Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Rupert Till explores how ambient dub or chill out music works to create entrainment, ecstatic experience and trance 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

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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

This proposal includes a performance of spatial electronic sound, that illustrates approaches to manipulating perceptions of time. Kairos is a Greek term that describes qualitative time, perception of the temporal field that falls outside of everyday existence. This paper explores how ambient dub or chill out music works to create entrainment, ecstatic experience and trance. It discusses a number of musical techinques, including: manipulation of space using reverberation and echo to create an artificial sense of place; synchronisation of the body to rhythms to entrain the self phenomenologically; integration of different musical time forms to create a sense of stasis; and variation of elements of timbre to create a virtual soundscape.

It discusses how this music draws upon spiritual traditions, how ritual actions and elements of cultural content are interwoven into the acoustic ecologies of the form, and how it uses sounds made by reconstructions of ancient archaeological musical instrument finds, drawing down references from prehistory and antiquity to engage with electronic technologies. It explores musical and cultural approaches to ecstasy and trance, and how these are brought to life within musical composition. It further addresses spatial sound, and why such an approach is a logical method of constructing three dimensional places that allow music to give time the stillness of place.

/// BIOGRAPHY

Prof. Rupert Till is Professor of Music in the Department of Music and Drama, having worked at the University of Huddersfield since 2002. He is also Associate Dean International in the School of Music, Humanities and Media, responsible for overseeing international development and recruitment. In addition he is Director of the Popular Music Studies Research Group.

He has research interests in popular music and sound archaeology. His first book Pop Cult explored religion and popular music, and he has also published material exploring trance, stardom, songwriting and music production. He is a member of the executive committee of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch. His interest in ritual within music cultures has led to multimedia projects exploring the acoustics of archaeological sites such as Stonehenge and prehistoric painted caves. He also directed Huddersfield activities within the European Music Archaeology Project, a 5 year European Union Culture Programme funded project, which included producing 5 CDs, one of which achieved top 20 chart status.

He studied composition with minimalist Gavin Bryars, Scratch Orchestra founder member Christopher Hobbs, sound artist Katharine Norman, and with George Nicholson. He has written film and TV music, music for dance, ambient techno and electronica compositions, and continues to be an active composer and performer, playing piano, keyboards, guitar, bass, percussion and singing, for example appearing at the Boom Festival in Portugal in 2016.

He has appeared on TV and Radio, including BBC Breakfast, BBC News, the Sky at Night, Mystery Quest, ARTE, the Travel Channel, BBC Radio 2, 4, 5, 6 and World Service, LBC, various international radio stations, and speaks regularly on BBC Radio Leeds and Sheffield on popular music subjects. His research has been featured widely in national and international press and on numerous websites.