Growing Up Ambient/Downtempo
Growing up electronic music was often heard around my house courtesy of my dad. The seed of my fascination with Ambient/Downtempo were planted deep in my skull while listening to Wendy Carlos' music to Stanley Kubrick's a "A Clock Work Orange".
Ambient/Downtempo music is rooted in the idea of deep listening, the style luxuriates in the slow evolution and repetition of individual sounds, thereby creating a meditative and atmospheric experience. Ambient/Downtempo music typically has no lyrics or vocals at all, instead focusing on such elements as mood, tone, texture, rhythm and the layers inside a song.
My dad was born in 1940 and although never formally trained in music he never-the-less taught himself to play guitar and piano at an early age. Around 1975's he was in a lounge with live music at which a musician was singing while unseen violins played in the background. When he inquire on how those beautiful violin sounds were being created he was shown an ARP Solina String Synthesizer. Right then and there my dad was hooked on the technology.
My earliest memories of synthesized music was listening to Walter Carlos' "Switched on Back" around 1974 when I was 10 years old. Issued in 1968, "Switched on Back" was Walter Carlos' first album. It took Johann Sebastian Back's classical compositions and rendered them through electronics. It's effect on the genre was to move the perception of its sounds from experimental to popular culture.
By 1977 my dad was using an ElectroComp 101 Synthesizer and I could not stop listening to:
"A Clock Work Orange" by Walter Carlos: Track 1: "Timesteps"
Ambient/Downtempo is a spacious, electronic music that is concerned with sonic texture, not songwriting or composing. It's frequently repetitive and it all sounds the same to the casual listener, even though there are quite significant differences between the artists. I enjoy it because good ambient takes me into myself, it elicits feelings, emotions, and memories, it picks my brain and makes me want to scratch it.
I hope to share other interesting artists in this genre with you in the future.