Those like me who have a soft spot for the Chill Out album might enjoy this Pitchfork revisiting. What I like about reviews of things I know and like is not the repeating of history I’m already familiar with, but additions to the culture around it – making me rethink, in some aspect, what I thought before.
In this case, it’s the tribute remix that is referenced in the article. I’ve listened to about half of it so far, and there’s a bit towards the middle where it emerges from its paint-by-numbers echoing of the original into something weird and original.
What do you think?
A few years ago there was a series of really good quality KLF/JAMMs/Space/etc remix CDs released under the heading of the Recovered and Remastered series. Some of the tracks were tidied up versions of officially released remixes, but most were new remixes. They really are excellent. I’m a big KLF fan and collector, so I managed to collect the whole series. They pop up on eBay, but some will be practically impossible to get, as the guy behind it got told to stop making them by either the band’s lawyers or the record label, so the last few were made to order for the people who had purchased all the previous CDs.
By far my favourite in the series was the remix of Chill Out, entitled This Is Not What Chill Out Is About. I prefer it to the original album.
Thanks, Paul. That makes for an interesting companion piece to the original – I’ve listened to about a third of it and it sounds like a clearer, more vibrant version. Because I’ve heard the original so often, and love all the elements as they are in it – anticipating each next part – I don’t think I could prefer it. But it makes me imagine it as one of the earlier versions that Bill and Jimmy almost got to the end of recording live before having to abort and restart.
I was struggling to play that link so I’ve just played the original CD for the first time in a long time. Sounds as wonderful as ever, but I was listening to it in the company of my daughter. It’s fair to say she’s never heard anything like that before and she was at times a bit freaked out by it all (in particular the Tibetan throat singer). She might be better off with the Orb.
I wonder if this SoundCloud link is any easier?
https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/701666794&color=%23427c36&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&wmode=opaque#
That’s new to me. I’d heard of it (BITD) but never heard it. Still haven’t, but I played some of the ‘new’ version which I enjoyed immensely. Will play the rest tomorrow, when I’ve more time. Cheers for the post and link
I like a bit of chill out but know little about it. What are the seminal bands/albums to check out?
I used to have a C90 cassette with chill out on one side and the orb’s blue room on the other and I carried it around with me for a whole summer. It got a lot of play when we were ‘chilling out’ which is not really a thing I have done much since.
There was loads of great music that would fit in with that catergory- future sound of London, banco de gaia, aphex twin etc. I played selected ambient works to Mrs. Paws recently and she described it as “the sort of thing I’d do yoga to.” I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
I find the ambient/chill out genre quite difficult to manoeuvre around, as I have listened to some of the more lauded albums but been unable to find any music in there. About half the more well known albums are by Brian Eno. Some are great, others sound like he just hit the record button and made it up as he went along. There are some crackers in there though, like Ambient 1: Music For Airports. For a relaxing listen I prefer his brother, Roger, but that strays into modern classical. Roger’s album with Kate St John of The Dream Academy/Van Morrison’s band, The Familiar, is just lovely. But I listened to a nice Brian ENO album on the way down to London a couple of days ago that had both Eno’s involved, as well as Daniel Lanois, – Apollo Atmospheres and Soundtracks.
If I am wanting to listen to something to chill out to (although I don’t think I’d ever use that phrase!) my favourite go-to band is Air, Moon Safari being almost perfect. But it’s nothing like The KLF’s album and it has moments of electronic 70s disco on it. Fantastic album though.
Aphex Twin’s two Selected Ambient Works albums are great and there are many albums by Zero 7, Bonobo, Morcheeba, Boards of Canada, Nightmares on Wax, Kid Loco, Royksopp and, going back a bit further, Tangerine Dream that give me the chill out feeling. I also get that downtempo vibe from Massive Attack, Portishead and the Blade Runner soundtrack, but little of this is strictly ‘ambient’ music. Another lovely relaxing album with a bossa nova vibe is Thievery Corporation’s Saudade.
An artist who’s work crosses all kinds of genres, including ambient (well I think so, anyway!) is Burial. His self-titled album and Untrue are great for a late night listen. And hip hop provides many great, laid-back, downtempo albums too. The Foreign Exchange’s Connected, InI’s Center of Attention, Madvillain’s Madvillainy, Typical Cats’ self-titled album, A Tribe Called Quest’s Low End Theory are all fab albums, and if there is one mellow hip hop album that a non-hip hop fan might enjoy, Guru’s Jazzmatazz is your best bet. He’s my favourite, albeit deceased, rapper and, as the title suggests, it’s jazz tinged hip hop featuring many guests from the jazz world.
This has now given me the urge to listen to more ambient albums, as an ambient purist will look at what I’ve written and shake his head, so I’ve just found a Pitchfork ‘top 50 ambient albums’ list that I only know 2 or 3 of, so if I find any gems on there I’ll let you know.
If you like the jazzy trip hop end of things, have you explored some of the early Mo Wax stuff? If not, give the compilation Headz vol 1 a go, you won’t be disappointed (probably). See also, Madlib’s Shades of Blue.
Couldn’t work out if you were asking me or Twang, but yes, someone on here (probably Tiggerlion or Leicester Bangs) pointed me towards the Headz and Mo Wax stuff, and I got to Madlib through MF DOOM. Probably my favourite kind of rap music, the smoother, jazz influenced stuff, so it’s something I’ve spent a lot of time delving through.
Great thank. I have Air Safari which I like a lot.
Will check out out Ron.
It actually became a bit of a quest of mine, cos I’ve loved Moon Safari since it came out, but I’d never managed to find anything like it for donkeys years. Loads of stuff that was a bit like it, but never quite what I was looking for. I’d type ‘music like Air Moon Safari and get pointed towards Daft Punk or somebody, that’s not quite right, And then it was a Kid Loco album (can’t remember which one) that I finally listened to and thought “that’s it!” So then to find similar music I started typing music like Kid Loco and had much more joy.
Try also The People Tree by Mother Earth (Acid Jazz, 1993).
There’s a kind of proto-Moon Safari vibe running through it.
Moon Safari is definitely in a class of its own. Even the other stuff Air have done doesn’t match up to it!
Paws and Paul give some (a lot of) great suggestions. To add to that with music I feel have a similar ‘journey’ feel to KLF’s Chill Out:
76 14 by Global Communication
The Ambient Collection by Art of Noise
Journey of the Carcharadon by Real Life
Old Man River’s Crying by Full Moon Scientist
Also, I’d cite Mixmaster Morris/Irresistible Force as one of the pioneers, alongside KLF and The Orb, of the genre.
Love a bit of chill out though it’s a different ‘genre’ to ambient. Chill Out peaked in late 90s/ early 00s and is more beat/song oriented. Typified by bands like Air, Zero 7, Royskopp and Moby. ‘Moon Safari’ would probably be my ‘go to’ album which still sounds comparatively fresh and contemporary.
I love all, well, most, of the names above, but ever the duffer with genres I tend to lump most mentioned as electronica/dance: it’s easier. Chill out I think of those mix-tapes of, well, mixes, under the headings of, when they are good, Buddha Bar and Cafe del Mar. Done well it can be transcendant, literally like an aural immersion tank. Done badly, and there are zillions of 2 a penny compilations, the clue often being when they have ‘chill’ or ‘moods’ in the title, more like eating too many caramac bars. Tends not to have many ‘name’ performers, all probably put together in laboratory and allocated names and titles later, altho’ Moby, Natacha Atlas, Air get the occasional refurtle about.
I can’t believe we’ve got this far down the thread without me mentioning David Sylvian.
Personally don’t see DS as chill out – he’s much more obtuse and angular than that. Occasionally veers into the ambient arena especially with those albums he did with Holger Czukay
Flux & Mutability is my favourite ambient album.
Paul’s comment, “I find the ambient/chill out genre quite difficult to manoeuvre around”…. says it all really! The line between truly awe-inspiring, weightless music and “yoga music” is a fine line indeed.
I was quite into all this stuff in the early nineties, but I kind of gave up when I felt it became a bit of a dead end. I tend to get impatient when it is just too minimal (Music for Airports) or starts getting too dancey (Future Sound of London and stuff like that). The Orb, when they rein in the dance beats, are the sweet spot for me. Probably side one of UFOrb is the high point.
(By the way, has anyone else ever noticed how much O.O.B.E from UFOrb sounds like The Whale from ELO’s Out of the Blue? It seems a rip-off rather than a sample, as it isn’t listed on Whosampled.com as far as I can see).
Yes, that’s what I mean. I’ve been at people’s houses where they put on some of those ‘Balearic Chill’ type albums and it sounds like the kind of stuff that crap magicians do their illusions to. Blank and Jones are a good example. I’ve liked some of the work they’ve done on other artists’ work, so I felt inclined to try their own music out and all I’ve managed to find so far is the kind of stuff I had to put up with whilst paying somebody to stick needles in me to try to relieve the pain from a partially severed spinal cord (which was another load of rubbish in itself!).
I absolutely agree that there can be a fine line between blandness and musical worth with chill out. Over the last few years though the emergence of ‘modern classical’ artists like Nils Frahm, Winged Victory For The Sullen, Johan Johannson and Olafur Arnalds have taken the ambient movement into really interesting new areas with more use of traditional acoustic instruments and orchestras rather than just synth sound pads and drum loops.
Yes, if you’d have told me a few years ago I was going to get into a few Northern European modern classical composers I would have thought you’d gone mad, but I enjoy listening to three of those four a lot, especially Arnalds. I’ve never heard Winged Victory For The Sullen though, so I’ll check them out.
It can get compulsive, so, with your track record, go easy. You’ll hear WVftS, casually looking at the liner notes and be searching out the individual stuff by Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Wilzie’s other stuff, Stars of the Lid, Dead Texan etc. Before you know it you’ll be hoovering up Hauschka and Bersarin Quartett, the latter I was introduced to c/o Mr Squeezer.
Love, Love, LOVE the Bersarin Quartett. Absolutely TOP combo.
Have been listening to their first two albums non-stop for the past few weeks or so.
Do you have “Bersarin Quartett III” or the new album, “Methoden und Maschinen”, retro? Do they maintain the stratospherically high standards of the first two records?
I have III and the answer to that is yes. I’ll bet @pencilsqueezer can update you on the latest.
Happy to report that the latest is as enjoyable as the previous three. It’s not a reinvention of the wheel. It’s more of the same which is just fine by me.
I’d happily recommend Ryan Teague’s album release of last year Recursive Iterations and his album from 2016 Site Specific along with the three albums from Greg Haines. Digressions, Where We Were and Slumber Tides. All excellent.
I have Site Specific and a couple of Ryan Teague’s previous albums. Not yet heard Recursive Iterations, so off to Spotify I must go.
I have a feeling that’s the rest of my weeks gone…
Months I would suggest. This is a very deep rabbit hole.
In another installment of my wilfully intermittent series of “What Do Artists Listen To All Day” I thought some of this may be a reasonable fit on this thread. Not all of it is terribly chilly but I tend to listen to music that helps me find a groove when I’m working and today it’s all been pretty damn psychedelic man with intermittent patches of vague lucidity.
Maybe not seminal but Bremer/McCoy are pretty relaxed. Try the Ordet album for starters. I just moved to an open plan office and this on headphones allows me to work without distraction. Doesn´t sound much like a recommendation but hey ho