The Night is Ambient…
It's hard to review music I think. The hard part is not knowing what it is you like, its not even that hard finding things you want to listen to. For me the hard part is to put into words what the music makes you feel. And since ambient music is essentially music for the soul, this task is made even harder.
I have liked ambient music for a number of years. The story goes something like this... While I was at uni, I became reacquainted with the fabulous Dune movie. If I remember the story correctly, Elaine purchased me the Dune soundtrack, or maybe I bought it. Anyway, the album is mainly composed by Toto, but there is just one track on there composed by Brian Eno. From this one track, I bought an entire Eno album called Apollo, mainly because it contains the track An Ending (Ascent), which many of you already know without realising it. 
Several Eno albums later and I was hooked. The music really is food for the soul. There are no real melodies, no words or lyrics as such. But if it was possible to bottle emotion, and put them in music form, you have ambient music. Its a series of sounds and feelings.
My quest for more food lead me to the Ambient Nights series. These are a series of CD length tracks composed of several ambient tunes beautifully blended together. This great work was done by Alex Hephaestion who shares the same taste in music as I do. This is further compounded by the series called Club Nights that he has produced, which are great for listening to just before a big night out! 
The Ambient Nights series are split. There are the main/original tracks, and 2 further series; Sol System and Ethni-City. While Alex has chosen to class the music, for me ambient music is all about one big whole. I love each of the tracks as they all provide me with exactly what I need each time. Alex must be credited for creating such beautiful collections. He is certainly most helpful gathering together so many great tunes in the ones place, easy for lazy people like myself to enjoy.
For those of you wishing to try some Ambient music, I suggest you check out the website. There is an active community forum, CD covers to download and of course torrent links for the tracks themselves. If you are bewildered by the choice available, one of my favourites is one of the originals. Ambient Nights - Volume 5 is a classic. It may not represent everything about ambient music, but as I keep saying, ambient music should be viewed as the whole. Hey baby, its food for the soul!
Website: www.ambient-nights.org
Currently listening to: Ambient Nights - Brighton Beach
I read your post at ambient-nights.org for your article. I changed our AN pages for you a little bit.
You use in the last part of the article the following link for Ambient Nights 5:
http://www.ambient-nights.org/music/an.html
to redirect directly to this mix please changes that link to this: http://www.ambient-nights.org/music/an.html#AN5
regards,
Erik
the same for http://www.ambient-nights.org/music/an.html, please chane it in: http://www.ambient-nights.org/music/an.html#ANBB
Hi there Jeronimo
Just thought i’d pop in and say thanks for the write up on the mixes it is greatly appriciated and i am glad that you like them and wish to pass the links on to those who have not heard them
hope all is well with you
Best Regards
Alex
It’s certainly not a problem guys. I hope I can spread the word just a bit more. To anyone who has not given these mixes a try, I strongly recommend them!!