Is silence just another way of music?
This is the question that gave birth to what we know as soundscape, the sound of your surrounding. You might have know it as noise, but isn't music just a constant combination of noise?
But what about the rhythm...
Do waves have rhythms? A drop of water in a cave? Does the wind going through the trees have a rhythm, do they need one? Do you enjoy it nevertheless?
This is the exploration of the sounds of the landscape, also known as, Soundscape.
Escuchela la ciudad respirando?
Blackstar - Respiration
Is the city a live organism that makes it's own sounds? This is what we can call, the ambiance of the city. The traffic, honks, people coughing on the subway, the people on the street begging for change and the combination of it as it transform through the day.
Using AI I have finally dive deep into researching a genre of music that I have always or very early I have known of its existence. One of the very first keys of information was realizing that what I knew as Ambient or Ambiance music was a sub-genre of Soundscape and I should be referring to as soundscape as the main genre and then Ambiance as a subgenre.
I have been given some key current groups to look into the genre with albums that were release this year. They are:
KMRU (Joseph Kamaru) - Album Kin
Malibu - Vanities
Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore - Tragic Magic
Sarah Davachi - The Head As Form’d In The Crier’s Choir
Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske - At Source
Purelink - Faith
Laurie Torres - Aprés Coup
Boards of Canada - Tape 05
Los Thuthanaka - Wak'A
As I learned of Ambiance being a subgenre other genres emerge at that level, some which I have also been aware for some time. And those are the followings:
Lofi Chilhop - Is a style of hip-hop characterized by its "low fidelity" aesthetic, which deliberately uses unpolished production techniques and audio imperfections like vinyl hiss, tape crackle, or bitcrushed drums to create a warm and nostalgic atmosphere.
Chillstep or Melodic Bass - is a mellow subgenre that blends jazzy hip-hop beats with elements of chillout music, emphasizing warm, earthy instrumental loops and laid-back tempos that generally stay below 100 BPM.
Triphop or Downtempo - is a melodic, atmospheric offshoot of dubstep that retains a slow, half-time rhythm but replaces aggressive bass modulation with ethereal vocals, soft piano motifs, and deep, warm sub-bass.
Jazzhop - is a sophisticated fusion that places repetitive phrases of traditional jazz instrumentation—such as the trumpet, saxophone, and double bass—over modern hip-hop beats to bridge street culture with high art.
These genres as well as ambient, are recognize for some specific sounds created by instruments that have become quite popular on the subgenre. These are mostly the followings:
These are just a small sample of the many hardware and software that the artists use but you can get familiarized with them for their specific sound or effect to create that retro analog sound.
I would try to get a second article getting more into the music and groups and individual stories of evolution from each genre. So far I'll keep the article here. If you are interest in specifics, don't forget to comment on it. Do you also listen to soundscape? Which is your favorite all time album, group, artist?
Posted using BlockTunes
