EMBRACING THE VOID
An appearance by Wolfgang Voigt at Day for Night won’t ignite the same sort of mass fervor fire as the set by Aphex Twin last year. But as GAS, Voigt is an almost equally elusive presence as Aphex Twin in a live-music setting.
Admittedly, the German electronic musician’s work isn’t quite as agreeable to kids who want to dance and wriggle. That said, this GAS appearance in Houston is as personally anticipated a music-related event as I can recall. He’s a crucial figure in the world of ambient music, and his Day for Night set will be his first U.S. show in nearly a decade.
Voigt isn’t really on the album-tour-album-tour cycle. In fact, this year’s mesmerizing “Narkopop” is his first GAS album in 17 years.
I can’t speak to all experience of music enthusiasts hitting middle age early in the 21st century. Just my own. And as I’ve gotten older, I find lyricists increasingly fail to translate our world into some relatable, sensible sound to my ears.
Whereas ambient music has become my refuge. My personal portal was Houston native William Basinski’s “Disintegration Loop 1.1,” which was built on a subtly changing pattern that stretched across an hour. While Nashville musicians were banging the drums of war in 2002 and leftist musicians were writing songs about George W. Bush that have been long forgotten, Basinksi’s piece captured the ashen feeling that consumed me as a New Yorker on Sept. 12, 2001. And the day after that. And the day after that.
So, one of the great hooks at Day for Night, for me, is an embrace of music that falls under the ambient umbrella, which is about as meaningless a term as any other in contemporary music. It speaks to a lyric-less quality, and some ethereal quality, usually without guitars-bass-drums. But the variety of music classified as ambient is vast.
Next year marks the 40th anniversary of Brian Eno’s coining of the phrase. His definition of “ambient music,” sought to differentiate it from Muzak. But only by a degree.
“An ambience is defined as an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint. My intention is to produce original pieces ostensibly (but not exclusively) for particular times and situations with a view to building up a small but versatile catalogue of environmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres,” he wrote.
He closed with the following: “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.”
Here are a few of the Day for Night acts who are ambient or ambient-adjacent that have me excited. Though I find their work anything but ignorable.
GAS
I recommend the new “Narkopop,” which is a dark journey, as well as “Pop” from 2000. Lest anyone think “Pop” is pop, it is not. Voigt has only released six GAS albums in 21 years. They’re meticulously constructed and all-consuming.
JLIN
Jerrilynn Patton hails from Gary, Ind., hometown of Michael Jackson, who more than any single figure has defined pop’s direction over the past four decades. Jlin follows no previous template for making music. She’s only released two albums, the most recent being this year’s “Black Origami,” which has a rhythmic complexity throughout, from minimal touches to pronounced propulsion. She dresses it with snippets of recorded sound, some vocals, electronics and other whirs and whizzes. It’s an endlessly compelling piece of music.
TIM HECKER
A Vancouver native, Hecker often takes familiar sounds — frequently keys and vocals — and scrapes, scuffs and slurs them into something entirely new. While some ambient music avoids song form altogether, Hecker’s compositions often have a dramatic arc, even if they don’t have anything so traditional as a verse/ chorus/verse structure. Last year’s “Love Streams” is a fine introduction, though many prefer “Ravedeath, 1972.”
ANDY STOTT
English producer Stott makes music that is far from airy and atmospheric, which makes him a weird fit in an ambient column. But amid the unnerving clatter of sound is music that doesn’t necessarily move from point A to point Z, so he’s hardly making electro-pop. And after two frenzied recordings with “Luxury Problems” and “Faith in Strangers,” his new “Too Many Voices” finds him in more subtle textural territory.
GODSPEED, YOU BLACK EMPEROR!
This is a bit of a cheat because Godspeed is fairly traditional, instrumentally. That said, the Canadian band doesn’t do much traditional with those instruments, having for 20 years consistently changed their approach to making fairly epic instrumental rock. But that said, the new “Luciferian Towers” is the band’s most subtle and haunting recording to date, with the most spaciousness amid the sound.