If you meet me baby when the sun goes down

September 27, 2011 1:27 AM

I think The KLF's Chill Out is as close to perfect as you are ever going to get in chill out music. Throw me musical suggestions based on this.

I don't have much music of this type, but I'd like more.

Specifically what I love about this album is the sense of journey - even if it is utterly fictitious. This is not noodle around music, you feel like it's going somewhere. I also like that it is chilled without ever heading into drone/send me to sleep territory and the length - you can get stuck in for a good 45 minutes. And, well, it's just really, really well done.

Like I say, I don't have very much of this stuff at all, I'm not likely to say "oh, I've already got that" to many (any?) suggestions.

The youtube link on "Out", above, is to the whole album. Enjoy.

posted by deadwax to media & arts (17 answers total)

I could easily get carried away here. I'll suggest a few, if you like them, mail me and I'll send more.

The best place to start is the other KLF-related ambient album, "Space." Like "Chill Out," it's not in print, so you're best bet is a torrent search.

Then there's the Orb. Their albums "Pomme Fritz," "U.F.Orb," and "Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" are all good starting points.

There's also an orb-related project called FFWD>> (the name of group and album alike). That is probably the closest resemblance to what you say you like about "Chill Out."

More recently, there's an album by an artist named Irezumi called "Endurance." It's loosely based around an historical expedition to the arctic. It does a nice job maintaining a tone and telling a story without being distracting about it.

There's also a KLF tribute-album of sorts that re-worked some of the ideas of "Chill Out" and "Space" that appeared not too long ago. It was put out by someone pretending to be the reunited KLF but turned out to be a fan hoax. I can't find it just now, but if I do, I'll send a link.
posted by eric1halfb at 1:42 AM on September 27, 2011

First stop has to be Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld.
posted by pompomtom at 1:47 AM on September 27, 2011

some em:t releases (www.emit.cc)

..but really, nothing beats Chillout..
posted by 3mendo at 1:54 AM on September 27, 2011

Orb's Live 93
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:55 AM on September 27, 2011

FSOL ISDN and Lifeforms are also in the same vein.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:03 AM on September 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

Here it is, a DJ Food creation called "The Sound of (Mu)sic".
posted by eric1halfb at 2:05 AM on September 27, 2011

I second FSOL. Not very similar but the best 'journey' album I've ever heard is Coldcut's 70 Minutes of Madness.
posted by fraac at 2:28 AM on September 27, 2011

There is only one other album which comes anywhere close to Chill Out, in my mind. These two albums have been the pillars of my musical existence for going on twenty years.

Ocean of Sound, a compilation 2xCD compiled by David Toop and companion to his book of the same name.

As Allmusic says, "The audio companion to David Toop's excellent book advances the case he made that Les Baxter, Aphex Twin, The Beach Boys, Herbie Hancock, King Tubby and My Bloody Valentine are all related by their effect on sound pioneering. A double-disc set, Ocean of Sound impresses not only with its incredible diversity of musical styles, but with how easily these artists work next to each other. The second disc includes consecutive contributions by Paul Schütze, the Velvet Undergound, Holger Czukay of Can, The Beach Boys, African Headcharge and Sun Ra."

This is only the most technical description of what is, to me, a virtuosic, thrilling, and mind-expanding work that is both a labor of love and a work of art. It introduced me to everything from classic 1960s drone music to the otherworldly, shortwave radio-like underwater cries of bearded seals. It contains excerpts from seminal sound-art works that are otherwise impossible to find, and some of which have never been released elsewhere. And in terms of that essential flow - that palpable sense of time, space, and travelogue that Chill Out completely fucking nails? It's present here, too.

Get this album. Pick up the book, too, sure, but get the album.
posted by mykescipark at 3:01 AM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Chilled Out Euphoria, mixed by Solar Stone

Also, any of the Global Underground series, but specifically Oakenfold in New York and Nick Warren in Brazil.

The Back to Mine series is also excellent.

All this stuff has beats, but it's really relaxing, in general.
posted by empath at 5:45 AM on September 27, 2011

I'll second FFWD and add Brian Eno's ambient albums and Virgin's Brief History of Ambient series (at least the first three which I've heard).
posted by Ian Scuffling at 6:23 AM on September 27, 2011

Victorialand by the Cocteau Twins.
posted by joannemullen at 6:40 AM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

The massive FAX catalog is loaded with stuff you'd like. For a starting point, I'd recommend Organic Cloud by Tetsu Inoue.
posted by davebush at 7:11 AM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

TUU - Mesh

Skylab - #1

The Black Dog - Music for Real Airports (this is seriously the closest thing I've heard to Chillout)

The Blade Runner soundtrack - be careful with this, though; the Vangelis one is not the "official" soundtrack, which is all instrumentals. The one you'd want is the one with clips from the movie interspersed.

Spacetime Continuum - Sea Biscuit

62 Eulengasse (Pete Namlook/Tetsuo Inoue)

Chris Meloche - Recurring Dreams of the Urban Myth

Biosphere - Substrata

Tim Hecker - Ravedeath 1972
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 10:56 AM on September 27, 2011

Sun Electric 30.7.94 Live

Nthing the Fax catalogue, especially Ambient Otaku & Zenith by Tetsu Inoue.

Also checkout Deep Space Network.

Oh, and also

Global Communication - Remotion.

MLO - Io

Journeyman - Mama6
posted by SueDenim at 7:22 PM on September 27, 2011

thirding any FSOL (but lifeforms especially)

and seconding global communication:"76:14" is more journey-like than remotion imho.
posted by 3mendo at 7:35 PM on September 27, 2011

Check out this excellent repository of Ambience too.
posted by SueDenim at 5:41 AM on September 28, 2011

Wow this thread is quite the walk down memory lane.

The genre you're looking for is Ambient Techno, not chill out (no matter what the KLF called it)

I would add:

Amorphous Androgynous (a FSOL side-project) "Tales from Ephidrina"
Biosphere - Patashnik
Banco De Gaia - Last Train to Lhasa

And for something a bit darker (but maybe hard to find) there's Reload (global communication side project) "A Collection Of Short Stories"
posted by softlord at 6:30 AM on September 28, 2011