reading time: 10 min

Ambient music is a genre that's hard to define. It can be demanding or light, earth-shattering drones or the fleeting tenderness of piano chords. It's music where everything or nothing is happening. Over the last few years, ambient has gained significant attention and the requests to "bring back the ambient floor" have been heard with more events born in this space. Ambient is probably one of the most needed but least marketable genres out there. The lighter forms create ease and are often overlooked while heavier facets challenge us but only work once you sit through them - a rare skill nowadays. However, whoever sits down consciously listening through a few hours of ambient will go away with increased awareness.

German producer Markus Guentner is one of Europe's key figures when it comes to making ambient music. He addresses all facets of this genre; his releases contain a sense of float equally as profound exploration is inherent in all his works. Recently he released another impeccable album called "Onda" on Joachim Spieth’s excellent label AFFIN. Guentner’s catalogue stands solidly and timelessly like a mountain amidst an ungraspable landscape of other ambient releases and that makes him a great partner to discuss the genre and his oeuvre.

This conversation is not only for ambient enthusiasts - but it is also an invitation for any ambient enthusiast - to be.

Hi Markus. It is a pleasure to have you here for an interview. It’s a bit in the name of Delayed that we are passionate about ambient and hence we feel honored to speak with such a contributor to the genre. In the overall landscape of music and its development, how do you see the state of ambient these days? Increasingly popular or still underestimated?
Thank you so much for having me !!! Especially during the pandemic, ambient music became a bigger thing. At this time there was no need for club music, so people started listening more to Ambient. Even Techno artists started to produce Ambient and Electronica stuff. Ambient is more common in movies, tv-shows etc. these days. But the thing is, it’s still a niche somehow. There are no big „shows“ … no mass taste for it … not a bigger understanding of it. Maybe it’s because there are so many different ambient styles or people still see it as „background“ music. Ambient is still some „electronic listening thing“ for them.

The special thing about ambient, amongst other genres, is that it’s very suitable for active and passive listening. How did you develop your listening skills and what would be your advice to people that just start to get into more deeper listening?
Exactly. You can listen to ambient in the background. But for me, that is the so-called „Chill-Out/Easy Listening“ stuff. Ambient these days is a more „challenging“ thing. It’s not about „relaxing“, it’s definitely music for deeper listening and discovering. Sometimes there is so much stuff going on in Ambient music and you can hear and feel stuff, but can’t grab it directly or bring it to a point somehow. There are so many different types of ambient. Drone, Modern Classic, etc. … I think there’s something for everyone.

What is the most fascinating part about ambient music for you?
It is surely the most „non-structured“ music for me. In Ambient almost everything is allowed and possible. There are no typical instruments and approaches to what to do. There can be a beat or not. Ambient can be with „classical“ instruments, but also with the weirdest synths and sounds/noises. You can bring something up with field recordings. You can play around and try new things. There are no boundaries about the sounds and arrangement. But for me the „depth“ of ambient is important … the atmosphere and layers.

Brian Eno once said: “ People do dismiss ambient music, don't they? They call it 'easy listening,' as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.”  If I’m honest, it’s not always easy to listen to ambient, it can be very confronting and invite us to explore our inner life in all its shades. What are your associations with the genre or how would you describe it?
Absolutely, as I said before Chill-Out and Easy Listening compared to Ambient are very different things. Of course, there is a „lighter“ and „easier“ Ambient, too. But in general, it’s not for falling asleep… even when Ambient has no beats or drums, but a lot of pads and strings, it doesn’t mean that it’s just for chillin‘ !!! Ambient is much more comparable to classic music than anything else. It’s not easy to say, that ambient grabs more feelings (because every person is touched by something different), but the slowness and intensity of Ambient are a big part of it. It’s not just like: „Oh, nice melody“ … you have to deal with it most times!

If we go a bit back in time now, what inspired you to make music and what were your first attempts to play and produce?
Music was a big part of my life since I was a little child. Because of my older sister, I heard a lot of stuff during the mid/end 80s. The „electronic“ parts always grabbed my attention, so I got more into that kind of music. I begged for two turntables and a mixer for my 13th birthday, got them and dove more into the techno/electronic scene. Then I had my first DJ- Gig in Regensburg when I was 15 and already had a residency a year later. At that time I knew exactly that music is what I want to do. I kicked school when I was 16 and started to play around with music software etc. Ok, it took 3 years until the first release came out, but I learned a lot during that time and discovered and developed my own sound. The inspiration was always my love and passion for music.

In the earlier years of your career you were also DJing and later decided to focus on live performances, moving more and more drone and ambient sounds. In this personal and musical development, did you notice any shift in your sources of inspiration?
Not really to be honest. The inspirations, ideas and approaches are still the same. The focus on everything changed a lot, though. Back in the day it was my only profession and the pressure behind that was very intense. I just realised a bit of a change in my passion and love for music. So I decided to do something else (graphic design) that pays my rent, my food, etc. and took myself out of the „business“ to make the music I want to, without any pressure and a relaxed view from the outside on everything.

If I am correct you produced 13 Albums and a whole lot of remixes and EPs… if you look back at this catalogue - what do you think is the constant between them - in terms of sound or philosophy?
The „philosophy“ never changed. For me making music was always about what is my idea of the music I want to make, what’s in my mind and how I do feel when I compose and produce something. Most importantly, never think about what someone else could like. It’s easy to produce the 101st techno track which sounds like all the 100 other tracks before, just because it sells well. That was never my standard. The sound itself changes of course over time. What inspired me,  was new approaches in making music and so on. But it’s a fun thing that you can listen to my older stuff and you could think: ok, that could’ve been released yesterday. So maybe the biggest constant between everything is timelessness.

For someone that might just be getting started to listen to your works, which one would you encourage most to listen to?
That’s not easy to say, because you can listen to the newer things, but also the older ones (that’s the good thing about ambient). I’d say the „Trilogy“ (“Theia”, “Empire” and “Extropy”) on A Strangely Isolated Place Records could be a good start … for me, it is a good „overview“ of what I’m doing.  

A large part of your releases has been issued on A Strangely Isolated Place. With such a longstanding partnership, what is most important to you?
Yes, ASIP definitely became my musical „home“. Since my first contact with Ryan many many years ago, I felt his dedication and passion. There is a big respect for everything he did and what he’s doing. The love he puts in every release … and also being super open-minded about projects and ideas. Things like that are much more important for me than releasing on a big label and selling a lot of records. It’s not about „serving“ people with the music … more like „pleasing“ the enthusiasts.

According to you, “Onda”, your latest LP, conveys an “independent mood” and was in the beginning not meant to be an album. How did the album come about then and why did you choose AFFIN as a label?
Joachim and I have a really special relationship. We were both the first „Pop Ambient“ artists outside of the „Kompakt- environment“. So we know each other for a long time. When Joachim started Affin, he asked me to do some music there (for example the album „Crystal Castle“ in 2011)  During the pandemic we got much closer with long zoom-calls and chats. It was always already in the back of our heads to do a follow-up album on Affin. So in 2022, after a long break from making music, I started to compose and produce some new stuff. There was no plan to make an album. After I finished some tracks I realized: the atmospheres and the mood of each track connect so perfectly and it would make so much sense as an album, just from the period and the mood I was in at that time, without thinking of a concept. I didn’t want to release this album on ASIP (there were already other plans for that). That’s why I asked Joachim if he want to release it on AFFIN. That made so much sense if you look at all the latest releases there from Joachim, bvdub, and others.

The record was released on Joachim Spieth’s label AFFIN, for which you also do the visual design. How does your musical work on AFFIN and the graphical side influence interplay?
I try to not think about a too big connection between them. Of course, the label itself should have a visual concept and identity … but all designs and graphics depend completely on the different releases. I could never do an artwork without listening to the music first. The different styles and moods have a huge impact on the design in the end.

“Onda” has very beautiful track titles, what were they inspired by?
That’s quite a fun thing about the titles for “Onda”.  I wanted to find something, that is not connected to a concept - like the whole album. I wanted titles that fit the tracks and have good sounding so I looked for words in different languages (Italian, Spanish, Kurdish, etc.) but also changed them a bit to create some „fantasy words“.