Stars of the Lid

Stars of the Lid are Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie, who formed in Austin, Texas in the early 1990s and spent the following decade slowly building one of ambient music's most patient catalogs for the Chicago label Kranky. Their method involves layering guitars, strings, and brass and processing out the instruments' attack, so individual notes blur into long, continuous tones rather than remaining identifiable as performances.

The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (2001) widened the duo's audience considerably, and And Their Refinement of the Decline (2007) — a more fully orchestral, string-and-brass-heavy record — became their most expansive statement before the pair largely stepped back from making new music together. McBride and Wiltzie have each continued working in ambient and neoclassical contexts separately since, Wiltzie most visibly through A Winged Victory for the Sullen, while occasionally reuniting for live performances of the older material. Their records are frequently used in film and television scoring contexts, a testament to how effectively the duo's long, slow-moving pieces function as mood and atmosphere rather than as songs built around a clear beginning or end.