low light mixes

revenants of the past

One of my favorite mixes from last year was Sustain & Decay. It was fun digging up old recordings & mixing them with new releases.

So I decided to do a follow-up, with the result being "revenants of the past". It follows the same basic formula of last years mix(which was also released in October). I browsed through a ton of files at archive.org, looking for things like old vinyl records & Edison cylinder recordings from as far back as 1888. I mixed these recordings with current music that either sounds old or in some cases actually uses old recordings as a sound source to be manipulated into something new. In the last mix The Caretaker figured prominently and here too there is an extended track in the middle of this sequel mix. The track is an excerpt from a mix James Leyland Kirby, AKA The Caretaker, did for Fact Magazine. I think "revenants" is a good mix of familiar & unfamiliar artists here. I had to get William Basinksi's Disintegration Loops in somewhere & so the mix closes with a track from Loops #2. Enjoy the entropy. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Around the world on a phonograph 1888
• 00:15 Szilágyi Imre Zenekara - kurucz motak (from 78rpm record)
• 02:25 SIGHUP - city heart (from the album "end of")
• 05:20 Cylon - 4feb1912pt12 (from the ep "winter")
• 12:30 Joe Belov - Air for G String 1920 Edison cylinder
• 12:30 Krzysztof Orluk - the girl the melody in the head (from the album "blurred reflection")
• 16:00 Glim - puszta (from the album "music for field recordings")
• 19:00 Okkyung Lee - sky (from the album "nihm")
• 25:30 Montauk - Tranquility (from the album "the moment lasts a second but the memory lives on forever")
• 26:15 Skye Boat Song (from 78rpm record, Edinburgh, Scotland)
• 26:30 The Caretaker - Fact Mix #45, May '09 (excerpt from Fact Magazine mix)
• 35:40 Asher - Minatures #11 (from the album "minatures")
• 38:00 Rae Eleanor Bal - Gypsy Love Song 1927
• 40:20 Lucky Pierre - velbon (from the album "touchpool")
• 42:40 Jaudas Society Orchestra - Beautiful Ohio Waltz 1919 Edison cylinder
• 43:10 Philip Jeck - 1986(Frank was 70 years old) (from the album "surf")
• 44:00 relmic statute - 1rhet ednalnge (from the album "sitting under the lantern's glow")
• 47:30 Bronnt Industries Kapital - maggots in the rice (from an untitled cd)
• 49:50 Alessandro Moreschi - Ave Maria 1904 Edison cylinder
• 51:50 36 - signal (from the album "Hypersona")
• 53:00 Sub Loam - ohr (part 3) stones, sunlight, morning (from the album "Ohr")
• 55:50 William Basinksi - dlp 3 (from "The Disintegration Loops")
• 1:00:00 end

gravity

I have been very busy this summer and I haven't had time to even think about a new mix.  So it's perfect timing that I have a new guest mix to present.

"Gravity" is a fantastic new mix by Jason O'Gorman.  Jason did a mix called "Satellite" for us in March of last year.  I really enjoyed that mix & was always hoping he'd do another and here it is.

About the mix, Jason says...

"Think I'll call it "gravity", my head's stuck into plenty of books about quantum mechanics, parallel universes and all that at the moment - so gravity fits - or does it? :-p LOL. The vast majority of the tracks are fed through lots of reverb and eq feedback - giving a nice wash of sound during the crossover stages of the mix, therefore "blurring" the boundaries, so to speak. And I've selected tracks which are pretty much "in key", or work musically. Suffice to say, Im pretty happy with the final result :-)"

I think everyone will be happy with the final result.   One look at the tracklist & I knew it was going to be good then I heard the long, wonderful segues & I was hooked.  Jason added this about the segues & start times...

"One thing, the track times listed - are the times they start, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll "hear" them at that time, but they're there, creeping in. Sometimes they're are 4 tracks playing together -  the transitions are pretty long!"

Enjoy!

t r a c k l i s t :

• 00.00 Like The Foot Prints Of An Invisible Man - Jasper TX & Anduin
• 00.20 A Box of Wood in the Storm - Jasper TX
• 05.00 Excerpt 2/3 - ww.lowman
• 05.10 Cosmos 1 - Murcof
• 08.30 Pillar - David Daniell
• 11.40 Everything Disappears In A Tunnel Of Light- Jasper TX & Anduin
• 15.20 In a Stony Place - Mira Calix
• 18.45 Still Upon the Ocean Floor - Loscil
• 20.00 Invocation - Gregg Kowalsky
• 20.10 Auf der Gasse - Stephan Mathieu
• 23.15 Stele - David Tagg
• 28.00 Mulm Og Mørke - Mulm
• 31.40 Untitled 3 - William Basinski & Richard Chartier
• 35.10 Opening Sky - Steve Roach
• 37.00 Nocturne - Stephan Mathieu + Taylor Deupree
• 37.30 Pictures from Airplanes - David Tagg
• 41.45 The Sirens - St. Kilda
• 45.40 Filitosa - Melodium
• 47.15 A Stop at the Chord Cascades - Tim Hecker
• 47.33 V - Gregg Kowalsky
• 49.15 Vi-Vii - Gregg Kowalsky
• 52.00 Monochrome 1 - Tu M'

I fell asleep at my desk making this mix

I listen to ambient music every night when I go to bed. I usually browse my recent acquisitions to find something for sleep music. There are a few recordings which get used more than others.

Two recent releases by Steve Roach get regular airtime here at Low Light Mixes. Last year's "A Deeper Silence" and this year's "Dynamic Stillness".

There was a time when I played Deeper Silence in the background all around the house everyday for a week. It created this strange feeling like I was on a spaceship. Mostly this 73 minute-long tune gets used for sleep music. The same goes for "Slowly Revealed" off of "Dynamic Stillness". I have fallen asleep to this track many times.

Another nighttime favorite...the "Beautiful Land of Nod" mixes from Mr. Asphalt Eden(aka - Brian Bieniowski). I played these two mixes quite a bit when I first downloaded them & still return to them often. I remember Brian saying he liked sleep music that seemed to rise & fall like breathing. It was that idea that inspired a mix that I did called "breathing music". I use this mix fairly often for drifting off to sleep.

This brings us to the new mix. I wanted to do a new sleep mix so I could incorporate the Steve Roach cuts. So I dumped some tracks to a portable hard drive, brought it to work & starting mixing in between "real work". I had 4 or 5 tracks laid down & I was listening to one of the transitions & literally fell asleep at my desk, hence the title of the mix. A lot of the tracks sound very much like each other which I guess is good in this case because one track stretches into another, in a long, trance inducing, ambient lullaby.  At 90 minutes, the mix is longer than most, but I thought the length worked a bit better for sleeping. Sweet dreams... T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    St. Kilda - You are in every dream
• 03:30    Steve Roach - Slowly Revealed
• 12:20    Scott Solter - Cypress Road
• 16:00    Stars of the Lid - The Kraut
• 23:30    Ashera - Fellini's Cat
• 28:30    William Basinski - 92982.1
• 33:20    Ten and Tracer - Falling asleep in sadness
• 36:40    Irezumi - Endurance
• 42:50    Jasper, TX - This Barren Land
• 47:30    Hammock - 3 sisters
• 51:15    Manual - Last Light
• 56:40    James Johnson - In then Out
• 1:06:00  Brian Eno - Discreet Music
• 1:15:00  Steve Roach - A Deeper Silence
• 1:30:00  end

Drone in Duality

My last mix was done for SubVersion and now Mick was kind enough to return the favor with a mix for Low Light Mixes. It's an excellent mix which Mick describes this way... "Drones In Duality" is the first in a series of mixes dedicated to Bridewell Gardens, which I visit every week to engage in therapeutic conservation and decorating work. The name is a reference to the double meaning properties of each track title, and the transference of a gesture in two different timeframes - before mucking in, and after a days' graft. For instance, Bibio's "Cherry Blossom Road" encompasses the ability to walk down roads adorned with flowers, to and from the bus trip to Bridewell, while "Sleep In The Eyes" identifies the product of doing much work on the premises, or getting cobwebs out on the journey in. Hammock's "We Will Say Goodbye To Everyone" nods to the friendly atmosphere I've encountered, and the desire to wish well each person I meet there. Pan American's "So That No Matter" curtails an extended metaphor for "so that no matter what problems I face, I can get through the day, with help from my friends and family". This is segued into Hakobune's "Realization At Dusk", which symbolises the enjoyment factor I weigh up the evening prior (getting sorted to make a stop) and heretofore the welcoming in of darkness (post-assignments and seeing everyone off). Oophoi's "Beyond These Skies" is the subsequent result of thinking forward, to what can be sentimental gold beyond nostalgic trifles. Then "Diamonds In The Sky" arrives to calm the listener: "They shine in the night / The diamonds in the sky / The sweet dreaming girl's paradise". "Softkiller" harks back to my relationship with the woman I've been so preocuppied with. Incomprehensible lyrics act as the undertow to ethereal guitar noodling and hushed chants. Grouper is juxtaposed with the grainy metamorphosising of Evangelista to end, "The Frozen Dress" a direct correlation to the freeze-frame behaviour of "Heavy Water / I'd Rather Be Sleeping". All in all, "Drones In Duality" is a 23-minute endeavour into fresh ground for me. There's lots of drones, granted, but these are counterbalanced with an accessibility from the vocals and brimming harmonies. Next up: "Time Heals All Wounds".

enosification

This is another new kind of mix for the blog. This is an all Eno mix. I came across the Eno tune "Spider & I " in a recently downloaded mix & I was reminded of how much I like Eno's voice. So I thought why not collect some favorite vocal tunes together in one place. For the first half of the mix I alternate between vocal tunes & instrumentals. I thought this might be nice to break things up a bit. About half way through I realized I'd run out of time so I went to all vocals. I love singing along with his songs & it is nice to have some favorites all together. The title comes from Genesis' "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" album, where Eno is credited with "enosification." Which he described this way..."I would take existing instruments and feed them through various devices to 'weird them up'." I hope you enjoy this Eno mix..... T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 By This River (Before & After Science) 02:51 Music for Glitterbug - track 10 (music for glitterbug) 05:37 Everything Merges with the Night (Another Green World) 09:20 Marine Radio (Spinner) 14:05 And Then So Clear (Another Day) 19:25 Summer Ride (Curiosities vol.2) 23:21 Spider & I (Before & After Science) 26:55 Dunwich Beach, Autumn 1960 (On Land) 28:55 Taking Tiger Mountain (Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy) 34:00 Zawinul Lava (Another Green World) 25:36 Julie With (Before & After Science) 41:00 Golden Hours (Anoter Green World) 44:44 This (Another Day) 48:04 On Some Faraway Beach (Here Come the Warm Jets) 52:25 No Orders w/ J. Peter Schwalm (Musikain) 56:23 Bottomliners (Another Day) 1:00:00 end

in_transit - an ambient field mix

I have been wanting to do another field mix almost since the moment I finished the last one. So here it is, a new mix entitled "in_transit". I like field recordings but not as much nature recordings. I'm not wild about birds chirping & water flowing. I like mechanical sounds or crowd noise or as you'll hear in this mix, trains. I used train sounds in the last mix & they play a prominent role here too. I had planned on doing more of my own field recording but I just never seemed to find the time. I did manage to sneak two of my recordings in, one occurs at about 8:50 in the mix. It's a recording of the humming sound of telephone pole at the end of my driveway. The pole hums when it gets windy, so I just went out stuck the mic right up to the pole & froze my arse off. I then fattened up the sound a bit. The other recording is of my daughter playing piano, but you'd never guess that's what you're hearing. It happens at about the 19:10 mark. I had her play about 40 seconds of chopin or schubert. Then I used a simple little program to stretch that 40 seconds into 12 minutes & 40 seconds. The result sounds nothing like classical piano. You can find the program here...Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch. Give it a try. Works great on piano & classical music. It makes the human voice sound very creepy. Most of the other sound used in the mix are a combination of field recordings from all over the web, music & music that already has field recordings built in, like the last cut by RF. There is new music from sleepy town manufacture & unit 21, elegi, Loren Chasse & terje isungset. Two tracks used in the mix are from a cd that I got from Rick over at Hydrogen Cafe. Years ago he burned some ambient background sounds from Blade Runner. At the 6:20 mark we get ambience from the Tyrell Coporation & at about 23:50 we hear sounds from Blade Runner Chinatown. I'll definitely be using more of these in future field mixes. Well I guess that's enough for now. I'm not making a tracklist as the cuts are playing all over each other, many times 2 or 3 at the same time. If you are curious about certain sounds or tracks just email or comment with the time in question & I'll do my best to get info back to you. Enjoy the trip!

searching for objects

The original name for this mix was "noisy, droney, scratchy". Very catchy title. That's a pretty good description of how I wanted this mix to sound. I don't like too much noise, however. Most of the tunes have some grit, some distortion, some white noise, some scratches but not too much. I still wanted the mix to be very ambient, not annoying or distracting. I guess the Fripp & Eno cut isn't very noisy or scratchy but could be considered droney. I'm just happy to have squeezed into a mix. I hadn't listened to it in years & had forgotten how much I loved that track. Of course now that I just posted the mix, Tim Hecker comes out with something new that would have fit perfectly. And the next Infraction release from Sleepy Town Manufacture sounds like it would be a good fit too. Oh well, I guess I'll have to save those for volume 2. T R A C K L I S T I N G : 00:00 Jasper, TX - home 04:15 Chris Bissonnette - orffyreus wheel 12:15 Rain Cloud - keeping a low profile 17:40 Belong - same places (slow version) 27:40 Eluder - the most beautiful blue 33:25 Fripp & Eno - heavenly music corp. 41:00 Rameses III - origins IV 49:20 Forestflies - processed vocals & strings 52:35 Erstlaub - sinking together 58:40 Milieu - burnt rust 1:00:13 end

antique sunlight

I cross familiar territory here with another piano mix. I think this is the third I've done. There's no particular reason for doing a piano mix other than I happened to run into a few nice piano tunes & figured I'd slap together a short mix. As usual this is fairly quiet music, good for reading the paper on a Sunday morning.(when newspapers disappear I'll really miss doing that) I'll be sending this one to Mick & his "15 Minutes of Fame" mix series which you can find here...15 minutes. Enjoy. TRACKLIST: 00:00 Milieu - antique sunlight 05:00 Ryuichi Sakamoto - ropa 10:00 Taylor Deupree & Kenneth Kirschner - may 15:11 Library Tapes - fragment VIII 18:30 Con Cetta - ker 22:46 Jeanne Moreau - un entretien avec 24:14 NIN - ghosts 11 27:20 Kosik - lastly empty 30:40 Goldmund - Threnody 35:00 United Bible Studies - sea of rains 35:46 end

november buddha

This mix is called November Buddha in honor of the new Buddha Machine 2.0 which was just released. Mine is on it's way right now. There's not much of a theme here, just a bunch of new tunes that I've been listening to lately. The Lullaby League & Sleep Robot tracks are new discoveries thanks to the fantastic mixes from Alan, an online friend. You can find the mixes here http://albient.livejournal.com/2468.html They are called...Great Axescapes: an Archaeology of Drone-gaze Tone-haze Guitar-wranglings I probably have listened to these mixes more than anything else this year. Just an absolutely fabulous collection of guitar ambient. Most of the artists in this mix can also be found in Alan's Axescapes mixes. A couple exceptions are Eluder, which is a brand new Infraction release. And Disturbed Earth, an excellent recording on Atmoworks. T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 buddha machine 2.0 loop construction 05:30 Apalusa - Obadiah 10:30 Sleep Robot - Prayer Wheel 15:40 Eluder - Autumn Hips 21:30 Shirk - Mocked 27:45 Fabio Orsi - Pure Love 31:40 The Lullaby League - Cantus 38:00 Disturbede Earth - Butterfly 44:30 Hakobune - Melting Reminiscence 47:00 The Fun Years - Garbage Man, Poet 50:30 David Tagg - Stele

sustain and decay

The idea for this mix came from frequent low light mixes downloader/listener, Ron Sylvester. He told me about some mixtape cd's he had done, all of which are fantastic & intriguing. One idea in particular interested me. Ron download some recordings of old 78rpm records from archive.org. The thought of old, scratchy opera recordings was too much to resist. So that's where this mix started. I had intended it to be similar to my shortwave mixes but it didn't exactly end up that way. Part of the reason is my own impatience, I wanted to get a new mix posted but didn't want to take weeks to sort through the tons of possibilities presented by archive.org & other sites. So I collected some pieces, ripped off several other tracks from some of Ron's various mixtapes and grabbed some newly purchased & downloaded music and set off to mix it up. I found the perfect compliment to the old 78's is music from The Caretaker. His music was inspired by the ballroom scene from "The Shining". From the Caretaker website..."The first release played and extended this theme of altering 1920's and 1930's ballroom music creating an eerie and haunted soundworld. Subsequently the sound has become darker and often more abstract over time, moving away from the initial idea of a haunted ballroom into territories involving the mind and its abilities to recall memories." You can download some of the full albums here...Caretaker Releases. I have 3 Caretaker tracks in the mix which is more of one artist than I usually put in one mix but I think these cuts work very well. The mix sort veers away from the old & scratchy theme about two-thirds of the way through. It just sort of morphed on it's own as I pulled tracks. Mixes can be funny that way, developing their own path. I'd like to thank Ron for the ideas & for the tunes in his mixtapes that I ripped off for this mix. T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 intro 00:25 Caretaker - False Memory Syndrome 03:15 Belong - Girl from New York 04:47 Ave Maria remix 05:50 Still - futility 08:35 Ólafur Arnalds - Haust 13:30 Caretaker - Rosy Retrospection 18:00 Fabio Orsi - North of Me(at midday) 21:35 Josef Hollman - traumerei (op. 15, no. 7) 25:05 Eleni Karaindrou - litany: variation i 27:50 SzilagyiImreZenekara - Kranzna 29:50 The Winterhouse - Lost 39:10 Caretaker - Past Life Regression 42:35 Julien Neto - from cover to cover 47:00 Vikki Jackman - The Snow Queen 51:15 Fax - caldera i 55:30 Andrew Deutsch - untitled #1(from The Sun)