Good find of the week: albums from Instinct Ambient Series available for download on Amazon.com

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the things I would like to do with this blog is help direct people towards hard-to-find or out-of-print music that becomes available again at reasonable prices, especially as downloads. This week I'd like to feature three albums originally released on the Instinct Ambient label during the mid 1990s. These albums are part of the numbered, monthly series of ten albums that the label released in 1995. This series of releases, featuring highly stylized, eye-catching artwork and distinct packaging, is very hard to find and highly desired by many ambient music lovers. All of the albums in the series are currently available used from Amazon.com, though the prices on a number of them are on the high side ($50-$75).

The good news, however, is that three of the albums have recently been made available as downloads through the Amazon.com MP3 store (a fourth, Adham Shaikh's "Journey to the Sun," has actually been re-released for some time now as a download, though with slightly altered cover art and no longer sporting the distinct numbering identifying it as part of the Instinct Ambient Series.) The three albums are as follows:













Facil - Facil - #4 in the series













Escape Tank - Escape Tank - #8 in the series - Escape Tank was a production of the ever prolific Taylor Deupree, who aside from being a well regarded ambient artist in his own right, was also the head of Instinct Records and is now head of the well respected 12k records. Deupree is also highly regarded for his ambient work under the Human Mesh Dance moniker, which released two albums on the Instinct label and the first album on the 12k label, as well as numerous tracks on various compilation CDs.













Control X - To Abort Transmission - #9 in the series

In the past, I owned two of these three albums for a short time, but never really had the chance to listen to them enough that I feel I can give substantial commentary on them here. Nor have I had the opportunity to download and listen to them yet. I just know they are highly regarded among many ambient and electronic music lovers, are highly sought after, and, in some cases, very expensive. To find them available, therefore, as downloads from Amazon.com for less than $10 dollars each is rather exciting and I am sure that many people will want to grab them for such a great price.

I'll also include a link to Adham Shaikh's "Journey to the Sun" album, since it was part of the original Instinct Ambient series and is an excellent album. Also, here is the original cover art, which I like better than the slightly revised cover art on the re-released version.













Enjoy!