One of the important things about the synthesizer was that it came without any baggage. A piano comes with a whole history of music…when you play an instrument that does not have any such historical background you are designing sound basically. You’re designing a new instrument. That’s what a synthesizer is essentially. It’s a constantly unfinished instrument. You finish it when you tweak it, and play around with it, and decide how to use it. (Brian Eno)

There is a special sub-genre of ambient music that is fully focused to the creation of sounds and landscapes, with minimal if no emphasis at all on melody, rhythm and harmony. For those who are new to this style of music, the experience can be alienating and even a bit disturbing. But under the right conditions, and with a bit of preparation, this kind of music can give very strong emotions, such as to take your breath away.

Many artists are nowadays dedicated to ambient music, everyone with his own approach and characteristics. I’m collecting the best pieces that were released in the recent times into a special playlist of mine, named SOUNDSCAPES. As many of the playlist released and managed by this blog, this is a living compilation that will be frequently updated with new tracks.

At the moment of its publication, the playlist features about 2 hours of sonic landscapes from both veterans of ambient music and a few new artists who have recently appeared on the music scene. Enjoy the playlist, follow it, and visit it regularly to check for new songs.

Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting (Brian Eno)