Harold Budd

Along with Brian Eno, with whom he has collaborated on several projects including Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirrors, Harold Budd stands as one of the definitive composers of the ambient style. A giant of the Southern California avant-garde, his expansive works explore silence with as much poignancy as the notes themselves, painting reverberating desert landscapes with sparse, meditative piano and keyboards. His impressive body of work has garnered him a broad fan base made up of New Age yuppies, hard-lined experimentalists and an increasing number of Indie types, due in part from his work with the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie.