The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Moby--The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age

Prendergast is a thoughtful and thorough writer......his book on Irish music (Isle of Noises) was comprehensive and superb. This one is similarly definitive......it is hard to imagine anyone significantly surpassing it for coverage of the field up to this point (it missed the boat carrying Autechre, Oval, Stereolab, Mouse on Mars, and "glitch" techniques). But whatever blanks are to be noted here can be filled in by any intelligent reader with access to a search engine.

This is not some gratuitous little fanboy picture-book along the lines of countless tomes churned out to cater to the prepubescent fans of Britney, N-Sync et-al. Rather, it is the story of the development of `Ambient' music over the past 100 years, as the subtitle puts it, "from Mahler to Trance - the evolution of sound in the electronic age."Mark Predergast is a respected author and critic, born in Dublin and now living in London, who has written extensively and authoritatively about ambient and electronic music for over two decades. This book is about what he considers to be the "classical music of the future;" Ambient.The book is divided into four main parts:Part I: The Electronic LandscapePart II: Minimalism, Eno and the New SimplicityPart III: Ambience in the Rock EraPart IV: House, Techno, and 21st Century AmbienceThe book starts with a Forward by Brian Eno, the British pop/rock/avante-guard/neo classical musician who actually invented, and coined the term, "Ambient Music;" music that should be, in his words, "as ignorable as it is interesting.""Part I" charts the move away from rigid, Germanic orchestrations, to Romanticism and Modernity, first seen in Gustav Mahler's "Symphony No. 3," written in 1895. It details the works of some of the greatest composers of the last century, not only Mahler, but Debussy, Ravel - without whom Torvil and Dean would have hard a hard time winning their Olympic Gold! - Delius, Schoenberg, Stokowski, Messien, and many others. He also explores the development of electronic instrumentation, vital to the production of what we now know as Ambient Music. It looks in detail at the work of Leon Theremin, who's other-worldly sounding "Theremin," was used to such wonderful effect on the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations," and the soundtrack to "Forbidden Planet." Also explored are the developments of Maurice Martenot, Daphne Oram, the coming of the true synthesizers, first the monophonic "Moog," then the endless range of polyphonic synthesizers that went on to revolutionized the creation and production of modern rock and Ambient Music. It also looks at the career and work of one of the first great interpreters of the electronic keyboard, Wendy (Walter) Carlos, the Worlds most famous transsexual composer and performer of classical and neo-classical music!"Part II" investigates the influence of American Minimalism, exemplified by Philip Glass and Steve Reich, on modern 70's rock, specifically Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," and Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells." These two seminal albums greatly influenced Brian Eno in his search for an alternative way forward in modern music. This part also investigates, in great detail, Eno's use of the studio itself as an instrument, as much responsible for the final sound of a recording as the acoustic/electric/electronic instruments actually played by the performers. As well as Eno, Glass and Reich, other important composers/performers careers and works are explored in detail, these i

The "family tree" of 20th Century music that Prendergast draws is deep in thought, yet lacking correctness on the minutiae. These failings leave the reader at times frustrated with these inaccuracies. Hopefully, a second edition can be drafted to allow the mistakes to be corrected. It seems that they slipped through the cracks, simply because the book is so encyclopedic, that tiny (yet important) facts get left either unsaid, or misstated.Intellectually, it's a masterpiece meal, but unfortunately, the detail and factual wine's been kept next to the oven, and the bread is burnt. Fortunately for the book, its breath of fresh air in insight makes up for this. If the facts were fixed this book would be off the scale.

I took this book on holiday for a little 'light' reading! It is big and a bit heavy, but did I regret the weight? N0! I found this a really interesting read that covered a huge array of artists and helped me to get some background information about artists I already knew and artist I did not. Since reading the book I have found a lot of other recordings I would not have known about before. Mark's interpretation of ambience is very wide, but you can see why he includes most of the artists. So many people have influenced or been influenced by ambient music. Because of the way it is set out (artists as sections mostly) it is perfect for dipping into as well. Perfect holiday read (for me!-)

This was an awesome book! [...] Besides, anyone who wrote a well-done book about Tangerine Dream, deserves special recognition from me. I especially enjoyed the entries on Brian Eno, David Bowie, The Orb, Aphex Twin, Mike Oldfield, Enya, Klaus Schulze, etc. I love this kind of music a lot and Mark Prendergast did an excellent job in writing and researching this book.