SYNTH WEEK 2024: As one of the originators of the genre, at least in its electronic form, it’s hard to argue with Eno’s suggestion that ambient music should be as "ignorable as it is interesting", but several decades on, this definition feels a little narrow.
The various offshoots of ambient music can perform often contradictory functions – it can be beautiful and meditative but also abrasive and ominous, it can be incredibly simplistic or detailed and complex. In the case of the ambient strains of techno that first emerged in the ’90s, it can even be danceable.
