low light mixes

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)

sea of stars

This is a mix from our annual trip to the Wisconsin northwoods.  As the title suggests it's a mix for star gazing. As I have mentioned in other posts, Rick, who runs the Hydrogen Cafe blog, and I sit out at the end of the pier and watch for shooting stars and satellites.  We each make a soundtrack for the experience.  Rick's are usually much more thought out than mine(he mix this year was great!). I limited myself to fairly new music, stuff I have been listening to a lot lately.  I knew I wanted to include new music from Area C - Sea of Rains.  It was commissioned by the NASA RI Space Grant Consortium and the Museum of Natural History in Providence, RI as an original score for their "Mission Moon: past, present, future" exhibit at the Museum of Natural History.  It has some Nasa recordings mixed in with the music so it was a natural for this mix. After that the other tracks are just tunes that are kind of new, sound a bit spacey and flow well together. t r a c k l i s t :

• 00:00    bvdub - You'll miss me when I'm gone
• 06:19    Area C - Mare Imbrium
• 11:30    Kyle Bobby Dunn - Furthest From It
• 18:10    Emmanuel Errante - Radio Hopes
• 23:40    Parks - Trains
• 29:50    Kode - Movements #6
• 35:30    Shirk - Itchytime
• 38:55    Deaf Center - Close
• 40:55    The Caretaker - Lacuna Amnesia
• 44:05    Area C - Sea of Clouds
• 51:15    Kabana - dubru
• 56:15    Shirk - Riesal
• 00:09   Le Chat Blanc Orchestra - She Left This Morning

clouds in my coffee

I made this latest mix for our annual trip to northern Wisconsin. I usually try to make one stargazing mix & one morning mix. The stargazing mix will be posted soon. This is the morning mix, to be listened to while drinking Intelligentsia coffee & reading the morning paper. At our northern cabin we didn't have daily newspapers so I made due with coffee, crossword puzzles & science fiction. To go with the morning coffee & sunlight reflecting off the calm lake waters, this music is suitably light. The majority of the tunes are new, most are from 2008. Some old favorites with new music make the mix, including Max Ritcher, Yellow 6, Milieu & Goldmund. New discoveries include Shirk, bvdub & Segue. So grab a cup, put your feet up & enjoy. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Barsarin Quartet - nachtblind
• 03:50 Jacaszek - rytm to niesmiertelnosc
• 08:30 Jonathan Hughes - monoline
• 11:41 Shirk - stupid dick
• 12:50 Segue - a glass darkly
• 16:20 Max Ritcher - found song for P
• 18:20 Yellow 6 - kulterhuset
• 26:25 Goldmund - clement danes
• 30:20 Milieu - mirage
• 32:05 bvdub - different place different time
• 38:40 Planivaar - adrift
• 43:30 Barsarin Quartet - geschichten von interesse
• 48:05 Marconi Union - buildings without people
• 51:31 Koda - the tension was beautiful
• 55:18 Library Tapes - fragment V

a scattering of ashes

There is no clever theme to this new mix. I noticed a similar feel to much of the new music I was listening to so I decided to cobble some tunes together in a mix.

All of the music in this mix is new, either 2007 or 2008, except for the Andrew Deutsch cut which is from 2005(although it is new to me). The music in this mix has a sort of subdued, orchestral fell to it. I started thinking about this mix listening to the new Deaf Center release. Layers of strings create a beautiful, melancholy experience. That pretty much describes the rest of the music in this mix. T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Emanuele Errante - leaves 01:25 Deaf Center - Vintage Well 06:10 Bersarin Quartet - es kann nicht ewig winter sein 09:45 mwvm - context where 17:50 Andrew Deutsch - untilted #1(from cd "The Sun") 26:00 Svarte Greiner - kobbergruve.... 29:20 Jasper, TX - things could stay 37:30 Emanuele Errante - lucus 49:10 Deaf Center - ashes 50:30 Stars of the Lid - slight on the childproof 55:00 Bersarin Quartet - Inversion

retroact 1.0

I listen to music every night when I go to sleep. Most of the time I keep a small stack of recent cd's on the nightstand for nighttime listening. I was getting tired of the selections so I dug into the back catalog & pulled out Steve Roach's Structures from Silence. Wow, it was great to hear that recording again! That lead me to pull out a couple of other oldies, which then lead to this mix. All the music in this mix, retroact 1.0, is at least 10 years old. Structures from Silence is from 1984! The Aphex Twin cut is from 1994. I cheated with a couple of tracks, such as Tollefson & Vidna/Pearce, that are from 1999. It was wonderful to listen to albums I hadn't heard in years. I had forgotten just how great Saul Stokes Washed in Mercury is. I am very happy to have worked in Thom Brennan's The Path Not Taken, one of my all-time favorite ambient tracks. This mix is not supposed to represent a certain time period or demonstrate evolving styles. It's just a bunch of older cuts that I sort randomly pulled out & thought would work well together. I hope you enjoy this ambient trip down memory lane.
T R A C K L I S T I N G :

• 00:00 Brian Eno - Sparrowfall 1 [1978]
• 01:00 Aphex Twin - rhubarb [1994]
• 08:00 Steve Roach - Structures from Silence [1984]
• 17:20 Biosphere - Chukhung [1997]
• 23:55 Saul Stokes - Sweet Parafin [1997]
• 26:40 Brian Eno - Sparrowfall 2 [1978]
• 28:05 Vidna Obmana & Jeff Pearce - A Scattering Flock [1999]
• 31:35 David Tollefson - Maja [1999]
• 36:10 Paul Schutze - Sleep 2 [1995]
• 43:30 Thom Brennan - The Path Not Taken [1997]
• 55:40 Jeff Greinke - Glacial Returns [1988]
• 01:21 Brian Eno - Sparrowfall 3 [1978]

a ghost in the phase

I was having a tough time coming up with an idea for a new mix. The shortwave mix, a drift on the signal, is one of my favorite mixes so I decided to do a sequel. And thus, through ionospheric transit, comes...a ghost in the phase. The formula is pretty much the same as before, a nice mixture of real shortwave radio recordings & ambient music with shortwave elements. Most of the shortwave stuff comes from the Shortwavemusic blog. That's the same source I used for the last shortwave mix. It's run by Myke Weiskopf. Here are a couple of his other sites... Myke Weiskopf & Myke's Live Journal
Lots of cool sounds at all three sites. After the last shortwave mix a listener said it reminded him of Tetsu Inoue's World Receiver. How could I have forgotten that disc?! This time I made sure to include it. It's such a fantastic recording. You can buy it from Infraction records . Another excellent release that made it into the mix is the new one from Steven Mathieu called Radioland. Check it out. The Entia Non & krill.minima & Unproduct cuts are all available for free download. The times in this tracklist are just approximations. Sometimes there are several cuts playing at once, things fading in & out, etc. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 - Pulse Wave FX & JBO Tokyo Radio
• 00:16 - Entia Non - Cultural Plagiarism
• 01:28 - Fennesz - A Year in a Minute
• 04:33 - Myke Weiskopf - Shortwave Condensation
• 05:55 - Djivan - dle yaman
• 06:56 - Cairo Radio
• 07:45 - Punkt - Speechless
• 08:24 - Cairo Radio
• 09:13 - Rod Modell - Aloeswood
• 12:38 - Tetsu Inoue - Elevator Drops
• 19:05 - Steven Mathieu - Aufder Gasse
• 22:45 - Fennesz & Sakamoto - Aware
• 26:37 - Radio RASD
• 26:54 - My Fun - Signal Drift
• 29:06 - Felicia Atkinson with Sylvain Chauveau - Aberdeen
• 34:11 - Chris Bissonnette - Traveling Light
• 40:00 - WEWN
• 40:46 - Post-Soviet Melancholia Pt. V: "Мой Рок и Ролл" via Russian International Radio
• 42:40 - krill.minima - Projektor
• 45:34 - Myke Weiskopf - The Grotesque
• 46:23 - Unproduct - Radio Canvas 3
• 46:52 - numbers
• 47:40 - pulse transmission
• 50:30 - Rameses III - Origins IV May 25, 2007
• 53:20 - Steven Mathieu - Radioland
• 02:30 - Pulse Wave FX