Episodes
Sunday Sep 13, 2015
dubby & rainy
Sunday Sep 13, 2015
Sunday Sep 13, 2015
I was planning on making a rain mix sometime this fall & I was planning on making a dub mix as well. Then I realized that those two theme as perfect for each other. So here is the appropriately titled mix "dubby & rainy."
I love how a lot of ambient dub tunes already sound sort of "rainy." They make liberal use of white noise which is great for conjuring a rainy atmosphere. So many of these tracks already sound & feel "rainy" that I didn't have to add much rain fx.
Enjoy
T R A C K L I S T:
- 00:00 DeepChord - Morning
- 01:00 Segue - Rain Drone
- 03:20 Mind Over MIDI - Soften By Rainfall
- 07:05 Fieldhead - I'm Fond of Maps
- 09:50 Optical Frameworks - Silenced Streets, Reflections in Rain
- 14:00 As If - Trip 5
- 18:50 Donato Dozzy - Vaporware 1
- 23:05 Shaded Explorer - Sea Mist
- 28:30 DeepChord - Prayer Wheel
- 32:44 Loscil - Angel of List
- 37:37 krill.minima - Serpentine
- 39:00 Marco Madia - Hydrotropism
- 41:00 Mr. Cloudy - DS4
- 48:20 AES DANA - Beneath
- 52:10 Blamstrain - Sunday Dub
- 57:57 Ethernet - Rain Elemental
- 61:50 Deepchord - Neon and Rain
- 65:20 Deepchord - Day's End
- 66:50 Variant - After the Rain
- 78:30 Ethernet - After Dark
- 86:24 end
Wednesday Jul 08, 2015
Ghosts of the Future
Wednesday Jul 08, 2015
Wednesday Jul 08, 2015
At the end of May I posted an excellent mix from Mike G of the Ambient Music Guide. We agreed to do guest mixes for each other and that the starting point would be a title that each of us would give the other. We sent each other a few title ideas, we each chose one and got to work.
Mike chose "Lapse into Reverie" and the result was his beautiful mix that you can find here...
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2015/05/lapse-into-reverie-complied-mixed-by.html
And here...
Mike gave me about 4 or 5 title ideas and my attention was immediately drawn to one in particular... "Ghosts of the Future."
The first thing that comes to mind is the film "Interstellar", which I had just re-watched right before this project. With its time dilation and Murph's "ghost" communicating from the future, the soundtrack is the perfect launching point for this mix. I like soundtracks but Hans Zimmer usually isn't a favorite. However with this film he strikes a perfect balance. At times the music has a Philip Glass feel to it.
I also thought of snippets of voices as ghosts and so I worked in some spoken word excerpts here & there, as well as using tracks that had voices or vocoder. Overall I hope the mix conveys a strange, otherworldly feel to it.
Thanks again to Mike G for doing the mix swap with me and thanks for a great mix title.
Enjoy
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Ian William Craig - Before Meaning Comes
- 00:35 Hans Zimmer - Where We're Going(Interstellar OST)
- 05:52 Eskmo - Spvce
- 07:55 Robert Rich - Premonition of Circular Clouds
- 13:15 Intrusion - Static Waves & Shuttle358 - Fissure(played simultaneously)
- 16:30 Echospace - Viola's Ghost Hamonix, Beyond Gravity, Astral Dreaming, Beyond The Drone(played simultaneously along with Static Waves)
- 19:10 Disasterpeace - Formations
- 20:55 Shuttle358 - Warm
- 25:10 Kraftwerk - Endlos Endlos
- 25:50 Chris Dooks - Antifoni
- 26:45 Bon Iver - Woods(remixed)
- 28:40 Hans Zimmer - s.t.a.y.(Interstellar OST)
- 33:45 Adlib - Hoffnung
- 34:25 Steve Roach - It's All Connected
- 39:50 Vangelis - Tears in the Rain
- 42:36 Cliff Martinez - We Don't Have To Think Like That Anymore
- 45:15 Transcient - My Last Goodbye
- 48:39 Simon Bainton - Range
- 50:43 Public Broadcasting Service - Tomorrow
- 55:55 end
Sunday Jun 28, 2015
Sunday Morning Music vol. 11 - Morning Moon
Sunday Jun 28, 2015
Sunday Jun 28, 2015
Here's the latest Sunday Morning Music installment. The mix starts with cuts from two of my fav albums of 2015 by Aero Flynn & Sufjan Stevens.
Aero Flynn is fronted by Josh Scott, a product of the same Eau Claire, Wisconsin music scene that gave us Justin Vernon(Bon Iver). Scott was in a band called Amateur Love that shared a couple of members with a band that Vernon was in, DeYarmond Edison. According to Chris Porterfield, who was in DeYarmond & would later form Field Report, Josh Scott was the most talented guy in that scene.
Just as Amateur Love was about to break Josh Scott got spooked and broke up the band and fled to Chicago. Since then he has flirted with comebacks but mental and physical illness always got in the way.
Now he is back with a fantastic new album released this past spring. The record was recorded in Justin Vernon's Eau Claire studio and was produced by Vernon. The sound is very different from Amateur Love, more electronics involved, the vocals more ethereal. The best way to describe the music is a cross between Radiohead & Bon Iver.
The Amateur Love album was re-released in 2012 by Vernon. He started his own record company just so he could release that album. And it's a wonderful recording, so full of promise. I wish there had been more.
Here are some links related to the Aero Flynn story...
Listen to all 9 Aero Flynn tracks
Sufjan in Milwaukee |
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell on Amazon
Excellent Pitchfork interview with Sufjan
After those opening cuts it's all downhill. Haha. Actually there is much more good music in the rest of the mix. Most of it is new & it fits with the laid back Sunday morning feel of past mixes.
Enjoy
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Aero Flynn - Moonbeams
- 06:12 Sufjan Stevens - Fourth of July
- 10:41 Bill Seaman - Another Day
- 13:15 Casino versus Japan - Scenic Loop
- 15:45 David Holmes - Hey Maggy
- 20:15 Julian Lynch - A Day at the Racetrack
- 22:50 San Fermin - Astronaut
- 26:12 Johann Johannsson - A Model of the Universe
- 28:55 Helios - Emancipation
- 31:15 Jakob Bro - Gefion
- 38:15 Andrew Bird - Rising Water
- 42:30 Alva Noto - Isola
- 45:35 Evan Chapman - Angels(The xx cover)
- 48:10 Jose Gonzalez - Vissel
- 51:20 Jon Hopkins - How I live now
- 55:47 end
Wednesday Apr 15, 2015
The Ambient Dishwasher
Wednesday Apr 15, 2015
Wednesday Apr 15, 2015
Every mix has it's own unique starting point. And this mix definitely started in a unique place - my dishwasher.
One day my dishwasher was making some weird noises, it kind of sounded like an alien playing a didgeridoo was trapped inside. So I recorded a little bit of the sound and then processed it using Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch. And whaddya know - it actually sounds pretty good.
I've used Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch in mixes before and it's a fun little program for non-musicians like me.
I posted the stretched version on the Hypnos Recordings forum just for kicks. A couple folks asked to hear the original source as well. Then the next thing you know some of the artists who frequent the forum took that original dishwasher sound & used it as a source to come up with their own original takes.
I was pretty darn excited. These are artists that in some cases I've been listening to for years. And they were going to make music from my freakin' dishwasher. Pretty cool.
Here's the Hypnos forum dishwasher thread... HYPNOS
We ended up with five pieces created from the original dishwasher sounds. I also asked my son, who produces EDM music as AXX, to also make an ambient dishwasher tune, which he did and I gotta say I love his version. Throw my stretched version in there and we have 7 dishwasher tunes, enough for a whole mix. Pretty cool again.
I started the mix with the original sound and let it morph into the different versions. They all flow together very well.
Here are the links to each individual piece used in the mix in order of appearance...
https://soundcloud.com/low-light-mixes/dishwasher-original
https://soundcloud.com/forrest-fang/daves-dishwasher-zen-cycle-021815
https://soundcloud.com/low-light-mixes/dishwasher-drone-axx-rework
https://serenffordd.bandcamp.com/track/rin-se
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Dishwasher original sound
- 00:17 Dave Michuda - Dishwasher Stretch
- 01:00 Forrest Fang - Dave's Dishwasher(Zen Cycle)
- 02:42 AXX - Dishwasher Drone AXX Rework
- 05:15 Igneous Flame - Chthonic Cycles
- 09:25 Castleview - Cavewasher
- 11:20 The Circular Ruins - The Circular Ruins Over Dave's Dishwasher
- 15:00 Dave Michuda - Dishwasher Stretch part 2
- 16:55 Seren Ffordd - Rin-Se
- 20:43 end
Sunday Aug 31, 2014
Leaving the station
Sunday Aug 31, 2014
Sunday Aug 31, 2014
cinemagraph by Julien Douvier - http://juliendouvier.tumblr.com/ |
- 00:00 Tangerine Dream - Love on a Real Train
- 03:40 Jean Michel Jarre - Magnetic Fields pt. 3
- 06:33 Dadub - Arrival
- 09:10 Miktek - Elsewhere(fade edit)
- 14:40 Evan Marc + Steve Hillage - Resurface
- 16:30 Tangerine Dream - Rain and Thunder(Sorcerer Cinematographic Score)
- 23:00 Jean Michel Jarre - Ethnicolor II
- 25:55 Grumbling Fur - Eyoreseye
- 31:33 Mark McGuire - The Instinct
- 37:25 ??? - ???
- 41:20 Mohn - Saturn
- 48:45 Plastikman - Locomotion
- 52:45 Jean Michel Jarre - Equinoxe VII
- 59:10 Tangerine Dream - The Dream Is Always The Same
- 1:02:24 end
Saturday Aug 02, 2014
Driving All Night
Saturday Aug 02, 2014
Saturday Aug 02, 2014
You're driving,
and it's dark and it's raining,
and you're on the edge of the city
and you've been driving all night.
And you took a turn back there
but you're not sure it was the right turn.
But you took the turn anyway,
just kept going in that direction.
And somehow it looks sort of familiar,
so you just keep driving.
Hello. Excuse me.
Can you tell me where I am?
You've been on this road before.
You can read the signs.
You can feel your way.
You can do this in your sleep.
This is a mix I did for the good folks at Intergalactic.FM. Head over there for this and a ton of other mixes and radio shows.
Like most of my mixes there is a starting point or inspiration that gets the ball rolling. In this case it was the Laurie Anderson track "Lighting Out For The Territories" from her United States Live album. The cut is so atmospheric and moody. It immediately conjures up images of lonely highways, lonely songs and tires thumping on the pavement.
I had a hard time deciding between cuts that have a lonely country, twangy feel and songs that are more pulsating, driving electronic in nature. In the end I ended up with a little bit of everything. The two tracks with vocals definitely have a lonely, plaintive quality. That same feel is also present in the Daniel Lanois tunes and the instrumental from The Antlers(whose new album is fantastic by the way).
The tracks from Prins Thomas and Brian Reitzell are of the more electronic driving type. Both have an old kraut rock feel to them that I love. A totally different feel is found in pieces by Terminal Sound System and Talvihorros, sort of weird Twins Peaks vibe. Which makes sense because the Talvihorros track is actually the Twin Peaks theme. Most of the rest of the tunes just sort of felt right for a theme of night driving.
Laurie Anderson makes 4 or 5 appearances in the mix. All are variations of the opening track. Usually with other rhythms or road sounds added in.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Laurie Anderson - Lighting Out for the Territories
- 02:20 Sparklehorse - Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain
- 07:00 London Grammar - Wicked Game(cover)
- 10:30 Laurie Anderson - New Jersey Turnpike
- 11:53 Brian Reitzell - Auto Music 2
- 18:20 Calexico - Hair Like Spanish Moss
- 22:05 Cowboy Junkies - 200 More Miles
- 27:25 Bexar Bexar - n.r.o.t.
- 30:30 Watter - Rustic Fog
- 35:25 Daniel Lanois - New Smoke
- 37:30 The Antlers - Jupiter
- 42:00 Terminal Sound System - Duchamp Falls
- 46:10 Hidden Orchestra - Strange
- 52:30 Prins Thomas - Kavaler
- 57:45 Cliff Martinez - Driving to the Bonaparte
- 58:40 Daniel Lanois - Bell Toll
- 59:55 Talvihorros - Twin Peaks Theme
- 1:03:20 end
Monday Jan 06, 2014
a frozen world
Monday Jan 06, 2014
Monday Jan 06, 2014
It is freakin' cold here in Wisconsin right now. It's going to be -20f below zero tonight and the high temp on Monday didn't get much above -10f. Frigid temps like that call for a mix.
It's perfect timing for a freezing mix because a recent purchase was the album arctic conditions by stormloop. With
song titles like "Ice Wind," "In The Frozen Morning Light" and "Arctic
Conditions," it was a perfect starting point for this mix.
Make some hot cocoa, sit back
and try to stay warm. Of course for listeners like Charles Glaspole in
Australia, it's summer. I guess you'll have to use your imagination.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T:
- 00:00 Wind and walking in snow
- 00:30 Terje Isungset - Go North
- 01:36 stormloop - ice wind
- 05:45 Marcus Fischer - Arctic 1
- 10:10 Panoptique Electrical - Glacier Show I
- 16:35 Ulf Lohmann - On Frozen Fields
- 18:45 Blamstrain - Tundra V
- 24:05 offthesky - beneath the ice shelf
- 26:50 Harold Budd - Ice Floes in Eden
- 29:15 stormloop - arctic conditions
- 33:55 Good Weather For An Airstrike - Frozen In Thought
- 37:25 Kiln - The Ice Floes
- 38:40 Forrest Fang & Carl Weingarten - Freezing Days
- 41:10 David Tagg - Arctic Reflection
- 50:10 Brian Eno - Fields Of Ice
- 58:00 Segue - A View of the Frozen Lake
- 1:01:40 stormloop - in the frozen morning light
- 1:08:00 end
Sunday Jul 28, 2013
A Glitch in Time
Sunday Jul 28, 2013
Sunday Jul 28, 2013
Sometime around 2001 I discovered the album Tides by Arovane. I'm not sure if it qualifies as "post-digital" or "blip hop" or "micro" music but it was through that album that I began a brief love affair with the style of music known as "glitch."
I have always loved electronic & ambient music but at the end of the 1990s I had lost interest in berlin style electronics and mostly listened to straight ambient. But with the emergence of glitch, and it's use of complicated beats, noise and samples, I found a new rhythmic electronic music to dive into.
The biggest purveyor of glitch music back then was the Mille Plateaux label. With their Click & Cuts series they introduced me to a whole new range of sound in music. There is definitely a lot of music from that time period that, while interesting, could become annoying as well. I'm not a fan of loud and aggressive glitch. I definitely am more in tune with the sort of stuff put out by 12k.
Over time I grew tired of much of the glitch scene and the never ending little pops & clicks & wee little sounds intruding on the music. Although I still enjoy much of 12k music.
Recently I was organizing some of my collection & revisited some old glitch material. I found that I am still very fond of some of it. I started collecting tracks for this mix and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
So this mix is a little step back in time to the early 2000s. A small glitch in the passing of time to when glitch ruled, for me anyway.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Arovane - Tides (2000)
- 04:45 Carpet Musics - Phone Lines (2001)
- 08:24 Clickits - No Clickedy (2003)
- 11:35 Xela - Impulsive Behavior (2002)
- 15:30 offthesky - Down the Stream (2005)
- 20:50 Shuttle358 - I'm Not Afraid (2003)
- 25:05 Twerk - From Brown to Green (2003)
- 29:55 Jan Jelinek - Facelift (2003)
- 34:55 Bexar Bexar - Kt (2002)
- 38:30 Christopher Willits - The Seaweed Machine (2003)
- 40:45 Christian Kleine - Several (2002)
- 47:15 Arovane - Ambelio (1999)
- 52:20 Shuttle358 - Calty (2000)
- 57:11 end
Tuesday Jul 16, 2013
Movement & Location - music for biking
Tuesday Jul 16, 2013
Tuesday Jul 16, 2013
This mix is completely different from anything that I've posted here. It's not ambient, or electronic or Sunday morning jazz. This is music for motion.
This is a mix I made last summer to listen to while biking. I liked it so much that I added some new tunes this year and made it longer. All of the songs have a propulsive, forward-moving feel to them. There are some oddball choices in there but generally most of the music would fall under the heading of indie rock. Artists include Yacht, Vampire Weekend, Japandroids, Lord Huron, Rural Alberta Advantage, Jonathan Boulet, Underworld, Shearwater, Givers, etc.
I like the fact that it's 2 hours long so I can go out on an hour long ride and still have enough left for the next ride. The mix also works well on a treadmill. I wanted to post this before now so anyone who downloads it hopefully can make good use of it before summer disappears.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Patrick Watson - Blackwind
- 03:45 Punch Brothers - Movement & Location
- 06:45 Willy Porter - Breathe
- 10:15 Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man
- 14:09 Givers - Up up up
- 18:30 Jinja Safari - Mermaids
- 22:22 Benny Goodman - Sing, Sing, Sing
- 27:20 Mother Falcon - Dirt Summer
- 30:35 The Killers - Human
- 34:30 Yacht - Utopia
- 37:30 Shearwater - Animal Life
- 40:55 The Rural Alberta Advantage - Tornado '87
- 44:32 Matt & Kim - Don't Slow Down
- 47:33 The Boxer Rebellion - Organ Song
- 50:50 Lord Huron - Time to Run
- 55:20 Underworld - Dark & Long
- 1:02:15 Tilly And The Wall - Heavy Mood
- 1:05:20 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Can't Hold Us
- 1:09:35 Vampire Weekend - Unbelievers
- 01:12:55 Jonathan Boulet - You're a Animal
- 01:16:20 Underworld - Downpipe
- 01:23:30 Jens Lekman - An Argument With Myself
- 01:27:10 Kate Bush - Cloudbusting
- 01:32:10 Jon Hopkins - Open Eye Signal
- 01:39:52 Avett Brothers - Kick Drum Heart
- 01:42:30 Jonathan Boulet - Mangle Trang
- 01:45: 55 Japandroids - The House that Heaven Built
- 01:50:35 The Rural Alberta Advantage - Barnes' Yard
- 01:52:48 Vampire Weekend - A Punk
- 01:55:00 Andrew Bird - Fitz and the Dizzyspells
- 01:58:20 faltyDL - She Sleeps
- 02:02:38 Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place
- 02:07:31 end
Friday Jul 05, 2013
Under Eno's covers
Friday Jul 05, 2013
Friday Jul 05, 2013
At the suggestion of a listener I set out to do a mix of ambient covers. Not so easy.
But I did find a bunch of Brian Eno cover tunes. Some I was familiar with, Bang on a Can & Sakamoto, but many of the others were new discoveries made by cruising the web.
The mix starts with probably the most covered Eno tune - An Ending (Ascent), from Apollo. The cover of that song comes from a new album by Icebreaker & BJ Cole which covers the entire Apollo album. It's excellent and any Eno fan will definitely enjoy it.
About a third of the way through the mix, the tunes shift to a few vocal songs. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted go this route but the more I listened to these vocal covers the more I liked them. From there we switch back into ambient mode.
I think this turned out pretty well and makes for a nice change of pace in the land of Low Light Mixes.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Icebreaker & BJ Cole - an ending (ascent) ii
- 03:50 Teen Daze - Always Returning
- 07:55 Dan Piccolo - Music for Airports 1.1
- 13:30 Bang On A Can - Music for Airports 2.1
- 17:30 Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto - By This River
- 21:15 Ida - Golden Hours
- 25:35 Irene Coco & Giovanni Sala - And Then So Clear
- 29:00 St. Vincent - Some of Them are Old
- 31:55 Unknown - Spider & I (ona banjo ukulele)
- 33:15 Band On A Can - Music for Airports 2.2
- 38:00 Doron Diamond - Music for Airports 1.1 (acoustic)
- 41:15 AcousticLabs - And Ending (Ascent) (solo guitar)
- 45:00 Icebreaker & BJ Cole - Drift
- 47:45 Nathan Fake - Music for Airports 1.1
- 53:00 Ryosuke Tomita - Becalmed (acoustic)
- 56:52 end