Ambient Life (Part 1): Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks
When I was a teenager, my friend Frank D. introduced me to some incredible music. Kate Bush, Roxy Music, classical, ambient…there really were no limits to Frank’s tastes, except that he tended to veer away from top 40. (I remember being shocked seeing him dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Starting Something” at Nuts & Bolts one night. It wasn’t that his dancing was bad, but rather that he was dancing to Michael Jackson, reigning prince of top 40 radio stations everywhere at that time.)
Frank had a Lada. I remember my favourite record shopping sprees were with him, in that rattling, manually-transmissioned-Lada. We would drive downtown and arrive back in Mississauga, hours later, with bags of vinyl goodies. I remember the day I came home with Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks album. Frank had put several tracks from it on an ambient mix tape he had made for me. My copy was imported from…England probably. Maybe Germany. It was probably available domestically, but I preferred the thicker, better quality imported vinyl.
In recent years Eno’s ambient recordings have been a little hard to find in their remastered versions. However, I’ve just come from both iTunes (Canada) and HMV’s new digital download section where the 2005 digitally remastered versions of many of Eno’s ambient collaborations are available.
Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks
So I’ve just bought Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks (one dollar cheaper on iTunes, but iTunes only offers the 8-minute “Stars” as an album-only track, while HMV makes it available on its own, but at an inflated $2.29!) and am listening to it as I write this.
My interest in ambient music re-ignited in the past few years. When I started making short films, I began recalling some of the great ambient music I listened to thanks to Frank D’s gentle urgings. I listened to the radio, like most people, but found a lot of time to listen to these less commercial recordings, in what I like to consider an adolescent form of meditation.
My friend Mark has been digging out his favourite records from his collection, and while I have purged my closet of all vinyl (except my Kate Bush and Roxy Music discs), I am revisiting some beautiful ambient music from my past. So I’m going to do a series of postings about ambient music. More to follow.
