va - Ambient 4: Isolationism

The fourth volume of Virgin Records' series of ambient compilations is the only one I listen to with any frequency. Compiled by Kevin Martin (of GOD, Ice, The Bug and Techno Animal), it features music by Ice, Techno Animal, O'Rang (aka Mick Harris), Scorn and Lull (both Harris again), Final, Main, KK Null, Jim O'Rourke, Labradford, Disco Inferno, James Plotkin, KK Null, Sufi (aka a member of 4AD's A.R. Kane & M/A/R/R/S), Zoviet France, Nijiumu (aka Keiji Haino), Total, Thomas Koner, AMM, Experimental Audio Research, Aphex Twin, Seefeel, Paul Schutze, Raoul Bjorkenheim, David Toop & Max Eastley. I suppose "isolationism" was intended to be a marketing-friendly term for dark drone music, but the diversity of this compilation implies that it never meant much. Still, it's a great album and has held up longer than the word "isolationism" (or illbient, glitch, lowercase, IDM and so on) ever did.

disc 1
disc 2