Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror is a 1980 studio album by Harold Budd and Brian Eno. A work of ambient music, it is the second installment of Eno's Ambient series, which began in 1978 with Ambient 1: Music for Airports. Ambient 2 consists mainly of minimalist composer Budd playing improvisational piano in soundscapes produced by Eno. The album received positive reviews and led to Budd and Eno collaborating again for the sonically similar The Pearl (1984).
Background and production
Harold Budd and Brian Eno had previously worked together on The Pavilion of Dreams (1978) after British composer Gavin Bryars introduced the pair. After returning from a four-month trip to Thailand, Eno began work with Budd on Ambient 2.
Eno explained production as mostly Budd improvising "in a sound-world [Eno] had created". The music was improvised by Budd while Eno managed the "sound". He would set up the piano to be treated with electronic equipment, and then Budd would improvise with it. He discovered, as he played, how to best manipulate the treated piano, finding the best register and speed to play at, and how to make it resonate. Budd described using choral and delay effects in extreme unintended ways: "you're hearing the effect as the sound itself, rather than using them to industry standards". However, after completing their later collaboration The Pearl (1984), Budd came to think of The Pearl as more "focused", and Ambient 2 as a naive album.
| rev2 = The Austin Chronicle
| rev2score =
| rev3 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music
| rev3score =
| rev4 = Pitchfork
| rev4score = 8.4/10
| rev5 = Spin Alternative Record Guide
| rev5score = 6/10
| rev6 = Tom Hull – on the Web
| rev6score = B+
AllMusic reviewer Dave Connolly described Ambient 2 as "a lovely, evocative work". The Austin Chronicle wrote that Eno's treatments "refract" Budd's melodies, creating a prism-like effect and resulting in "a panacea for a dim day or the conduit for a floodgate of buried sensations". Stylus wrote that the listener can gather a sense that Eno and Budd were not able to settle on a style for the album.