label: Instinct Records / Instinct Ambient country of origin: USA style(s): Ambient techno/trance, chillout, breakbeat, experimental, environmental, space music essential compilations: Chill Out! The Techno Evolution Continues (1993, Instinct) Chillout Phase Two (1994, Instinct) Plug In & Turn On vol. 2 (1994, Instinct) Ambient Systems (1995, Instinct Ambient) Ambient Systems 3 (1997, Instinct Ambient)

All ambient and chillout music that exists under the umbrella of electronic dance music today - which I call new-school ambient - had its first full flowering on labels like Instinct Records. A magnificent burst of creativity happened around the world pretty much simultaneously through the releases of Instinct and a handful of other pioneering labels from "back in the day" - the early to mid 90's - including Silent Records, Fax Records, Rising High, Emit Records and the early Cafe Del Mar albums.

Techno and trance were the dance genres that most strongly informed the music. These fresh sounds and the technology that created them were meshed happily with sounds of the old school; the ambient trance and experimental rock of pioneers like Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Jean-Michel Jarre and numerous others.

During the 90's Instinct was broadly an electronic dance label - it continues today with a very different repertoire - but its ambient music has a rather complex release history. For one thing, it was also a distributor to the American market for overseas labels, releasing selected albums by the likes of Fax Records and Emit. Some tracks from those releases then made their way onto the classic Instinct compilation albums listed above. There were also many sublabels including Instinct Ambient on which Instinct released some - but not all - of its ambient techno/trance and experimental ambience before suddenly abandoning the sublabel in 1997. For the full, torturous history see the excellent Instinct Ambient fansite maintained by Matt Lowery.

Instinct's serious forays into ambient sound started within a few years of its 1990 launch during which it had early success with rock-dance artist Moby (who himself dabbled in ambient techno). What started in the chillout spaces of raves and clubs was coalescing into fresh ambient sounds, particularly those coming from Europe via Pete Namlook's pioneering Fax Records. This inspired, Instinct started nurturing local acts at home such as Taylor Dupree (aka Human Mesh Dance and SETI), Drum Club, Terre Thaemlitz and many more.

Several ground-breaking compilation albums soon followed. The first of these was Chill Out! The Techno Evolution Continues, a bona fide classic collection of ambient sounds from the dance world of the time. There's beauty and wonder everywhere: rich, pulsating chords, spacey melodies and bleepy grooves, shimmering landscapes, euphoric ambient trance and just occasionally something more twisted and dark. The music is often exotic, too, a signpost to ethno-ambient trance and exotic dub that would appear in great quantities over the following decades. The ambient breakbeat epic "Sunrise" by Young American Primitive is a stunner, its arpeggios and gorgeous strings anchored by a deep tribal drum groove, while the complex techno patterns of Omicron's "Whaler" clatter beneath a sweet, eerie melody from Moroccan hornpipe.

The follow-up Chill Out Phase Two is another double-length release every bit as outstanding as its predecessor. Epochal moments include Aphex Twin's "Blue Calx, a minimalist ambient masterpiece with a sad, gorgeous melody wafting like clouds over a subtle machine pulse. Orbital's "Belfast", the classic morning-after comedown anthem, is a fully developed rhythmic piece that lies somewhere between club techno and rich, blissed-out Balearic chill music.

Around this time Instinct also released another two-volume series. The first Plug In + Turn On (1994) is undistinguished and remains a non-essential release. Disc 1 is mostly dated club tracks; Disc 2 is ambient but gets lost with too many messy and dissonant tracks. Fortunately the second volume Plug In + Turn On vol. 2 is superb. On some tracks the club music DNA had disappeared entirely; there seems to be more of an anything-goes ethos, more confidence on the part of both compilers and artists. Woob's brilliant cinema of the mind which gets two airings on "Odonna" and "Pluto", and Adham Shaikh sounds like he's channeling old-school ambient master David Parsons with the cavernous Eastern drones of "Vapor". Equally impressive are some of the beaty and club-influenced tracks such as Cabaret Voltaire's "Exterminating Angel", a masterful blend of crisp techno drum patterns and pretty harmonies tinged with melancholy.

Once the Instinct Ambient sublabel was officially launched yet another compilation series appeared. Ambient Systems and Ambient Systems 3 are note-perfect reminders of everything that was best about the Instinct Ambient sound. The club music legacy is still there - Roland 909 drum machines, clubby arpeggios and buzzing acid lines still occasionally figure - but there's plenty of room given over to droning landscapes and old-school ambient sounds as well. Listening to the album now it's freshness is still pretty astonishing. It's the best kind of forward-thinking music: full of fresh ideas while (mostly) still respectful of tonality if not melody. Even the environmental ambience - a well-worn sub-genre based around field recordings - sounds engaging and new in the hands of New York composer Terre Thaemlitz, whose sound paintings here are extraordinarily lucid and involving.

Ambient Systems 2 (1996) and Ambient Systems 4 (2000) can he happily avoided. Despite some shining moments, both albums are dominated by beat-based tracks that are cold, self-indulgent and almost completely devoid of any kind of tonal thread.

And that's where Instinct Records' ambient adventues end. The label largely abandoned electronic ambient sounds after the late 90's in favour of nu jazz, reggae and more mainstream fare. In fact most of the key labels from this era shone for only a few bright years before either abandoning ambient (as Instinct did) or closing down altogether (as did Silent and Emit Records), partly due to the fickle tastes of the dance market as audiences moved on in search of new thrills.

For whatever reason, "pure" ambient techno went deeper underground in the 2000's and became cold and fussy. Digital glitch music by laptop artists dominated the genre, defined by harsh textures, squeaks, clicks and deconstructions. Fine if that’s your bag, though it's not an aesthetic you'll often find praised in these pages. Thankfully,accessible ambient dance sounds with psychedelic qualities quickly re-emerged following the demise of the 1990's "first wave" labels in the form of newcomers like ambient trance champions Ultimae Records, the more eclectic Interchill Records and also some artists from the psytrance scene, particularly those composing the more exotic strains of dub.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the best "chillout" music from electronic dance music' early days stills stand up exceptionally well today. And its legacy is around us everywhere. Nearly every sub-genre - techno, house, trance, psytrance, hip-hop and drum 'n' bass - has an instrumental ambient cousin, while some downtempo styles like psychedelic/exotic dub, nu jazz and nu lounge have morphed into entire genres in themselves.

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