|| vangelis

The Saddest Moment in the World of Electronic Music: Vangelis

May 19th 2022  || by  || Add Reply

As a major proponent of individuality and as someone who strives for maximum originality, I rarely speak about my influences. It’s virtually impossible for any composer, musician, performer to not be influenced, consciously or subconsciously, by others who came before them. Often, we don’t talk about them openly, simply to minimize the unnecessary comparisons between their and our work – but they’re there. I owe so much to the exceptional composer, the incomparable Vangelis, on so many levels, that I can only feel right if I express my deepest appreciation for him, his music, and share my sadness about his passing in a tribute on these pages.

Vangelis - a Tribute by Composer Julius Dobos


Vangelis
was my biggest influence as a composer and as a human, for 40+ years. I would not be where I am as a composer, if it wasn’t for the effect of his music on me as a child – and ever since. I vividly remember listening to the full Chariots of Fire album in headphones when going to bed, before I could reach the pedals of my piano. I was mesmerized by his music, the sounds, the feel and emotions that the long track on side 2 evoked; it effected me not only musically and emotionally, but in ways that actually shaped who I became as a person. In later years, after gaining experience through my own album releases and scores, discovering Vangelis’ statements about the music industry, which I fully shared, his views on technology, people, art, expression, unobtrusiveness, resonated with me as much as his music.

There are too many personal and intimate stories throughout my life to share that connected me, sometimes miraculously coincidentally, to him through his music. Just a couple of weeks ago I was on the phone with his best synthesist, reminiscing about his wonderful ways with people…   I am lecturing about his enormously influential work in my Ultimate Electronic Music course at USV in just a couple of weeks – as I do every year…  he’s been a deep part of my world for as long as I can remember music. More than to any other creator of honest music, I wish I had had the opportunity to express my gratitude to him in person.

The world has gotten poorer this week – and I mean this literally. He has created a new universe of music, or as he would say, he presented the music of the universe to us.

His work stops here, even though his music lives on. While he inspired so many, it is impossible to genuinely come even close to his musical expression. However, his legacy reaches far beyond music. The philosophies he shared with the world, and not just about music but about ourselves as humans, are like seeds. Seeds of thoughts, approaches, attitudes that he had planted and grew into a lush forest of musical dimension of his own. Although his list of his albums, scores, performances don’t expand any longer, molecules of these seeds have become part of the genetics of art, philosophy, culture, and musical expression, spreading all over the world through true creativity. And for composers, some of these powerful molecules are now part of our own genes, ensuring that the legacy of Vangelis continues to spread wider and farther as we create new music.

Please join me in cherishing Vangelis’ impact on our world, the human culture, and celebrate his new journey beyond our existence with Procession from his album, The City.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBva3nnCMvA[/embedyt]

 

Live in California – New Album Released

December 15th 2017  || by  || 1 Comment

forgotten future: LIVE IN CALIFORNIA features the recording of live performances from the 2016 San Jose and 2017 Los Angeles shows. Each track is a new arrangement or remix of the original track found on the first two forgotten future albums, with a harder, driving feel. In addition, LIVE IN CALIFORNIA includes a bonus track, Breakthrough [Chroma Mix].

This live album is the sonic documentation of the first phase of the W1–Realignment performances, Released on December 15, 1965, the anniversary of the first space rendez-vous (between Gemini VI and VII). Filled with real-time-performed 303 acid lines, epic leads and lush pad textures, forgotten future’s cutting-edge and spacey psybient / ambient organic electronic music was enjoyed as a high-energy soundtrack at various electronic music festivals – and now can be enjoyed in a download form!

forgotten future: W1 released

April 24th 2015  || by  || Add Reply

The first piece of the long-awaited forgotten future psybient – electronic music concept series has been released.

forgotten future: W1 is the first installment of a 4-album concept series, the framework for a musical and ideological endeavor to take the listener through Universal themes centered around four of the “big questions”. The first release in the series, W1, is exploring the question “WHAT”.  Rather than being dogmatic, ff: W1 offers an environment of alternative realism for everyone to explore their “future memories” in and find their personal answers.

forgotten future W1 album cover

forgotten future W1 album cover

Excerpt from the booklet:
forgotten future: W1 is a story of a journey – one of multiversal scale, beyond the boundaries of time and through new dimensions. It is about the journey we all take one day. We are frightened of the unknown, yet it feels so familiar… it feels like we have been in this environment before…It’s a curious and humbling experience, a galactic travel on a forgotten road that takes us to a mysterious destination, which road seems like… we must have traveled it before. And while we feel completely lost, anxious and painfully lonely out there in the vast Universe, we are ecstatic about the journey through the unimaginable, about witnessing the answers to some of the ultimate questions, and at the end, realizing that the experience was not the first one, indeed. But, returning from our voyage, we only bring the distant memories of feelings with us… forgetting the experience – which we will re-live again in the future.”

While electronic in its nature, the psybient music envelops the listener in an organic feel manifested by warm textures and and deep, open spaces sprinkled with grains of electronic tones. The ambient yet rhythmically exciting music features lush soundscapes, unique, cutting edge sounds and complex sonic layers, often monumental electronic instrumentation, dynamic song structures and haunting melodies.

More than just musical compositions, the forgotten future series is not a fictional story, rather the expression of Julius’ personal beliefs of Universal (actually, Multiversal) concepts of our existence – feelings and ideas communicated through music and sound design. While W1 introduces the listener to the framework of a belief system, which includes splinters of diverse concepts from ancient religions and modern-day science, parts 2-4 of the series will build on this framework, exploring exciting theories and convictions. Thus, signaling its importance much beyond a work of a composer, and letting the listener focus on the message rather than the messenger, forgotten future is the first (and only) moniker of Julius Dobos.

forgotten future took Julius over five years to develop, produce, and after multiple delays, release in April, 2015. The album is downloadable in various digital formats, including a 24-bit 48Khz Studio Master, and can be ordered as a CD in a premium digipak edition, complete with a full-color 20-page booklet. The booklet features the photographs and digitally painted original work of various artists, accompanying each track with its own visual environment.

[Press release]

                    EARLIER UPDATES                    

UPDATE 4.17.2015
After some unexpected delays, [forgotten future: W1] is ready for its official release on April 24th! Physical album production is under way, and the interactive ff: w1 online experience is under testing. One week until availability on digital platforms, including 24-bit “studio quality” formats!

forgotten future: W1 2015 psybient album artwork pre-press proofing

forgotten future: W1 album artwork pre-press proofing

UPDATE 01.06.2015
[forgotten future: W1] is being mastered by Robert Rich, dark ambient pioneer in Mountain View, California. After some debates and tests about bass content, we are both happy with the outcome. The album’s extensive graphic design has been completed – ff W1 is expected to be released in a few weeks.

UPDATE 11.09.2014
[forgotten future: W1] has been mixed at Studio CS and the sonics are currently being refined by Vincent Villuis at Ultimae Studio in Lyon, France. The album is expected to be released both in physical CD and digital formats in early 2015. Check back soon for more exciting news!

UPDATE 07.12.2014
Julius’ new album is nearing the mixing phase, which will take place throughout the Summer. Today, a short video showing the production of a new track was published on YouTube. The title of the new work was also announced as forgotten future: W1.

According to Julius, the psybient / ambient-electronic work “will be the conceptually most important release so far in my career”. Be sure to check back often for updates and announcements about the new project.

PRESS RELEASE

SILICON VALLEY, CA / BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Creative Shop Music has announced a planned 2013 release of a brand new concept work by composer Julius Dobos. The large-scale work in psybient / ambient-electronic style will encompass multiple album releases.

The composition and musical sound design process started in late 2009 and has been the main focus of Dobos since. The work is expected to be a reflection of Dobos’ philosophy about the relationship of Nature, Life, the Universe and music, touching on such intriguing subjects as the existence and relativity of space and time – expressed in music and sound. The first release in the series, while electronic in nature, will build on an organic feel and warm textures. The ambient yet rhythmically exciting music will feature lush soundscapes, complex, out-of-this-world sounds, haunting melodies, powerful emotions, instrumentation form minimal to grandiose, traveling through seven unique sonic landscapes.

The planned 2012 release date of the new work, which was first announced last year, has been delayed due to the relocation of Julius’ studio, however the production is now at full steam at Studio CS. No further details or samples have been released, and the title of the work has not been made public either.

Be sure to check back often for announcements, or subscribe to the newsletter for the latest news.

Find the original Press release here.

Sampled Orchestral vs. Electro-Orchestral Music

November 15th 2011  || by  || Add Reply

Although the technical difference between them is significant, what really sets sampled orchestral music and electro-orchestral music apart is the idea behind the composition, and the type of sonic character and musical expressions the composer prefers to communicate these different ideas with. Let’s take a look at these two approaches to music composition, which can result in very diverse types of music.

Basics of a Sampled Orchestra

A sampled orchestra is a close imitation of a real one, or rather, the special-purpose recording and triggered playback of the sounds of individual orchestral instruments (or section of instruments). The playback of the sounds is accomplished by a new musical performance on a keyboard or with another type of midi- or non-standard digital controller. The way the samples are made ready for a composer’s use – the sound sourcing process – is fairly simple and standard:

First, high-quality recordings of individual notes played by various instruments are made, one by one across their entire musical range, capturing each note performed with different expressions and techniques, possibly using different microphone setups and even various spaces (concert hall, performance stage, studio, etc.).

Secondly, the combination of the hundreds of recorded samples are organized in a digital sample player (hardware or software) in order for the appropriate notes (samples) to be played back when striking the keys across a keyboard (or other midi controller) with various strength. For instance, when one hits a middle C softly on the controller keyboard, the “soft middle C piano” sample (a short recording of the instrument’s softly played middle C note) will be played back by the sampler, sounding until the key is held. Once the key is released, the “middle C string soft damping with hammer action noise” sample is played back, imitating the noise of the real piano key’s release. The keys of the controller keyboard act like playback start buttons, each triggering the playback of the appropriate combination of recordings.

The performance can be quite convincing, especially to the untrained ears. The majority of the orchestral scores of movies and tv films made in the past 10-12 years were produced with this technique. The goal is to create an orchestral recording, which gives the impression of a real orchestra’s performance – without the logistic challenges and serious expense of hiring an orchestra, support staff, renting a sound stage or concert hall, etc.  Sample libraries produced by several companies who specialize in sample-set production can be purchased – you can put together an imitation orchestra sample library for as little as $500 (or for serious professional work for as much as $50,000). However, the challenge isn’t so much in achieving a great sound quality (today’s samples are usually pretty high quality recordings), but in making the performance believable.

Sampled Orchestral

With sampled orchestral setups, the challenge isn’t in achieving a great sound quality but in making the performance believable.

The character and expressive playability of real instruments come in large part from their design – the way they are designed to be played. In general, we know not only the sound character of an instrument, in case of a violin, the timbre of the violin, but we know the sound of the violin when played by a violinist. After we transfer the various sound samples into a sampler, we will be playing every instrument using a keyboard. Without a bow, without strings, and without the techniques acquired and perfected by years of violin practice, we will not be able to use the pure sound of a violin with the same expression as a violin player can.

Of course, technology tries to have an answer for everything – in this case mostly by imitation of reality (though never a perfect copy – which would defeat the purpose anyway). Sample manipulation, software programming and audio mixing tricks, as well as the use of various performance controllers on keyboards (buttons, levers, pots, sliders, ribbons, etc.) can add more life and expression to the sound by changing certain characters of it (i.e. the more important parameters of the samples). Moreover, some less traditional midi controllers have emerged in the past decade, with the promise of a more varied, sometimes more natural performance communication between the player and the sample playback device or software. While some of them are played by blowing and striking, other controllers use buttons, digitally cnotrolled valves, touch-pads and laser, infrared or ultrasonic beams. Although with all these controllers we can add a wide range of expressions to the sound, or smoothly switch from one playing technique / sample to another during the performance, something is missing. It is the organic, human touch what makes a real performance come alive; the imperfections, noises, and the fact that on real instruments, the same notes never sound the exact same, and they rarely sound perfect.

A popular technique called sweetening is often used to help this issue; by adding a few real musicians’ performance on real instruments to the mix of the digitally-created orchestral parts, imperfections, noises and subtle variations in performance can be introduced. The intention is to “humanize” the piece and mask the overly polished sound of the sampled orchestra at the same time. Although this masking doesn’t make ones and zeros become organic material, the difference between a real orchestral performance and a well-produced sampled orchestra can be unrecognizable by most listeners. (Some exceptionally well-produced compositions can give a hard time even to professional composers and orchestrators when trying to guess whether they are listening to sampled & sweetened or an entirely orchestral performance).

Sampled orchestras tend to work better for large symphonic pieces, than for solos and chamber setups, where the digital nature of the sampler performance is harder to hide. Of course, knowing the attributes and limitations of all traditional instruments, their performance techniques and tricks, as well as being experienced at orchestral work is a major advantage for composers who venture into performing sampled orchestral music. Naively, some feel like an instant “orchestral composer” by simply playing a keyboard and switching between various orchestral samples. The affordability and convenience of technology has falsely empowered many, often only to result in embarrassingly fake-sounding recordings (even in “professional circles” – let’s not mention the A-list examples here).

Sounds of the electro-orchestral music

Since electro-orchestral music isn’t really orchestral music as far as the instruments concerned, we approach it with a healthy absence of preconceived notions or expectations. In the above example of the violin, we all know what this traditional instrument sounds like, what sound to expect to come out of it. But, we usually don’t know what an electronic musical instrument sounds like before we hear it. Synthesizers and other electronic instruments sound the way we make them sound. Not only there is no “perfect sound” to match, nor centuries-old standards and performance techniques to imitate, often, the more original or unique character they produce, the better. As the phrase “electro-orchestral” suggests, the music is usually composed on and produced with electronic instruments, and the sound itself is electronic in nature… but then what makes electro-orchestral orchestral?

If a piece of music sounds “kind of like orchestral” but it’s not, the chances are it was simply poorly produced; it might be trying to sound like orchestral, but the quality of samples, or more often, the sub-standard performance gives it away. Many who don’t have the access to high quality samples or the knowledge and experience to write orchestral music for an orchestra, make the mistake of trying to sound like one, using a common rompler plugin, cheap samples or a digital synth or workstation. It is not what electro-orchestral music is.

Electro-orchestral music is one that sounds “almost like an orchestral piece” because of the overall grand feel of the sonic experience and the structure/arrangement of the music, but it does not intend to sound like an orchestra at all. The various sections of an orchestra, like strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, can be represented by electronic sounds with similar general character to their related orchestral instruments/sections, but with no intention to imitate the traditional orchestra’s sound. Their place in the overall sonic palette of the music and their role in the arrangement and orchestration (electro-orchestration would be a better phrase) can be very similar, however. For example a violin-like sound playing a melody line in the higher octaves, a bright brass-like sound playing a mid-range melody or stabs that the horns would play in an orchestra, or a flue-like sound playing a counter-melody or small micro-melodies in the style of a typical woodwinds section. However, these sounds are not created by traditional instruments nor by their samples, but by various electronic components found in hardware instruments such as synthesizers, or by software algorithms.

Electro- Orchestral

Sounds created by electronic instruments can introduce the new element of sonic texture to the musical environment, a dimension relatively limited in pure orchestral music. This new element can strongly influences the feel the music carries or creates, and ultimately effects the entire ideology behind the composition and the compositional process.

In addition, sounds not even remotely reminiscent of traditional instruments can be used, often adding important flavors to the electro-orchestral piece. An arpeggiated bass, a randomly changing lfo-d filter, a glitch-y percussion part, a sweeping pad, an ethnic instrument’s lead or some manipulated environmental noise can complement the more standard parts of the orchestration structure well. In a sampled orchestral piece, they might work against the goal of imitating an acoustic instrumentation, but in electro-orchestral music, they can add original character, a unique feel and expression to the piece. At the end, a deliberately electronic instrumentation, giving the overall feel (but not the sound)  of an orchestral-size performance will carry the composer’s message to the listener.

Differences beyond technicalities

The type and purpose of music that the composer desires to create determines the approach, tools and techniques (s)he uses to achieve the best results. For example, to score an emotional cue in a romantic movie, a composer might use real strings, woodwinds and piano, but without the budget (mostly the case) or time to record live players, a good alternative is to imitate them by a sampled-orchestral performance. This also gives the composer the flexibility to easily re-write and re-arrange parts later. The goal is still to sound as close to the real soaring strings of an orchestra as possible.

A completely different purpose and style might inspire the composer to turn to the electro-orchestral approach. Sounds created by electronic instruments can introduce the new element of sonic texture to the musical environment, a dimension relatively limited in pure orchestral (real or sampled) music. This new element can strongly influence the feel the music carries or creates, and ultimately effect the entire idea behind the composition and the compositional process. An example of this would be a score for a futuristic movie, that requires the music cues typically used in such movies (action, romance, surprise, mystique, etc.) to support the plot and characters, however, carries the futuristic environment in every bit of the sound. Think of Blade Runner – an orchestral score could have worked fine, but the electro-orchestral approach doubled the impact and unique feel of the movie. While sounding somewhat traditional, the score was entirely produced with synthesizers.

(A challenge for composers: let’s switch up the instrumentation and genre of the last two examples. Writing an orchestral score for a sci-fi movie is the easy part – can be done routinely, have been done many times. But how would you approach scoring a real-life story’s romantic scene with electronic instruments? This forces you to think about sounds, textures… go beyond the traditional musical elements of rhythm, melody and harmony, and ultimately create something more original.)

While movie scores are the most representative examples, the same is true for musical works. We often don’t realize that the reason behind the largish feel and “full”, “well-though-out” and “complete” sound of a track is its orchestral-like arrangement- and instrumentation structure, but it being performed with non-traditional sounds doesn’t make the similarity obvious. This is even true for many mainstream songs today. It is interesting to note, that some typical sounds and sound categories of early (and actually, even many of today’s) synthesizers are named mirroring their orchestral “inspirations”; some of the most known (and now classic) synth patches are the likes of “Jupiter-6 strings”, “CS-80 brass” or “DX-7 piano”. Although at more than one point in the history of electronic music (see “Ambient vs. New-Age”) these instruments did try to imitate their real counterparts, they remained far-from perfect impressions of them, but with a unique character of their own, responsible for great success of some excellent non-orchestral composers. (They eventually became classic electronic sounds themselves, subject of imitation and sampling by newer electronic instruments and software – more about this later in another post, until then listen to some famous sounds here).

Tradition and Progression

Personally, I have a great respect for the traditional instruments of the symphonic orchestra, and have used them quite a lot (from large real orchestras to cutting-edge sampled orchestral setups). But I have an even bigger appreciation for the electronic instruments; when using them, we don’t imitate, rather create sounds (and even new imaginative instruments). We create more than just a melody, a theme, a piece, a mood, we create a feel that even a single note can carry! Why limit ourselves to the 35-40 traditional orchestral instruments when writing music with grandiose feel or for expressive instrument solos, if we can have the luxury of using thousands of traditional and non-traditional ethnic instruments (or their samples) and an unlimited number of electronic sounds as well?

I believe that the electro-orchestral (and various electronic, ambient, etc.) music opens up the boundaries and greatly expands the limits of the (otherwise fairly versatile) traditional instruments. It must have been super exciting to first explore these possibilities in the 60’s and 70’s with the first synthesizers, however with today’s music technology industry on one side, and the challenge to create truly original sounds and new musical instruments on the other side, it is still a never-ending adventure. Many of us have first-time memories of a feel or a sonic experience created by some non-traditional sounds in a movie, a film trailer, or even just a song on the radio. And while some of yours might be electronic in nature, it’s interesting to realize that their role in the music might have been the same as a traditional instruments role in the most known classical pieces a few hundred years ago.

Same structure or not, the new dimension of sonic textures might just be what gives us the amazing feeling of discovering new musical landscapes today.

Ambient vs. New Age

June 29th 2011  || by  || 4 Comments

I want to clear up a misconception / misuse of two words. Many people think (even some composers and those in the music business), that the musical styles “Ambient” and “New Age” are the same and these two expressions are interchangeable.  Especially in the US, people tend to pigeonhole both into some simple, mellow, uninteresting, cheesy (yet not even existing) style of “mood music” or “elevator music”. And they could not be any more wrong. Although these days they can be partially right. More about this later. In Europe, as electronic and various contemporary instrumental musical styles are much more popular, the mix-up is less of an issue, however the differences are often just guessed and not clearly understood.

First let’s take a look at what these wonderful musical genres are not. Although the categories “elevator music” and “mood music” do exist, these phrases reference the use, rather than the genre of such music. Especially elevator music – which has become a somewhat cynical phrase in English to describe an uninteresting wall of background music – is not descriptive of a music genre; I have heard classical, contemporary orchestral, country, big band, electronic, new age, jazz, and even rock music in elevators. There are “mood music” or “atmospheric music” CDs available as well, some not even containing music but sound effects, some featuring classical music. Therefore, these aren’t musical styles, rather modern-day expressions describing the use, or (sometimes rightfully) suggesting the lack of diversity and musical depth of a track.

Let’s go back to the question of Ambient vs. New Age music. In their “lighter”, commercialized form, well known since the ’80s, these can be some gently flowing, predictable pieces of music, often using only a few basic chords, inspiring melodies and simple, most likely synth – based instrumentation, with frequent use of piano and strings (or string-like synth pads), maybe some arpeggiated synth parts. However, in the late ’60s, pioneers of electronic music were already working on a compositionally and aesthetically much deeper level to create Ambient pieces (and New Age music later in the ’70s).

While Ambient music in the ’60s and through the ’70s usually referred to new experimental music, noise- and sound-inspired music (such as music concrete) – contemporary electronic music with no- or very limited commercial intentions, – early New Age (and a handful of Ambient) compositions were popularized by the great modern composers of instrumental-electronic music, such as Vangelis, Eno (who first started using the phrase “ambient music”), Jarre, Oldfield, Schulze, Clarke, etc.  Of course, I do not blame these wonderful creators for the commercialization of the style – that was the (unavoidable?) side effect of the popularization of their work itself! Also, thank to them, electronic music in general gained a much wider acceptance, and later appreciation… without which only a few of you would be reading my lines now, or, maybe electronic music would mean something entirely different today (an interesting topic for another time).

the music industry is squeezing out everything it can from new age music

In the ’90s, the music industry was squeezing all it could out of New Age music, eventually making it into atmospheric relaxation cheese.

In a way, New Age helped to make electronic music accessible and enjoyable for the quality-demanding audiences, especially in Europe where electronic and rock instrumentations were kept more separate (outside of the Lucky Man type of approach) than in the U.S. However, the process in which New Age music got diluted into some atmospheric relaxation nonsense (and yes, typical elevator music), is another, rather unfortunate matter. I won’t mention the names of the performers with pretty smiles, long hair and white pianos here, as they were only messengers with a bad taste and too much hunger for fame. Not bringing up the listening standards of the masses to the already popularized electronic/new age music, but dumbing down a style to create assembly-line type of products that appealed mostly to an overly romantic segment of the audience was an unforgivable yet familiar deed of the music industry. It is their greed that has made New Age into what it is today.

While New Age often intended to express traditional (romantic, classical) ideas by replacing orchestral instruments with synthesized sounds, Ambient music has always contained a certain level of experimentation and sonic risk (from a popularity angle). Although the philosophy and driving force behind the evolution of the New Age and Ambient styles have been different from the beginning, there are countless examples for their marriage, often blurring the line between the two genres – especially in the early ’80s (think of Vangelis or Eno).

With the explosion of digital technologies and their application in music production, the two styles’ deviation accelerated in the early to mid-90s, thank to the better mass-appeal and marketability of New Age, and as a consequence of these new technologies’ effect on electronic music production, serving up the two genres’ differing fundamental ideology in different ways. While it became even easier and a fairly challenge-less task to produce New Age records, with every record farther diluting the already over-digested writing- production- and listening experience, Ambient music stayed true to its origin and took the harder road: the challenge of originality. Although not yet in a widely published way (not that it has ever been widely published), Ambient music started truly benefiting from the advances in digital audio- and music production, especially sample manipulation, new synthesis methods and new electronic instruments and controllers.

Ambient Evolution

Digital technologies opened up new dimensions for Ambient music. From sample manipulation to new synthesis methods and processing techniques, ambient music has now unlimited territories to explore on all levels of sonics. At least, unlimited as long as the entertainment industry stays away.

By the end of the ’90s, the focus shifted from interesting chords and repurposed real-life sounds to produced-from-scratch soundscapes, and sounds constructed and modified in new and original ways. The decade-long influence of popular electronic music (mainly techno, then trance and drum&bass around the turn of the millennium) breathed new life into Ambient. The 2000s brought the rediscovery of integrating acoustic instruments and the benefits of using new performance techniques into electronic music, which further shaped Ambient music into what some refer to as “the classical music of the digital age”.

I feel that these days “New Age” has a less flattering connotation than ever before, while “Ambient” has expanded from the textural and very loosely structured compositions into various electronic and electroacoustic directions, which make it appealing for a wider audience than before, yet its philosophy and complexity keep it “niche enough” to prevent it from the dangerous commercialization New Age went through. In 1981, I would have gladly announced myself as someone working in either genres, however, today I rather introduce myself as a composer of ambient electronic music, to avoid any preconceived ideas.

Of course, all these expressions, sub-genres of electronic music, transformations and influences aside, what matters is the music itself, not what we call it.

Click here for a followup post on this article.

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  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/witnessing-the-forces.mp3
  • Hymn to The Fukushima 50
  • Lost Tracks (2011)
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Juius-Dobos-lost-tracks.jpg
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  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/f50preview.mp3
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/f50preview.mp3
  • Ultimate Mission
  • The Lost Tracks (2011)
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Juius-Dobos-lost-tracks.jpg
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  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/ultimatemission.mp3
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/ultimatemission.mp3
  • Puzzletime
  • Transitions (2010)
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/transitions.jpg
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  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/puzzletime.mp3
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/puzzletime.mp3
  • Walk
  • The Lost Tracks (2007)
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Juius-Dobos-lost-tracks.jpg
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  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/walk.mp3
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/walk.mp3
  • Adventure
  • Mountain Flying (1999)
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Mountain-Flying.jpg
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  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/adventure.mp3
  • https://www.juliusdobos.com/musicmp3/adventure.mp3