album // Ambient
Quite where Moby's Ambient
fits into his back catalogue is debatable. It was released in 1993
on New York's Instinct imprint,
by which time Moby had already forged ties with Mute
in the UK and elsewhere in the world (his single 'Move' was released
just a fortnight after this LP). When Lauren Laverne recently interviewed
Moby on 6Music to talk about Destroyed, purportedly his
tenth album, Moby was quick to point out that he didn't actually
know if it was his tenth album or not becaue of the releases put
out by Instinct; elsewhere, in the liner notes for Rare: The
Collected B-Sides (1989 - 1993), a compilation released on
Instinct, Ambient is described as one of Moby's first three
albums, the others being Moby (released in the UK as The
Story So Far) and Early Underground. Given that the
latter is another Instinct compilation it's not hard to see why
Moby himself is confused, let alone the rest of us. Add to the fact
that there's yet another compilation which Instinct released in
1991 (Instinct Dance) and you are left with the impression
that this is Moby's third or second album, or possibly yet another
compilation.
Enough back catalogue navel gazing, on to the music:
the clue's in the title. 'Ambient', as a genre, was always a fairly
loose one; it includes anything from The Orb's brand of dubbed-up
electronica, Brian Eno's fragile drifting pieces, Pete Namlook's
more spatial work, Biosphere's frozen tundra and Aphex Twin's melodic
tracks and many, many other artists and variations. Another way
of looking at ambient music is to think of it as music that you
wouldn't necessarily play in a club (though there are places that
would), which brings us back to Moby who, in 1993 (or whenever this
was actually recorded) was chiefly interested in music you could
dance to. Ambient is, consequently, a much more chilled
out affair though, unlike many more seasoned ambient practitioners,
most of the twelve tracks here are all driven forward by a house-y
beat of one description or another.
Tracks like 'Myopia' and 'Tongues' (that title,
plus the front cover was enough to put me off purchasing this album
for nearly twenty years) are propelled forward on deep if skeletal
house beats, with lots of resonant bass and rich reverb to get your
head into a suitably fuzzy place. These tracks are slow-developers,
the layers on something like the subtly epic eight-minute 'Dog'
evolving gracefully from their rudimentary beginnings. (Incidentally
on Moby's Twitter feed he often mentions dogs, and occasionally
posts pictures of weird-looking mutts; he also recorded a track
called 'Dog Heaven', which may or may not be an amalgam of two tracks
here). Stylistically it's most like The End Of Everything
(released under Moby's Voodoo Child alias on Mute),
just with more obvious dancefloor leanings.
Elsewhere tracks like the opener, 'My Beautiful
Sky' or 'House Of Blue Leaves' have a vaguely 'tribal' dimension;
the latter has a jazzy vibe and a naive Eighties synthpop edge,
while something like 'J Breas' is built up from rich, almost classical
piano patterns. 'Bad Days' is a backward-drum beat hip hop affair
with fluttering synth squeaks circling from one channel to the other.
I don't think I need describe 'Piano & String'.
Sometimes, the notion that this may well be another
early album of compiled off-cuts from Moby is reinforced by something
like the synth arpeggios of 'Sound' or the guitar-style sounds of
'80' which feel less like proper tracks and more like inchoate sketches.
Generally, though, Ambient is a really
good, but oft-overlooked album in the Moby back catalogue and it
stacks up very well against some of the other chill-out releases
from back in the early Nineties. The fact that I fell asleep while
listening to it the first time is a compliment to how relaxed it
made me feel, not because I was bored.
lp/cd/c:
1. My Beautiful Blue Sky
2. Heaven
3. Tongues
4. J Breas
5. Myopia
6. House Of Blue Leaves
7. Bad Days
8. Piano & String
9. Sound
10. Dog
11. 80
12. Lean On Me
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