Psybient

April 18, 2013 2:23 AM

Psybient or psychill is an chillout genre that combines elements of ambient with psytrance and world music, along with some glitch and dub sounds. Excellent examples are Land Switcher (more), Solar Fields (site), Euphorica, and Entheogenic.

For more, check out r/psybient or the psybient tags on souncloud.com or last.fm, or check out mixes on youtube. Infected Mushroom's recent work has many similar qualities overall but lacks the chillout aspect.

posted by jeffburdges (34 comments total)

Ooh, it all sounds a lot like Shpongle - which is no bad thing.
posted by dickasso at 4:19 AM on April 18, 2013 [5 favorites]

I love Solar Fields. But whenever I put Solar Fields into Spotify to seed a radio station, it just gives me back more Solar Fields. And the occasional Aes Dana. Not that I mind too much, but this post gives me some extra launching off points. Nice.
posted by Jimbob at 4:30 AM on April 18, 2013

Yeah, the description pretty much made me think "Shpongle." I'd maybe add Abakus to this list.

Carbon Based Lifeforms, "Silent Running," "Tensor."

Tor.Ma, "Dreaming Machine."

Psychill youtube mix, featuring some others...

Reaching back, some 90s stuff would seem to come close to fitting the genre too: Banco de Gaia, "Shanti."
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:34 AM on April 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

Space Station SOMA is not an exact intersection with psychill but there is much fine chill electronica to be had there.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:52 AM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I enjoy this genre, in general, I would say that the one carbon-based life forms album I bought took me a little too deep into nineties PC pinball game territory. Aes Dana was fun though.
posted by smoke at 5:03 AM on April 18, 2013

Ooh, it all sounds a lot like Shpongle - which is no bad thing.
posted by dickasso at 4:19 AM on April 18

I was going to say Juno Reactor on some of the earlier links, but yeah! Also not a bad thing.

Blippity bloop drippity droop music is the finest kind.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 5:29 AM on April 18, 2013

dont miss: woozecore
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 6:07 AM on April 18, 2013

But whenever I put Solar Fields into Spotify to seed a radio station, it just gives me back more Solar Fields.

Check out HUVA Network (which is kind of just more Solar Fields...), Hol Baumann, and Dryft.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:17 AM on April 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

I heart Phutureprimitve.

More psychilly
More dancy
Just awesome
posted by 3FLryan at 6:19 AM on April 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

And here I thought Psybient was "Gangnam Style" run through Paulstretch.
posted by Foosnark at 6:25 AM on April 18, 2013

All the Juno Reactor I know sounds rather more "bracing" than chillout. If we're going way back, surely The Orb deserves mention, although they liked lyrics samples and most ambient house goes elsewhere.

I first encountered Solar Fields via the lovely track Still Alive (lyrics version) for the game Mirror's edge, but never listened to his other work at the time. I first heard Land Switcher (fb) at Paris Burning Night, which really turned me onto the genre. So I'm loving the comments mentioning related artists!
posted by jeffburdges at 6:51 AM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Psybient or psychill is an chillout genre that combines elements of ambient with psytrance and world music

Ooh, it all sounds a lot like Shpongle

dont miss: woozecore

OK, I GET IT. I'M OLD.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:13 AM on April 18, 2013 [6 favorites]

I found out about psybient through Songza, which often recommends it for bedtime.
posted by theuninvitedguest at 7:17 AM on April 18, 2013

Carbon Based Lifeforms new album Twentythree is worth a listen even if you didn't like their earlier albums much.
posted by Joe Chip at 7:27 AM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

You cannot grow old simply by not learning about musical genres. Aging requires actually disliking GoatStep or something. Try the GoatStep remix of Mt Eden Dubstep's Escape for example.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:31 AM on April 18, 2013 [5 favorites]

And this whole time I thought this entire genre was just albums by Thievery Corporation I hadn't gotten around to yet.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 7:33 AM on April 18, 2013

Solar Fields is featured, along with a TON of other amazing stuff, on the Ultimae bandcamp store
posted by rebent at 8:02 AM on April 18, 2013

What, no mention of the very excellent Vibrasphere? (With great stuff such as Breathing Place)

Or how about Sync24, with such brilliant tracks as Dance of the Droids?

This is probably a great time to mention that while there's no specific psychill/psybient rooms on Turntable.fm that I'm aware of, you'll get a lot of it in the chillout/ambient rooms on there. They're great for giving you lots of variety - listen on Turntable, take the good ones and add them to a Spotify playlist, and you'll have a massive chillout playlist in no time at all.
posted by evilangela at 8:16 AM on April 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

I first encountered Solar Fields via the lovely track Still Alive (lyrics version) for the game Mirror's edge, but never listened to his other work at the time.

Me too! Thanks for posting.
posted by grobstein at 8:31 AM on April 18, 2013

Ooh, thanks! New station for work, seeded with all the suggestions here. I love MetaFilter for this.
posted by jennaratrix at 9:01 AM on April 18, 2013

> GoatStep

I just listened to the GoatStep remix of Skrillex - Kyoto. Oh. My God.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:19 AM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

To add to the many great artists listed here:

Bluetech
Chilled C'Quence
Lab's Cloud
Ott (psybient dub, similarly check out Hallucinogen's "In Dub")
Suduaya
Sundial Aeon
Tripswitch (love love "Roll Your Own")

For a mix of psybient and rock, Younger Brother's "Vaccine" is worth a listen.
posted by aletheia at 9:25 AM on April 18, 2013 [3 favorites]

Goat... WHAT!?!

Fascinating.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 9:26 AM on April 18, 2013

Thanks. Now I have "spinning.. spinning... spinning.. like a circular vortex" stuck in my head again.
posted by nat at 9:42 AM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was just thinking about dark ambient music the other day, when I noticed that Oöphoi had died, which took me down a rabbit hole of checking out all kinds of ambient and chill music from long ago.

I have a couple of the Aes Dana albums sold on the Ultimae site above, and just a crazy collection of stuff from Elektrolux.

Thanks for this post. I'm working my way links above for some new chill to add to my collection (and maybe some new inspiration to add to Ableton Live).
posted by phoebus at 11:14 AM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

A post I actually know something about for once... but I see too late to make any real addition. The only name I can think of not mentioned is Shulman.
posted by Slyfen at 1:33 PM on April 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

um I think you buried the lede by not making goatstep a central part of this FPP because I am actually crying with laughter over here
posted by Frobenius Twist at 2:52 PM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

If you want it with a little bit of a harder edge, check out Architect/Daniel Myer.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 3:46 PM on April 18, 2013

It's fairly hard to distinguish this sub-species from ambient house (late 80s). It's a bit easier for earlier (late 70s, early 80s) predecessor space music, though Memory Hole could easily be mistaken for just that.

Kitaro would be a primo late 70s example. For more visit early episodes of Hearts of Space, which is 40 years old this year - a virtual gold-mine of such fare.
posted by Twang at 5:30 PM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Imho, we need a separate fpp for just for GoatStep, Frobenius Twist, also he hasn't created any goatchill or psygoat despite my requests, so kinda off topic here.

As an aside, I've been lobbying several burner djs with goatstep on facebook. Ideally, we need a goatstep bike gang whose bikes use Arduinos or RaspberryPis synced over wifi to play the various goat sounds from different bikes that look like different goats.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:45 PM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm a huge fan of Koan. I'd love to be able to find/see some of this anywhere near me (US, mid-atlantic region); anyone have suggestions?
posted by talldean at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2013

Oh, I forgot Asura. They're very Solar Fields.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thanks jeffburdges. I've been enjoying this music the last few days.

I emailed Land Switcher about download or CD purchase of their 'Cloud 36' track (the second link in the original post, above), and they wrote back indicating that it will be released on an EP "after the summer".
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 6:55 PM on April 26, 2013

Just fyi, there is some overlap with some ethno electronica genres here too. Try Kalya Scintilla's Dance The Spiral Never Ending, Zulu, or Feelin' Good. Also, Liquid Stranger's Magenta, Laguna or Zero Gravity , or Desert Dwellers's Solar Prayers.

Anyone else notice GoatStep's new remix of Lady Gaga's Poker Face? Yet, no GoatChill.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:32 AM on April 28, 2013