Fair Enough, an exquisite collection of downtempo IDM. The title track is a standout favorite.

2010s

Noteworthy contemporary ambient artists include Field Rotation, the minimal modern classical compositions of Jóhann Jóhannsson, the dark soundscapes of Labradford, Lawrence English, Pulusha, Purl, Goldmund, Ólafur Arnalds, and the magical works of Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Also get your hands on a lossless audio copy of Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto's Summvs LP. The album contains recordings of a piano using a 16th tone interval tuning built by Sauter, Spaichingen/Donaueschingen, Germany. There are only 15 of these pianos in the world. Advance to "Pionier IOO" and don the finest studio monitors you can get your hands on. Minimal glitch bliss.

But if you’re looking for all-out desolation and stillness, one of the most powerful pieces available is Jacob Kirkegaard’s 4 Rooms - a sonic presentation of four deserted rooms inside the 'Zone of Alienation' in Chernobyl, Ukraine.



2012 marked the release of William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops 9LP+5CD+DVD numbered box set, featuring exclusive recordings of the memorial concerts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the 54th Venice Music Biennale.

The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations was reissued for its 15th anniversary, a multi-disc box set of compiled recordings of the mysterious and haunting broadcasts around the world from unmanned radio stations. (Fun fact for Wilco fans… there’s a station among them broadcasting the words, “Yankee… Hotel… Foxtrot... “ into infinity.)



Brian Eno released Small Craft on a Milk Sea, Drums Between the Bells, Lux, The Ship, and the generative work, Reflection. The Ship has a somber and harrowing essence, serving as a dire reflection on the Titanic disaster and the horrors of WWI. But the record maintains a meditative and cerebral tone rewarding to any listener who’ll give the album their full attention. The Ship is my favorite album to experience during sensory deprivation.



Max Richter released Sleep, an 8-hour neoclassical ambient album. I picked up the abbreviated vinyl edition, From Sleep as well.

Wolfgang Voigt (performing as Gas) made a triumphant return to music after 17 years with the release of the dark ambient Narkopop LP. It was an instant favorite.

Nils Frahm produced several albums, the highlights of which are the treated piano post-minimal soundscapes of Felt and the field recording album, Spaces.

And with Ólafur Arnalds, they recorded the electro-ambient Trance Frendz LP.

Meanwhile independently, Ólafur Arnalds released ...And They Have Escaped The Weight of Darkness, shedding his electronic leaning in favor of a sound more along the lines of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s modern classical tone poem work on the album, IBM 1401, A User's Manual.



The same year Hidden Orchestra released Night Walks - a highly atmospheric and nocturnal downtempo/nu-jazz record.



More great ambient downtempo in 2010 from Bonobo with the album Black Sands - his best work yet.



Adam Wiltze of Stars of the Lid and The Dead Texan collaborated with Dustin O’Halloran for an album titled A Winged Victory for the Sullen, a soothing and melancholic minimal modern classical album.



Black Swan, owner of the Ethereal Symphony label, premiered two limited numbered edition LPs - In 8 Movements and The Quiet Divide. A symphony of inky black, spiraling sadness.



But I believe my favorite releases of the 2010s has to be The Black Dog’s Music for Real Airports. The result of over 200 hours of field recording and globetrotting, the limited edition hand-numbered 3LP set is a contemporary response to Eno's classic album. (I scored copy #16!)

Mark Prendergast is the author of The Ambient Century, a mammoth guide to the genre. Prendergast said this is "by far the best Ambient record released in years."

Please notify me of any errors or omissions and I’ll be happy to correct them.