Customer Reviews

Ambient

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Do you put on Enigma's latest album to set the mood? Put it aside, and get a copy of Ambient for real mood music. If you don't have a significant other, buy the album to find a beautiful world of introspection and reflection. Listen to this album by yourself with the lights off, especially "Bad Days," you will not be disappointed. Moby breaks out of any mold set on him again and makes palatable the quiet, lovely creativity of a musical genius. If you are like me, you love Moby's power voice in other tracks like "Feeling So Real" or "Next is the E," but he has never been as powerful as any chosen track from this album. Let's be blunt- you can put in a Barry White or Marvin Gaye album for mood music, and live in the past- or put in Moby's "Ambient" and experience a sensual, changing world of the senses, a catalyst for whatever you feel now. Moby has always played across the spectrum of emotional charge. In this album, he explores our more quiet, sexual side.

This is my all-time favorite ambient CD. Its great for having in the background while reading, studying, programming or just relaxing. I highly recommend it.

I bought this CD based on the reviews I read here at Amazon. Can't say I'm disappointed but the CD didn't match up nearly to what I had hoped. Don't get me wrong, the CD is good but not great. I own lots of other Ambient CD's and this isn't what I'd rank as one of the best. I'd still recommend buying it, but for a few of my favorite Ambient CD's I'd have to recommend: 1. Quango's Records-Dimensions in Ambience 2 2. Moonshine Records-United States of Ambience 1,2 or 3 ... they're all good, with #1 being my favorite. 3. The Future Sounds of London-Lifeforms 4. Gentle People-Soundtrack for Living. Gentle People is not your typical Ambient. Actually more of a cross between Lounge/70's Groove/Modern electronica/Ambient, but worth note because it always relaxes me yet has a certain sense of energy and to me is just a way cool CD. One of my favorites!

This is one of those distinctive CD's in which the music genuinely washes over you. Moby has an uncanny ability to genuinely lift the listener, and this is no exception. Excellent to listen to on a warm sunny day outdoors, believe me. As with all of Moby's CD's the buying incentive can be isolated directly to a subset of the tracks in particular. In this case they are tracks 1,4,5 and 12, the final track which is very spooky.

Moby's "Ambient" is a good album, not a great album, but a good one. It isn't Brian Eno or Aphex Twin ambient, it is closer to Orb ambient. In that respect it succeeds, I can pop it in the CD player and let it play through and tap my foot occassionally. It isn't quite as self-indulgent as a lot of the pretentious ambient artists out there, names aren't going to be mentioned, you'll know when you hear them. Moby has a sense of a good melody, and stays with it. The highlight tracks are Myopia, Sound, and Lean on Me. It is quality, and I recommend without hesitation.

Pretense: Not to suggest that Moby doesn't know what ambient music is (nor especially that I do), but this is simply not in tune to the accepted norm. If this exemplifies ambient, then every softer electronic act in existence could also be included. Every time a beat invades, or one feels the urge to get up and dance, a true ambient listener should cringe.

But on to content...This was apparently compiled quickly. This album cheats the listener out of 25 minutes of ambience that ANY other would deliver. With so many tracks, many are mere 30-second vignettes which are nice, but over before they begin. Another unmet standard is the sustained 10-minute epic. Few here last five minutes. There are highlights, such as the exquisite piano/synthwave combo on the third track, but they are almost overshadowed by tracks better suited to the s/t release. Indeed, tracks like "Mercy", "Slight Return", and "Stream" should be here instead. Popular artists as the Aphex Twin have properly interpreted the name, producing massive releases that almost no one can stand (i.e. SAWv.2). Whether Moby was above or below that, I leave to your decision.

One who buys this buys the name of the artist...NOT the name of the album. Any strictly ambient artist who released a fifty-minute album of "abstract dance" would either be ignored or chastized for contaminating the purely ethereal genre. The Amazon review correctly separates this from the Fripp/Eno stockpile, but for more accessible stuff that better fits the label, one should try a full(er)-length effort by (among others I've never heard of) Global Communication, Terre Thaemlitz, FSOL, Loop Guru, The Black Dog (and so on). Get more for ambience for your dollar and look elsewhere. Moby enthusiasts, nonetheless, will feel right at home with this. I enjoyed it.

The rating for this review is actually 3 1/2 stars. I bought this CD about a month ago because I had really become enthralled with Moby. Be warned that this album has stuff that was done as long ago as 1989 on it. So, it's not going to be anything like some of his recent stuff like Play or I Like to Score. Where Early Underground and Moby mainly focused all on techno, Ambient focuses on, you guessed it, all ambient/trance tracks. The first time I listened to this, I was disappointed. However, I listened to it again recently and I have come to the conclusion that this album is one that will require several listens before it becomes one that will be played a lot. There are really 2 problems with this album on why I don't listen to it as much as other stuff by him:

1) There are some tracks that are incredibly short and others that seemed to go on too long like Dog (which also sounded more techno than ambient).

2) There are really no memorable tracks here. Yes, Moby has done some stunning ambient tracks like God Moving Over the Face of the Waters, First Cool Hive, Hymn, My Weakness, and Rushing, but, unfortunately, there's nothing like any of these tracks on this album.

There are some good tracks like Heaven, Bad Days, My Beautiful Blue Sky, and Lean on Me, but nothing to get excited about. Pick this album up if you like Moby like I do, but don't be expecting a Play, I Like to Score, or an Everything Is Wrong with this album.

I don't relish this opportunity to become unpopular with Moby fans. First, if Moby wants to name his CD "AMBIENT", and if pundits want to file this under the section "AMBIENT", that's fine with me. Like so much else in that genre, the music on this CD is too distracting to be faithful to the term. That is probably an endless argument whose distinction is lost on most people buying this CD. I suppose, if forced to classify this music, my personal definition would "WALLPAPER". While the songs are too distracting for me to ignore, they are also lacking in depth or imagination which would make them interesting for me to listen to. Changing instrumentation for example on J BREAS isn't enough to hold my interest. So there you have it. I don't think that it is an horrible or awful CD, and many, many people will enjoy it. At the same time, I don't find the music at all compelling. Sorry. :[

This is a pretty nice CD, not too ambient, and not his best album, but still good. By the way, Play isn't ambient, its blues.

As the title suggests, the music on this albumn is without lyrics and is intended to be background music. Perhaps my overly-stimulated 16 year-old would consider it soothing background music. For this forty something, it is just a little too... something to passively listen to. Aside from "J Breas," "Piano and String," "80," and "Lean on Me," the songs are much too jarring for ambient music. Most of the songs I enjoy but I certainly couldn't listen to them while I read, write, or did anything else requiring concentration.