Illbient is a genre of

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

and an

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defin ...

that originated among hip hop-influenced artists from Williamsburg,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

around 1994.

DJ Olive DJ Olive (also known as The Audio Janitor; born Gregor Asch) is an American disc jockey and turntablist. He is known for producing music generally in the electronic genre, with strong influences of dub, and free improvisation styles. He is wide ...

, and

DJ Spooky Paul Dennis Miller (born September 6, 1970), known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntabli ...

, pioneers of the genre, have both claimed to have coined the term. The word "illbient" combines the hip hop

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...

term "ill" (a positive expression: bad meaning good) and " ambient". Though there are many individualistic variants of illbient, the music is characterized by dub- and

industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

-influenced layering of

soundscape A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term was originally coined by Michael Southworth, and popularised by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, r ...

s, hip hop-influenced use of samples and a progressive approach to beat programming that encompasses all

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

s of world

groove Groove or Grooves may refer to: Music * Groove (music) * Groove (drumming) * The Groove (band), an Australian rock/pop band of the 1960s * The Groove (Sirius XM), a US radio station * Groove 101.7FM, a former Perth, Australia, radio station ...

and

. Illbient often uses beats more than purely ambient music (or dark ambient), and often includes loops in the recordings. Besides

, other notable names and acts that were part of the original illbient scene included

Raz Mesinai Raz Mesinai (born 1973) is an American record producer, musician, composer, artist, writer and educator from New York City. He has released recordings since 1989 under the monikers Badawi, Sub Dub, Ghost Producer, Psy Co., and Raz Mesinai and is t ...

(Sub Dub, Badawi), We™ (which was the joint project of DJ Olive, Lloop, and Once 11),

Byzar Byzar is an American experimental electronic music ensemble, considered one of the founders of the Illbient genre, along with DJ Spooky, Sub Dub, We, and the Soundlab collective, active in the New York experimental dance/electronic music scene du ...

Spectre Spectre, specter or the spectre may refer to: Religion and spirituality * Vision (spirituality) * Apparitional experience * Ghost Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Spectre'' (1977 film), a made-for-television film produced and writ ...

and the artists that were released on his ''WordSound'' label around that time.

References

External links

''Boston Phoenix'' article3,500+ releases tagged as Illbient on Discogs
{{Hip hop Ambient music Trip hop

See also

References

External links