From Fifty Forgotten Records: Ambient: Stars of the Lid - The Ballasted Orchestra

 

For many years, I had no interest in ambient music. I could not see the point of anything that merely played in the background, whether it was melodic, droney or dis­cordant. Music was always something to engage with on a conscious level. To have any value, it ought to demand all my attention.

 

I admit I had liked the Brian Eno pieces I heard on the Jubilee soundtrack, and listening to some of the music on Psychic TV’s Themes had a similar vibe. My real gateway to ambient music, though, was Labradford, who are still some distance from that genre. Listening to other Kranky artists, I discovered Stars of the Lid, and though they have the worst band name since The Big Push, their minimalist classical drone/ambient sound is just as good for listening to while writing, even when the volume is up high—in fact the higher the better. I am convinced there is something going on in my brain that allows the music to focus my creative thinking.

 

35. The Ballasted Orchestra by Stars of the Lid, Kranky, 1997.

I was pleased to find a copy of the original double album, although I later had to buy the 2013 remastered reissue which contains a bonus track. While much of The Stars of the Lid’s music is minimalist classical, or ambient classical, The Ballasted Orchestra is essentially shifting patterns of guitar drone. To my mind, it sounds like huge machinery in the distance, rust red and menacing, but heard from a position of comparative safety, overlaid by the sounds of analogue electrical equipment that is not quite on standby. Things are happening, but because this is not a visual medium, you end up imagining them for yourself, and can only think about situations from experimental films, the names of which you can’t recall, even if the images and atmos­pheres are clearly etched in the memory. The music drifts in a twilight world, and has always helped me to create my own narratives.

Other Stars of the Lid LPs tend to be pret­tier, and their album called And Their Refinement of the Decline (2007) is a superb piece of work, along with The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (2001) and Avec Laudanum (1999). But The Ballasted Orchestra is the record that I invariably listen to while writing.

 

I have seen The Stars of the Lid three times. The first was in Leeds in 2007, with our son, Tim, and Mark Valentine. It was in a disused church, and The Stars of the Lid per­formed with a string quartet while a light show was projected over the vaulted ceiling. It was a breathtaking experience, even though the pews were incredibly uncomfortable by the end of the evening. I knew all their released work by this time and so I was surprised by the last song they played—never having heard it before. I went up to Brian McBride afterwards and he told me it was Arvo Pärt’s Fratres. Their version doesn’t appear on any physical recorded format, as far as I am aware, but it can be found online. (As can the original.)

I subsequently saw The Stars of the Lid at a church in New­castle with Malcolm Henderson, and it was an equally gorgeous, uplifting an experience (with equally uncomfortable pews). I last experienced them live with Malcolm and Rosalie at the Sage II in Gates­head, which was quite different (and infinitely more com­fortable). They toured not only with a string trio, but with a vast old heritage synthesiser with a profusion of leads, plugs and sockets. In the intimate setting of the Sage II, it was a much louder and more physical experi­ence, especially when the bass notes caused everything to resonate.

How much ambient music do I require on record, though? Especially when I listen to it without paying con­scious attention to much of it? The two members of Stars of the Lid, Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie, both released solo material and had side-projects, all of which have been worth following up. McBride’s When the Detail Lost Its Freedom (2005) and The Effective Discon­nect (2010) are both excellent. Wiltzie’s work as The Dead Texan and Aix Em Klemm (with Robert Donne from Labradford) are also worth listening to. Wiltzie’s recent work as A Winged Victory for the Sullen (with Dustin O’Halloran) has even had some commercial suc­cess.

Going back to Brian Eno, I could finally see the point of his Music for Airports (1979), The Plateaux of Mirror (1980) and On Land (1982). Some of his Apollo Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983) are equally beautiful, as is much of his Music for Films (1976).

Excerpt from Fifty Forgotten Records by R.B. Russell, Tartarus Press, 2025.