Over the past few years, my listening has veered almost entirely toward instrumental electronic stuff. I started with Tangerine Dream, loving most of their 70’s/early 80’s output. I also like a lot of Jean-Michel Jarre—some of it’s a little cheesy, but I like a lot of it, including Equinoxe Infinity. I’ll be exploring his catalog more soon. I’ve gotten Timewind by Klaus Schulze—not bad, but not my favorite. I feel I need to find more of his stuff. I of course have Vangelis’s Blade Runner soundtrack, and probably need to find more. Also somewhat in this vein, I really like Tycho. Any other recommendations for instrumental electronic stuff? Not so much club/dance stuff, more space stuff.
My favorite KS albums are"Picture Music" and "X" but some find it droning on a bit much in some places. Have been exploring the women pioneers in electronic music lately, Elsa Marie Pade and Daphne Oram.
If you like Tangerine Dream - you will most probably like British band Redshift. Another British band in this vein is Radio Massacre International. Don't forget the early albums by Tim Blake either. In Japan there is the Far East Family Band's "Parallel World" (produced by Klaus Schulze) On the German front "Wunderbar" by Wolfgang Reichmann is excellent (sadly his only album recorded just before his death in a barroom brawl).
Check out Cluster. Start with "Zuckerzeit" or "Sowiesoso," then move on to their collaborations with Brian Eno. "After the Heat" is definitely one of my favorite 70's electronic albums...
Off the top of my head... Harald Grosskopf: Synthesist Earthstar: French Skylines Klaus Schulze: pretty much anything he did from '75 to '85, but "Mirage" and "Body Love Vol 2" are particularly essential Michael Hoenig: Departure From The Northern Wasteland Ashra: Correlations Edgar Froese: Stuntman, Pinnacles, Epsilon In Malaysian Pale Robert Schröder: Harmonic Ascendant and Galaxie Cygnus-A (alas, the original version of the latter has never been on CD) Steve Roach: Now and Traveller (NB: these first two albums of his are quite different from the rest of his vast output) anything by Tomita, especially Snowflakes Are Dancing Wendy Carlos: Sonic Seasonings
My favorite electronic album this year, and one of my favorite records of recent times, is Persona by Rival Consoles. I've said quite a few words about it around here, so I'll just leave it at that ...
I was about to write similar but think our friend might prefer their 1979 Grosses Wasser to start with, as he’s a Tangerine Dream fan. It was recorded and produced by Peter Baumann and they play Tangerine Dream’s gear on it. Plus they want instrumental, and Eno sings on three tracks on After the Heat. Roedelius makes some odd vocal noises on one Grosses Wasser track but no singing. But of course all Cluster up to and including Curiosum is superb and worth buying instantly IMO
I think my problem is that for as much as I love the BR soundtrack, I haven't heard much else from him that sounds like it. It sounds like Abledo 0.39 might be his most acclaimed album (other than BR), and I'm curious about the samples I've heard from Spiral. At just $4.99 on iTunes, that album might be an easy test to see if I'd like more from him.
When you are ready to disappear down the rabbit hole, check out the VOD label: Vinyl-on-demand The VOD label is dormant at the moment, but the site is now an electronic(a) encyclopedia: Tape Mag - home
Check out the following: Boards Of Canada Freescha Casino Versus Japan Pye Corner Audio And really anything on the Ghost Box label
BTW-I don’t consider much of the music listed so far to be electronic music. More like instrumental music realised on electronic instruments. But I guess that’s what the OP is interested in. Would love for the OP to check out some classical electronic music from the 1940’s to 70’s or thereabouts. Stockhausen, Berio, Kagel, Davidowsky, Subotnick, Xenakis etc.
Pantha Du Prince ... the most beautiful modern electronic artist I know. I recommend all of his albums, though my favourites are "This Bliss" and the Bell Laboraty Collaboration. Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory - Particle
Yeah, I realize "electronic music" has a pretty broad range of interpretation, and I realize that the stuff I'm interested in is more on the commercial end of the spectrum. I'm certainly interested to hear a lot of the early, less commercially-minded stuff, but fully admit my interest in repeat listening with a lot of that would be limited. There's (often) a difference for me in listening for historical context and listening for enjoyment, and I'm not usually going to buy something I don't anticipate I'll want to listen to repeatedly.
