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Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror
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Price: $9.48
Price subject to change!
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0724386649720
Label: Astralwerks
Manufacturer: Astralwerks
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Astralwerks
Release Date: 2004-10-05
Studio: Astralwerks
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Customer reviews of Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Unlike Anything
Comment: What incredible work. This album could almost be described as some sort of "spa music". But, it goes well beyond that. Such a simple piece like Steal Away draws such quiet emotion and imagination from within. It's difficult to listen and not feel anything.
The title track The Plateaux of Mirror has such a warm and dream-like vibe. Picture the most lovely, comfortable spring day out in a field of grass, lightly fluttering insects and the slight shimmering of heat. The field bathed in a yellow/orange color.
Each track paints an accurate portrait of it's title. An Arc of Doves gives a truly soft and soaring feeling of a flock of doves in flight. Wind in the Lonely Fences gives a desolate, lost and haunted feeling. It's something from a fantasy. Very unusual.
Fully creative and original. This is "contemplation" music. Background music. But, it is too outstanding to be left in the background. You'll find your original task at hand becoming second priority as you listen.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The epitome of ambient piano music.
Comment: After Ambient 1: Music For Airports, Brian Eno decided to immediately bring another ambient artist in for the second album of the series. The choice was Harold Budd, a pianist who had played minimalist music in the past and had recently released his first album, The Pavillion of Dreams, produced by Eno. On Ambient 2, Eno is seen as the producer and overseer, while Budd is the solo performer.
And to be sure, Budd takes the spotlight extremely well. Very little in the ambient world can compare to Budd's playing. He is classically trained, and thus tastefully restrained, but at the same time his versatility is great and he never seems to do the same thing more than once on Ambient 2. At times he focuses his energy on the subtle melodies, while other times letting the notes loose in harp-like glissandos. What stays constant is his talent. Every note seems to matter. Some notes ring out, sounding warm yet hollow, while others feel like necessary side notes in decorative flourishes. Signposts and hooks however are few and far between. In fact, a lot of the album feels improvised, mostly due to the pacing, which says all the more for his talent and restraint considering how easily the music can melt into an environment.
And in fact, he did improvise a significant amount. What Eno has said of his producing of the album is that he would often create complex production setups that Budd would experiment with improvising on piano. The two artists would then bounce ideas off of one another. One such occasion is undoubtedly the first song, First Light. Budd's notes are echoed and spread out like ripples over a subtle background of ambient tone. Eno plays the same card later on Above Chiangmai, and equally impressive song with just as much density and detail. But this is one of the few occasions where he tries the same thing more than once, and the album is anything but overproduced. The second song, Steal Away, is conversely left bare, in fact, and it is almost always Budd at the focal point of all of these songs.
The closest Eno gets to the spotlight is Not Yet Remembered. Eno utilizes a synthesized vocal part which Budd wrote and Eno cleverly reversed to somehow miraculously make one of the album's most memorable tracks. Although this vocal part sometimes overpowers the piano, the melody is still the backbone of the song. Budd is the solo performer and the highlight of the album, but The Plateaux of Mirror feels like more of a collaboration than any of the other albums in the series, even Ambient 4 which featured a multitude of guest artists such as Daniel Lanois and Jon Hassell. Ambient 4 is actually foreshadowed here. We hear many drones and electronic touchups meant to represent nature here, and they all came back in full force on Ambient 4. They are much more subtle here, in the form of an occasional side drone or the sound of a bird, but they still add to the experience.
The album follows the same piano based theme throughout, but there is actually a lot of variation. The songs are played mostly on acoustic piano and occasionally on electric piano. These two styles foreshadow many of Budd's later solo albums that used either acoustic or electric piano. Many songs feel content and tranquil, others sad and melancholy. Occasionally a dash of jazz or a romantic suspension is included to add to the variety. The result is an emotionally fluid album that can at once seem to draw on past memories, while evoking a sense of contentment with the present, and also a sense of tension towards the future. Actually, this is one of those rare albums that seems to agree with whatever the listener is feeling at the time.
What is truly striking about Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror is that all of the songs are interesting and memorable. All of them. And we have Budd to thank for that, but Plateaux is also one of Eno's most notable production jobs, and the two stand side by side in its creation rather than Eno taking the backseat. Harold Budd and Brian Eno are both talented, humble artists that know how to work together, and Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror is a perfectly formed album, and probably the best album in the series, because their chemistry works so well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Ambient album, one of my all time favorites. Five stars.
Comment:
I own about 5 Eno albums and about 4 Harold Budd albums and several other ambient albums by other artists. This album "Ambient 2" is one of my favorites, not only as an Eno album, not only as an Ambient album, but it is one of my favorites music albums overall. I am a huge fan of ambient, and I have wasted a fair amount of money searching for good albums to listen to, so it is always so refreshing and satisfying to stumble upon an ambient album that is really good. It is hard to shop for ambient albums, because there is such a fine line between good ambient, and ambient that sounds like cheesy new-age music, or just not very good sounding ambient.
I own "Ambient 1" by Eno, but I only like 2 out of the 4 songs on it. On this album "Ambient 2" I like about 95% of the songs, which is about 9 or 10 out of the 11 or 12 songs. I don't think that you will be disapointed with this collection of ambient songs.
Two other albums that I highly recommend are "Thursday Afternoon" by Brian Eno, and "Songs For Lost Blossoms" by Harold Budd and Clive Wright. "Thursday Afternoon" is an excellent ambient album, and "Songs For Lost Blossoms" has at least two really amazing ambient songs in my opinion.
I was not crazy about the following Harold Budd albums: "Luxa", "The White Arcades" and "The Pavilion of Dreams." Overall, I wasn't too thrilled with any of those three Budd albums, but that is just me.
Another great ambient album is entitled "WEB" by Terry Thaemlitz and Bill Laswell. That is a Five star ambient album.
Best of luck shopping for more ambient albums.
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Customer Rating:
Summary: What Can One Say
Comment: This is a truly amazing album. Easy to listen to on the surface and pass off as mere superfluous "mood music" but as you let yourself let go and get lost in it's gauzy melancholia it suddenly dawns on you that this is a masterpiece. Perfectly composed and layered all for the purpose of being transformative. This album and The Pearl are Eno's highlights for me. They are a real progressive statement about the possibilities of music without the need to be obscure and obviously avante-garde. Genius!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Evokes Images Of Past Thru Gauzy Light Filtered Images
Comment: The music on this album always takes me inside myself and makes me reflective about my life. The first track in particular evokes memories of past as if seen from a distance through a gauzy haze. Very emotionally cleansing.
Very similar in theme/texture to "The Pearl". In fact they could have easily been a dual CD. Hard to believe they were recorded four years apart.
Other recommendations of minimalist ambient music include "Quiet Music" and "Structures From Silence" by Steve Roach.
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