On Sat, 11 Jun 1994, Christian Bartholdsson wrote:
quoted 6 lines Only five labels in the world release ambient? Good joke. There are two> Only five labels in the world release ambient? Good joke. There are two
> labels in Sweden (my homecountry) alone, releasing ambient records only
> (one is called Cascade and is worth checking out). There are interviews
> with ambient artists every week in the music press, hardly any at all with
> jungle artists. Ambient may not be mainstream but it's a hell lot less
> underground that breakbeat (no, it's not a competition, I know).
Unfortunately I am not familiar with these Swedish labels. Maybe they're
pretty "underground" _shudder_. I never stated that I was down on
breakbeat, or that either style was more or less underground than the
other. I simply stated that it _ambient_ gained more respect from
originators of music, such as Jah Wobble...
I live in San Francisco, so I consider the techno scene to be relatively
saturated with ambient. Since parties that can pack in more than 2000
people rarely happen, I consider the scene underground here. Also, when
parties happen and they have an ambient room, there's only about 20 or so
people in them. It seems to me that this might indicate that it is a
little more obscure, especially when party-goers can name practically
all of the tunes the Dj's play off their heads. When you mention FAX
Records, they usually have never even heard of it. Yes, ambient is
getting good media hype from the RDJ, and Mixmaster Morris's, but the
media we speak of is usually music publications for musicians or DJ's.
How many of the "average" listeners actually pick up an NME or Street
Sounds to find the latest news on techno?
All I'm saying is that ambient is far from being mainstream. Media hype
does not warrant a music being mainstream. If Top-40 radio stations
start playing ambient tunes and Space Time Continuum tracks are blaring
from cars passing by on the streat, then ambience has become mainstream.
until then we are all beneath the surface
-robert