Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Richard Talbot discusses ambient music’s complex series of relationships with space and place at Ambient@40, a two-day conference to appraise ambient music in relation to Eno’s milestone release

"Music Beyond Airports", edited by Monty Adkins and Simon Cummings, available now in hardcopy and free PDF download via Huddersfield University Press: unipress.hud.ac.uk/plugins/books/19

liverpool.ac.uk/music/study/postgraduate-research/pgr-students/richard-talbot
ambientat40.wordpress.com
archives.electricspring.co.uk/Seasons/2017-2018/Electric-Spring-2018

This presentation took place as part of the Ambient@40 conference, conveyed by Monty Adkins, Simon Cummings, Rupert Till, and Kristina Wolfe.

In the forty years since the release of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports the concept and aesthetics of ambient music have proliferated, influencing artists as diverse as Taylor Deupree, Steven Wilson, David Lynch and The Orb, infusing drone, microsound, minimalism and experimental electronic music as well as aspects of contemporary instrumental music. The aim of this two-day conference was to appraise ambient music in relation to Eno’s milestone release.

The conference took place at the University of Huddersfield from Friday 23 to Saturday 24 February 2018, running alongside the Electric Spring Festival (www.electricspring.co.uk).

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Video camera operator: Andie Brown, Pablo Galaz Salamanca, Sam Gillies
Edited by Sam Gillies

Title music: Music for Airports (1/1), Brian Eno. Performed by Decibel New Music Ensemble. decibelnewmusic.com

/// ABSTRACT

In a 2011 interview, Brian Eno described Ambient music as ‘a landscape you can belong to’. However, this is only one example of Ambient music’s complex series of relationships with space and place. In this paper I suggest that these can be typologised into three categories, two of which are applicable to all forms of recorded popular music and a third which is more specific to Ambient music. This paper will examine these relationships, with particular attention to the figurative nature of Ambient music.

The first category is ‘listening space’ where, as Eno suggested, the listener inhabits the landscape created by the intersection of the listener’s environment and the music. Secondly, there is the manufacturing of spatiality. This is a technologically assisted process, in which studio devices including reverb and delay are used to create spatial dynamics. This process can simulate both natural and unnatural environments presenting the illusion that music is emanating from specific dimensions e.g. a cathedral or a canyon. Again, these techniques are used in all forms of popular music recordings.

The third category forms the focal point of this paper. We can label it as ‘figurative space’. A cursory glance at the song titles on any Ambient playlist will soon reveal that there is a significant strand of Ambient which might be considered ‘pictorial music’ in which, sounds and spatial dynamics, act as signifiers and are sculpted to model or represent specific spaces and places. The tools employed for this include not only conventional musical instruments and effects but the frequent and widespread use of ‘found sound’, ‘field recordings’ and the synthesised imitation of phenomena such as rain, wind or other environmental sounds. I will propose that Baudrillard’s concept of simulation and hyperrealism provide useful ways of shedding light on these practices. I will also draw on my own experiences of making an album inspired by media images of Tokyo, a city that I have never visited. On a personal note I would also argue that it is this figurative element that makes Ambient music so unique and exciting.

/// BIOGRAPHY

I completed an MA in Popular Music Studies in 2014 and I am currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Liverpool, my research topic is the production and consumption of Ambient music.

In the other part of my life, I’m a member of Marconi Union an ambient / electronica band. We have recorded albums for a number of labels including All Saints, 30 Hertz and Just Music. We’ve also collaborated with a number of artists including Marina Abromovic and Jah Wobble. A recent Marconi Union remix of Max Richter was released on Deutsche Grammophon. Our music has also been remixed by Biosphere and Steve Jansen.

In 2012, we appeared at Punkt Festival curated by Brian Eno. At the same time, we achieved success with a track called Weightless which was acclaimed (not by us) as ‘’the most relaxing track ever”. This led to Marconi Union being featured as one of Time Magazine’s 2012 inventors of the year list. Weightless has now been streamed over 28 million times on Spotify and spent over a year in the top three of the Billboard New Age charts.

I have also appeared on a number of recordings by other artists.