Ambient music is a lot of things for a lot of different people: A bedtime treat for indie rockers, fodder for art installations, a refuge for otherwise nonmusicians to dabble in making their own music. To E*Rock, from the sound of “Exexpat,” ambient music is an opportunity to play with soundscapes and mood music, moving away from the regiment of beats he spins as a DJ and creates as a producer. That’s the mostly beatless groove that encompasses the whole Ambient Not Not Ambient compilation (which also features Portlanders White Rainbow, Yellow Swans and Valet, among others).

As an occasional listener, I usually just find myself waiting for the beat to kick in. With each electric engine that comes to a halt and each satellite signal that’s interrupted by an electrical storm (these are the images that enter my mind whilst I’m listening), I’m tensing up and just waiting for it. But when I realize that it’ll never come, the song becomes an exercise listening, really listening, to sound for what it is and not where it will propel me. Which is what is cool about the whole musical form: Your ears—weened on New Order and Tupac and Modest Mouse—has to figure out how to deal with this loose, free-form sound collage. Those of us from the hyperactive generation tend to create movie scenes in our minds that match the sound. A woman waking up on a foreign planet discombobulated; A momentary out-of-body experience. And that’s kind of cool—if you can learn to really listen to this stuff without waiting for the beat or the repeating chorus, you are actually expanding your mind, which is what the whole movement was supposed to be in the first place, right?

Maybe there’s some element of Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To* going on with this stuff. But you don’t have to take drugs to go on a “trip” with E*Rock. Just close your eyes and let it move you.

I sound like my mom.

Download audio file (exexpat.mp3)

E*Rock and about a bzillion other Portland ambient/electronic/experimental/etc. artists get together to share vibes and noises at Hippodrome this Saturday at 5 pm and for 24 hours thereafter. Go to E*Rock’s blog for more info.

Links:
Audio DregSpace
Audio Dregs (buy the comp here)

Photo: E*Rock on a Yacht.

*Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To is the title of a Spacemen 3 album. Check it!.