There's another cue from HEAT that qualifies, when Neil and Edie are first coupling.
I would also lobby to include Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke's "Sacrifice" used to such gorgeous effect in THE INSIDER. Technically it's more "nightscape" than "cityscape" although the first sequence where the track appears does feature Wigand observing the quasi-urban landscape from the back of his ride.
I'd even throw in Horner's main title from UNLAWFUL ENTRY.
There's another cue from HEAT that qualifies, when Neil and Edie are first coupling.
Yes, Terje Rypdal has this particular sound nailed. Another candidate of his is "Mystery Man", also featured on HEAT (although that is more TWIN PEAKSy than ethereal cityscape). And yet another one is "Rites" by Jan Garbarek. Incidentally, Rypdal released his first studio album in 20 years just a couple of months ago.
It will be difficult to boil it down to one CD length, but I'll try. Some of the choices in this thread will have to go -- they're either not quite 'ethereal cityscapes', I don't own them or they don't even have a commercial release.
But let's have this run its course first. I have a few more that I want to share myself, like this:
Haha! Rouge City - A.I./John Williams has now featured in this thread AND Jim's Bustling City Cues thread too!!
I know we all have different sound settings, but over 50% of the suggestions here sound anything but Ethereal to me. I'm hearing lots of jazz and blues. But not much that is light or airy or dreamy or otherworldly or...
Jazz is the sound of the city. A lone sax or trumpet solo always gets me in the urban mood, especially if it's laid over an ambient synth cushion of some kind. But it doesn't only have to be jazz/electronic. "Rouge City" is obviously in a different category altogether; I've always felt that those rolling chords signal the skyscrapers and their height - from low to high. But there are also elements of desire and moral depravity. I don't know what it's doing in the "Bustling City Cues" thread...I've never found it particularly 'bustling'.
