New studio techniques and new electronic and digital instruments allowed rock music and avantgarde music to develop new kinds of composition and performance. Ambient and cosmic music, in particular, reached an artistic peak. Noise was employed in a less irreverent and more calculated manner. Electronic sounds became less alien and more humane. Sound effects became the center of mass, not the centrifugal force. Overall, the emphasis shifted from melody/rhythm to "sound" and "ambience". And, in a way, this was the terminal point of a movement begun at the outset of the 20th century to emancipate music from the dogmas of classical music.

French combo Lightwave (20) was still composing electronic tonal poems in the spirit of the German "cosmic couriers" of the 1970s, but they added intrepid new ideas. Serge Leroy and Christoph Harbonnier harked back to Klaus Schulze's early works on Nachtmusik (1990), but enhanced that cliche' with techniques borrowed from classical avantgarde. Tycho Brahe (1993), that added Paul Haslinger (ex-Tangerine Dream) and violinist Jacques Deregnaucourt to the line-up, offered elegant, dramatic and highly-dynamic chamber electronic music of a kind that had never been heard before. Electronic music had matured into something both more conventional (like a traditional instrument) and more alien (like a supernatural harmony). Mundus Subterraneus (1995) reached new psychological depth, while furthering their soundpainting both at the microscopic and at the macroscopic levels. A spiderweb of metabolizing structures, an organic blend of timbres, drones and dissonances, it blurred the line between rationality and chaos, showing one as being the sense of the other. The spirit of Lightwave's music recalled the allegorical, encyclopedic minutiae of medieval treatises, an elaborate clockwork of impossible mirages and erudite quotations. Ultimately, it was a journey back to the roots of the human adventure.

In Germany, Uwe Schmidt's multi-faceted saga began with Lassigue Bendthaus and unfocused electronic soundscapes such as the ones on Render (1994). His ambient/atmospheric project Atom Heart was more successful, particularly with Morphogenetics Fields (1994). N+'s Built (1996), which was virtually a tribute to cosmic music, and the numerous collaborations Bill Laswell and Pete Namlook completed his training in the field of lengthy, static electronic poems. But his activity ranged from Latin music, explored by Senor Coconut Y Su Conjunto, for example on El Gran Baile (1997), to the digital ambient/industrial jazz-rock of Flanger, a collaboration with percussionist Bernd Friedman, on Templates (1999). His partneship with Japanese visionary Tetsu Inoue was particulary relevant. The third Datacide (1) album, Flowerhead (1994), toyed with a noise-based form of ambient music that sounded like organic matter slowly developing into an embryo. The duo recorded ambient works under several names, notably Masters Of Psychedelic Ambiance's MU (1995) and Second Nature's Second Nature (1995).

In Belgium, Vidna Obmana (2), Dirk Serries' project, practiced electronic soundpainting on the ambient trilogy begun with Passage In Beauty (1991), but Echoing Delight (1993) shifted the emphasis towards spiritual and tribal evocations. This is the genre in which Serries gave his most original and poignant works, first Spiritual Bonding (1994), a collaboration with Steve Roach and Robert Rich, and then Crossing The Trail (1998).

In Holland, Ron Boots's Different Stories and Twisted Tales (1993) straddled the border between sequencer and ambient music. In Portugal Nuno Canavarro produced one of the most atmospheric works of early ambient music, Plux Quba (1988).

San Francisco's Kim Cascone (1) mined the border between ambient music and musique concrete both on Heavenly Music Corporation's In A Garden Of Eden (1993) and on PGR's The Morning Book of Serpents (1995).

A Produce (1), Barry Craig's project, also from California, crafted Reflect Like A Mirror (1993), an impeccable follow-up to Brian Eno's and Harold Budd's classics.

Happy The Man's keyboardist Kit Watkins (1) composed the austere Thought Tones (1992) and especially Circle (1993), a suite for electronic sounds and natural sounds.

In Canada, Delerium (3), an offshoot of Front Line Assembly, crossed over into gothic, dance and pop music with meticulously and lushly arranged albums such as Stone Tower (1990), Spiritual Archives (1991) and Spheres (1994). Their associates Will (1) composed the pagan mass Pearl Of Great Price (1991) in a similar vein.

Arizona-based Life Garden (1) sounded like the electronic version of Popol Vuh on Caught Between The Tapestry Of Silence And Beauty (1991).

The "organic sound sculpting" of Voice Of Eye (2), the Texas-based duo of Bonnie McNaim and Jim Wilson, was inspired, at different levels, by Steve Roach, Harold Budd, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Mariner Sonique (1993), the seven Vespers (1994), imbued with medieval spirituality and zen transcendence, and the six movements of Transmigration (1996) co-founded the religious version of electronic world-music with Life Garden.

The most challenging and political form of ambient music was perhaps the one invented in New York by Terre Thaemlitz, for example on Soil (1995).

Liquid Mind (2), the project of Los Angeles-based composer Chuck Wild, sculpted the ecstatic Ambience Minimus (1994): memorable melodies slowed down, came to a standstill and decomposed in celestial chimes, echoes of angels, breathing of nebulae. The neo-classical Unity (2000), instead, let strings and woodwinds float, multiply and merge as if an entire repertory of "adagios" was being played in slow motion and out of sync by an orchestra of orchestras.

In a ligher mood, Richard Bone (2) was equally at ease with the surreal synth-pop of Vox Orbita (1995) and the ambient symphony of Eternal Now (1996).

Cevin Key (1) of Skinny Puppy composed a magniloquent symphony for "subconscious electronic orchestra", Music For Cats (1998).

Stars Of The Lid (2), the Austin-based duo of Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride, manipulated found sounds, acoustic instruments and electronics to produce the ambient concertos of Ballasted Orchestra (1997); and an even more austere exploration of melody and movement was carried out on The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid (2001).

Electronic Ambient World Music

By exploiting Steve Roach's ideas, a number of musicians scoured the territory at the border between new-age music, ambient music and world-music.

San Francisco's "modern primitivism" movement was best represented by a multi-national commune that emerged with the music of Lights In A Fat City (1), centered upon Canadian electronic composer Kenneth Newby, British-born didjeridoo player Stephen Kent and percussionist Eddy Sayer. Somewhere (1988) was possibly the first electronic album built around the sound of the didjeridoo, and juxtaposed hypnotic rhythms to a madly droning background. Sound Column (1993) was a more philosophical work, comprising four improvisations for didjeridoo and acoustic instruments recorded inside a huge pillar. That project evolved into Trance Mission (12), formed by Newby and Kent with Club Foot Orchestra's clarinetist Beth Custer and percussionist John Loose. Trance Mission (1993), a dense maelstrom of jazz improvisation, transcendental exotica, atmospheric electronica and tribal rhythms, took a new route to Brian Eno's ambient trance and to Jon Hassell's fourth-world music. That wedding of futuristic and ancestral elements was abandoned on Meanwhile (1995), for a more facile dance-exotic fusion that evoked the vision of the Third Ear Band mixed by a techno producer; while later works such as Head Light (1997) veered towards an alien form of free-jazz. Kent, harpist Barbara Imhoff, a percussionist and a vocalist explored a simpler kind of electronic folk music under the moniker Beasts Of Paradise on Gathered On The Edge (1995).

Kenneth Newby (10), a member of the Trance Mission collective, crafted Ecology Of Souls (1993), perhaps the most accomplished fusion of electronic music and exotic instruments of the era. Four lengthy suites explored a magical, surreal, mythological landscape roamed by rhythmic patterns and primordial sounds, swept by intergalactic winds and tidal waves of cosmic radiations, while melodramatic and ethereal moments alternated at creating a metaphysical suspense.

Germany's Enigma (2), the project of Romanian-born veteran disco producer and electronic composer Michael Cretu (aka Curly M.C.), elaborated a pseudo-ethnic ambient style that would be very influencial on mainstream music. MCMXC A.D. (1990) mixed Gregorian chanting, dance beats, new-age ecstasy and exotic fascination. The Cross Of Changes (1994) was a tour de force of juxtapositions and layering that roamed the world for inspiration (French chansons, African polyrhythms, Middle-eastern cantillation, Peruvian flutes, operatic choirs, etc).

France's Deep Forest (1) were successful on Deep Forest (1992) with a similar idea: an atmospheric potion of ethnic samples and dance beats.

Mo Boma (12), the duo of German multi-instrumentalist Carsten Tiedemann and Iceland-born jazz bassist Skuli Sverrisson, achieved a brilliant fusion of Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, Klaus Schulze, Weather Report and Pat Metheny, for the age of raves on Jijimuge (1992) and especially on the more electronic, primitive-futurist Myths Of The Near Future (1994). The first part of a trilogy recorded in South Africa in 1993, the latter set the foundations for the sophisticated ethno-jazz of Myths Of The Near Future Part Two (released in 1995) and the lush, symphonic "thickness" of Myths Of The Near Future Part Three (1996). Overall, the trilogy represented a majestic celebration of the human race.

Australia's Eden (11), the brainchild of vocalist Sean Bowley, displayed the combined influence of Dead Can Dance's exotic/medieval music and Nico's ancestral folk on the madrigals of Gateway To The Mysteries (1990), performed by a chamber ensemble (rich in ancient instruments) and sung in lugubrious ecclesiastic tones. The macabre and decadent ballads of Fire And Rain (1995) added Paul Machliss' electronic arrangements.

Michigan's Fibreforms (1) performed instrumental world-music a` la Penguin Cafè Orchestra on Treedrums (1996), but based on the haunting sound of the African bounkam. They changed name to Kiln (1) and repeated the exploit with Holo (1998).

Britain's Bob Holroyd integrated Deuter's eastern spirituality, Jon Hassell's fourth-world atmosphere and Deep Forest's sampling. on Fluidity And Structure (1995).

The lush electronic arrangements and soothing melodies of Mythos (1998) by Canada's Mythos were the obvious bridge with new-age music.

Dead Can Dance's multi-instrumentalist Brendan Perry (1) returned with Eye Of The Hunter (1999), an intensely personal statement arranged for (synthesized) orchestra and a plethora of acoustic instruments, but more reminiscent of Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen than of his old band.

In Japan, Onna-Kodomo offered a languid and spiritual fusion of western classical music and eastern classical music on Syuuka (1997), in a vein similar to Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra.

Transglobal trance

It was not avantgarde, but Britain's "transglobal dance" was a natural consequence of the merger of electronica and world-music in the age of raves.

TUU (2), mainly Martin Franklin's project, delivered arcane, sacred and ethnic trance on One Thousand Years (1992), evoking both Third Ear Band and Popol Vuh. All Our Ancestors (1995) approached chamber music and Jon Hassell's fourth-world music, while the more electronic Mesh (1997) was influenced by Steve Roach's sinister soundscapes.

Voices Of Kwahn offered an elegant fusion of quirky vocals and electronic/ethnic ambience on Silver Bowl Transmission (1996).

In the USA, Georgia's Macha (1) penned the mostly improvised Macha (1998) and the quasi-symphonic See It Another Way (1999); while New York's Badawi, Raz Mesinai's project, fused traditional middle-eastern instruments, simple reggae figures and syncopated drumming at a deeper level on Jerusalem Under Fire (1997). and Tuatara (1), a supergroup made of REM's Peter Buck, Screaming Trees' drummer Barrett Martin, Luna's bassist Justin Harwood and jazz saxophonist Skerik (Nalgas Sin Carne), indulged in studio magic on the all-instrumental Breaking The Ethers (1997).

Hochenkeit, led by guitarist Jeff Fuccillo of the Irving Klaw Trio, concocted the psychedelic/electronic world-music cauldron I Love You (1999), inspired by German avant-rock of the 1970s.

Montreal-based Shalabi Effect (2) employed a veritable orchestra of ethnic, western and electronic instruments to generate the propulsive and trancey scores of Shalabi Effect (2000). The Trial Of St Orange (2002) was another masterful essay of East-West fusion; while Sam Shalabi's solo On Hashish (2001) was a more pretentious experiment with field recordings, free improvisation, droning and glitches.

Guitar drones

An important thread for ambient music was started in Britain when the post-shoegazing psychedelic groups began playing music anchored to guitar drones. Seefeel (2) pioneered the idea on Quique (1993) and Succour (1994). The combination of Sarah Peacock's stunned vocals, Mark Clifford's minimalist guitars, Justin Fletcher's proto-rhythms and Darren Seymour's dub bass lines dissolved the music of My Bloody Valentine and Spacemen 3 in nebulae of abstract sound.

German guitar trio Maeror Tri (2) also pioneered doomsday's music for guitar-drones, although their white-noise hurricanes, particularly on the monumental Myein (1995), recorded in 1992 and 1993, were reminiscent of both Glenn Branca's symphonies and Throbbing Gristle's industrial nightmares.

Drone-based symphonies became the bread and butter of most shoegazing veterans.

Spacemen 3's guitarist Sonic Boom (Peter Kember) began a stubborn quest for the mystical qualities of sound. His first success was with Soul Kiss (1991), the second, ultra-ethereal album by Spectrum (1). Kember's second success came with Experimental Audio Research (2), or E.A.R., the experimental trio formed with God's Kevin Martin and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, who produced at least two innovative recordings: the four cosmic-ambient suites of Mesmerized (1994) and the three futuristic concertos of Millennium Music (1998).

Main (2), the new project of Loop's Robert Hampson, was an obsessive probe of the power of drones. Over the course of a number of EPs, Hydra (1991), Calm (1992), Dry Stone Feed (1993) and Firmament (1993), and the album Motion Pool (1994), Hampson's style evolved from a dark, cold, dynamic sound to a softer, static, almost mystical sound. The two colossal tracks of Firmament II (1994) and the six multi-part suites of Hz (1996) coined a sophisticated art of nuances that, far from being only cacophonous and monotonous, was rich in the way that a black hole is rich of invisible gravitational energy. Hampson's technique was perhaps the closest a rock musician had come to repeating Karlheinz Stockhausen's experiments of the 1960s.

Sound manipulation of acoustic sources became the focus of many artists of this generation.

Rapoon (2), the brainchild of Zoviet France's Robin Storey, gave new meaning to the fusion of Indian and western music on albums such as Vernal Crossing (1993) and The Kirghiz Light (1995), exalted orgies of samples, loops and mixing that "used" drones and rhythms rather than "playing" drones and rhythms. He then converted to the mystical/contemplative style of Darker By Light (1996), Easterly 6 Or 7 (1997) and The Fires Of The Borderlands (1998), that basically reconciled his experiments with new-age music.

O.Rang (1), the new project of Talk Talk's rhythm section of Lee Harris (percussions) and Paul Webb (now on keyboards), manipulated the sounds of a small orchestra of friends on Herd Of Instinct (1994).

A couple of Bristol groups represented a peak for guitar-based ambient music.

Flying Saucer Attack (2), i.e. the duo of multi-instrumentalists Dave Pearce and Rachel Brook, were among the groups that transformed psychedelic rock into an austere form of chamber music. The albums Flying Saucer Attack (1993), Further (1995) and New Lands (1997) refined a kind of shoegazing that relied increasingly on melody, yielding delicate elegies set against a disturbing background of cosmic music, free-jazz, Throbbing Gristle's industrial noise, LaMonte Young's droning music or contemplative new-age music.

Richard Walker's Amp (2) continued Flying Saucer Attack's mission with the chaotic ambience of Sirenes (1996) and the ethereal space ballads for female vocals (Karine Scharff) and guitar maelstroms of Stenorette (1998), while at the same time indulging in the more abstract improvisations of Astral Moon Beam Projections (1997) and Perception (1997).

Treated guitar drones and noises reached a new dimension with the work of Austrian-born Christian Fennesz (1), both his harsh cacophonies, such as Hotel Paral.Lel (1997), and his melodic illusions, such as Endless Summer (2001).

Rhode Island-based Geoff Mullen composed droning and softly cacophonous music for guitar, banjo and electronics on Thrtysxtrllnmnfstns (2006) and The Air in Pieces (2006) that sounded like John Fahey's progressive folk being remixed by a glitch musician, or like Keith Fullerton Whitman gone folk. Armory Radio (2007) increased the sense of disorientation with constantly shifting textures and continuously evolving patterns, still maintaining a low register throughout.

Ambient guitar noise 1994-99

In the USA, ambient guitar noise was generally more subdued.

Windy & Carl (12), the project of Detroit's guitarist Carl Hultgren, added Windy Weber's ethereal vocals to the equation. Portal (1994) indulged in the angelic hypnosis of the shoegazers, but the drifting nebulae of Drawing Of Sound (1996) created friendly soundscapes for vocals to roam, despite the monumental spires of guitar distortion and the absence of rhythm. By demoting the guitars to the background and promoting the electronic keyboards to the forefront, the three lengthy tracks of Antarctica (1997) veered towards German "kosmische musik" of the 1970s. The organic and fibrillating Depths (1998) developed that idea into a full-fledged marriage of heaven (the cosmic drones) and hell (the menacing density of the sound).

Pennsylvania's Azusa Plane (1), the project of guitarist Jason DiEmilio, formalized a mystical psycho-acoustic art of guitar drones and overtones on Tycho Magnetic Anomaly And the Full Consciousness of Hidden Harmony (1997) leading to the chamber ambient dissonant music of America Is Dreaming Of Universal String Theory (1998).

The genre of instrumental drone-oriented psychedelic music was perfected by Oregon's Yume Bitsu (12). The lengthy, trancey, ethereal suites with a dramatic edge of Giant Surface Music Falling to Earth Like Jewels From The Sky (1998) were reminiscent of both German cosmic music and British shoegazers. On Yume Bitsu (1999), the quintessential album of extended psychedelic jams, guitarists Adam Forkner and Franz Prichard painted (or, better, drilled) soundscapes of incredible brightness, enhanced by the surreal palette of Alex Bundy's keyboards.

Surface of Eceon (1), formed in New York by former Yume Bitsu guitarist Adam Forkner, penned The King Beneath the Mountain (2001), an album of epic-length triple-guitar textures, adrift in a solemnly calm sea of languid notes that recalled both Popol Vuh and Pink Floyd, but refracted through the lenses of Dali's surrealism. Forkner's stylistic journey eventually rediscovered the land of Terry Riley's Rainbow In Curved Air and Brian Eno's Discreet Music with White Rainbow's Prism Of Eternal Now (2007).

Pan American (2), the side-project of Labradford's guitarist Mark Nelson, used the extended (and mostly instrumental) compositions of Pan American (1998) and especially 360 Business 360 Bypass (2000) to craft ambient music for the post-house age. Mixing wavering beats, organic pulses, digital noise, processed instruments and voices, Nelson built minimalist soundscapes and populated them with slow-motion events. The process of music-making was hardly recognizable anymore, especially when all that was left was a weak, unfocused signal. Whenever instruments or voices resurrected harmony, Nelson killed it again, at a deeper level. Wadded rhythms drifted through the music rather than support the music. The River Made No Sound (2002) whispered languid tones into liquid, murky textures. Quiet City (2004) was music of environments that are, first and foremost, in the mind. The events within those environments are modest and tidy, but generate intense poetry, as in the sonata of Christo in Pilsen. Mark Nelson's still nature, which prefers pale colors and smooth surfaces, and reveals itself in a discrete, almost fearful manner. The subtleties and innuendos of Nelson's compositions gave ambient music a new meaning.

Chicago's James Plotkin (1) used processed guitar sounds to compose subliminal works such as A Peripheral Blur (1998), but then ventured into the most ferocious kind of industrial music and digital hardcore on Atomsmasher (2001), a concentrate of drilling electronics, chaotic collages, hyper-fibrillating drums, psychotic howls, barbaric noises.

San Francisco's Bethany Curve bridged pop song and ambient guitar on Gold (1998). Michigan's Tomorrowland seemed to play old-fashioned "kosmische musik" on Stereoscopic Soundwaves (1997) even though all sounds were produced by manipulating acoustic instruments.

Ambient avantgarde

At the turn of the century, ambient composers abounded all over the world.

Veteran British music critic David Toop aimed for Brian Eno's ambient ecstasy via a mix of natural sounds, electronic sounds and acoustic instruments on Buried Dreams (1994), a collaboration with Max Eastley, basically reinventing musique concrete for the ambient generation.

Belgian composer Benjamin Lew crafted Le Parfum Du Raki (1993) for an ensemble of electronic, ethnic and acoustic instruments.

Alio Die (1), the project of Italian composer Stefano Musso, assembled electronic pieces such as Sit Tibi Terra Levis (1991), Under an Holy Ritual (1992) and Password for Entheogenic Experience (1997), that continued the Harold Budd's program of angelic music.

Tetsu Inoue, Uwe Schmidt's partner in Datacide, was even more delicate on Ambiant Otaku (1994).

British audio-visual technician Andrew Lagowski launched both Legion the dark ambient project of Legion, that released False Dawn (1992) for found sounds and white noise, and especially Leviathan (1996), a six-movement symphony of exoteric electronica, and the project SETI, at the border between techno, ambient and dub.

German electronic musician Pete Namlook (Peter Kuhlmann), one of the most prolific musicians of all times (not a compliment), focused on the untapped potential of analogue synthesizers, often developing or extending the instruments in his own laboratory. Most of his 200+ recordings were collaborations with influential artists of his time, and many were repeated collaborations (i.e., with sequels): Silence (1992) with Dr Atmo, The Dark Side Of The Moog (1994) with Klaus Schulze, Psychonavigation (1994) with Bill Laswell, Jet Chamber (1995) with Atom Heart, etc. Namlook's own music, the series that started with Air (1993), endorsed one or a combination of the following: German "kosmische musik", Brian Eno's "discreet" music, free-jazz and/or Eastern classical music.

After familiarizing himself with the soft, slow-decaying gong drones of Teimo (1992), German composer Thomas Koner (1) penned the drone-based ambient music of Permafrost (1993). These pieces laid the foundations for hour-long compositions such as Daikan (2001), the zenith of his icy ambience, and Une Topographie Sonore (2003), that obsessively explores a magical and ethereal soundscape of natural sounds and eerie drones.

Australian composer Paul Schutze (14) was inspired by Brian Eno's ambient music, Miles Davis' jazz-rock and Pierre Henry's musique concrete for the one-hour collage of Deus Ex Machina (1989) and for the claustrophobic Topology Of A Phantom City, off New Maps Of Hell (1992), perhaps the best formulation of his "chaotic minimalism", a psychological puzzle of dissonance, trance, jazz, psychedelia, tribal frenzy, raga and ambient melodrama, The Rapture Of Metals (1993), which bridged musique concrete and ambient music and exuded the same subterranean tension reverberating with urban neurosis, and Apart (1995), an imposing summary of his techniques, particularly the cryptic and sinister suite Sleep.

Indiana-based ambient guitarist Jeff Pearce employed layers and layers of electronically-processed guitar melodies to compose The Hidden Rift (1996).

New York-based pianist Ruben Garcia opted for a more emotional version of Harold Budd's ambient piano minimalism in Eleven Moons, off Room Full of Easels (1996).

James Johnson recreated Harold Budd's ethereal ecstasy with the computer-generated music of Surrender (1999).

Los Angeles-based tuba improviser Tom Heasley manipulated the sound of the tuba in order to produce the ambient music of Where the Earth Meets the Sky (2001) and On the Sensations of Tone (2002).

New York-based clarinetist and saxophonist William Basinski (3) specialized in gentle compositions for loops and drones, whether derived from snippets of radio broadcasts, such as on The River (2002), or composed with electronic keyboards, such as on Watermusic (2001), or obtained by letting tapes slowly deteriorate, such as on The Disintegration Loops (2003), or created out of variations on simple melodic patterns, such as on The Garden of Brokenness (2006) and Variations For Piano And Tape (2006).

British sound sculptor John Coleclough (1) operated at the border between droning ("deep listening") music and abstract electronic music on sophisticated poems such as Cake (1998).

Eliane Radigue (1) proved to be La Monte Young's greatest disciple on Trilogie De La Mort (1998).

Nick "Farfield" Webb (Britain) coined a form of ambient music for tape collage of electronic sounds, found sounds and instruments on The Edges of Everything (1999).

Arovane, the project of Berlin multi-instrumentalist Uwe Zahn, wed ambient music, Debussy's impressionism and new-age relaxation on Tides (2000).

Classical pianist Anton Batagov (Russia) penned ambient music inspired by Buddhism on the triple-cd The Wheel Of The Law, originally recorded in 1999, containing three composition/improvisations for organ, glockenspiel, xylophone, piano and percussion: Circle Of Time, Voidness cycle, Liberation Through Listening In The Between.

Other notable ambient recordings included Larry Kucharz's Metachoral Visions (1997), Robert Scott Thompson's Music for A Summer Evening (1997), Kevin Keller's Pendulum (1999), and Akira Rabelais's Spellewauerynsherde (2004).

Noise

On the more radical front of noise and sound manipulation, countless musicians worldwide composed symphonies of "textures" (as opposed to "instruments"), sometimes with abrasive overtones and sometimes with an ambient/new-age feeling: Gareth Mitchell's Philosopher's Stone in England, with Preparation (1997); Klangkrieg in Germany, with Das Fieber der Menschlichen Stimme (1999); RhBand in Los Angeles, with Third Order Parasitism (1997); Ether in Utah, with Hush (1997); etc.

Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel (2) in New Zealand inaugurated his career with a tour de force of sound manipulation, Siberian Earth Curve (1998). This laid the groundwork for the later symphonic frescoes of Beautiful Speck Triumph (2004) and Birds Call Home Their Dead (2007), that alternated between droning, layered nightmares and cascading, distorted, pulsating space-rock jams and whirlwinds of visceral musique concrete.

Randy Greif (1) indulged in hypnotic, percussive, tribal pieces like Bacteria and Gravity (1987) and especially Verdi's Requiem (1997), reminiscent of Morton Subotnick's chaotic scores, but also coined a novel technique of postmodernist deconstruction and recomposition of texts with Alice In Wonderland (1992) and War Of The World (2001).

Thomas Dimuzio's Sonicism (1997), created by distorting an arsenal of instruments, samples and field recordings, was perhaps the best example of dark ambient industrial music.

Further developments

Hood (1) began as followers of Flying Saucer Attack with Cabled Linear Traction (1994), but, via the melancholy dilated folk-rock of Rustic Houses Forlorn Valleys (1998), they mutated into a different band. Their most original achievement, Cold House (2001), juxtaposed gentle melodies, acoustic instruments, layers of cutting-edge electronica, digital clicks and fractured beats.

Troum, the brainchild of Maeror Tri's Stefan Knappe, created a pagan/shamanic ambient music on a trilogy dedicated to the aboriginal "dreamtime", Tjukurppa - Harmonies (2000), Tjukurppa - Drones (2001) and Tjukurppa - Rhythms And Pulsations (2003), while the "circular" suites of Autopoiesis (2004) and the 51-minute piece of Shutun (2007) in collaboration with All Sides (Nina Kernicke) were studies on the organization of sound that transposd into music the combination of biological metabolism, Freudian stream of consciousness, and sci-fi cinematic vision.

In Iceland, Sigur Ros (2) specialized in lengthy suites that leveraged celestial vocals and orchestral drones on Agaetis Byrjun (1999). The dilated fabric of ( ) (2002) evoked the image of frail organisms crawling on spectral landscapes, particularly Death, thirteen minutes of cataleptic suspense and understated raga.

Neil Campbell's Vibracathedral Orchestra (2) drew inspiration from minimalist composers such as LaMonte Young and Pauline Oliveros. Working with a variety of acoustic instruments, as well as electronics, they turned the chaotic Lino Hi (2000), Versatile Arab Chord Chart (2000) and Dabbling With Gravity (2002) into mystical experiences, specializing in a dense and blurred mixture of guitar mayhem and ambient bliss.

Terra Ambient, the project of electronic musician Jeff Kowal, employed percussion, didjeridoo, guitar and ethnic instruments for the "forth-world music" of The Gate (2004). Rick Cox's Fade (2005), performed by Cox on electric guitar, Thomas Newman on piano and Peter Freeman on bass, was typical of the ever more popular strategy of creating ambient music via tone exploration: the instruments improvised around each other's sustained dreamy tones, patiently weaving a labyrinthine celestial atmosphere.