Ambient techno is a type of techno music that combines the sounds and feelings of ambient music with the beat patterns and way the music is made in techno. It was started by electronic music artists in the 1990s, including Aphex Twin, Carl Craig, The Orb, The Future Sound of London, the Black Dog, Pete Namlook, and Biosphere.
Characteristics and influences
Ambient techno developed from the ambient house scene by combining the "floating, layered, water-like sounds" of beatless and experimental ambient music with the "clear, electronic sounds" of techno. Artists mixed the "environmentalist" music of Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, and Wendy Carlos with the rhythms of urban dance styles like techno and acid house. Ambient techno musicians used instruments from the Detroit techno and Chicago house scenes, such as analog synthesizers, the Roland TB-303 bass machine, and the TR-909 drum machine. Common features included heavily echoed string sounds and quiet drum patterns that were more complex than the simple beats of traditional techno and house music. Artists usually avoided using samples in their music.
A major influence on the genre was the 1984 album E2-E4 by German musician Manuel Göttsching. The Orb's 1991 album Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld inspired a style of ambient techno influenced by dub music. Artforum noted that ambient techno shared similarities with new age music, describing it as "surrounding the listener with a calm, soothing soundscape" that offers a break from the pressures of city life. Critic Simon Reynolds described the style as a "post-rave genre" meant for quiet, thoughtful listening, comparing it to the "water-like mysticism and forest scenes" in music by Claude Debussy.
Ambient techno was linked to record labels such as Warp, Apollo, GPR, and Beyond. These labels focused on releasing full albums rather than single tracks on 12-inch records.
History
Ambient techno music changed from the loud, group-based sounds played at raves to a quieter, more personal style that became popular in the early 1990s as "electronic listening music." Artists like Carl Craig, the Black Dog, and The Orb created early examples of this style. Carl Craig's early work in Detroit techno (later collected in a compilation called Elements 1989-1990) showed a calm, dreamy approach to techno music and influenced UK artists who wanted to make atmospheric music. Aphex Twin's 1991 track "Analogue Bubblebath" marked a move toward peaceful, ambient-style techno, and his 1992 album Selected Ambient Works 85–92 was called "the flagship of the emergent genre" by SPIN magazine. Producer Pete Namlook made many songs in this style, started the label Fax in 1992, and became a "spiritual leader" of the movement.
Other important artists included Irresistible Force, Global Communication, Higher Intelligence Agency, and Future Sound of London. According to AllMusic, early classic works from this time included Aphex Twin's debut album, Ultramarine's Every Man and Woman Is a Star (1991), Biosphere's Microgravity (1991), and the Orb's U.F.Orb (1992). Author Sean Albiez also noted Higher Intelligence Agency's Colourform (1992) and the Black Dog's Temple of Transparent Balls (1993) as early examples. The 1992 release of Warp Records' Artificial Intelligence compilation helped define the genre and included pioneers like Aphex Twin, B12, Autechre, the Black Dog, Richie Hawtin, and the Orb's Alex Paterson. B12's 1993 Warp album Electro-Soma was called a classic of ambient techno by Resident Advisor. The Quietus described Luke Slater's early-1990s work under his 7th Plain name as important to the style's development. After the Artificial Intelligence series, the genre evolved into the "intelligent techno" scene.
In the 1990s, compilation series like Chill Out or Die helped spread ambient techno and house music. Some artists moved away from the calm, friendly sounds of early ambient techno and instead made darker, more mysterious music, as heard in Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994) and projects by artists like Seefeel and the duo David Toop & Max Eastley. Virgin Records' 1994 compilation Isolationism highlighted this darker direction.
In the early-to mid-1990s, a small group of ambient techno artists formed around Berlin-based labels Basic Channel and Chain Reaction. In 1995, producer Wolfgang Voigt began releasing influential ambient techno projects under the name Gas, combining rich, expansive sounds with simple, steady techno beats. Voigt co-owns the German label Kompakt, which has released the Pop Ambient compilation series every year since 2001.