Various – Excursions In Ambience (A Collection Of Ambient-House Music)

The first of four in the heavily influential Excursions into Ambience series. One of the first series of ambient releases distributed to America thanks to Astralwerks.

Now the music: it's fitting that Tranquility Bass start this quirky hodge podge of "ambient". Michael Kandel was as eccentric as this series varied song to song. He offers Mya Yadana which unfortunately is one of lesser best tracks from early Exist Dance from my hometown. FSOL makes sense showing here but with the more uptempo album version of Calcium, and it doesn't seem to fit the goal of this series. But then hodge podge of electronics this series was. HIA offered Solid Motion (Black Hole remix) which in my opinion is one of the best HIA tracks from their earliest releases. HIA was right up there with early Biosphere as far as quality and a step ahead of the rest. Ultramarine feature the fabulous upstate mix of Saratoga on track 4. A genuine and memorable little acid ambient house track that samples the baseline from The Eagles "one of these nights" while strange, works like a charm over the bubbly bass, phat 808 kick and whimsical feelings. Fantastic and a hidden gem that will have everyone turning their head. Tarenah concludes the first half with an Indian detour. Not fond of this mix at all. I guess its which version you heard first. I got this cd in 1996 and already heard the much much better version on Ibiza Afterhours on moonshine in 1994.

PWOG start off the second half with their brand of psychedelia dance but fitting to the series style less techno than normally. Track really never goes anywhere and is an average piece compared to the quality they have done. Gert-Jan Bijl and Dirk-Jan Hunegraff from Sensurreal recording under a different name in It's Thinking give us a very pleasant ambient house track that I really enjoy. Breezy and light hearted its a feel good track that would fit terrific in any deep house set. Coming from Sensurreal do we expect any less?! Very much like those guys. Tracks 7 & 9 are tracks that balance out the far reaching depth of the series' vision but don't do much for me. Finally Sub Sub ends the cd with one of the most classic chill out tracks all time in Past. Also featured on one of the best chill out mixes of all time from Phil Mison as well as Nick Warrens Back to Mine compilation. It's all what I imagined Cafe Del Mar to be. Like a breath of fresh air.

Good cd. If you take out the best of the four Excursions in Ambience CDs and make a best of double set you have one of the best desert island CDs you can have. It's your job to choose what tracks.

Good Ambient Compilation with a wide range of global sounds.

Best track in my opinion: Tarenah, which starts out as an Indian raga, mutates into some Bass Violin/Flutey jazz, and back to the raga and sitar...nice fusion is smooth throughout.