Minimal Ambient

Minimal ambient is ambient music reduced to its minimum materials: a single piano figure, a guitar harmonic, a sine tone or a loop of room tone, allowed to unfold over long durations with change so gradual it approaches stillness. It descends jointly from *Brian Eno*'s ambient concept and classical minimalism, and took modern shape in the microsound generation gathered around labels such as #12k#, where *Taylor Deupree*, *Richard Chartier* and *Sawako* applied digital reduction to ambient ends, and in the guitar-based practice of Japanese musicians including *Chihei Hatakeyama* and *Michiru Aoyama*. Silence and near-silence are treated as material.