Essential ambient/experimental records like Bioshpere Substrata?

[Polytrix]

Just in love with Substrata so much. It's a lot of what I love about electronic music.

Any ''essentials''' like this I need to know about besides the obvious RDJ/BOC fare? 

I sort of include things like Biokinetics in this list if that makes sense. Just really deep albums to get lost in from start to finish.

Cheers!

[YangYing]

read the ambient thread 

[purlieu]

Ambient thread is a good start definitely.

Environments II by The Future Sound of London has a very similar arctic theme and sound.

A lot of stuff on FAX records would probably appeal - the albums by Shades of Orion, the second Fires of Ork album (a Biosphere / Namlook collab recorded around the same time as Substrata)...

FSOL's Lifeforms and Global Communication's 76 14 are benchmarks in the genre, although a lot more dynamic and beat-based than Substrata... that said if you put BoC in a similar bracket then they're obvious choices.

Early albums by Autumn of Communion, especially 1, 2 and 4. 

Anything by 36. Hypersona, Hollow, Void Dance and Black Soma are my favourites.

Seascapes and Blue Infinity by Ishq. 

[NI64]

^Seconding Ishq but I'll add Elve - Infinte Garden and Ishvara - Magik Square of the Sun (Its all the same guy). I discovered those albums along with Substrata back in high school. At the time my favorite way to spend a weekend was to drop some acid and dive into ambient records with good headphones and all the lights off. Those ones in particular are really special and nostalgic for me because I can still distinctly remember the worlds I built in my mind as I let the sounds wash over me. Very deep and textural stuff if you feel like getting lost for a while.

[cern]

Check out Motionfield! He do really Biosphere kind of ambient: 

 

[markedone]

Stuff on Chain Reaction label should be right up your alley..  early Vladislav Delay, Porter Ricks.

More idm leaning but both albums by Einoma

And then for contemporary stuff that takes inspo from biosphere vibe, check out Huerco S' west mineral ltd label.  I quite like everything the artist Uon (aka caveman lsd) has put out.

Those are just top of my head, looking forward to checking out other people's recs in this thread.

[purlieu]

9 hours ago, cern said:

Check out Motionfield! He do really Biosphere kind of ambient: 

 

Luftrum is a superb album, a touch of BoC to it in places too. His recent albums on ...txt and Neotantra didn't quite grab me in the same way but have some great moments certainly.

[zkom]

There's the KLF's Chill Out and the Orb's whole 90s output that are genre defining classics in the ambient house/techno genre.

Some other artists from the era are Higher Intelligence Agency, Scanner, Banco de Gaia, FSOL, Spacetime Continuum. Also basically all the Namlook collaborations.

There was tons of this kind of ambient with some occasional beats thrown in in the 90s but not everything has aged so well..

[EXTRASUPER81]

Check out Novaya Zemlya by Thomas Koner (of Porter Ricks). More soundscape type stuff than ambient, definite desolate arctic vibe.